The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-06-14

lChristan Union.1
Foremost and always look at pictures through
your own eyes. Others may soc and find much
more than you can, hut there is no aesthetic
pleasure by proxy, or at second hand. Your
Joy must be personal or it is unreal Nothing
is more common than feigned raptures and
borrowed criticism. People are initiative and
subservient in direct ratio with their igno-
rance and helplessness. 1t is not matter of
shame or self-reproach that you are picture
blind; but it is contemplate and disingenuous
to pretend to be picture-wise when you are
not. Then do not "follow the crowd" in pic
ture seeing 1t is like reading; tastes will ger
inmate and develop in unexpected directions,
and you will find enjoyments multiplying and
bringing unfamiliar favors and relishes.
When art language begins to become inteligi-
BILE you will need no interpreter and that lan-
guage may be learned like any other. OF
course there are diversities of gifts here as
everywhere else, and many patient souls will
look long and see little; but they will find
enough to reward the toll. Besides, bear in
mind tina; pictures impress the most intelli-
gent persons very differently, for one has an
appetite for technique and professional dexteri-
ty, another for color harmonies, another for
drawing and composition, another for chiaros-
euro, or relations of light and shade, while
another finds pleasure chiefly in the intention
or subject itself. One is religious another
pedantic, and you must find your own place,
quietly accept it, and wait for the growth and
ripening of such pleasures as your own tenn
permanent, culture and aesthetic quality can ex-
perience.
Do not look or study in a critical temper, but
for recreation, rest, refreshment and instruc-
ion where it may be had. The critical spirit
will come in spite of yourself when you begin
to read pictures easily, but your own pleasure
and enjoyment will be proportionally dimin-
ished. There is almost always something
worth looking at in every picture; and it is
wisest and best to hunt for that. If you do not
find it, pass on and look at something else.
The critical spirit is analytical and pulls to
pieces, and so destroys and devastates. This
CHASTITY road leads to scientific insight, and the
teacher N ust submit to its discipline, and hap
Ply is he who escapes its morbid, cynical infes-
tations Sympathy and a receptive spirit will
teach you most and best, and experience will
shortly nip your young illusions and cut back
your exuberance to q rational measure. Do
not be afraid of warm enjoyments or distrust
your emotions. Enjoyment is positive, and
comes from receptivity rather than from criti-
csm, which leans to negations. If you do not
look through others eyes do not select or dis
criminate through others criticisms. An in
solent, unscrupulous, glib critic who anticipates
your steps may turn very good collection into
chamber of horrors. From such withdraw
thyself! Remember that the professional crit
ic may find a malicious satisfaction in demol-
ishing and degrading, quite as stimulating af-
ter its kind as the artists enthusiasm in Great
ing. 1t is well to find out what cultivated peo-
pie think of this or that artist and art, especi-
ally if you can get the rationale of their con-
clusions. Artists can often by word or hint
flood whole canvas with sudden intelligence.
They are usually communicating to such per-
sors as have right to bespeak their attention,
and their conversation is often a fine concen-
tration of aesthetic wisdom, and the best of
them sees most to approve in all pictures. A
grumbler and growler, Quilp-like, is nuis-
ance in a gallery, as indeed in a garden or in
deed, any-here else. Respect other peoples
preferences and insist upon your own.
Look at few pictures at time Don't
gorge yourself with room full at once, or
bring on a plethora by doing gallery at a bout.
Delicacy and discrimination shrink from pro-
miscuity. Look first at the portraits.say of the
same artist; then compare them with another
group; then all the portraits; then select the
best from each group compare, contrast them,
and fix upon the finest examples of each ar
list; ascertain some points of distinctive excel
lence; find out why you are pleased, and then
sift your own preferences. Another day go
among landscapes. Select an artist, and get
acquainted with his manner and treatment
Jones or Wyant, for example-and stay by
him until you comprehend enough Of his spirit
to retain and carry away with you. Then
study another, and another, always men of
acknowledged mastery, as Church, Rousseau,
Turner-for it is better to begin studying at
the top, in pictures, music, books-and with
habitual reference to nature, you will soon
reach rational pleasure if you do not achieve
critical exactness of estimation. Then, un.
der figure and genre subjects, begin
ming say with Edward Frere, Brion, Boughton,
Eastman Johnson-ether with originals, or
colored reproductions which may be seen at all
print-sellers Learn their characteristic ways
and idioms, their composition, drawing, COLOR
and with leisurely steps 60 on and up to Ge-
rome and the brilliant and teeming schools of
Paris and Munich, always studying long and
most attentively anything by Alma Tadema.
Here you will be greatly strengthened and re-
inforced by some knowledge Of AIRY Scheffer
and Kaulbach, who may be easily studied in
mind that the greater includes the less, and
that he who wisely apprehends the masters of
any school therefore has within reach all lesser
productions. Picture seeing is like reading
and eaung-repletlon and gluttOny are aesthetic
immoralitles. If you have to visit any large
collection, if possible determine what you will
see beforehand and study nothing else. At
any rate, only look at the best, and if you can
concentrate your attention so far your studies
will reach healthy and permanent results 1t
is always easy to catch ''the points, of any col
lection from the general hearsay; and you are
not obliged to weary yourself among uncertain
and questionable pictures unless you are pro-
fessional critic.
Picture-headache is one of the most amusing
and preposterous distempers, very much akin
to the discomforts of dinner surfeit. People
who will go through the whole "bill OF fare,"
or sample the entire "wine list" must accept
the consequences.
Be sure of your point of view Every pic-
ture is painted with the beholder's standpoint
always in mind. OF course before Meisso-
nier the closer the better, and you can we'll use
glass at that, for surface texture is finality
here. As rule, the larger the canvas the
more remote the point Of view You approach
closer only to study the method of touch or
some delicacy or intricacy Of composition
| The broader and looser the touch the further
the point of view. 1t is always best to study
the larger pictures from the opposite side of
| the room.