Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting: Together with Notes on the Illusions Produced by the PainterGovett, Ernest
Philosophy
Art Principles with Special Reference to Painting: Together with Notes on the Illusions Produced by the Painter
Govett, Ernest
Art; Painting
the figures are of a general type, as fauns, bacchantes, nereids,
dancers, and so on, they are represented in motion, flying drapery being
skilfully used to provide illusion. Grace is the highest quality evident
in these forms, while the expression is invariably negative. For pure
wall decorations, which are observed in a casual way, a high quality of
grace such as these frescoes provide is all-sufficient, but as with the
Greeks, the Romans did not make grace a leading feature in serious art.
With the great painters of the Renaissance, nobility, grandeur, and
general perfection of form and expression, though necessarily implying a
certain grace in demeanour, altogether dwarfed the feature of grace of
pose. In the seventeenth century, grace was subordinated to dignity of
form in the case of Van Dyck and Velasquez, and to actual life
experience with Rubens and Rembrandt. When either of these last two
added a quality of form to their figures, it was always dignity and not
grace. Murillo was the first Spanish painter to pay particular attention
to the grace of his figures, but he never gave it predominance. The
French masters of the period, Le Brun, Le Sueur, Poussin, Mignard, and
Rigaud, leaned too closely to classical traditions to permit of grace
playing a leading part in their designs, though some of slightly lesser
fame as Noel and Antoine Coypel, appeared to attribute considerable
value to the quality. It was during this century in Italy that grace
first appeared as a prominent feature in figure painting. In his
pastoral and classical scenes, Albani seems to have largely relied upon
it for his beauty, and Cignani, Andrea Sacchi, Sassoferrato, and others
followed in his footsteps in this respect, though up to the end of the
century no attempt was made in portraiture to sacrifice other features
to grace of pose. Rosalba then made her appearance as a portraitist, and
she was the first to rest the entire beauty of her work on sensorial
charm of feature and grace of pose. She developed a weakened school in
France which culminated with Nattier; and in England, Angelica
Kauffmann, and some miniature painters, notably Cosway and Humphrey,
took up her system for their life-size portraits, while many artists "in
small" as Cipriani and Bartolozzi, assisted in forming a cult of the
style. But of the greater British painters, only Romney gave high
importance to grace of pose in portraits of women. It is safer for an
artist to eschew grace of pose altogether than to sacrifice higher
qualities to it. A little added dignity is always preferable to a
graceful attitude in a portrait, because in nature it is not so
evanescent a feature. Grace is a good assisting quality, but an inferior
substitute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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