The Same Subject ContinuedTHERE are two verses in Horace’s Art of Poetry, that seem to contradict this opinion; for which reason I shall take a little more pains in clearing it up. The verses are,
On this the Abbé du Bos founds a criticism, wherein he gives painting the preference to poetry in the article of moving the passions; principally on account of the greater clearness of the ideas it represents. I believe this excellent judge was led into this mistake (if it be a mistake) by his system; to which he found it more conformable than I imagine it will be found by experience. I know several who admire and love painting, and yet who regard the objects of their admiration in that art with coolness enough in comparison of that warmth with which they are animated by affecting pieces of poetry or rhetoric. Among the common sort of people, I never could perceive that painting had much influence on their passions. It is true, that the best sorts of painting, as well as the best sorts of poetry, are not much understood in that sphere. But it is most certain, that their passions are very strongly roused by a fanatic preacher, or by the ballads of Chevy-chase, or the Children in the Wood, and by other little popular poems and tales that are current in that rank of life. I do not know of any paintings, bad or good, that produce the same effect. So that poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general, as well as a more powerful, dominion over the passions, than the other art. And I think there are reasons in nature, why the obscure idea, when properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear. It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaintance make the most striking causes affect but little. It is thus with the vulgar; and all men are as the vulgar in what they do not understand. The ideas of eternity and infinity are among the most affecting we have; and yet perhaps there is nothing of which we really understand so little, as of infinity and eternity. We do not anywhere meet a more sublime description than this justly celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity so suitable to the subject:
I am sensible that this idea has met with opposition, and is likely still
to be rejected by several. But let it be considered, that hardly anything
can
strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach
towards
infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds;
but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the
same
thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea. There is
a passage in the book of Job amazingly sublime, and this sublimity is principally
due to
the terrible uncertainty of the thing described: In thoughts from the
visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me,
and trembling,
which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the
hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the
form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence, and I
heard a voice,—Shall
mortal man be more just than God? We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity
for the vision; we are first terrified, before we are let even into the obscure
cause of our emotion; but when this grand cause of terror makes it appearance,
what is it? Is it not wrapt up in the shades of its own incomprehensible
darkness, more awful, more striking, more terrible, than the liveliest description,
than
the clearest painting, could possibly represent it? When painters have attempted
to give us clear representations of these very fanciful and terrible ideas,
they have, I think, almost always failed; insomuch that I have been at a
loss, in
all the pictures I have seen of hell, to determine whether the painter did
not intend something ludicrous. Several painters have handled a subject of
this kind,
with a view of assembling as many horrid phantoms as their imagination could
suggest; but all the designs I have chanced to meet of the temptation of
St. Anthony were rather a sort of odd, wild grotesques, than anything capable
of
producing a serious passion. In all these subjects poetry is very happy.
Its apparitions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are
grand and
affecting; and though Virgil’s Fame and Homer’s Discord are obscure,
they are magnificent figures. These figures in painting would be clear enough,
but I fear they might become ridiculous. |
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