United States or Switzerland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The circular group of Dagnan-Bouveret’s “Pardon in Brittany,” where the peasants are squatted on the left in the foreground is a daring bit of balance, finding its justification in the movement of interest toward the right in the background. In all forms, save the classic decoration it should be the artist’s effort to conceal the balance over the centre.
The old-fashioned theory—the theory which obtained from Shakespeare’s time down to Scott’s and even down to Kingsley’s—that the facts of history could be manipulated for artistic purposes with the same freedom that the artist’s own inventions can be handled, gave the artist power to produce vital and flexible work at the expense of the historic conscience—a power which is being curtailed day by day.
The Chamber of Commerce proceeded at once to make trouble with regard to the paying of Feuerbach’s bill. An ugly quarrel arose in which Rüdiger, the geometrician, who had always been an ardent champion of Feuerbach, took the artist’s part. It finally reached the point where Rüdiger left the city, swearing he would never return.
There is nothing like acute deductive reasoning for keeping a man in the dark: it might be called the technique of the intellect, and the concentration of the mind upon it corresponds to that predominance of technical skill in art which ends in degradation of the artist’s function, unless new inspiration and invention come to guide it.
But before 1821, when Old Crome died, Borrow must have learnt a good deal both of the painter and his pictures, for the admiration that he afterwards expressed can hardly have been entirely the outcome of the artist’s posthumous fame. It would almost appear from the details of the dark-brown coat and top-boots that Borrow must have met Crome at some period of his Norwich life.
He should maintain that a unity be evident in the group; of intent, of line, and of gradation. The first is subjective and must be felt by the posers. The other two qualifications are for the artist’s consideration. At such a time his acquaintance with examples of pictorial art will come to his aid.
Successful marines with the camera’s lens pointed squarely at the sea have been produced, but the best of them make use of the modifying lines of the surf, or oppositional lines or gradations in the sky. In a large canvas by Alexander Harrison, its subject a group of bathers on the shore, one single line, the farthest reach of the sea, proves an artist’s estimate of the leading line.
The average man soon takes the artist’s intention and accepts the work on this basis, thinking not of finish nor of its lack, but of nature; acknowledging through the suggestions of the picture that he has been touched by her.
Burton’s picture should be broken up; the latter protesting against the Vandalism of destroying a first-rate work of art, and preventing the full triumph of the artist’s genius, in the circulation of a print so creditable to himself and to his country.
The main point is to capture the observer’s interest with the theme, which to his mental processes shall unfold according to the artist’s plan.
Word Of The Day