And then, between these two, comes the wholesome...

§ 21. And then, between these two, comes the wholesome, happy, and noble—though not noblest—art of simple transcript from nature; into which, so far as our modern Pre-Raphaelitism falls, it will indeed do sacred service in ridding us of the old fallacies and componencies, but cannot itself rise above the level of simple and happy usefulness. So far as it is to be great, it must add,—and so far as it is great, has already added,—the great imaginative element to all its faithfulness in transcript. And for this reason,decorative paintings, I said in the close of my Edinburgh Lectures, that Pre-Raphaelitism, as long as it confined itself to the simple copying of nature, could not take the character of the highest class of art. But it has already, almost unconsciously, supplied the defect, and taken that character, in all its best results; and, so far as it ought, hereafter, it will assuredly do so, as soon as it is permitted to maintain itself in any other position than that of stern antagonism to the composition teachers around it. I say "so far as it ought," because, as already noticed in that same place, we have enough, and to spare, of noble inventful pictures; so many have we, that we let them moulder away on the walls and roofs of Italy without one regretful thought about them. But of simple transcripts from nature, till now we have had none; even Van Eyck and Albert Durer having been strongly filled with the spirit of grotesque idealism; so that the Pre-Raphaelites have, to the letter, fulfilled Steele's description of the author, who "determined to write in an entirely new manner, and describe things exactly as they took place." art oil paintings
§ 22. We have now, I believe, in some sort answered most of the questions which were suggested to us during our statement of the nature of great art. I could recapitulate the answers; but perhaps the reader is already sufficiently wearied of the recurrence of the terms "Ideal," "Nature," "Imagination," "Invention," and will hardly care to see them again interchanged among each other, in the formalities of a summary. What difficulties may yet occur to him will, I think, disappear as he either re-reads the passages which suggested them, or follows out the consideration of the subject for himself:—this very simple, but very precious, conclusion being continually remembered by him as the sum of all; that greatness in art (as assuredly in all other things, but more distinctly in this than in most of them,) is not a teachable nor gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a God-made great man; that teach, or preach,art oil paintings online, or labor as you will, everlasting difference is set between one man's capacity and another's; and that this God-given supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare in the world at one time as another. What you can manufacture, or communicate, you can lower the price of, but this mental supremacy is incommunicable; you will never multiply its quantity, nor lower its price; and nearly the best thing that men can generally do is to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the discovery of this; learning to know gold, when we see it, from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being for most of us a more profitable employment than trying to make diamonds out of our own charcoal. And for this God-made supremacy, I generally have used, and shall continue to use, the word Inspiration, not carelessly nor lightly, but in all logical calmness and perfect reverence. We English have many false ideas about reverence: we should be shocked, for instance, to see a market-woman come into church with a basket of eggs on her arm: we think it more reverent to lock her out till Sunday; and to surround the church with respectability of iron railings, and defend it with pacing inhabitation of beadles. I believe this to be irreverence; and that it is more truly reverent,oil painting on canvas for sale, when the market-woman, hot and hurried, at six in the morning, her head much confused with calculations of the probable price of eggs, can nevertheless get within church porch, and church aisle, and church chancel, lay the basket down on the very steps of the altar, and receive thereat so much of help and hope as may serve her for the day's work. In like manner we are solemnly, but I think not wisely, shocked at any one who comes hurriedly into church, in any figurative way, with his basket on his arm; and perhaps, so long as we feel it so, it is better to keep the basket out. But, as for this one commodity of high mental supremacy, it cannot be kept out, for the very fountain of it is in the church wall, and there is no other right word for it but this of Inspiration; a word, indeed, often ridiculously perverted, and irreverently used of fledgling poets and pompous orators—no one being offended then, and yet cavilled at when quietly used of the spirit that it is in a truly great man; cavilled at, chiefly,abstract oil paintings, it seems to me, because we expect to know inspiration by the look of it. Let a man have shaggy hair, dark eyes, a rolling voice, plenty of animal energy, and a facility of rhyming or sentencing, and—improvisatore or sentimentalist—we call him "inspired" willingly enough; but let him be a rough, quiet worker, not proclaiming himself melodiously in any wise, but familiar with us, unpretending, and letting all his littlenesses and feeblenesses be seen, unhindered,—wearing an ill-cut coat withal, and, though he be such a man as is only sent upon the earth once in five hundred years, for some special human teaching, it is irreverent to call him "inspired." But, be it irreverent or not, this word I must always use; and the rest of what work I have here before me, is simply to prove the truth of it, with respect to the one among143these mighty spirits whom we have just lost; who divided his hearers, as many an inspired speaker has done before now, into two great sects—a large and a narrow; these searching the Nature-scripture calmly, "whether those things were so," and those standing haughtily on their Mars hill, asking, "what will this babbler say?" buy oil paintings online