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
It is commonly, but wrongfully, supposed that Rembrandt used his
broadest manner in painting commissioned portraits. The number of his
portraits known to exist is about 450, of which fifty-five are
representations of himself, and fifty-four of members of his household,
or relatives. There are, further, more than seventy studies of old men
and women, and thirty of younger men. The balance are commissioned
portraits or groups. This last section includes none at all of his
palette knife pictures, and not more than two or three which are
executed with his heaviest brushes. Generally his work broadened in his
later period, but up to the end of his life his more important works
were often painted in a comparatively fine manner, though the handling
was less careful and close.[a] The broadest style of the artist is
rarely exhibited except in his studies and family portraits. Further it
is extremely unlikely that a palette-knife picture would have been
accepted in Holland during Rembrandt's time as a serious work in
portraiture.
[a] See among works dating after 1660, The Syndics of the Drapers,
Portrait of a Young Man, Wachtmeister Collection; Lady with
a Dog, Colmar Museum; and Portrait of a Young Man, late Beit
Collection.
NOTE 9. PAGE 22
Darwin pointed out the permanent character of the changes in the nerves,
though he submitted another demonstration[a]:
That some physical change is produced in the nerve cells or nerves
which are habitually used can hardly be doubted, for otherwise it
is impossible to understand how the tendency to certain acquired
movements is inherited.
[a] _The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals._
NOTE 10. PAGE 23
Reynolds evidently had little faith in original genius. Addressing Royal
Academy students, he said[a]:
You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have great
talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate
abilities, industry will supply the deficiency. Nothing is denied
to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it.... I
will venture to assert that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a
disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will
produce effects similar to those which some call the result of
natural powers.
On another occasion Reynolds observed of Michelangelo[b]:
He appears not to have had the least conception that his art was to
be acquired by any other means than great labour; and yet he of all
men that ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the
efficacy of native genius and inspiration.
Gibbon said that Reynolds agreed with Dr. Johnson in denying all
original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art or
science rather than another.[c] Hogarth also agreed with Reynolds, for
he describes genius as "nothing but labour and diligence."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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