“Another kind of pride illumines the wrinkled, smoke-dried face of the artisans whom Rembrandt painted; he ennobled the smoky lofts and little windows glazed with bottle ends; he illumined with sudden beauty these flat, rustic landscapes, dignified the roofs of thatch which his etching-point caressed with such pleasure on the copperplate. It was the beautiful courage of the humble, the holiness of things common but piously beloved, the grandeur of the humility which accepts and fulfils its destiny worthily, which attracted him.
“And the mind of the great artist is so active, so profound, that it shows itself in any subject. It does not even need a whole figure to express it. Take any fragment of a masterpiece, you will recognize the character of the creator in it. Compare, if you will, the hands painted in two portraits by Titian and Rembrandt. The hands by Titian will be masterful; those by Rembrandt will be modest and courageous. In these limited bits of painting all the ideals of these masters are contained.”
Italian Landscape
By Corot
As I listened to this profession of faith in the spirituality of art an objection rose to my lips.
“Master,” I said, “no one doubts that pictures and sculptures can suggest the most profound ideas; but many sceptics pretend that the painters and sculptors never had these ideas, and that it is we ourselves who put them into their works. They believe that artists work by pure instinct, like the sibyl who from her tripod rendered the oracles of God, without herself knowing what she prophesied. Your words clearly prove that your hand, at least, is ever guided by the mind, but is it so with all the masters? Have they always put thought into their work? Have they always had this clear idea of what their admirers found in them?”
“Let us understand each other,” Rodin said, laughing. “There are certain admirers of such complicated brain that they attribute most unexpected intentions to the artist. We are not talking of these. But you may rest assured that the masters are always conscious of what they do.” And tossing his head, “If the sceptics of whom you speak only knew what energy it takes for the artist to translate, even feebly, what he thinks and feels with the greatest strength, they would not doubt that all that appears shining forth from a picture or sculpture was intended.” A few moments later he continued: “In short, the purest masterpieces are those in which one finds no inexpressive waste of forms, lines, and colors, but where all, absolutely all, expresses thought and soul.
“Yet it may happen that when the masters animate the Nature of their ideals, they delude themselves. It may be that it is governed by an indifferent force or by a will whose design our intelligence is incapable of penetrating. At least, the artist, in representing the universe as he imagines it, formulates his own dreams. In nature he celebrates his own soul. And so he enriches the soul of humanity. For in coloring the material world with his spirit he reveals to his delighted fellow-beings a thousand unsuspected shades of feeling. He discovers to them riches in themselves until then unknown. He gives them new reasons for loving life, new inner lights to guide them.
An Old Man
By Rembrandt