Art Principles Part 1

Art Principles.

by Ernest Govett.

PREFACE

This book is put forward with much diffidence, for I am well aware of its insufficiencies. My original idea was to produce a work covering all the principles of painting, but after many years spent in considering the various recorded theories relating to aesthetic problems, and in gathering materials to indicate how the accepted principles have been applied, I came to the conclusion that a single life is scarcely long enough for the preparation of an exhaustive treatise on the subject.

Nevertheless, I planned a work of much wider scope than the one now presented, but various circ.u.mstances, and princ.i.p.ally the hindrance to research caused by the war, impelled me to curtail my ambition. Time was fading, and my purpose seemed to be growing very old. I felt that if one has something to say, it is better to say it incompletely than to run the risk of compulsory silence. The book will be found little more than a skeleton, and some of its sections, notably those dealing with illusions in the art, contain only a few suggestions and instances, but perhaps enough is said to induce a measure of further inquiry into the subject.

That part of the work dealing with the fine arts generally is the result of long consideration of the apparent contradictions involved in the numerous suggested standards of art. In a little book on _The Position of Landscape in Art_ (published under a nom de plume a few years ago), I threw out, as a _ballon d'essai_, an idea of the proposition now elaborated as the Law of General a.s.sent, and I have been encouraged to affirm this proposition more strongly by the fact that its validity was not questioned in any of the published criticism of the former work; nor do I find reason to vary it after years of additional deliberation.

I have not before dealt with the other propositions now put forward.

The notes being voluminous I have relegated them to the end of the book, leaving the feet of the text pages for references only.

Where foreign works quoted have been translated into English, the English t.i.tles are recorded, and foreign quotations are given in English, save in one or two minor instances where the sense could not be precisely rendered in translation.

E. G.

NEW YORK, January, 1919.

INTRODUCTION

In view of the many varied definitions of "Art" which have been put forward in recent times, and the equally diverse hypotheses advanced for the solution of aesthetic problems relating to beauty, it is necessary for one who discusses principles of art, to state what he understands by the terms "Art" and "Beauty."

Though having a widely extended general meaning, the term "Art" in common parlance applies to the fine arts only, but the term "Arts" has reference as well to certain industries which have utility for their primary object. This work considers only the fine arts, and when the writer uses the term "Art" or "Arts" he refers to one or more of these arts, unless a particular qualification is added. The definition of "Art" as applied to the fine arts, upon which he relies, is "The production of beauty for the purpose of giving pleasure," or as it is more precisely put, "The beautiful representation of nature for the purpose of giving disinterested pleasure." This is, broadly, the definition generally accepted, and is certainly the understanding of art which has guided the hands of all the creators of those great works in the various arts before which men have bowed as triumphs of human skill.

There has been no satisfactory definition of "Beauty," nor can the term be shortly interpreted until there is a general agreement as to what it covers. Much of the confusion arising from the contradictory theories of aestheticists in respect of the perception of beauty is apparently due to the want of separate consideration of emotional beauty and beauty of mind, that is to say, the beauty of sensorial effects and beauty of expression respectively.[1] There are kinds of sensorial beauty which depend for their perception upon immediately preceding sensory experience, or particular coexistent surroundings which are not necessarily permanent, while in other cases a certain beauty may be recognized and subsequently appear to vanish altogether. From this it is obvious that any aesthetic system based upon the existence of an objectivity of beauty must fall to the ground. On the other hand, without an objectivity there can be no system, because in its absence a line of reasoning explaining cause and effect in the perception of beauty, which is open to demonstration, is naturally impossible. Nor may we properly speak of a philosophy of art.[2] We may reasonably consider aesthetics a branch of psychology, but the emotions arising from the recognition of beauty vary only in degree and not in kind, whether the beauty be seen in nature or art. Consequently there can be no separate psychological enquiry into the perception of beauty created by art as distinguished from that observable in nature.

It must be a natural attraction for the insoluble mysteries of life that has induced so many philosophers during the last two centuries to put forward aesthetic systems. That no two of these systems agree on important points, and that each and every one has crumbled to dust from a touch of the wand of experience administered by a hundred hands, are well-known facts, yet still the systems continue to be calmly presented as if they were valuable contributions to knowledge. Each new critic in the domain of philosophy carefully and gravely sets them up, and then carefully and gravely knocks them down.[3] An excuse for the systems has been here and there offered, that the explanations thereof sometimes include valuable philosophical comments or suggestions. This may be, but students cannot reasonably be expected to sift out a few oats from a bushel of husks, even if the supply be from the bin of a Hegel or a Schopenhauer. Is it too much to suggest that these phantom systems be finally consigned to the grave of oblivion which has yawned for them so long and so conspicuously? Bubbles have certain measurements and may brilliantly glow, but they are still bubbles. It is as impossible to build up a system of philosophy upon the perception of beauty, which depends entirely upon physical and physiological laws, as to erect a system of ethics on the law of gravitation, for a feasible connection between superstructure and foundation cannot be presented to the mind.

We may further note that a proper apprehension of standards of judgment in art cannot be obtained unless the separate and relative aesthetic values of the two forms of beauty are considered, because the beauty of a work may appear greater at one time than at another, according as it is more or less permanent or fleeting, that is to say, according as the balance of the sensorial and intellectual elements therein is more or less uneven; or if the beauty present be almost entirely emotional, according as the observer may be affected by independent sensorial conditions of time or place. Consequent upon these considerations, an endeavour has been made in this work to distinguish between the two forms of beauty in the various arts, and the separate grades thereof.

It will be noticed that the writer has adopted the somewhat unusual course of including fiction among the fine arts. Why this practice is not commonly followed is hard to determine, but no definition of a fine art has been or can be given which does not cover fiction. In the definition here accepted, the art is clearly included, for the primary object of fiction is the beautiful representation of nature for the purpose of giving disinterested pleasure.

Art is independent of conditions of peoples or countries. Its germ is unconnected with civilization, politics, religion, laws, manners, or morals. It may appear like a brilliant flower where the mind of man is an intellectual desert, or refuse to bloom in the busiest hive of human energy. Its mother is the imagination, and wherever this has room to expand, there art will grow, though the ground may be nearly sterile, and the bud wither away from want of nourishment. Every child is born a potential artist, for he comes into the world with sensorial nerves, and a brain which directs the imagination. The primitive peoples made beautiful things long before they could read or write, and the recognition of harmony of form appears to have been one of the first understandings in life after the primal instincts of self-preservation and the continuation of the species. Some of the sketches made by the cave men of France are equal to anything of the kind produced in a thousand years of certain ancient civilizations, commencing countless centuries after the very existence of the cave men had been forgotten; and even if executed now, would be recognized as indicating the possession of considerable talent by the artists. The greatest poem ever written was given birth in a country near which barbaric hordes had recently devastated populous cities, and wrecked a national fabric with which were interwoven centuries of art and culture. That the author of this poem had seen great works of art is certain, or he could not have conceived the shield of Achilles, but the laboured sculpture that had fired his imagination, and the legends which had perhaps been the seed of his masterpieces were doubtless buried with his own records beneath the tramp of numberless mercenaries. Fortunately here and there the human voice could draw from memory's store, and so the magic of Homer was whispered by the dying to the living; but even his time and place are now only vaguely known, and he remains like the waratah on the bleached pasture of some desert fringe--a solitary blaze of scarlet where all else is drear and desolate.

Strong is the root of art, though frail the flower. Stifled in sun-burnt ground ere it can welcome the smile of light; fading with the first blast of air upon its delicate shoots; shrivelling back to dust when the buds are ready to break; or falling in the struggle to spread its branches after its beautiful blossoms have scattered their fragrance around: whatever condition has brought it low, it ever fights again--ever seeks to a.s.sure mankind that while it may droop or disappear, its seed, its heart, its life, are imperishable, and surely it will bloom again in all its majesty. Sometimes with decades it has run a fitful course; sometimes with centuries; sometimes with millenniums. It has heralded every civilization, but its breath is freedom, and it flourishes and sickens only with liberty. Trace its course in the life of every nation, and the track will be found parallel with the line of freedom of thought. A solitary plant may bloom unimpeded far from tyranny's thrall, but the art and soul of a nation live, and throb, and die, together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 1 (See page 7) Head of Cephren, 4th Egyptian Dynasty (_Cairo Museum_) Chaldean Head: About 2600 B.C. (_Louvre_)]

Egypt, Babylon, Crete, Greece, Rome, tell their stories through deathless monuments, and all are alike in that they demonstrate the dependence of art expansion upon freedom of action and opinion. An art rises, develops another and another, and they proceed together on their way. Sooner or later comes catastrophe in the shape of crushing tyranny which curbs the mind with slavery, or steel-bound sacerdotal rules which say to the artist "Thou shalt go no further," or annihilation of nation and life. What imagination can picture the expansion of art throughout the world had its flight been free since the dawn of history? Greece reached the sublime because its mind was unfettered, but twenty or thirty centuries before Phidias, Egyptian art had arrived at a loftier plane than that on which the highest plastic art of Greece was standing but a few decades before the Olympian Zeus uplifted the souls of men, while whole civilizations with their arts had lived and died, and were practically forgotten.

It is to be observed that while in its various isolated developments, art has proceeded from the immature to the mature, there has been no general evolution, as in natural life, but on the other hand there seems to be a limit to its progress. So far as our imagination can divine, no higher reaches in art are attainable than those already achieved. The mind can conceive of nothing higher than the spiritual, and this cannot be represented in art except by means of form; while within the range of human intelligence, no suggestion of spiritual form can rise above the ideals of Phidias. Of the purely human form, nothing greater than the work of Praxiteles and Raphael can be pictured on our brains. There may be poets who will rival Homer and Shakespeare, but it is exceedingly doubtful. In any case we must discard the law of evolution as applicable to the arts, with the one exception of music, which, on account of the special functioning of its signs, must be put into a division by itself.[a]

[a] See Chap. III.

But although there has been no general progression in art parallel with the growth of the sciences and civilization, there have been, as already indicated, many separate epochs of art cultivation in various countries, sometimes accompanied by the production of immortal works, which epochs in themselves seem to provide examples of restricted evolution.[4] It is desirable to refer to these art periods, as they are commonly called, for the purpose of removing, if possible, a not uncommon apprehension that they are the result of special conditions operating an aesthetic stimulus, and that similar or related conditions must be present in any country if the flame of art there is to burn high and brightly.[5] The well-defined periods vary largely both in character and duration, the most important of them--the Grecian development and the Italian Renaissance--covering two or three centuries each, and the others, as the French thirteenth century sculpture expansion, the English literary revival in the sixteenth century,[6] and the Dutch development in painting in the seventeenth, lasting only a few decades. These latter periods can be dispensed with at once because they were each concerned with one art only, and therefore can scarcely have resulted from a general aesthetic stimulus. But the Grecian and Italian movements applied to all the arts. They represented natural developments from the crude to the advanced, of which all nations produce examples, and were only exceptional in that they reached higher levels in art than were attained by other movements. But there is no evidence to show that they were brought about by special circ.u.mstances outside of the arts themselves.

While there were national crises preceding the one development, there was no trouble of consequence to herald the other, nor was there any parallel between the conditions of the two peoples during the progress of the movements. A short reference to each development will show that its rise and decline were the outcome of simple matter-of-fact conditions of a more or less accidental nature, uninfluenced by an aesthetic impulse in the sense of inspiration.

The most common suggestion advanced to account for the rise in Grecian art, is that it was due to the exaltation of the Greek mind through the victories of Marathon, Plataea, and Salamis. That a people should be so trampled upon as were the Greeks; that their cities should be razed, their country desolated, and their commerce destroyed; that notwithstanding all this they should refuse to give way before enemies outnumbering them twenty, fifty, or even a hundred to one; and that after all they should crush these enemies, was no doubt a great and heroic triumph, likely to exalt the nation and feed the imagination of the people for a long time to come; but that these victories were responsible for the lofty eminence reached by the Greek artists, cannot be maintained. From what we know of Calamis, Myron, and others, it is clear that Grecian art was already on its way to the summit reached by Phidias when Marathon and Salamis were fought, though the victories of the Greek arms hastened the development for the plain reason that they led to an increased demand for works of art. And the decline in Grecian art resulted purely and simply from a lessened demand. Though this was the reason for the general decay, there was a special cause for the apparent weakening with the commencement of the fourth century B.C. In the fifth century Phidias climbed as high in the accomplishment of ideals as the imagination could soar. He reached the summit of human endeavour. Necessarily then, unless another Phidias arose, whatever in art came after him would appear to mark a decline. But it is scarcely proper to put the case of Phidias forward for comparative purposes. He carried the art of sculpture higher than it is possible for the painter to ascend, and so we should rather use the giants of the fourth century--Scopas, Praxiteles, Lysippus, Apelles--as the standards to be compared with the foremost spirits of the Italian Renaissance--Raphael and Michelangelo--for each of these groups achieved the human ideal, though failing with the spiritual ideal established by Phidias.

It must be remembered that all good art means slow work--long thinking, much experiment, tedious attention to detail in plan, and careful execution. Meanwhile men have to live, even immortal artists, and rarely indeed does one undertake a work of importance on his own account. It is true that in the greater days of Greece the best artists were almost entirely employed by a State, or at least to execute works for public exhibition, and doubtless the payment they received was quite a secondary matter with them, but nevertheless few could practise their art without remuneration. During the fifth and fourth centuries great events were constantly happening in Greece, and in consequence there were numberless temples to build and adorn, groves to decorate, men to honour, and monumental tombs to erect. Innumerable statues of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses were wanted, and we must not forget the wholesale destruction of Athenian and other temples and sculptures during the Persian invasion. In fact for a century and a half after Plataea, there was practically an unlimited demand for works of art, and it was only when the empire of Alexander began to crumble away that conditions changed.

While Greece was weakening Rome was growing and her lengthening shadows were approaching the walls of Athens. Greece could build no more temples when her people were becoming slaves of Rome; she could order no more monuments when defeat was the certain end of struggle. And so the decline was brought about, not by want of artists, but through the dearth of orders and the consequent neglect of compet.i.tion.

In the case of the Italian Renaissance the decadence was not due to the same cause. The art of Greece declined gradually in respect of quant.i.ty as well as quality, while in Italy after the decay in quality set in, art was as nourishing as ever from the point of view of demand. The change in the character of the art was due entirely to Raphael's achievements. As with the early Greek, nearly the whole of the early Italian art was concerned with religion, though in this case there were very few ideals. The numerous ancient G.o.ds of Greece and Rome were long gone, to become only cla.s.sical heroes with the Italians, and their places were taken by twenty or thirty personages from the New Testament.

Incidents from the Old Testament were sometimes painted, but nearly all the greater work dealt with the life of Christ and the Saints. The painters of the first century of the Renaissance distributed their attention fairly equally among these personages, but as time went on and the art became of a superior order, artists aimed at the highest development of beauty that their imaginations could conceive, and hence the severe beauty that might be shown in a picture of Christ or a prominent Saint, had commonly to give way to a more earthly perfection of feature and form, which, suggesting an ideal, could only be given to the figure of the Virgin. And so the test of the power of an artist came to be instinctively decided by his representation of the Madonna. No doubt there were many persons living in the fifteenth century who watched the gradually increasing beauty of the Madonna as depicted by the succession of great painters then working, and wondered when and where the summit would be reached--when an artist would appear beyond whose work the imagination could not pa.s.s, for there is a limit to human powers.

The genius arose in Raphael, and when he produced in the last ten or twelve years of his life, Madonna after Madonna, so far in advance of anything that had hitherto been done, so great in beauty as to leave his fellow artists lost in wonder, so lofty in conception that the term "divine" was applied to him in his lifetime, it was inevitable that a decadence should set in, for so far as the intelligence could see, whatever came after him must be inferior. He did not ascend to the height of Phidias, for a pure ideal of spiritual form is beyond the power of the painter,[b] but as with Praxiteles he reached a perfect human ideal, and so gained the supreme pinnacle of his art. But while there was an inevitable decadence after him, as after Praxiteles, it was, as already indicated, only in the character of the art, for in Italy artists generally were as busy for a hundred years after Raphael, as during his time. Michelangelo, t.i.tian, and the other giants who were working when Raphael died, kept up the renown of the period for half a century or so, but it seemed impossible for artists who came on the scene after Raphael's death, to enter upon an entirely original course.

The whole of the new generation seemed to cling to the models put forward by the great Urbino painter, save some of the Venetians who had a model of their own in t.i.tian.

[b] See Chap. IX.

Thus it is clear that the rise and decline of the Grecian and Italian movements were due to well ascertained causes which had nothing to do with a national aesthetic impulse; nor is there evidence of such an impulse connected with other art developments.

The suggestion that a nation may be a.s.sisted in its art by emotional or psychological influences arising from patriotic exaltation, is only an extension of an opinion commonly held, that the individual artist is subject to similar influences, though due to personal exaltation connected with his art. It is as well to point out that there is only one way to produce a work of art, and that is to combine the exercise of the imagination with skill in execution. The artist conceives an idea and puts it into form. He does nothing more. He can rely upon no extraneous influence. It is suggested that to bring about a supreme accomplishment in art, the imagination must be a.s.sociated with something outside of our power of control--some impulse which acts upon the brain but is independent of it. This unmeasured force or lever is usually known by the term "Inspiration." It is supposed that this force comes to certain persons when they have particular moods upon them, and gives them a great idea which they may use in a painting, a poem, or a musical composition. The suggestion is attractive, but in the long range of historical record there is no evidence that accident, in the shape of inspiration or other psychological lever, has been responsible in the slightest degree for the production of a work of art. The writer of a sublime poem, or the painter of a perfect Madonna, uses the same kind of mental and material labour as the man who chisels a lion's head on a chair, or adds a filigree ornament to a bangle. The difference is one of degree only. The poet or painter is gifted with a vivid imagination which he has cultivated by study; and by diligence has acquired superlative facility in execution, which he uses to the best advantage.

The work of the furniture carver or jeweller does not require such high powers, and he climbs only a few steps of the ladder whose uppermost rungs have been scaled by the greater artists.

If in the course of the five and twenty centuries during which works of high art have been produced, some of them had been executed with the a.s.sistance of a psychological impulse directed independently of the will, there would certainly have been references to the phenomenon by the artists concerned, or the very numerous art historians, but without a known exception, all the great artists who have left any record of the cause of their success, or whose views on the subject are to be gained by indirect references, have attributed this success to hard study, or manual industry, or both together. We know little of the opinion of the ancient Greeks on the matter, but the few anecdotes we have, indicate that their artists were very practical men indeed, and hardly likely to expect mysterious psychological influences to help them in their work.

So with the Romans, and it is noticeable that the key to the production of beauty in poetry, in the opinion of Virgil and Horace, is careful preparation and unlimited revision. This appears to be the view of some modern poets, and if Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, had experienced visionary inspiration, we should surely have heard of it. Fortunately some of the most eminent painters of modern times have expressed themselves definitely upon the point. Lionardo observed that the painter arrives at perfection by manual operation; and Michelangelo a.s.serted that Raphael acquired his excellence by study and application. Rubens praised his brushes, by which he meant his acquired facility, as the instruments of his fortune; and Nicholas Poussin attributed his success to the fact that he neglected nothing, referring of course to his studies. According to his biographers, the triumphs of Claude were due to his untiring industry, while Reynolds held that nothing is denied to well directed labour. And so with many others down to Turner, whose secret according to Ruskin, was sincerity and toil.

It would seem to be possible for an artist to work himself into a condition of emotional excitement,[7] either involuntarily when a great thought comes to him, or voluntarily when he seeks ideas wherewith to execute a brilliant conception; and it is comprehensible that when in this condition, which is practically an extreme concentration of his mental energy upon the purpose in hand, images or other aesthetic suggestions suitable for his work may present themselves to his mind.

These he might regard as the result of inspiration, but in reality they would be the product of a trained imagination operating under advantageous conditions.

Nor can any rule be laid down that the character or temperament of an artist influences his work, for if instances can be given in support of such an a.s.sertion, at least an equal number may be adduced which directly oppose it. If we might approximately gauge the true characters of Fra Angelico and Michelangelo from a study of their work, it is certain that no imagination could conjure up the actual personalities of Perugino and Cellini, from an examination of the paintings of the one and the sculptures of the other. What can be said on the subject when a.s.sa.s.sins of the nature of Corenzio and Caravaggio painted so many beautiful things, and evil-minded men like Ribera and Battistello adorned great churches with sacred compositions? If the work of Claude appears to harmonize with his character, that of Turner does not.

"Friendless in youth: loveless in manhood; hopeless in death." Such was Turner according to Ruskin, but is there any sign of this in his works?

Not a trace. If any conclusion as to his character and temperament can be drawn from Turner's paintings, it is that he was a gay, light-hearted thinker, with all the optimism and high spirits that come from a delight in beautiful things. The element of mood is unquestionably of importance in the work of an artist, but it is not uncommon to find the character of his designs contrary to his mood. Poets, as in the case of Hood, or painters as with Ta.s.saert, may execute the most lively pieces while in moods verging on despair. With some men adversity quickens the imagination with fancies; with others it benumbs their faculties.

The tendency of popular criticism to search for psychological phenomena in paintings, apparently arises largely from the difficulty in comprehending how it is that certain artists of high repute vary their styles of painting after many years of good work, and produce pictures without the striking beauty characterizing their former efforts.

Sometimes when age is beginning to tell upon them, they broaden their manner considerably, as with Rembrandt and others of the seventeenth century, and many recent artists of lesser fame. The critic, very naturally perhaps, is chary of condemning work from the hand of one who has given evidence of consummate skill, and so seeks for hidden beauties in lieu of those to which he has been accustomed. A simple enquiry into the matter will show that the change of style in these cases has a commonplace natural cause.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 2 (See page 319) "Le Bon Dieu d'Amiens" (_Amiens Cathedral_)]

To be in the front rank an artist must have acquired a vast knowledge of the technique of his art, and have a powerful imagination which has been highly cultivated. But the qualifications must be balanced. Commonly when this balance is not present the deficiency is in the imagination, but there are instances where, though the power of execution is supreme, the imagination has so far exceeded all bounds as to render this power of comparatively small practical value. The most conspicuous example of this want of balance is Lionardo, who accomplished little though he was scarcely surpa.s.sed in execution by Raphael or Michelangelo. His imagination invariably ran beyond his execution; his ideas were always above the works he completed or partly finished: he saw in fact far beyond anything he could accomplish, and so was never satisfied with the result of his labour. At the same time he was filled with ideas in the sciences, and investigated every branch of knowledge without bringing his conclusions to fruition. During the latter part of his life, Michelangelo showed a similar defect in a lesser degree, for his unfinished works of the period exceed in number those he completed.

Naturally such intellectual giants, whose imaginations cannot be levelled with the highest ability in execution, are few, but the lesser luminaries who fail, or who constantly fail, in carrying out their conceptions, are legion, though they may have absorbed the limit of knowledge which they are capable of acquiring in respect of execution.

It is common for a painter to turn out a few masterpieces and nothing else of permanent value. This was the case with numerous Italian artists of the seventeenth century, and it is indeed a question whether there is one of them, except perhaps Domenichino, whose works have not a considerable range in aesthetic value.

There have been still more artists whose powers of execution were far beyond the flights of their imaginations. They include the whole of the seventeenth century Dutch school with Rembrandt at their head, and the whole of the Spanish school of the same period, except El Greco, Zurbaran, and Murillo. When an artist is in the first rank in respect of execution, but is distinctly inferior in imaginative scope, his work in all grades of his art, except the highest, where ideals are possible, seems to have a greater value than it really possesses because we are insensibly cognizant that the accomplishment rises above the idea upon which it is founded. On the other hand his work in the highest plane appears to possess a lower value, because we are surprised that ideals have not been attempted, and that the types of the spiritual and cla.s.sical personages represented are of the same cla.s.s of men and women as those exhibited in works dealing with ordinary human occupations or actions. This is why the sacred and cla.s.sical pictures of Rembrandt, Vermeer of Delft, and the other leading Dutch artists, appear to be below their portrait and genre work in power.

The course of variation in the work of a great painter follows the relative power of his imagination and his execution. Where there is a fair balance between the two, the work of the artist increases in aesthetic value with his age and experience; but when his facility in execution rises above the force of his imagination, then his middle period is invariably the best, his later work showing a gradual depreciation in quality. The reason is obvious. The surety of the hand and eye diminishes more rapidly than the power of the mind, which in fact is commonly enhanced with experience till old age comes on. Great artists who rely mostly upon their powers of execution, and exhibit limited fertility in invention, such as Rembrandt, have often a manner which is so interwoven with the effects they seek, that they are seldom or never able to avail themselves of the a.s.sistance of others in the lesser important parts of their work. A man with the fertile mind of a Rubens may gather around him a troupe of artists nearly as good as himself in execution, who will carry out his designs completely save for certain details. Thus he is not occupied with laborious toil, and the decreasing accuracy of his handiwork troubles him but little. On the other hand a Rembrandt, whose merits lie chiefly in the delicate manipulation of light effects and intricate shades in expression, remains tied to his canvas. He feels intensely the decreasing facility in the use of his brush which necessarily accompanies his advancing years, and his only recourse from a stoppage of work is an alteration in manner involving a reduction of labour and a lessened strain upon the eyesight. With few exceptions the great masterpieces of Rembrandt were produced in his middle period. During the last ten or fifteen years of his life he gradually increased his breadth of manner. He was still magnificent in general expression, but the intimate details which produced such glorious effects in the great Amsterdam picture, and fifty or more of his single portraits, could not be obtained with hog's hair.[8]