Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/109

99 in Ancient and Modern Art. 99 the former, the work will convey the idea of a mask rather than of a real being. It has been remarked of Shakespeare, that one of his great excellencies arises from the persons in his plays not being mere representatives of a class, but individuals with definite characters of their own, who rise and mingle as such in the events before us. So must it be in every finished work of real poetry and art. In both cases the Troirjais is the re-embodying in the shape of individuals the abstractions previously formed in our minds : and Wordsworth has truly said '' that poetry takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity^^."*^ When we see a good portrait we say that ^' there is much truth in it ;'*'* and we mean, if I mistake not, that it looks like a real person with some kind of character of his own, though we have never seen him for whom it is intended ; in short that it is not one of the ideal " Ladies or Gentlemen^' of the Exhibition, who represent the class mainly by virtue of their clothes ^^ This use of the word "truth" is philosophically just; for to paint passion without character is to exhibit an abstraction of the mind to the eye. It is realism in art, or an attempt to give an independent existence to that which in nature exists only in individuals combined with all their accidents. The passion of anger for instance is only really exhibited to us as affecting the character or swaying the actions of an individual man : and therefore that artist is not true to nature who merely bends the brow and flushes the cheek of his figures as anger would do, but he who combines those marks of passion with the impress of a definite character, and thus creates. The case with regard to affectation in form and grouping is much the same as in exaggerated expression : it is as rare in ancient as common in modern art. Grouping indeed, as we generally apply the word, was almost unknown to the simplicity of ^'^ Greek sculpture : the number of persons was ^2 Preface to Lyrical Ballads^ Works, iv. p. 380. '3 Hence in landscape also the importance of sketching from nature ; for that alone can give individual character to every object, and preserve an artist from generalizing in such a way as must finally lead to mannerism. '^ Miiller has well remarked that the mixture of Greek and Asiatic customs at Rhodes produced " a peculiar compound, of which the Rhodian oratory, painting, and sculpture should be considered as the products. The latter art had flourished there from ancient times ; but later it took a particular turn towards the colossal, the imposing,