What feeling! What richness of coloring!" What would you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon a desert of stumps and said: "Oh, my soul, my beating heart, what a noble forest is here!"You would think that those men had an astonishing talent for seeing things that had already passed away. It was what I thought when I stood before "The Last Supper" and heard men apostrophizing wonders and beauties and perfections which had faded out of the picture and gone a hundred years before they were born. We can imagine the beauty that was once in an aged face; we can imagine the forest if we see the stumps; but we cannot absolutely see these things when they are not there. I am willing to believe that the eye of the practiced artist can rest upon "The Last Supper" and renew a luster where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint that has faded away, restore an expression that is gone; patch and color and add to the dull canvas until at last its figures shall stand before him aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all the noble beauty that was theirs when first they came from the hand of the master. But Icannot work this miracle. Can those other uninspired visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they do?
After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that 'The Last Supper"was a very miracle of art once. But it was three hundred years ago.
It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of "feeling," "expression,""tone," and those other easily acquired and inexpensive technicalities of art that make such a fine show in conversations concerning pictures.
There is not one an in seventy-five hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended to express. There is not one man in five hundred that can go into a courtroom and be sure that he will not mistake some harmless innocent of a juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial.
Yet such people talk of "character" and presume to interpret "expression"in pictures. There is an old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding the ability of the human face to express the passions and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the countenance could disclose what was passing in the heart plainer than the tongue could.
"Now," he said, "observe my face--what does it express?""Despair!"
"Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What does this express?""Rage!"
"Stuff! It means terror! This!"
"Imbecility!"
"Fool! It is smothered ferocity! Now this!"
"Joy!"
"Oh, perdition! Any ass can see it means insanity!"Expression! People coolly pretend to read it who would think themselves presumptuous if they pretended to interpret the hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor--yet they are fully as competent to do the one thing as the other.
I have heard two very intelligent critics speak of Murillo's "Immaculate Conception" (now in the museum at Seville) within the past few days. One said:
"Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a joy that is complete--that leaves nothing more to be desired on earth!"The other said:
"Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so pleading--it says as plainly as words could say it: 'I fear; I tremble; I am unworthy. But Thy will be done; sustain Thou Thy servant!'"The reader can see the picture in any drawing room; it can be easily recognized: the Virgin (the only young and really beautiful Virgin that was ever painted by one of the old masters, some of us think) stands in the crescent of the new moon, with a multitude of cherubs hovering about her, and more coming; her hands are crossed upon her breast, and upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of the heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if he chooses, in trying to determine which of these gentlemen read the Virgin's "expression" aright or if either of them did it.