Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
page 131 of 189 (69%)
page 131 of 189 (69%)
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The Individual is thus idealized, when, in the complete accordance of
all its parts, it is presented to the mind as a _whole_. When we apply the term _fragment_ to a human being, we do not mean in relation to his species, (in regard to which we have already shown him to be a distinct whole,) but in relation to the Idea, to which his predominant characteristic suggests itself but as a partial manifestation, and made partial because counteracted by some inadequate exponent, or else modified by other, though minor, characteristics. How this is effected must be left to the Artist himself. It is impossible to prescribe a rule that would be to much purpose for any one who stands in need of such instruction; if his own mind does not suggest the mode, it would not even be intelligible. Perhaps our meaning, however, may be made more obvious, if we illustrate it by example. We would refer, then, to the restoration of a statue, (a thing often done with success,) where, from a single fragment, the unknown Form has been completely restored, and so remoulded, that the parts added are in perfect unity with the suggestive fragment. Now the parts wanting having never been seen, this cannot be called a mere act of the memory. Nevertheless, it is not from nothing that man can produce even the _semblance_ of any thing. The materials of the Artist are the work of Him who created the Artist himself; but over these, which his senses and mind are given him to observe and collect, he has a _delegated power_, for the purpose of combining and modifying, as unlimited as mysterious. It is by the agency of this intuitive and assimilating Power, elsewhere spoken of, that he is able to separate the essential from the accidental, to proceed also from a part to the whole; thus educing, as it were, an Ideal nature from the |
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