Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/183

 to contrast with the first landscape, which offered an evening scene. Now, one morning that Berthold, seated on the capital of a ruined column, was finishing, in bold outline, his sketch, he heard a voice near him exclaim,

"That is well done! The drawing is perfect!"

He raised his eyes, and they met those of the Maltese.

"You have forgotten only one thing," continued the latter; "look, that wall, draped with a wild vine, has a gate half open in it; it would he prodigious to draw skilfully the shadow of that half opened door."

"You are joking, sir, I see very well," said Berthold in an offended tone: "But know that the most trifling details are not to be neglected in a landscape carefully painted. I know, besides, that it is the part you assume, to ridicule this kind of compositions; so, I beg of you, to cut short all useless discussions, to leave me to pursue my work in peace."

"Young man," replied the stranger, "your assurance pleases me, and well becomes you; but remember my first words; yes, there was in you the material for a great artist, but you are following the wrong direction. I am not the enemy of any branch of art; both landscape and historical paintings require an equal degree of special qualities. The aim of painters is always the same; to seize nature, and in fact reproduce at the moment when is best manifested its relation with the infinite world; such is the mission of art; but servile imitation will never fulfil this condition. A copied painting resembles the transcribing of a text in a foreign language, in which an ignorant copyist would be obliged to imitate the letters of words which he could not read. But the true artist, that is to say the man who feels, draws towards him the divine essence, is penetrated through all his pores by it, and gives a mysterious life to scenes that he spreads out upon his canvas. Look at the pictures of the old masters; truly, in admiring them, the spectator does not examine closely to see if the leaves of the pine or linden trees are well distinguished by all the details of their tissues; it is