You would have it all heavy and black,
but I want something light, and bright, and full of beauty. See these
lines, are they not in themselves beautiful? are they not sharp,
clear, and flowing, according to the necessity of the composition? Are
not the grey and the dark green sufficiently contrasted? do they not
bring to your eyes a sense of repose and unity? Look at the
embroideries on the dresses, are they not delicate? do not the
star-flowers come in the right place? is not the yellow in harmony
with the grey and the green? And the blossoms on the trees, are they
not touched in with the lightness of hand and delicacy of tone that
you desire? Step back and see if the spots of colour and the effects
of line become confused, or if they still hold their places from a
distance as well as close...."
Ladies under trees, by Utamaro! That grey-green design alternated with
pale yellow corresponds more nearly to a sonata by Mozart than to
anything else; both are fine decorations, musical and pictorial
decorations, expressing nothing more definite than that sense of
beauty which haunts the world. The fields give flowers, and the hands
of man works of art.
Then this art is wholly irresponsible--it grows, obeying no rules,
even as the flowers?
In obedience to the laws of some irregular metre so delicate and
subtle that its structure escapes our analysis, the flowers bloom in
faultless, flawless, and ever-varying variety.
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