CHAPTER VI.

ART AS REPRESENTATIVE RATHER THAN IMITATIVE OF NATURAL APPEARANCES.

Representation Contrasted with Imitation-Co-ordinated with Requirements of Imagination—Of Sympathy-Representation versus Imitation in Music-Representation in Music of Intonations of Speech-Of Natural Humming and of Surrounding Sounds-Representations of Nature in the Sounds and Figures of Poetry-In its General Themes -Representations of Nature in Painting and Sculpture-While Sometimes Imitative, These Are Always Representative- Shown in the Results of the Study of Values-Of Light and Shade-Of Shape and Texture Of Distance, and the Classic and Impressionist LineOf Aërial Perspective-Of Lineal Perspective-Of Life and Movement-Explaining Occasional Lack of Accuracy-Same Principles Applied to Sculpture-Representation rather than Imitation of Primitive Architecture as in Huts, Tents, etc.-Architectural Perspective as Applied by the Greeks-Explaining Differences in Measurements of Similar Features in the Same Building-Differences in Measurements of Corresponding Features in Different Buildings-Representation not Imitation the Artist's Aim in Reproducing Forms in Architecture.

THE

HE truth of the statements made at the close of the preceding chapter will be illustrated in this by showing their applicability to the method in which art deals. with the sights or sounds of nature. According to Webster, to represent means "to present again either by image, by action, by symbol, or by substitute," and there is no possible use of natural forms in art that cannot be included under one of these heads. Imitation, which is, undoubtedly, a frequent process in art, can be included

thus; but so can many other processes that are not imitative. Representation has a broader applicability, and by using this term we can get something expressing the exact truth in all cases. An orchestral passage in an opera, or a declamatory scene in a drama, cannot, strictly speaking, copy or imitate, but it can represent an exchange of thought between a demi god and a forest bird, as in Wagner's "Siegfried," or a conversation between historic characters as in Shakespeare's "Henry the Eighth." A painting of a man on canvas, or a statue of him in marble, does not, strictly speaking, copy or imitate a man, who, actually considered, can be neither flat nor white; but it does represent him. Columns, arches, and roofs do not, by any means, copy or imitate, but they do represent the trunks and branches and watershedding leaves of the forest. Nothing in fact that a man can make of the materials at his disposal can, strictly speaking, copy or imitate in all its features that which is found in nature; but he can always represent this.

It is precisely for this reason, too, because art does and can represent, and does not and need not always literally imitate, that it appeals to the imagination, as well as issues from it. A literal imitation, leaving nothing for the imagination to do, does not stimulate its action. Whistles or bells in music; commonplace phrases or actions in poetry; and indiscriminate particularities of detail in the work of pencil, brush, or chisel, usually produce disenchanting effects entirely aside from those that we feel to be legitimate to art. This is largely because the artist, in using them, has forgotten that his aim is less to imitate than to represent.

The fact that works of art represent explains, too, in

part, at least, the sympathetic interest which they awaken, -an interest often noticed and as often deemed essential. To what can this with better reason be attributed than to a recognition of the difficulties overcome-as must always be the case where a form of presentation is changedwhen producing in one medium an effect that in nature appears in another medium; and to a consequent appreciation of the particular originality and skill of the individual artist who has overcome these difficulties?

To apply these statements to the different arts, it is mainly owing to a lack of all appeal to the imagination or to the sympathies, that accurate imitations of the sounds that come from birds, beasts, winds, and waters fail to affect us as do chords which are recognised to be produced by wind and stringed instruments in the passages descriptive of the influence of a forest, in Wagner's opera of "Siegfried," or in the "Pastoral Symphonies" of Handel and Beethoven. Nor can any number of tones imitating exactly the expressions of love, grief, or fright compare, in their influence upon us, with the representations of the same in the combined vocal and instrumental melodies and harmonies of love-songs, dirges, and tragic operas. The truth of this may be more readily conceded in an art like music, perhaps, than in some of the other arts; for in it the imitative elements are acknowledged to be at a minimum. To such an extent is this the case, in fact, that some have declared it to be presentative rather than representative, not recognising that a use of such elements of duration, force, pitch, and quality as enable us to distinguish between a love-song, a dirge, and a tragic passage would altogether fail to convey their meaning, unless there were something in the movement to represent ideas or emotions which we

were accustomed to associate with similar movements perceived in nature.

Among these movements of sounds presented in nature we may class, for instance, the intonations of natural speech, by which are meant the tones, but not the articulations, used in uttering series of words. Notice the following song. The words composing it can be talked in accordance with the notation almost as easily as they can be sung:

If a bo-dy meet a bo-dy, Com-in' thro' the rye,

If a bo-dy kiss

a bo-dy, Need a body cry? Comin' thro' the Rye: Scotch Melody.

What is true of this melody is true of almost every melody that proves to be permanently popular. Beneath what is sometimes great exaggeration, we can detect the intonations natural to the speaking utterance of the sentiments expressed. This is the same as to say that, in such cases, music, while in no sense imitative, is nevertheless representative of the intonations of speech. In other cases, it might be said to be a development of something that lies behind the intonations of speech; and which, though having the same cause, antedates them, i. e., a development of humming in which almost every one, at times, indulges. A man, in the subjective, absent-minded condition in which he takes to humming, is usually unconscious of the presence either of surrounding persons or of sounds. He is not in a mood, there

fore, either to address the persons distinctly, or to repeat the sounds accurately. But while this is true, it is also true that his method of expression will necessarily, not in a specific but in a general way, represent his surround

ings. If he have ever heard, especially if he have heard (7)

frequently, sounds like the humming of bees, the whistling of winds or of railway locomotives, or the notes of squirrels, quails, whippoorwills, robins, catbirds, or of songs sung, or of exclamations or speeches made by men and women about him, in nine cases out of ten his own tones, at times unconsciously to himself, but nevertheless actually, will imitate some of these sounds, all of which, being external to himself, are, so far as he is concerned, those of external nature. Music, therefore, may be said to represent not only the natural intonations of the human voice, but natural sounds coming from sources that are not human

But how, it may be asked, is it with poetry? Can the same principle be applied to this art? Why not? Even where sounds are intentionally suggested, as in the quotations on page 210, these are less imitative, in a strict sense, than representative. The same is true of figurative language which calls up to imagination certain. scenes to which reference is made. How accurate is the picturing in the italicised words in the following; yet who can fail to perceive that each picture is produced by way of representation, and not, in any sense, of imitation? And multitudes of dense, white, fleecy clouds

Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind.

Prometheus Unbound, ii., I: Shelley.

I've learned to prize the quiet lightning deed;

Not the applauding thunder at its heels,
Which men call fame.

A Life Drama, 13: Alex. Smith