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defect to be dissembled or concealed-the artist ought to call to his aid every legitimate accessory, and all the resources of contrasted but well-assorted colours. But if, on the other hand, the inspired artist feel a purity of expression or loftiness of character pertaining to his model, or if a face, to most eyes commonplace, strike him by one of those expressions which he judges to belong only to men animated by noble ideas in politics, science, arts, or literature, then it is to the countenance of his model that he should address himself; it is upon it that he should fix his chief attention; so that the resemblance, and the feeling which guided his pencil, may be alike conspicuous in his picture. Everything being subordinate to the physiognomy, the drapery should be of black or sombre colours; and if any ornaments are introduced for the sake of relief, they ought to be of the simplest and most apposite kind. Vandyck may be accepted as a master in this style of portraitpainting; and our artists of the present day, who are so fond of seeking extraordinary effects of light and shade, and of giving to vulgar persons a heroic attitude, or to commonplace countenances the pretence of profound thought, would do well to study the chefs-d'œuvre of that great master, and therein learn how infinitely better beauty may be produced by simplicity of means, by taste in the selection of the draperies and other accessories of the figures, and by attitudes which are not more invariably elegant than they are natural.

REAL AND IDEAL BEAUTY

BEAUTY is so Protean in form and character that it were vain to seek to describe or criticise all its manifestations. The emotions of Mind, the incidents of Life, the forms of Nature, the creations of Art,—in each and all of these does Beauty, like a bright spirit, at times incarnate herself: now beaming forth like an essence, felt but unseizable, in the wide sunny landscape, with its radiant hymen of earth and sky,-now appearing more definitely in flower or crystal, in the chords of music, the hues of the rainbow, or the glowing mouldings of the human form.

What, then, is Beauty? How are we to solve the mystery arising from the widely different forms and aspects in which Beauty presents itself? Is not a rose or a lily beautiful-or a landscape? Is there not beauty in a statue, a picture, a melody? Is there not a Moral Beauty and an Intellectual? Is there not also an emotional beauty,—a beauty of Association, by which the mind is affected when gazing on scenery suggestive of picturesque emotion-on ruins, for example-on spots memorable for thrilling events-in fine, on all things suggestive of high or pleasing thought? Unquestionably these are all forms of the Beautiful. Viewed in themselves, indeed,-and appealing, as they do, to different organs and faculties of our nature--we see no resemblance between a fine statue and a poem, between an old ruin and a pleasing patchwork of colours, between a charming melody and an elegant edifice; but when viewed in their ultimate

effects upon the mind, their mutual relationship becomes immediately apparent; and we recognise the truth that, however widely differing in character or appearance, all beautiful objects owe their power of pleasing to one and the same cause,—they delight us just in proportion as they approach Perfection: a perfection, indeed, finite and comparative only, as all things here are, but ever striving after that absolute perfection, which seems to flit at times, and for a brief moment, before the eye of the inspired artist, but which he is never able long to retain in his imagination or wholly embody in his works.

Is not Beauty, then, but another word for Perfection, alike in Truth, in Virtue, and in Art?

In every classification of the Beautiful, it must be borne in mind, first, that Beauty is, and must be, as diverse in its forms as the several faculties and organs by which the soul comes in contact with the outer world. Secondly, that these various forms of the Beautiful are naturally divisible into two great classes, which may be termed the Intellectual and the Material, -the former possessing no bodily shape (poetry, for instance), and appealing directly to the faculties of the soul; the latter exhibiting form, sound, or colour, and acting primarily upon the organs of the body. I beg attention to these two simple axioms, because they furnish a clue which, I expect, will lead us unperplexed through the labyrinth within which Beauty has ensconced herself, and in which, without them, we might, like others who have gone before us, lose our way.

The question, What is Beauty? rises on the very threshold of all æsthetic inquiries. There can be no science where there is no certainty; and if Beauty have not some stable and independent existence-if it be the mere offspring of Association, then any attempt to investigate aesthetics must be labour lost, and any attempt to lay down rules an absurdity. But this Association Theory, which Alison cautiously broached, and Jeffrey so mercilessly expanded, is it right, or is it not? Is it true that Beauty is dependent on no fixed principles, and is the

rence.

result of mere habit and association? To myself it appears strange that even a temporary ascendancy should have been attained by doctrines so palpably contradicted by the voice of consciousness, as well as by a hundred facts of everyday occurHow comes it, for instance, that a true circle is allowed. universally—semper, ubique, et ab omnibus-to be more pleasing than one with an undulating or otherwise irregular circumference? Because, it may perhaps be answered, the one is perfect, and the other not. Granted;-but how came this idea of perfection into all men's minds alike, if not as a consequence of some standard of excellence universally existing in the human mind? Or, to take figures each entire, though differing in kind -how comes it that a hexagon is universally allowed to be more agreeable to the eye than an irregular polygon, unless there be something in the proportions of the one figure that harmonises better than the other with certain principles of our nature? Why, also, are some colours more pleasing than others? Place several spots of colour (say different coloured wafers) before any number of persons, and the result will be that some of these spots will be unanimously fixed on as more agreeable than certain others. As a mere question of colour, for instance, who ever preferred brown to pink? Or is any one so enamoured of the theory of Association and æsthetic Indifferentism, as to maintain that bulls are trained "from sire to son" in an hereditary hatred of red, because that colour affects them in a different manner from the others? In fine, show to a child a dandelion and a rose, and can there be a doubt as to which of these flowers he will prefer? I have heard of a child at a Sabbath school in one of our large cities, touchingly answering to a remark of his teacher's, that he must have seen flowers, "Yes, but never growing." And in the vast centres of our manufacturing industry, where, amid acres of brick canopied with perennial smoke, children are sold prematurely into bondage, and seldom stray above a few yards from their mill, it were no impossible thing to stumble upon boy or girl who has never seen flowers

at all. Yet even to such a one, present your floral pair, and see if nature, in that least tutored breast, is not wise enough to discern between the goodly and the mean-to beg for the rose, yet look uncovetingly on the dandelion.

In these instances, it will be observed, habit or association in nowise affects the judgment arrived at. I have taken Form and Colour in their most abstract manifestations-dissociated from any adjuncts or relations which might suggest other ideas (such as Fitness) than those peculiar to Form or Colour itself; and accordingly the judgment arrived at must be an instinctive one,—a natural emotion, not explainable on the ground of accessory or accidental influences. But if these instances be deemed insufficient, let me refer the sceptic to the more remarkable, or at least better understood, phenomena of Sound,—and ask him if he believes that any association of ideas will make a marked discord more pleasing to the ear than a fine harmony; or that the harsh, ear-splitting sounds produced by a beginner on the cornet-à-piston, will in any case be preferred to the same notes when played, on the same instrument, by a connoisseur in the

art?

It would signify nothing to say, in answer to these facts, that exceptions exist to the rule,-that some one is to be found who prefers an ill-drawn circle to a perfect one,—some eccentric ear that is better pleased with the "Devil's March”* than with the glowing harmony of "Perfida Chlore;" or, finally, some bull that seems indifferent to the irritating influence of red. It is known, as a physiological marvel, that some eyes act abnormally in their judgment of colours, mistaking one hue of the spectrum for another; that to some rare individuals colour exists not at all, and red appears as grey; but it will surely be allowed that the seven colours hold definite places in the spectrum, and that grey is grey for all that. Neither is it to the

*I do not recollect whether this is the correct title of the piece. It is an old German air, intentionally full of discords, and has not inappropriately been nicknamed after the great Discord of the Universe.

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