Chapter I: The Art of Painting (6)

[Footnote 294: _Farbenschein_, as Hegel uses it later on, I find it impossible to translate in one word. In fact it is not easy to seize precisely what he means. "Modulation of colour" partly expresses it. But he also seems to refer to what we understand as the personal quality of a picture or its general atmosphere, not regarded simply as Nature's atmosphere, but as the communication of the artist's own afflatus.]

[Footnote 295: I crossed a young landscape-artist of growing fame the other day, who affirmed and endeavoured to express in his pictures the conviction that colour was as strong in distance as foreground. His pictures were of great interest, but I still think his robust theory unsound.]

[Footnote 296: We have no English equivalent for the German _das Incarnat_ or colour incarnate.]

[Footnote 297: _Ein ideelles Ineinander._ By ideal Hegel means apparently that the distinctions of tint fine away beyond the grasp of sense vision. This of course is true in all natural colouring. Possibly he may mean that the idea of Life is contributive to the result.]

[Footnote 298: Hardly a just simile for the reason that, as Hegel himself points out, flesh does not reflect external objects.]

[Footnote 299: _Den Schein innerer Belebung._ This expression seems to prove that Hegel uses the word _ideel_ in its ordinary sense of spiritual ideality.]

[Footnote 300: _Als selbst lebendiges Ganze._ The colour must appear as itself a part of the vitality, not a mere covering.]

[Footnote 301: _Vertreibung._ What Hegel exactly means I am not sure, probably finish by overpaintings.]

[Footnote 302: Fresco painting is strictly in tempera. I suppose Hegel has here before him the two processes of tempera painting on the wet wall of plaster and tempera painting on some other dry surface.]

[Footnote 303: _Zu grosser innerer Klarheit und schönen Leuchten._ I give what appears to me to be the meaning.]

[Footnote 304: I presume Hegel understands by _Deck und Lasurfarben_ the distinction of our opaque and transparent colours such as flake white and the madders or umbers. He clearly refers to glazes.]

[Footnote 305: _Die Duftigkeit, Magie in der Wirkung des Kolorits._ This is a difficult passage to translate, and I am not quite sure what Hegel is aiming at. He seems to have in his mind both the ideal atmosphere of a composition and the presence of a personal style.]

[Footnote 306: Hegel has already related the effects considered to the artist's personality. He now endeavours to examine more closely what is implied in the relation.]

[Footnote 307: Adriaen van Ostade, 1610-1685.]

[Footnote 308: He means painting, of course. He never passed beyond the stage of the average amateur.]

[Footnote 309: _Spiel von Scheinen._ The play of appearance, that is, as it strikes on different natures.]

[Footnote 310: _Malerischen Auffassung._ Here the ideas on mental conception and artistic composition seem to be combined. But Hegel is rather loose in his use of them.]

[Footnote 311: Hegel has doubtless Albrecht Dürer and yet earlier German art in his mind.]

[Footnote 312: _Die besonderen Bestimmungen._ The lines of its definite exposition.]

[Footnote 313: I adopt Hegel's generic term. But he means here little more than delineation or composition.]

[Footnote 314: As between the art of painting and those of poetry and music.]

[Footnote 315: _Geistig._ We may say the same thing of Tintoret's great Golden Calf picture. But the objection to the composition as a work of art remains more strongly than is the case with Raphael's picture.]

[Footnote 316: The same thing is a characteristic of Tintoret's Annunciation in the S. Rocco Scuola and several pictures of Dürer.]

[Footnote 317: Fine examples of this are Rembrandt's Descent from the Cross in the Munich Gallery, and the group of mourners in Tintoret's Great Crucifixion.]

[Footnote 318: They have in this respect been well contrasted with the characters of Euripides in the play of Aristophanes which particularly emphasizes the difference between the heroic type of Aeschylus and the realism of Euripides, "The Frogs of Aristophanes," text and translation of B. B. Rogers; see Introd., pp. XVIII, XIX, XLV.]

[Footnote 319: As to ugliness and its treatment by Hegel, see Professor Bosanquet's "History of Aesthetik," pp. 338, 355, and generally pp. 432-436.]

[Footnote 320: That is sculpture. Hegel calls it _im Plastischen._]

[Footnote 321: An ideal with Hegel is not necessarily an image of the mind, but far more generally the concrete realization of life.]

[Footnote 322: He should have added Tintoretto at least. What could be more pertinent than his Sages in the Palazzo Reale in Venice.]

[Footnote 323: Applies to the study rather than the talent exercised.]

[Footnote 324: _Aber ganze Grundbild des Charakters darstellen._]

[Footnote 325: _Den geistigen Sinn und Charakter._ He means the entire spiritual impression, heart, soul, and intelligence, with its practical effect in substantive character.]

[Footnote 326: I think this is implied here in Hegel's use of the words _verarbeitet durch den Geist._ But it may mean "in the face as worked upon the soul within the _person portrayed._"]

[Footnote 327: _Die wahrhaften absoluten Momente für die Characteristik._]

[Footnote 328: The German expression is, "It is not a serious affair with her sinning." I am not sure that Hegel's view here does not lean towards the sentimentalism he generally so strongly opposes. No doubt a clear conception of the Magdalene's character is difficult. But it is obvious that the less stress we lay upon her sin, the less weight her conversion carries from the religious point of view, and the less great appears the effect of the interposition of her divine Master. Correggio was not a master likely to penetrate profoundly into his subject. But, on the other hand, it must be admitted that Hegel's contention is in one aspect of it supported by the far finer conceptions of the Magdalene in Tintoret's work. At least this great master clearly shows us that in his view of her she was strongly emotional, heart and soul in everything whether for good, under good influence, or for evil under opposite direction. It is possible to understand Hegel's interpretation as one mainly aesthetic.]

[Footnote 329: In Berlin. The statement is made in February 1829.]

[Footnote 330: The omission of the Spanish school at least omits a most important link with modern impressionism and its close relation to that transition to music. And it is impossible to indicate the progress of landscape without reference to the English school.]

[Footnote 331: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. I, p. 279.]

[Footnote 332: The words _in ähnlicher Weise_ make no sense.]

[Footnote 333: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. I, p. 280.]

[Footnote 334: Literally the sense is "Which (apparently agrees with the trait of piety) invigorates with soul that assuredness and accepted fact (_Fertigkeit_) of existence, which is from the very first (_von Hause aus_) more decisive (_entscheidenere_) in this province of salvation (_des Heils_)." _Heils_ must obviously be used in the same sense as _Heiland_ above. My translation is necessarily rather free, but I hope I have emphasized the meaning.]

[Footnote 335: _Ein ideal bleibender Uebergang._ The transition is rather one the soul imagines than an actual fact. "Ideal persistence" is perhaps better.]

[Footnote 336: _Religiosität_ here used in good sense.]

[Footnote 337: Lit., "More free from struggling." Compare Saint John and Saint Paul as examples on the higher levels.]

[Footnote 338: That is Italian painting.]

[Footnote 339: Hegel's delight in Italian opera is well known to readers of his correspondence. In the above fine passage he to some extent unbelts himself from his ordinary tone of rather austere reticence.]

[Footnote 340: The distinction seems to be between the more formal unity of personality and the peculiarly seductive charm of Italian art. It is rather a fine one and it seems to me rather confusing. Moreover I do not quite see the pertinency of the simile of a Psyche that is wafted as a butterfly even round blooms that have been spoiled of their treasure, for such I understand to be the sense of _verkümmerte Blumen._ A butterfly comes into no active relation with such unless the idea is pictorial decoration. But possibly Hegel was thinking of his reference to Dante, and in that case employed the metaphor loosely, rather too loosely I should say.]

[Footnote 341: "Stunted" is perhaps the best translation. The fault of the simile lies in its superficiality. It does not penetrate the conception Hegel has before him.]

[Footnote 342: Giotto, Mantegna, Carpaccio, Masaccio, would be leading names in point here. Hegel mentions two himself lower down.]

[Footnote 343: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 4.]

[Footnote 344: _Grelle._ That is harsh and flagrant outline.]

[Footnote 345: _Ihrer_ must refer I think to the Italians, though the sentence might mean, "In contrast to these Greek productions."]

[Footnote 346: _Als Ueberzug._ The expression suggests it was used as a facial glaze or varnish.]

[Footnote 347: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. I, p. 312.]

[Footnote 348: That is mixed with the attrited colour in its dryness.]

[Footnote 349: _Leimen. Leim_ is size or lime, in the compound word _leim-farbe_ signifying distemper.]

[Footnote 350: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 42.]

[Footnote 351: Decam. Giorn., 6. Nov. 5.]

[Footnote 352: Such as S. Francis as presented us in Giotto's great frescoes in Assisi.]

[Footnote 353: No doubt the serious aspect is less imposingly emphasized; but if the opinion condemned below is too sweeping it remains the fact that we can imagine nothing more profoundly serious in the religious sense than the frescoes in the Arena Chapel in Padua.]

[Footnote 354: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 73.]

[Footnote 355: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 213.]

[Footnote 356: _Aufgaben_, artistic problems, themes.]

[Footnote 357: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 243.]

[Footnote 358: This of course is too strong a statement, and indeed is ridiculous to anyone who has complete knowledge of the best work even of Giotto.]

[Footnote 359: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 252.]

[Footnote 360: The frescoes of Mantegna, and those of Ghirlandaio, we would mention in particular the fine examples in the S. Maria Novella church in Florence, or for Mantegna our own cartoons at Hampton Court and the invaluable but now hopelessly ruined frescoes of Gozzoli, in the Campo Santo of Pisa, are fine illustrations of the text.]

[Footnote 361: _Des inneren Geistes_ may here refer to the ideal aspects of civil and domestic life, but I think Hegel is contrasting the two extremes and it refers to the religious content.]

[Footnote 362: "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 282.]

[Footnote 363: To make this judgment in any degree a sound one we must assume the stress is laid on the mysterious aspect of expression and form. The genuine examples of Leonardo are so very few. But quite apart from that unless we exclude the great triumvirate of the Venetian school altogether Tintoret, Titian, and Veronese, the praise here given to Leonardo as a consummate master of the technique in oil-painting can only be received with considerable reserve and qualification.]

[Footnote 364: Compare "Ital. Forsch.," vol. II, p. 308.]

[Footnote 365: _Die reinste Vollendung._ The adjective refers to the character of the perfection as an expression of artistic feeling and execution.]

[Footnote 366: _Halbdeutliche Erinnerungen._ Not I think memories that are obscure themselves so much as memories which have failed to grasp the content of what is recollected. The expression is rather confused.]

[Footnote 367: Modern criticism would doubtless have a good deal to say in qualification of this. The name of Bellini alone is sufficiently suggestive.]

[Footnote 368: This emphasis on the work of Raphael and Correggio is characteristic of the best art criticism of the times of Hegel, but marks its limitations. Neither Raphael nor Correggio can be called religious painters in the sense that those profound masters Tintoret and Michelangelo were such. The essentially academic aspect of so much of Raphael's later production is not noticed. And it is these three great names, Titian, Tintoret, and Michelangelo, who most truly mark the transition to our modern outlook.]

[Footnote 369: _Eine aüssere Abgeschlossenheit._ This must mean, I think, a dignified and reserved treatment of the technique mainly of such themes.]

[Footnote 370: The technical and somewhat long-worded aspect of Hegel's style is here at its worst and I find it hard to make complete sense of this doubtless unrevised passage. The main difficulty is this, that the sentence appears to assert that "the centre" (_der Mittelpunkt_) of religion persists (_fortbleibt_) and yet asserts in the same breath that the informing unity is broken up. I have done my best.]

[Footnote 371: A piety which is not merely emotional, but is concrete in active life, possesses practical content.]

[Footnote 372: See note at end of chapter.]

[Footnote 373: This appears rather to contradict what Hegel has said before of the impression a fine picture such as Correggio's Magdalene leaves upon us that we cannot imagine the character to be other than it is. See note below.]

[Footnote 374: More literally, "Without the alleviating effect of what is comic."]

[Footnote 375: I presume _die Formen_ refers here rather to the artistic forms of grouping and composition than the traits of vital expression. But perhaps the latter interpretation would be more natural to the words.]

[Footnote 376: The above survey of Dutch art is of great interest, and in its careful comparison of the type of that art with the national development of the Dutch may be contrasted favourably with the somewhat prejudiced criticism of such a critic as John Ruskin. At the same time I think it must be obvious that Hegel is a little inclined to overrate the ideal aspect of that portion of it we may indicate in the work of painters such as Wouvermans or Teniers, many examples of which are little removed from the defects of theme he points out in more modern work. Also personally I should say that, if we exclude the supreme genius of Rembrandt, he rather exaggerates their rank as supreme colourists in respect to the scintillation, mystery, and other effects of light. To consider that they rank above the Venetians in this respect is wholly impossible, to say nothing of Velasquez. Rubens, however, may add some support to the view, but he is hardly in the school described, and Van Dyck stands with him.]