88. 



PORTRAITS. -IDEAL BEAUTY. 323 



were the artists merely portrait painters, who painted nothing 

 else, because the occupation paid well, while it gave little 

 trouble to the mind. And if a Titian, a Vandyck, a Rembrandt, 

 a Velasquez, and others have left most exquisite portraits, 

 they did not make portrait painting their sole aim ; and their 

 portraits are not mere representations of the individuals; 

 they are real pictures. The variety of wealthy patrons 

 increased the evil, while it proved the power of patronage. 



Again, when painters ceased to give an ideal face to the 

 Madonna, and copied it from some real person, they intro- 

 duced a less exalted feeling into their works. Nor does this 

 apply only to sacred subjects ; and the same fault would be 

 committed by allowing the portrait of Mr. Smith to represent 

 Achilles, instead of the ideal figure which should convey an 

 impression of the hero. 



So with all ideal beauty * ; and, as Savonarola says, " it is 

 in something beyond what we see that the essence of supreme 

 beauty must be sought for ; the beauty of the body de- 

 pending in a great measure on the beauty of the soul." 

 Even in representing real persons, it is not enough that the 

 likeness should be a mere copy ; it must give the charac- 

 teristic expression of the individual ; and Lysippus was 

 right when he prided himself on making statues as the per- 

 sons appeared to be (quales viderentur esse)|, while others 

 made them as they were. Sophocles too said he described 

 his personages as they ought to be, Euripides as they were ; 

 and Aristotle (Poetic, c. 25), who mentions this, adds, that 

 " a poet should describe them according to general opinion, 



* Some deny the possibility of ideal beauty, and say that in a human figure 

 we can only represent forms we have seen, and the expression we have wit- 

 nessed; the Greeks and others, therefore, in order to give an idea of grandeur, 

 often went beyond the bounds of possibility, and made their figures of gods 

 colossal. But the objection seems rather to the term than to its meaning. 



f Pliny (xxxv. 10) seems, however, to combine with this a certain notion of 

 conventional treatment. (See above, p. 184.) 



v 2 



