[Illustration: STUDY OF A BRANCH OF FIG TREE, 1856 Leighton House Collection]
[Illustration: STUDY OF BRAMBLE, 1856 Leighton House Collection]
"One of the sights in Innsbruck has left on me a deep and, I hope, a lasting impression: the bronze statues in the Franciscan church; they are the finest specimens of German mediæval sculpture that I ever saw, and grew on me as I gazed at them in a manner which I hardly ever felt before; their great merit consists in combining in the most astounding manner the most consummate knowledge of the art with all the simplicity of nature and the most striking individuality (that first of artistic qualities), and exhibiting at the same time the most elaborate finish in the details, with greatest possible breadth and grandeur of general masses; this quality is particularly conspicuous amongst the women, three, especially, standing side by side, show, by three perfect examples, the whole secret of ornamental economy; the one, whose dress is ornamented with all the richness of which a luxurious imagination and an unparalleled power of execution were capable, recovers its simplicity of outline and mass by having a tightly fitting body and sleeve and a skirt of moderate amplitude; the second, whose ornaments, though richly, are more broadly disposed, retains its balance by a slightly increased amplitude of drapery; while the third, whose dress is altogether without embroidery, acquires a corresponding effect by large, loose sleeves and richly folded skirt, and two large plaits hanging down her back. What an opportunity this would be, backed by these giants of breathing bronze, to make an indignant descent on some paltry and muddle-headed moderns, who don't know how to discriminate between that kind of finish which proceeds from the love of a smooth surface, and makes the artist equally careful of his pumps and of his pictures, and that other kind of minuteness which is the beautiful fruit of a refined love for nature, and proceeds from a feeling of piety towards the mother of art, and who complacently call 'niggling,' a quality above the appreciation of their _breadth-mad_ brains; who, in their art-made-easy system of 'idealising' (forsooth), look for artistic 'beauty' in a facial angle of so and so much. What with the _Greeks_ was an _abstract of_ MAN, and very appropriately applicable in the cases of demi-gods (that the ancients _could_, and _did_, 'en tems et lieu,' individualise, may be sufficiently seen in their admirable portraits), becomes with _them_ an absurdly misapplied _average of mankind_, not _a_ man, or _men_. _The leading feature in Nature is a_ MANIFOLD INDIVIDUALITY, AN ENDLESS VARIETY; _she is like a diamond, that glances with a thousand hues_. 'Indeed!' I hear them contemptuously sneering, 'you don't seem to be aware, sir, that ideal beauty is the great _centre_ of all these _extreme_ varieties, and the only thing worthy of a great artist's attention.' 'Well, gentlemen,' say _I_, 'without inconsistency, you can't get out of the way of the following mouthful: there are (perhaps you will allow) three elementary colours, which in different combinations produce every variety of hue; _but_, the great _centre_ of these three _extremely_ various colours is _grey, non-colour ... the ideal of a bit of colouring, "the only thing worthy of the attention of a great colourist" is a picture with no colour in it at all_.' However, Messrs. the Generalisists and _Apollinisists_ 'have every reason to congratulate themselves on the extensive circulation of their views, for their _ideal_' is visible in every haircutter's window. Never mind, I must contain myself--but the rod is in pickle!