LITMIR.BIZ

      In regard to pictures, let it be remembered that although a knowledge of the name, the character and the country of the painter adds greatly to the pleasure with which we can contemplate a work of art, it is not – it ought not to be – the source of our highest gratification; that must depend on our capacity to understand the work in itself, and have delight in it for its own sake. Our first question, when we stand before a picture should not be “Who painted it?” but “What does it mean?”, “What is it about?”, “What was in the painter’s mind to express when he embodied his thoughts in this form and colour?” We should be able to read a picture as we read a book, but a picture has an advantage over a book in that its significance is not expressed in written or printed words, which are mere arbitrary signs of human invention, but in forms and colours, which belong to the realm of nature. Imagery, whether in painting or sculpture, was a means of imparting instruction, as well as delight, long before the art of writing existed, and painting was brought to a certain degree of perfection and used for the grandest and most important purposes long before we had the art of printing. In those times, to use the expression of one of the old fathers of the Church, “Pictures were the books of the people;” in fact, they had no other; even now, when books are plentiful and cheap, the use of pictures to convey information more rapidly and more accurately than by words is commonplace.

      But it is another thing when we have to consider pictures as art, and painting as one of the highest of the fine arts properly so called. Now, people may collect books merely as articles of curiosity and rarity, as specimens of printing and binding, like that collector who Pope describes: “In books, not authors, curious was my lord!” He may like them as furniture to fill his shelves with intricate binding and accredited names, even so may an individual collect pictures for their beauty, their rarity, or their antiquity, or hang them on their walls as mere ornamental furniture. No doubt such collections are a great, allowable source of pleasure to the possessor and to the observer; however, considered as productions of mind addressed to mind, this is not the highest advantage to be derived from pictures. As I have said, we should be able to read a picture as we read a book. A gallery of pictures may be compared with a well-furnished library; I have sometimes thought that it would be a good thing if we could arrange a collection of pictures as we arrange a collection of books. In the ordering of a library with a view to convenience and use, we do not mix all subjects together. We have different compartments for theology, history, biography, poetry, travels, science, romances, and so forth; we might consider pictures in a similar order. Theology, in that case, would comprise all ordained subjects, whether taken from the Holy Scriptures, or having any religious significance; they may be the representation of an event, such as the elevation of the serpent in the wilderness, the raising of Lazarus, the worship of the Magi, or they may be the expression of an idea, such as the dead Christ mourned by his mother and the angels, or those most beautiful and inexhaustible subjects, the human mother nursing her son, and the son honouring in heaven the mother who bore him on earth. Such ideal subjects bear the same relation to religious narratives as the Psalms and prophecies bear to the book of Kings.

      In the category of the theological, pictures may be classed as those which represent the effigies and sufferings of the Holy Martyrs who perished for their faith in the early ages of Christianity – the noble Roman soldier St. Sebastian, the Great Doctors and Teachers of the Church such as St. Jerome who made the first translation of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue (thence called the Vulgate), and those personages who became ideal types of Christian virtue. Thus we have the valorous angel Michael, conqueror of the powers of evil; the benign angel Raphael, guardian of the young; the learning and wisdom of St. Catherine, the fortitude of St. Antony, and the chivalrous faith of St. George. Some knowledge of these personages, their characters and actions, historical or legendary, and the manner in which they were represented by various artists for the edification of their respective societies, will add greatly to the interest of a gallery of pictures.

      Giotto, Baroncelli Polyptych, 1334.

      Paint and gold on wood.

      Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence.

      All would range as theology, and nothing is more interesting than to observe

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