Florentines the distinction is of vital consequence, for they have been in Europe who have most resolutely set themselves to work upon the specific problems of the art and have neglected, more than any other school, to call to their aid the secondary pleasures of association
Contact USIf we wish to appreciate their merit, we are forced to disregard the desire for pretty or agreeable types, dramatically interpreted situations of any kind. Worse still, we must even forgot our pleasure in colour, often a genuinely artistic pleasure, for they never systematically exploited this element, and in some of their best works the colour is actually harsh and unpleasant.
It was in fact upon form, and form alone, that the great Florentine masters concentrated their efforts, and we are consequently forced to the belief that, in their pictures at least, form is the principal source of our æsthetic enjoyment.
Contact USNow in what way, we ask, can form in painting give me a sensation of pleasure which differs from the ordinary sensations I receive from form? How is it that an object whose recognition in nature may have given me no pleasure, becomes, when recognised in a picture, a source of æsthetic enjoyment,
Contact UShe answer, I believe, depends upon the fact that art stimulates to an unwonted activity psychical processes which are in themselves the source of most of our pleasures, and which here, free from disturbing physical sensations, never tend to pass over into pain.
And it happens thus. We remember that to realise form we must give tactile values to retinal sensations. Ordinarily we have considerable difficulty in skimming off these tactile values, and by the time they have reached our consciousness, they have lost much of their strength.
Contact US
