The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to LifeNoyes, Carleton Eldredge
Philosophy
The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to Life
Noyes, Carleton Eldredge
Aesthetics; Art appreciation; Art criticism
The distinction between the accidental surface of things and the
significance that may be drawn out of them is exemplified by the
difference between accuracy and truth in representation. Accurate
drawing is the faithful record of the facts of appearance as offered to
the eye. Truth of drawing is the rendering in visible terms of the
meaning and spirit of the object, the form which the object takes not
simply for the eye but for the mind. A pencil sketch by Millet shows
a man carrying in each hand a pail of water. The arms are drawn
inaccurately, in that they are made too long. What Millet wanted to
express, however, was not the physical shape of the arms, but the
feeling of the burden under which the man was bending; and by
lengthening the arms he has succeeded in conveying, as mere
accuracy could not express it, the sensation of weight and muscular
strain. In Hals' picture of the "Jester" the left hand is sketched in
with a few swift strokes of the brush. But so, it "keeps its place" in
relation to the whole; and it is more nearly right than if it had been
made the centre of attention and had been drawn with the most
meticulous precision. The hand is not accurate, but it is true.
Similarly, size is an affair not of physical extent but of proportion. A
figure six inches high may convey the same value as a figure six feet
high, if the same proportions are observed. A statue is the
presentation, not of the human body, but of the human form, and
more than that, of what the form expresses. When I am talking with
my friend I am aware of his physical presence detaching itself from
the background of the room in which we are. But I feel in him
something more. And that something more goes behind the details
of his physical aspect. His eyes might be blue instead of brown, his
nose crooked rather than straight; he might be maimed and
disfigured by some mishap. These accidents would not change for
me what is the reality. My friend is not his body, though it is by his
body that he exists; the reality of my friend is what he essentially is,
what he is of the spirit. A photograph of a man registers certain facts
of his appearance at that moment. The eye and the mind of the artist
discern the truth which underlies the surface; the artist feels his sitter
not as a face and a figure, a mere body, but as a personality; and the
portrait expresses a man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to Life — John Shaqi
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