PLEASURE IN PICTURES 157 



this painting is nothing else than clearness of statement. A photograph 

 with every detail perfected lacks the clearness of this powerful portrait, 

 where the insignificant is blurred or omitted in order that we may grasp 

 at sight the significant. The careful reasoning of a school text-book is 

 not as lucid as the proverbs of " Poor Richard," which cause the mind to 

 leap to a sure conclusion. In a picture the essential quality is clarity ; 

 easy recognition is our experience of it. 



This is true even in a modern landscape where the rocks and trees of 

 nature are but half revealed by morning mists. Though it seem that the 

 charm lies in the very opposite of clearness, really the artist has pre- 

 sented the clearest possible statement of the conditions of nature which 

 are the spirit of misty dawn. Every element in the landscape which 

 would be the same at any time of day, in all weathers, in all of nature's 

 varying humors, these he has almost obliterated in order that we shall see 

 and feel what he saw and felt that early morning in the shimmering 

 light. Now a man to whom a morning mist is only an obscurity will 

 probably seek in this picture trees and rocks, and the mist will be to him 

 a weariness of the soul ; the picture to him is not clear and he finds no 

 pleasure in it. A photograph is more like the place. On the other hand, 

 we might be bored by the photograph's insistent detail, which dissipates 

 the expression of any nature quality; and we should find the painting 

 a jewel of direct presentation of the subject. 



The theories of most of those ultra-modern painters who are grouped 

 under the meaningless term " Post-impressionist " are elaborate explana- 

 tions of a similar aim to isolate some phase of our experience of nature 

 for its simpler, and therefore clearer, presentation. Such a phrase as 

 "the expression of our plastic consciousness" implies but the effort of 

 the Cubist painter to communicate with extraordinary simplicity and 

 force the perception of volume. It is of no importance to this discussion 

 if the artist does not accomplish his purpose ; it is the aim that we are 

 seeking. 



Narrative pictures introduce an extension of this principle. Here is 

 Carpaccio's " St. George and the Dragon," told with delightful vivacity. 

 We do not believe in dragons, and we may know nothing of St. George ; 

 but here is a fight with the hero triumphant, and if we have any imagi- 

 nation we push on that spear as eagerly as we lean down the course while 

 watching a hundred-yards' dash — with this difference, that we doubt the 

 outcome of the race, but feel sure of St. George. All the relations 

 are clear. 



Our physical vision is satisfied with easy recognition of hero, horse, 

 dragon and rescued princess; our mental vision interprets and relates 

 these separate objects with unusual facility. Now as intellect is no less 

 the product of evolution than is sight; as the primitive man who enjoyed 

 its exercise developed at the expense of the lazy man ; so to-day we are 



