As regards physical manifestations, both these arts should seek
truth--which does not mean literal exactness,--and all that has been
said of _simplisme_, in regard to sculpture, is perfectly applicable to
that part of painting which treats of the human figure. Science and law
lay down the same rules for both,--save for the differing modes of
execution.
It is another matter when it is a question of representing nature as a
whole, and under less limited forms: seas, mountains, the atmosphere and
broad plains--landscapes of vast extent,--subjects forbidden to
sculpture even more exclusively than simple compositions of several
figures, which are seldom successful in sculpture. For if sculpture
sometimes makes a group, if it is used to decorate monuments and tombs,
it offers nothing analogous to those magnificent phases of nature which
we find on the canvases of the great masters.
Delsarte, who from the laws of mimetics deduced for painters means of
expressing correctly every impression and emotion which man can feel,
taught nothing in regard to this special field of the landscape artist,
who is not subject to the conditions of the actor, sculptor or orator.
But, if this aspect of art--save in cases where figures are
introduced--does not come under the head of certain statements of our
science, not having to imitate attitude, gesture or voice--in a word,
anything proceeding from the human organism,--it is, perhaps more
closely than elsewhere, allied to the innovator's law: to that law which
prompts the artist to respond to the psychical aspirations of his
fellowmen, and demands that in satisfying the senses, he should also
arouse or inspire the thought and feeling of beauty.
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