If we call a painting by
Poussin pure style, a composition of David merely the perfection of
convention, one of M. Rochegrosse's dramatic canvasses the rhetoric of
technic and that only, we miss something. We miss the idea, the
substance, behind these varying expressions. These are not the less real
for being foreign to us. They are less spiritual and more material, less
poetic and spontaneous, more schooled and traditional than we like to
see associated with such adequacy of expression, but they are not for
that reason more mechanical. They are ideas and substance that lend
themselves to technical expression a thousand times more readily than do
ours. They are, in fact, exquisitely adapted to technical expression.
The substance and ideas which we desire fully expressed in color, form,
or words are, indeed, very exactly in proportion to our esteem of them,
inexpressible. We like hints of the unutterable, suggestions of
significance that is mysterious and import that is incalculable. The
light that "never was on sea or land" is the illumination we seek.
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