These being the uses of imagination

§ 6. These being the uses of imagination, its abuses are either in creating, for mere pleasure, false images, where it is its duty to create true ones; or in turning what was intended for the mere refreshment of the heart into its daily food, and changing the innocent pastimes of an hour into the guilty occupation of a life. original oil paintings
Let us examine the principal forms of this misuse, one by one.
§ 7. First, then, the imagination is chiefly warped and dishonored by being allowed to create false images, where it is its duty to create true ones. And this most dangerously in matters of religion. For a long time, when art was in its infancy, it remained unexposed to this danger, because it could not, with any power, realize or create any thing. It consisted merely in simple outlines and pleasant colors; which were understood to be nothing more than signs of the thing thought of, a sort of pictorial letter for it, no more pretending to represent it than the written characters of its name. Such art excited the imagination, while it pleased the eye. But it asserted nothing, for it could realize nothing. The reader glanced at it as a glittering symbol, and went on to form truer images for himself. This act of the mind may be still seen in daily operation in children, as they look at brightly colored pictures in their story-books. Such pictures neither deceive them nor satisfy them; they only set their own inventive powers to work in the directions required. paintings for sale
§ 8. But as soon as art obtained the power of realization, it obtained also that of assertion. As fast as the painter advanced in skill he gained also in credibility, and that which he perfectly represented was perfectly believed, or could be disbelieved only by an actual effort of the beholder to escape from the fascinating deception. What had been faintly declared, might be painlessly denied; but it was difficult to discredit things forcibly alleged; and representations, which had been innocent in discrepancy, became guilty in consistency. art oil paintings

Fig. 1.

§ 9. For instance, when in the thirteenth century, the nativity was habitually represented by such a symbol as that on the next page, fig. 1, there was not the smallest possibility that such a picture could disturb, in the mind of the reader of the New Testament, the simple meaning of the words "wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger." That this manger was typified by a trefoiled arch[10] would no more prevent his distinct understanding of the narrative, than the grotesque heads introduced above it would interfere with his firm comprehension of the words "ox" or "ass;" while if there were anything in the action of the principal figures suggestive of real feeling, that suggestion he would accept, together with the general pleasantness of the lines and colors in the decorative letter; but without having his faith in the unrepresented and actual scene obscured for a moment. But it was far otherwise, when Francia or Perugino, with exquisite power of representing the human form, and high knowledge of the mysteries of art, devoted all their skill to the delineation of an impossible scene; and painted, for their subjects of the Nativity, a beautiful and queenly lady, her dress embroidered with gold, and with a crown of jewels upon her hair,original oil paintings, kneeling, on a floor of inlaid and precious marble, before a crowned child, laid under a portico of Lombardic[11] architecture; with a sweet, verdurous, and vivid landscape in the distance, full of winding rivers, village spires, and baronial towers.[12] It is quite true that the frank absurdity of the thought prevented its being received as a deliberate contradiction of the truths of Scripture; but it is no less certain, that the continual presentment to the mind of this beautiful and fully realized imagery more and more chilled its power of apprehending the real truth; and that when pictures of this description met the eye in every corner of every chapel, it was physically impossible to dwell distinctly upon facts the direct reverse of those represented. The word "Virgin" or "Madonna," instead of calling up the vision of a simple Jewish girl, bearing the calamities of poverty, and the dishonors of inferior station,abstract oil paintings for sale, summoned instantly the idea of a graceful princess, crowned with gems, and surrounded by obsequious ministry of kings and saints. The fallacy which was presented to the imagination was indeed discredited, but also the fact which was not presented to the imagination was forgotten; all true grounds of faith were gradually undermined, and the beholder was either enticed into mere luxury of fanciful enjoyment, believing nothing; or left, in his confusion of mind, the prey of vain tales and traditions; while in his best feelings he was unconsciously subject to the power of the fallacious picture, and with no sense of the real cause of his error, bowed himself, in prayer or adoration, to the lovely lady on her golden throne, when he would never have dreamed of doing so to the Jewish girl in her outcast poverty, or, in her simple household, to the carpenter's wife. art oil paintings for sale

§ 10. But a shadow of increasing darkness fell upon the human mind as art proceeded to still more perfect realization. These fantasies of the earlier painters, though they darkened faith, never hardened feeling; on the contrary, the frankness of their unlikelihood proceeded mainly from the endeavor on the part of the painter to express, not the actual fact, but the enthusiastic state of his own feelings about the fact; he covers the Virgin's dress with gold, not with any idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was, or ever will be seen, but with a burning desire to show what his love and reverence would think fittest for her. He erects for the stable a Lombardic portico, not because he supposes the Lombardi to have built stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to show that the manger in which Christ was laid is, in his eyes, nobler than the greatest architecture in the world. He fills his landscape with church spires and silver streams, not because he supposes that either were in sight of Bethlehem, but to remind the beholder of the peaceful course and succeeding power of Christianity. And, regarded with due sympathy and clear understanding of these thoughts of the artist, such pictures remain most impressive and touching, even to this day. I shall refer to them in future, in general terms, as the pictures of the "Angelican Ideal"—Angelico being the central master of the school. wholesale oil paintings