CHAPTER XVI. STILL, I will endeavour to deduce our conclusions from their first principles. I reason thus: if it is true that painting and poetry, in their imitations, make use of entirely different media of expression, or signs-the first, namely, of form and colour in space, the second of articulated sounds in time;-if these signs indisputably require a suitable relation to the thing betokened, then it is clear, that signs arranged near to one another, can only express objects, of which the wholes or parts exist near one another; while consecutive signs can only express objects, of which the wholes or parts are themselves consecutive. Objects, whose wholes or parts exist near one another, are called bodies. Consequently, bodies, with their visible properties, are the peculiar objects of painting. Objects, whose wholes or parts are consecutive, are called actions. Consequently, actions are the peculiar subject of poetry. Still, all bodies do not exist in space only, but also in time. They endure, and, in each moment of their duration, may assume a different appearance, or stand in a different combination. Each of these momentary appearances and combinations is the effect of a preceding action, may be the cause of a subsequent one, and is therefore, as it were, the centre of an action. Consequently, painting too can imitate actions, but only indicatively, by means of bodies. On the other hand, actions cannot exist by themselves, they must depend on certain beings. So far, therefore, as these beings are bodies, or are treated as such, poetry paints bodies, but only indicatively, by means of actions. In its coexisting compositions, painting can only make use of a single instant of an action, and must therefore choose the one, which is most pregnant, and from which what has already taken place, and what is about to follow, can be most easily gathered. In like manner, poetry, in its progressive imitations, is confined to the use of a single property of a body, and must, therefore, choose that which calls up the most sensible image of that body, in the aspect in which he makes use of it. From this flows the rule, that there should never be more than one epithet; and from it too has arisen the scarcity of descriptions of bodily objects. I should put but little confidence in this dry. chain of reasoning, did I not find it completely confirmed by the practice of Homer; or, I might even say, had it not been Homer himself who led me to it. It is only on these principles that the sublime style of the Greek poet can be determined, and explained, in such a manner, as to expose in its full absurdity the directly opposite style of so many modern poets, who have endeavoured to rival the painter in a department, in which he must necessarily vanquish them. I find that Homer describes nothing but progressive actions; and that, when he paints bodies, and single objects, he does it only as contributary to such, and, then, only by a single touch. It is no wonder then, that the artist finds least to employ his pencil, where Homer paints, and that his harvest is only to be found, where the story assembles a number of beautiful bodies, in beautiful attitudes, and in a space advantageous to art; though the poet himself may paint these forms, these attitudes, and this space, as little as he pleases. If we go through the whole series of paintings, as Caylus proposes them, piece by piece, we shall find in each a proof of the foregoing observation. I here quit the Count, who would make the pallet of the artist the touchstone of the poet, in order to explain the style of Homer more closely. Homer, I say, generally describes an object by a single characteristic; with him it is at one time the black, at another the hollow, at another the swift ship, at most the well-rowed black ship. Farther than this, he does not enter into any description of it. But still, of the sailing, the setting out, and hauling up, of the ship he draws a detailed picture. If the artist wished to transfer the whole of this to his canvass, he would be compelled to divide it into five or six different paintings. It is true that, in particular cases, Homer detains our attention upon a single object longer than is usual with him. Yet, in so doing, he creates no picture, which could be an object of imitation to an artist; by innumerable devices he contrives to set before our eyes a single object, as it would appear at distinct and successive instants, in each of which it is in a different stage, and in the last of which the artist must await the poet, in order to shew us, as already formed, that which, in his rival, we have seen forming. To take an instance of this: when Homer wants to shew us the chariot of Juno, Hebe puts it together, piece by piece, before our eyes. We see the wheels, the axle, the seat, the pole, the traces and straps, not as they are when all fitted together, but as they are being separately put together under the hands of Hebe. Of the wheel alone does the poet give us more than a single feature; there he points out, one by one, the eight bronze spokes, the golden felloes, the tire of bronze, and the silver One might almost say, that, because there was more than one wheel, he felt bound to spend as nave. much time in its description, as the putting on of the others would have taken in the actual operation.a Ήβη δ' αμφ' ὀχέεσι θεῶς βάλε καμπύλα κύκλα, Again, when he would show us how Agamemnon was clad, the king dons each article of his dress, separately, in our presence; his soft under coat, his great mantle, his beautiful half-boots, and his sword. Now he is ready, and grasps his sceptre. We see the garments, whilst the poet is describing the operation of putting them on; but another would have described the robes themselves, down to the smallest fringe, and we should have seen nothing whatever of the action.b Μαλακὸν δ ̓ ἔνδυνε χιτῶνα, καλόν, νηγάτεον, περὶ δὲ μέγα βάλλετο φάρος. This sceptre is here styled "the paternal," "the imperishable," as, elsewhere, one like it is described a Iliad, E. v. 722. b Iliad, B. ii. 42. |