Again. "Behold, my friend, an example…

§ 12. Again. "Behold, my friend, an example of that simple way of answering which embarrasses much. One asked him (Haydn) the reason for a harmony—for a passage's being assigned to one instrument rather than another; but all he ever answered was, 'I have done it, because it does well.'" Farther on, De Stendhal relates an anecdote of Haydn; I believe one well known, but so much to our purpose that I repeat it. Haydn had agreed to give some lessons in counterpoint to an English nobleman. "'For our first lesson,' said the pupil, already learned in the art—drawing at the same time a quatuor of Haydn's from his pocket, 'for our first lesson may we examine this quatuor; and will you tell me the reasons of certain modulations,art oil paintings, which I cannot entirely approve because they are contrary to the principles?' Haydn, a little surprised, declared himself ready to answer. The nobleman began; and at the very first measures found matter for objection. Haydn, who invented habitually, and who was the contrary of a pedant, found himself much embarrassed, and answered always, 'I have done that because it has a good effect. I have put that passage there because it does well.' The Englishman, who judged that these answers proved nothing, recommenced his proofs, and demonstrated to him, by very good reasons, that his quatuor was good for nothing. 'But, my lord, arrange this quatuor then to your fancy,—play it so, and you will see which of the two ways is the best.' 'But why is yours the best which is contrary to the rules?' 'Because it is the pleasantest.' The nobleman replied. Haydn at last lost patience, and said, 'I see, my lord, it is you who have the goodness to give lessons to me, and truly I am forced to confess to you that I do not deserve the honor.' The partizan of the rules departed, still86astonished that in following the rules to the letter one cannot infallibly produce a 'Matrimonio Segreto.'" art oil paintings for sale
This anecdote, whether in all points true or not, is in its tendency most instructive, except only in that it makes one false inference or admission, namely, that a good composition can becontrary to the rules. It may be contrary to certain principles, supposed in ignorance to be general; but every great composition is in perfect harmony with all true rules, and involves thousands too delicate for ear, or eye, or thought, to trace; still it is possible to reason, with infinite pleasure and profit, about these principles, when the thing is once done; only, all our reasoning will not enable any one to do another thing like it, because all reasoning falls infinitely short of the divine instinct. Thus we may reason wisely over the way a bee builds its comb, and be profited by finding out certain things about the angles of it. But the bee knows nothing about those matters. It builds its comb in a far more inevitable way. And, from a bee to Paul Veronese, all master-workers work with this awful, this inspired unconsciousness. original oil paintings

§ 13. I said just now that there was no exception to thislaw, that the great men never knew how or why they did things. It is, of course, only with caution that such a broad statement should be made; but I have seen much of different kinds of artists, and I have always found the knowledge of, and attention to, rules so accurately in the inverse ratio to the power of the painter, that I have myself no doubt that the law is constant, and that men's smallness may be trigonometrically estimated by the attention which,art oil paintings, in their work, they pay to principles, especially principles of composition. The general way in which the great men speak is of "trying to do" this or that, just as a child would tell of something he had seen and could not utter. Thus, in speaking of the drawing of which I have given an etching farther on (a scene on the St. Gothard), Turner asked if I had been to see "that litter of stones which I endeavored to represent;" and William Hunt, when I asked him one day as he was painting, why he put on such and such a color, answered, "I don't know; I am just aiming at it;" and Turner, and he, and all the other men I have known who could paint, always spoke and speak in the same way; not in any selfish restraint of their knowledge, but in pure simplicity. While all the men whom I know, who cannot paint, are ready with admirable reasons for everything they have done; and can show, in the most conclusive way, that Turner is wrong, and how he might be improved. oil paintings for sale