This
realism is not, however, an unmixed advantage for general appreciation.
For, finding the shape of the body, men sometimes demand its color and
life, complaining that the statue is cold and dead;[Footnote: See
Byron, _Don Juan_, Canto II, cxviii.] or else, giving life to the
form, they react to it practically and socially, as they would toward
the real body. Yet, for the one attitude, the art itself cannot be
held responsible, but rather some want of genius in the artist or lack
of imagination in the spectator; and as for the other, although only
a bloodless dogma would demand the elimination of passion and interest
from the appreciation of sculpture--for unless the marble arouse the
natural feelings toward the body it is no successful
expression--nevertheless, good taste does demand that, through attention
to form and a sense of the unreality of the object, these feelings be
subdued to contemplation.
In order to keep the statue on the ideal plane, it should not be too
realistically fashioned. If it looks too much like a man, we shall
first treat it as a man, as we do one of Jarley's or Mme. Tissaud's
waxworks, and then after we have been undeceived, we shall have toward
it an uncanny feeling, totally unaesthetic, as towards a corpse. The
statue, therefore, if life-sized, should not be given the colors or
clothing of life. Tinting is not excluded, provided no attempt is made
at exact imitation; and when the statue is of heroic, or less than the
normal size, as in porcelain, both coloring and clothing may be more
realistic.
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