The Mind of the Artist | Page 3

to know me; weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only
with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet
jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always,
and perplex thee no more.
Rossetti.
VII
I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see
everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To
the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a
bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a
vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy, is in
the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.... To the
eye of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
Blake.
VIII
Painting is nothing but the art of expressing the invisible by the visible.
Fromentin.
IX
The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents merely the figure
of a woman, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment,
chaste and early in its fashion, but exceedingly simple.

She is standing: her hands are held together lightly, and her eyes set
earnestly open.
The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy,
have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the
drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon
me, like water in shadow. I shall not attempt to describe it more than I
have already done, for the most absorbing wonder of it was its literality.
You knew that figure, when painted, had been seen; yet it was not a
thing to be seen of men.
Rossetti.
X
A great work of high art is a noble theme treated in a noble manner,
awakening our best and most reverential feelings, touching our
generosity, our tenderness, or disposing us generally to seriousness--a
subject of human endurance, of human justice, of human aspiration and
hope, depicted worthily by the special means art has in her power to
use. In Michael Angelo and Raphael we have high art; in Titian we
have high art; in Turner we have high art. The first appeals to our
highest sensibilities by majesty of line, the second mainly by dignified
serenity, the third by splendour especially, the Englishman by a
combination of these qualities, but, lacking the directly human appeal
to human sympathies, his work must be put on a lower level.
Watts.
XI
THE SIX CANONS OF ART
Rhythmic vitality, anatomical structure, conformity with nature,
suitability of colouring, artistic composition, and finish.
Hsieh Ho (Chinese, sixth century A.D.).

XII
In painting, the most troublesome subject is man, then landscape, then
dogs and horses, then buildings, which being fixed objects are easy to
manage up to a certain point, but of which it is difficult to get finished
pictures.
Ku K'ai-Chih (Chinese, fourth century A.D.).
XIII
First it is necessary to know what this sort of imitation is, and to define
it.
Definition:
It is an imitation made with lines and with colours on some plane
surface of everything that can be seen under the sun. Its object is to
give delight.
Principles which may be learnt by all men of reason:
No visible object can be presented without light.
No visible object can be presented without a transparent medium.
No visible object can be presented without a boundary.
No visible object can be presented without colour.
No visible object can be presented without distance.
No visible object can be presented without an instrument.
What follows cannot be learnt, it is born with the painter.
Nicholas Poussin.
XIV

"In painting, and above all in portraiture," says Madame Cave in her
charming essay, "it is soul which speaks to soul: and not knowledge
which speaks to knowledge."
This observation, more profound perhaps than she herself was aware, is
an arraignment of pedantry in execution. A hundred times I have said to
myself, "Painting, speaking materially, is nothing but a bridge between
the soul of the artist and that of the spectator."
Delacroix.
XV
The art of painting is perhaps the most indiscreet of all the arts. It is an
unimpeachable witness to the moral state of the painter at the moment
when he held the brush. The thing he willed to do he did: that which he
only half-heartedly willed can be seen in his indecisions: that which he
did not will at all is not to be found in his work, whatever he may say
and whatever others may say. A distraction, a moment's forgetfulness, a
glow of warmer feeling, a diminution of insight, relaxation of attention,
a dulling of his love for what