The perfect idea of the form and condition in which all the properties of
the species are fully developed, is called the ideal of the species.The question of the nature of ideal conception of species, and of the mode in which
the mind arrives at it, has been the subject of so much discussion, and source
of so much embarrassment, chiefly owing to that unfortunate distinction between
idealism and realism which leads most people to imagine the ideal opposed to the
real, and therefore false, that I think it necessary to request the
reader's most careful attention to the following positions. abstract oil painting
Any work of art which represents, not a material object, but the mental
conception of a material object, is, in the primary sense of the word ideal;
that is to say, it represents an idea, and not a thing. Any work of art which
represents or realizes a material object, is, in the primary sense of the term,
unideal. canvas paintings for sale
Ideal works of art, therefore, in this first sense, represent the result of
an act of imagination, and are good or bad in proportion to the healthy
condition and general power of the imagination, whose acts they represent.
Unideal works of art (the studious production of which is termed realism)
represent actual existing things, and are good or bad in proportion to the
perfection of the representation. oil painting
All entirely bad works of art may be divided into those which, professing to
be imaginative, bear no stamp of imagination, and are therefore false, and those
which, professing to be representative of matter, miss of the representation and
are therefore nugatory. oil paintings
It is the habit of most observers to regard art as representative of matter,
and to look only for the entireness of representation; and it was to this view
of art that I limited the arguments of the former sections of the present work,
wherein having to oppose the conclusions of a criticism entirely based upon the
realist system, I was compelled to meet that criticism on its own grounds. But
the greater part of works of art, more especially those devoted to the
expression of ideas of beauty, are the results of the agency of imagination,
their worthiness depending, as above stated, on the healthy condition of the
imagination. art oil paintings for sale
Hence it is necessary for us, in order to arrive at conclusions respecting
the worthiness of such works, to define and examine the nature of the
imaginative faculty, and to determine first what are the signs or conditions of
its existence at all; and secondly, what are the evidences of its healthy and
efficient existence, upon which examination I shall enter in the second section
of the present part. oil paintings online
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