Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, and Velasquez, we find that the combination of these two views is always there. From the technical and decorative standpoint they are the admiration of the artist, and by their subjects, "Let artists and their suggestive power, they fascinate remember the observer and draw him into sympathy that nothing is more rare with the painters' ideas. We find the same than that the finite should awaken the infinite. To do this they must be broad and deep, piti thing in the pictures of Turner, Reynolds, Corot, Mauve, and Whistler. The highest art idea of the contains both these views intimately combined. As we descend in the scale there is a gradual separation, the decoration sometimes, and sometimes the subject, being forced into prominence, until we reach the level of mere decoration on the one hand, and a subject inartistically treated on the other. Separated they are of little value, combined they make the world's greatest pictures. less against the seduc tive surface prettinesses." Jules Breton. CHAPTER IV NATURE AND THE POETS It is very interesting to see how the poets treat nature. They differ from the painters in the means they use, but the aim of each is to appeal to the head and the heart, and their higher efforts must reach both. The poets give many descriptions of nature and these fall into classes similar to those of the painters, as they are merely descriptive, or subjective, giving the effect of the scene on the narrator. As in painting the landscape was often found. necessary as a background for the figures, so the poet describes the scenery in which the action of his story is placed. These are often passages of great beauty, but they are usually merely descriptive, appealing to the intellect but not to the feelings. Splendid as many of them are, they do not reach the highest point of art, that in which the objective and subjective are combined, and nature is moulded by humanity. For instance, take the beautiful "The Lady of the Lake." Scott. "Paradise Lost." description of the effect of the dawn on Loch Katrine, in which the lake is depicted as bright and happy in itself, without reference to any human interest: "The Summer dawn's reflected hue To purple chang'd Loch Katrine blue; Or the following masterpieces in the use of words, describing the coming on of quiet, peaceful night: "Now came still evening on, and twilight gray "The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day, "Elegy in a Country Church yard." Thomas Gray. Or this of the seashore and hamlet where Enoch Arden lived: "Long lines of cliff, breaking, have left a chasm; In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher And high in heaven behind it a gray down This is a minute and pre-Raphaelite piece of landscape work, but uninteresting until we come to the last three lines. It describes very realistically the scene in which the story is laid, but clearly the poet's interest is elsewhere and this is merely the setting. More poetical is the account of the home of the mysterious lady who dwelt near Camelot, but it still only describes the island and the obvious view of the country road through fields of grain, though the second stanza gives "Enoch Arden." "The Lady of Shalott." Tennyson. a hint that nature is vaguely apprehensive of the impending catastrophe: 'On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And through the field the road runs by To many tower'd Camelot; And up and down the people go, Gazing where the lilies blow, Round an island there below, The Island of Shalott. "Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls, and four gray towers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott." These are all like the artists' backgrounds in which the subject is set. But the poets, like the painters, also hold very strongly the view that nature is intimately associated with the joys and sorrows of men, and for showing this their medium, the use of words, gives them greater opportunities. In this, the higher |