Page:The Dial (Volume 75).djvu/235

Rh penetrating deeper than the surface of the canvas, for the reason that the orientation of volumes, in a truly spatial art, is fully as necessary as the placement of tones. In plain language, no intelligent painter wishes to cluster all his important forms in the foreground of his picture—an inevitable condition, if he adheres to scientific descriptions, or isolates the purely visual parts of his experience. Actually, of course, objects near the eye are more sharply defined; but if we followed this rule, there would be no rhythmical connexion between the planes of a canvas; and I have yet to see a good picture in which a pronounced orientation of light and dark is not felt throughout its whole depth.

Our emotions of colour and volume are equally applicable to things near and far; and since these emotions arise for the most part from mental constructs, they must have mental rather than visual modes of interpretation. In consequence, Cézanne's treatment of landscape is eminently justified. Pictorially, the interaction of line and mass does not always conform with correct geometrical perspective; and the most successful painter of depth is he who combines his lines and masses so that the inherent dynamism is one with the special problem of recession and relief. He is a sort of sculptor in great extensions, carving in light and shadow and colour instead of marble. Cézanne was such a painter—but the author believes that "Cézanne did nothing to aid in the rendering of the third dimension."

Mr Butler's idea that pictures should be manufactured according to the optical sensations of binocular vision is moderately interesting as a tour de force, but it has no place in creative work. It reduces art to the superficial mechanics of imitation; and until writers have learned that the reconstruction of our emotional experiences is a mental and not a physical process, we shall make no progress in aesthetics.