PLEASURE IN PICTURES 155 



PLEASURE IN PICTUEES 



Br ROSSITER HOWARD 



I. Unaccustomed Power of Vision 



OUR tastes in pictures do not by any means agree — even those of very 

 wise critics, who ought to know the good from the bad. We might 

 get into all sorts of difficulties with the words good and bad; but most of 

 us look at pictures because we enjoy them, and our varying choices have 

 some elements in common. These common factors are a sort of mini- 

 mum wage which we ask in return for our attention, and our pay must 

 be immediately convertible into pleasure. 



Perhaps the requirement most nearly universal is that a picture shall 

 look like what it is intended to represent. The popular ideal of art has 

 always been to paint grapes so nearly like the real fruit that the birds 

 will peck at them, and the only excuse for not responding to this wide- 

 spread demand is that the artist is unskillful. 



The people's doctrine has good evolutionary reason back of it. 

 Vision was first developed in the animal by its use in recognizing objects, 

 and recognition is still its chief function and greatest pleasure. The 

 easier the recognition, the greater our sense of capacity; and perhaps the 

 largest element in the enjoyment of pictures is the sense of unaccustomed 

 capacity of vision. We notice this most easily in a portrait that is a 

 " striking likeness ;" that is, one that gives us such a sense of the person 

 represented that we react to it more than we should to a view of the 

 person himself, for we are not struck by the appearance of our friend. 

 As we look at such a picture we have a visual experience keener than is 

 our habit; our eyes have communicated to us the subject with great force 

 and yet with ease. Though we may say that it is the artist who has been 

 clever, the reason we believe so is that he has lent ability to our eyes. 

 Our feeling is closely akin to the one we have in golf when with an easy 

 swing of our club we feel the ball lifted and shot far beyond our ex- 

 pectation; we experience an unwonted power within ourselves, and a 

 consequent sense of abundant life. 



This portrait of " Innocent X." by Velasquez shows us a man with 

 whom we are not acquainted ; yet if we should enter the presence of this 

 pope himself he could hardly have upon us the electrifying effect made 

 by his portrait as we come upon it in a cabinet of the Doria Gallery in 

 Rome. It is as though some vital fluid were poured through our veins. 

 Admiration of the artist's ability plays no part in producing this first 

 feeling. The forcefulness which causes our whole organism to react to 



