CHAPTER VII.

OF REPOSE, OR THE TYPE OF DIVINE PERMANENCE.

1. Universal ing the neces

feeling respect

sity of repose

in art. Its

THERE is probably no necessity more imperatively felt by the §
artist, no test more unfailing of the greatness of artistical treatment,
than that of the appearance of repose; yet there is no quality whose
semblance in matter is more difficult to define or illustrate. Never- sources.
theless, I believe that our instinctive love of it, as well as the cause
to which I attribute that love (although here also, as in the former
cases, I contend not for the interpretation, but for the fact), will be
readily allowed by the reader. As opposed to passion, change,
fulness, or laborious exertion, Repose is the especial and separating
characteristic of the eternal mind and power., It is the "I am" of
the Creator opposed to the "I become" of all creatures; it is the
sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise,
the supreme power which is incapable of labour, the supreme
volition which is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the
beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of
ministering creatures. And as we saw before that the infinity
which was a type of the Divine nature on the one hand, became
yet more desirable on the other from its peculiar address to our
prison hopes, and to the expectations of an unsatisfied and un-
accomplished existence; so the types of this third attribute of the
Deity might seem to have been rendered farther attractive to mortal
instinct through the infliction upon the fallen creature of a curse
necessitating a labour once unnatural and still most painful; so that
the desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual nor unworthy
one, but a longing for renovation and for escape from a state whose
every phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory, to

§ 2. Repose, how expressed

in matter.

one in which permanence shall have become possible through perfection. Hence the great call of Christ to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed as the essential expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest; and the death bequest of Christ to men is peace.

Repose, as it is expressed in material things, is either a simple appearance of permanence and quietness, as in the massy forms of a mountain or rock, accompanied by the lulling effect of all mighty sight and sound, which all feel and none define (it would be less sacred if more explicable),

εὔδουσιν δ ̓ ὀρέων κορυφαί τε καὶ φάραγγες

or else it is repose proper, the rest of things in which there is vitality or capability of motion actual or imagined; and with respect to these the expression of repose is greater in proportion to the amount and sublimity of the action which is not taking place, as well as to the intensity of the negation of it. Thus we do not speak of repose in a pebble, because the motion of a pebble has nothing in it of energy or vitality, neither its repose of stability. But having once seen a great rock come down a mountain side, we have a noble sensation of its rest, now bedded immovably among the fern; because the power and fearfulness of its motion were great, and its stability and negation of motion are now great in proportion. Hence the imagination, which delights in nothing more than in the enhancing of the characters of repose, effects this usually by either attributing to things visibly energetic an ideal stability, or to things visibly stable an ideal activity or vitality. Thus Wordsworth speaks of the Cloud, which in itself has too much of changefulness for his purpose, as one

"That heareth not the loud winds when they call,

And moveth altogether if it move at all."

And again the children, which, that it may remove from them the child-restlessness, the imagination conceives as rooted flowers,

"Beneath an old grey oak, as violets, lie."

On the other hand, the scattered rocks, which have not, as such,

1 Matt. xi. 28.

vitality enough for rest, are gifted with it by the living image: they

"Lie couched around us like a flock of sheep."

Thus, as we saw that unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its contrary, variety, so Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of its opposite, Energy; and this even in its lower manifestations, in rocks and stones and trees. By comparing the modes in which the mind is disposed to regard the boughs of a fair and vigorous tree, motionless in the summer air, with the effect produced by one of the same boughs hewn square and used for threshold or lintel, the reader will at once perceive the connection of vitality with repose, and the part they both bear in beauty.

But that which in lifeless things ennobles them by seeming to indicate life, ennobles higher creatures by indicating the exaltation of their earthly vitality into a Divine vitality; and raising the life of sense into the life of faith: faith, whether we receive it in the sense of adherence to resolution, obedience to law, regardfulness of promise, in which from all time it has been the test, as the shield, of the true being and life of man; or in the still higher sense of trustfulness in the presence, kindness, and word of God, in which form it has been exhibited under the Christian dispensation. For, whether in one or other form, whether the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion fixed, in the following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the Thermopylæ camp; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of their King, as in the "Stand still and see the salvation of God" of the Red Sea shore, there is rest and peacefulness, the "standing still," in both, the quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation unimpatient: beautiful even when based only, as of old, on the self-command and selfpossession, the persistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of the creature1; but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility

§ 3. The necesof an implied

sity to Repose

energy.

§ 4. Mental noble.

Repose, how

§ 5. Its universal value as a test of art.

instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold.

Hence I think that there is no desire more intense or more exalted than that which exists in all rightly disciplined minds for the evidences of repose in external signs: and what I cautiously said respecting infinity, I say fearlessly respecting repose; that no work of art can be great without it, and that all art is great in proportion to the appearance of it. It is the most unfailing test of beauty, whether of matter or of motion; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not; and in strict proportion to its appearance in the work is the majesty of mind to be inferred in the artificer. Without regard to other qualities, we may look to this for our evidence; and by the search for this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is base, and the accepting of all that is good and great, for the paths of wisdom are all peace. We shall see, by this light, three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world-horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of faith, Homer and Skakspeare; and from these we may go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of restlessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspiration vanishes in tottering affectation or tortured insanity. There is no art, no pursuit whatsoever, but its results may be classed by this test alone. Everything of evil is betrayed and winnowed away by it; glitter, confusion, or glare of colour; inconsistency of thought; forced expression; evil choice of subject; redundance of materials, pretence, overcharged decoration, or excessive division of

Earth quiet and unchanged; the human soul
Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed
To meditation, in that quietness.”

WORDSWORTH, Excursion, book iii.

But compare carefully (for this is put into the mouth of one diseased in thought and erring in seeking) the opening of the ninth book; and observe the difference between the mildew of inaction—the slumber of Death; and the patience of the Saints-the rest of the Sabbath Eternal. (Rev. xiv. 13.)

parts; and this in everything. In architecture, in music, in acting, in dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of greatness or meanness entirely dependent on this single quality of repose.

Particular instances are at present needless and cannot but be inadequate; needless, because I suppose that every reader, however limited his experience of art, can supply many for himself; and inadequate, because no number of them could illustrate the full extent of the influence of the expression. I believe, however, that, by comparing the convulsions of the Laocoon with the calmness of the Elgin Theseus, we may obtain a general idea of the effect of the influence, as shown by its absence in one, and presence in the other, of two works which, as far as artistical merit is concerned, are in some measure parallel; not that I believe, even in this respect, the Laocoon is justifiably comparable with the Theseus. I suppose that no group has exercised so pernicious an influence on art as this; a subject ill chosen, meanly conceived, and unnaturally treated, recommended to imitation by subtleties of execution and accumulation of technical knowledge.1

'I would also have the reader compare with the meagre lines and contemptible tortures of the Laocoon, the awfulness and quietness of M. Angelo's treatment of a subject in most respects similar (the Plague of the Fiery Serpents), but of which the choice was justified both by the place which the event holds in the typical system he had to arrange, and by the grandeur of the plague itself, in its multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation; sources of sublimity entirely absent in the death of the Dardan priest. It is good to see how his gigantic intellect reaches after repose, and truthfully finds it, in the falling hand of the near figure, and in the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their venomed coldness to the cross; and though irrelevant to our present purpose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from the greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side of the principal figure is as false to nature as it is poor in composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants to hold; it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the extremities, or throat; it seizes once and for ever, and that before it coils; following up the seizure with a cast of its body round the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whip-lash round any hard object it may strike and then it holds fast, never moving the jaws or the body; : if the prey has any power of struggling left, it throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws. If Laocoon had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not allowed to throw his arms or legs about. It is most instructive to observe the accuracy of Michael Angelo, in the rendering of these circumstances; the binding of the arms to the body, and the knotting

$ 6. Instances

in the Laocoon

and Theseus.