CHAPTER III.

BUT, as has been already mentioned, art has in modern times been allotted a far wider sphere. Its "imitations, it is said, extend over the whole of "visible nature, of which the beautiful is but a small "part and as nature herself is ever ready to sacri"fice beauty to higher aims, so likewise the artist "must render it subordinate to his general design, "and not pursue it farther than truth and expression permit. Enough that, through these two, what "is most ugly in nature has been changed into a "beauty of art."

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But even if we should leave this idea, whatever its value, for the present undisputed; would there not arise other considerations independent of it, which would compel the artist to put certain limits to expression, and prevent him from ever drawing it at its highest intensity?

I believe the fact, that it is to a single moment that the material limits of art confine all its imitations, will lead us to similar views.

If the artist, out of ever-varying nature, can only make use of single moment, and the painter especially can only use this moment from one point of view, whilst their works are intended to stand the

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test not only of a passing glance, but of long and repeated contemplation, it is clear that this moment, and the point from which this moment is viewed, cannot be chosen too happily. Now that only is a happy choice, which allows the imagination free scope. The longer we gaze, the more must our imagination add; and the more our imagination adds, the more we must believe we see. In the whole course of a feeling there is no moment which possesses this advantage so little as its highest stage. There is nothing beyond this; and the presentation of extremes to the eye clips the wings of fancy, prevents her from soaring beyond the impression of the senses, and compels her to occupy herself with weaker images; further than these she ventures not, but shrinks from the visible fulness of expression as her limit. Thus, if Laocoon sighs, the imagination can hear him shriek; but if he shrieks, it can neither rise above nor descend below this representation, without seeing him in a condition which, as it will be more endurable, becomes less interesting. It either hears him merely moaning, or sees him already dead. Furthermore, this single moment receives through art an unchangeable duration; therefore it must not express anything, of which we can only think as transitory. All appearances, to whose very being, according to our ideas, it is essential, that they suddenly break forth, and as suddenly vanish, that they can be what they are, but for a moment; all such

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appearances, be they pleasing or be they horrible, receive, through the prolongation which art gives them, such an unnatural character, that at every repeated glance the impression they make grows weaker and weaker, and at last fills us with dislike or disgust of the whole object. La Mettrie, who had himself painted and engraved as a second Democritus, laughs only the first time we look at him. Look at him oftener, and he grows from a philosopher into a fool. His laugh becomes a grin. So it is with shrieks; the violent pain which compels their utterance soon either subsides, or destroys its suffering subject altogether. If, therefore, even the most patient and resolute man shrieks, he does not do so unremittingly; and it is only the seeming continuance of his cries in art, which turns them into effeminate impotence or childish petulance. These last, at least, the artist of Laocoon would have avoided, even if beauty were not injured by a shriek, and were not an essential condition of art.

Among the ancient painters, Timomachus seems to have delighted in selecting subjects suited to the display of extreme passion. His raving Ajax, and infanticide Medea were celebrated paintings; but, from the descriptions we possess of them, it is plain that he thoroughly understood and judiciously combined that point, at which the beholder is rather led to the conception of the extreme than actually sees it, with that appearance with which we do not asso

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ciate the idea of transitoriness so inseparably, as to be displeased by its continuance in art. He did not paint Medea at the instant when she was actually murdering her children, but a few moments before, whilst her motherly love was still struggling with her jealousy. We see the end of the contest beforehand; we tremble in the anticipation of soon recognising her as simply cruel, and our imagination carries us far beyond anything, which the painter could have portrayed in that terrible moment itself. But, for that very reason, the irresolution of Medea, which art has made perpetual, is so far from giving offence, that we are rather inclined to wish that it could have remained the same in nature, that the contest of passions had never been decided, or, at least, had continued so long that time and reflection had gained the mastery over fury, and assured the victory to the feelings of the mother. This wisdom of Timomachus has called forth great and frequent praise, and raised him far above another unknown painter, who was foolish enough to draw Medea at the very height of her frenzy, and thus to impart to this fleeting, transient moment of extreme madness, a duration that disgusts all nature. The poet, who censures him, says very sensibly, whilst addressing the figure

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Philippus, Anthol. Lib. IV. Cap. ix. Ep. 10.

Αιεὶ γὰρ διψᾷς βρεφέων φόνον. ἢ τις Ιήσων
Δέυτερος, ἢ Γλαύκη τις πάλι σοι πρόφασις ;
Ερρε καὶ ἐν κηρῷ, παιδοκτόνε—

itself: "Thirstedst thou then ever for the blood of thy children? Is there ever a new Jason, a new Creusa there to exasperate thee unceasingly ?" "Away with thee, even in painting!" he adds, in a tone of vexation.

Of the frenzied Ajax of Timomachus, we can form some judgment from the account of Philostratus.b Ajax does not appear raging among the herds, and slaughtering and binding cattle instead of men; but the master exhibits him sitting wearied with these heroic deeds of insanity, and conceiving the design of suicide; and that is really the raging Ajax: not because he is just then raging, but because we see that he has been; because we can form the most lively idea of the extremity of his frenzy, from the shame and despair, which he himself feels at the thoughts of it. We see the storm in the wrecks and corpses with which it has strewn the beach.

b Vita Apoll. Lib. II. Cap. xxii.