132 THE MODEL 



The brain, by interposing its activity in however slight a 

 degree between the object and the representation, is bound 

 to interpret, and in so far to idealise. The primary reality 

 of the model, the secondary reality of the photographic 

 portrait, are exchanged for reality as the artist's mind and 

 heart have conceived it. Thus what a man sees and feels 

 in the world around him, what he selects from it, and how 

 he presents it, constitutes the differentia of art. He may 

 falsify or faithfully report, elevate or degrade, eliminate the 

 purest form from nature, or produce a gross satire of her 

 most beautiful creations. This intervention of the artist's 

 mind between the object and the figured representation 

 makes him an interpreter; it invests all works of art with 

 some mood, some tone, some suggestion of human thought 

 and emotion. And whether this intervention be voluntary 

 or involuntary matters little. The point to fix on is that 

 the artist's mind cannot be inoperative in the processes of 

 art. The imported element of subjectivity will be definite 

 or vague, according to the intensity of the artist's character, 

 and according to the amount of purpose or conviction which 

 he felt while working ; it will be genial or repellent, tender 

 or austere, humane or barbarous, depraving or ennobling, 

 chaste or licentious, sensual or spiritual, according to the bias 

 of his temperament. 



Now it is just this intervention of a thinking, feeling 

 subjectivity which makes Flandrin's study of the young man 

 alone upon the rock a painted poem. We may not, while 

 looking at this picture, be quite sure what the meaning of 

 the poem is : different minds, as in the case of musical 

 melody, will be affected by it in divers ways. To me, for 

 instance, the picture suggests resignation, the mystery of fate, 

 the calm of acquiescence. The ocean which surrounds that 

 solitary form, and the distant coast-line, add undoubtedly 

 to an imaginative impression of the sort I have described. 

 These accessories are absent in the photograph of the model, 

 which only suggests the interior of a studio. In so far, 

 therefore, as they contribute to the total effect of Flandrin's 

 picture, the mere model is at a palpable disadvantage. Yet 



