The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-03-08
FINE ART LECTURES.
Fourth Lecture by President M. II.
Buckhar.


Tuesday evening proved to be the most
propitious for an audience the course OF
art lectures have been favored with and
very good assemblage greeted President |
Buckham, who presented the subject OF
"Tbe art element of life"
The beautiful lecture of President Buck
ham was listened to with wrapt attention.
1t was an artistic production, yet practical
as the lecturer described real art to be. He
sought to impress that the power of art
has its source in the mind that in art the
uncouth comes into submission to grace
and is an exercise Of moral instinct that
1t is a CONSIDER in sorrow-an inspirer of
hope. The fine purpose, lofty tone, aud
simple power of the lecture no doubt made
many listenerfeel glad TO have heard it.
Is art, he asked, a mere past-time Can
il claim, as of right, a place among the
things we prize and strive for Does man
lose anything essential to his manhood if he
leave art entirely out of his education and
experience If man wishes to make the
most of himselfn noble, christian way,
will he bestow any time and thought on the
fine arts ? If art have an important office,
is it something only for the few of leisure
and abundance, or is it within the reach of
every life These questions have peril
hence for us, from the recent entrance of
art, in our matter-of-fact community, in
modest guise it is true, yet claiming money,
time, thought and admiration, Can we af-
ford to give the new conner place in our
...,I. "A hsu rtp
assigned to Us rather the arts by which
nature Is eubdued, and political, social mo-
raj and religious wel-being secured Such
questiouings naturally thrust themselves on
people to whom art is not native and re-
floctionis
In answering these questions the lectur-
er first laid down some of the fundamental
principles of art. Art is the making of
beautiful things or, more fully Defined the
sensuous expression of an idea and an emo
tion--a true idea and good emotion. Fine
art Is such expression of n high idea and
noble emotion. First among modes Of ex-
preston is language, reaching its highest
power in poetry and music; next come ma
terial tmbodimerts In wood, clay, marble
the metals and culors. Man can take a
| block Of stone and put into it SO much OF
| his thought and feeling that for ages men
will gather round it, and get from it more
| high thought and noble fee ing than living
man can inspire in them. This power is
the twofold one VI thought and feeling in
/ refused and made objective. The Woik OF
| art includes first q Thought Sometrue con
c'ptiOm OF something second some feeling
| of love, admiration, reverence or other ele-
vaiiug emotion toward it and thirdly the
! skill that blends these perfectly with the
] = i to al
true. As in music the widest strains must
conform in every note to mathematical
law. so in all art the first condition is con.
fOrmity to the truth of the conception. Ii
sculpture the falsiiication of anatomy in
painting violation of perspective, IN sculp.
ture the the succeed or trescoed falsehood
are always blemishes--and most of the
failures 10 art, as ia life, come from lack
Of conscience aud OF supreme reverence
for truth. The value of II work of art de
ponds largely on the amount of thought 1t
contains. There may be as much thought
in a painting like Leonardo's Last Supper
as in system of philosophy, and as mucl
science on the walls of the Sistine chapel
as in the Vatican library.
Yet art is not the mere expression Of
fact. The artist strives to comprehend anc
realize the whole truth, underlying as wei
as on the surface of his subject If ht
paint. say beech tree, he strives to con
ceiye tree which shall be not only an IN
divdual tree but typical of the species
His portfolio will be found full of ''stud
les" of beech trees, in which he has studied
the ideal tree in the actual trees, making
Nature tell him, better than she know
herself, what Gods idea of beech tree is
So the trnn rorirsit nsiptar,, -ayrT''wlru
| camera tho cnlar rptianfinD or .r;t
ment, of a set of features from which b,
the necessities of the case all thought an(
feeling has been distracted he paints
man or woman, soul and all, so that in hi
picture their character and history may b
discovered. The great pictures, like Para
disc Lost, or Macbeth, dwarf everythin,
else, especially yourself. If you reacl
their thoughts, 1t must be by growing NJ
to them. Only stupidity will belittle
thing too great for it to comprehend-a
King George confidentialiy assured DR.
johnson that there was "a deal of sad STUFF
in Shakespeare.
But true work of art must have feein.
as well as thought in II. |; has a mora
quality. In the square or triangle o
circle there is expression of pure intellect
ual conception but beauty comes with de
parture from the mathematical form. TIL,
stiff line is made fluent, one curve bending
inscnsibly to meet an opposite curve, a.
though by infusion of some moral quality
like gentleness or submission. Color has
moral quality apart from the object thai
bears it. Purple is royal by nature, rec
martial, black funeral, white festive, b,
moral instinct Line, form, color, no
only suggest but actually express mora
feeling. The beech tree is more interest
ing than the poplar, because its possibii
ties of moral expression are greater. |
embodies the idea of tirmness mingled will
playfulness in roots - ''wreathng." a.
Gray has it, .'its old fantastic roots
so hgh'-of power and endurance
in its solid bole of humility anc
tenderness in long dropping branches
bowling TO kiss the gnarled roots The
great landscape painters were those who
had the deepest insight into the moral
meanings of nature. In Claude Nature
seems in reverie; in Salvador Rosa in Q
passion in Gainsboro, in domestic repose.
Down to the time of Wordsworth, the
painters interpreted the moral aspects Of
nature better than the poets, and said i1
their way ms plainly as Wordsworth in
words, that for them
| The meanest flower that blows can give
thoughts that DO often lie too deep Tor tears
The art in which feeling is thought to
have least play is Architecture, Yet what
is more radiant of feeling than gothic
chnrch-such as we call a 'hymn in stone?'
The Cathedral builders unconsciously
meant to express in them the awiulness Of
the mighty truths Of christianity. There
Is a moral something (Which wa. also in
the souls Of the builders in the slender
| pillars, reaching M from the common
Light at their feet. to the arched twilight OF
the far-away roof-sometbing that uplfts
the thoughts from she Hat and sordid pave
ment of earth into the upper space where
all the line of grace meet, and where tbs
light is pure and heavenly
The art element in life, then, is this
diyinely implanted impulse to express the
true aud the good in the beautiful. Com
Ing down to art in connection with use.