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 M ultiphysics
M odeling
U sing COMSOL ®5 and MATLAB ®
S econd E dition

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 LICENSE, DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY, AND LIMITED WARRANTY
By purchasing or using this book (the “Work”), you agree that this license grants
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 M ultiphysics
M odeling
U sing COMSOL ®5 and MATLAB ®
S econd E dition

Roger W. Pryor, Ph.D.

COMSOL Certified Consultant

MERCURY LEARNING AND INFORMATION

Dulles, Virginia
Boston, Massachusetts
New Delhi

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 3 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 Copyright ©2022 by Mercury Learning and Information LLC. All rights reserved.

This publication, portions of it, or any accompanying software may not be reproduced in any way, stored
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Publisher: David Pallai

Mercury Learning and Information
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info@merclearning.com
www.merclearning.com
(800) 232-0223

Roger W. Pryor. Multiphysics Modeling Using COMSOL®5 and MATLAB®, 2/E

ISBN: 978-1-68392-589-7

The publisher recognizes and respects all marks used by companies, manufacturers, and developers as
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MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 4 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 Contents
Prefacexi
Introductionxiii

Chapter 1: Modeling Methodology Using COMSOL

Multiphysics 5.x 1
Guidelines for New COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x Modelers 1
Hardware Considerations 2
Simple Model Setup Overview 4
Basic Problem Formulation and Implicit Assumptions 12
1D Window Heat Flow Models 13
1D 1 Pane Window Heat Flow Model 13
1D 2 Pane Window Heat Flow Model 35
1D 3 Pane Window Heat Flow Model 49
First Principles as Applied to Model Definition 60
Some Common Sources of Modeling Errors 62
References63
Suggested Modeling Exercises 63
Chapter 2: Materials Properties Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 65
Materials Properties Guidelines and Considerations 65
COMSOL Materials Properties Sources 66
Other Materials Properties Sources 68

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 vi • Contents

Material Property Entry Techniques 69

Multipane Window Model 69
Set Boundary Conditions 86
References88
Chapter 3: 0D Electrical Circuit Interface Modeling Using
COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 89
Guidelines for Electrical Circuit Interface Modeling in 5.x 90
Electrical / Electronic Circuit Considerations 90
Simple Electrical Circuit Interface Model
Setup Overview 99
Basic Problem Formulation and Implicit Assumptions 104
0D Basic Circuit Models 105
0D Resistor-Capacitor Series Circuit Model 105
0D Inductor-Resistor Series Circuit Model 112
0D Series-Resistor Parallel-Inductor-Capacitor
Circuit Model 118
0D Basic Circuit Models Analysis and Conclusions 125
First Principles as Applied to 0D Model Definition 126
References127
Suggested Modeling Exercises 128
Chapter 4: 1D Modeling Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 129
Guidelines for 1D Modeling in 5.x 129
1D Modeling Considerations 130
1D Basic Models 131
1D KdV Equation Model 131
1D Telegraph Equation Model 148
1D Spherically Symmetric Transport Model 167
1D Spherically Symmetric Transport Model Animation 184
1D Advanced Model 186
1D Silicon Inversion Layer Model: A Comparison
of the Results obtained from using the
Density-Gradient (DG) Theory and the
Schrodinger-Poisson (SP) Theory Methodologies 186

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 Contents • vii

First Principles as Applied to 1D Model Definition 223

References224
Suggested Modeling Exercises 226
Chapter 5: 2D Modeling Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 227
Guidelines for 2D Modeling in 5.x 227
2D Modeling Considerations 228
2D Basic Models 233
2D Electrochemical Polishing Model 233
2D Hall Effect Model 256
First Principles as Applied to 2D Model Definition 270
References271
Suggested Modeling Exercises 272
Chapter 6: 2D Axisymmetric Modeling Using COMSOL
Multiphysics 5.x 273
Guidelines for 2D Axisymmetric Modeling in 5.x 273
2D Axisymmetric Modeling Considerations 274
2D Axisymmetric Heat Conduction in a Cylinder Model 278
2D Axisymmetric Basic Models 278
2D Axisymmetric Cylinder Conduction Model 278
2D Axisymmetric Transient Heat Transfer Model 290
First Principles as Applied to 2D Axisymmetric
Model Definition 303
References304
Suggested Modeling Exercises 304
Chapter 7: 2D Simple and Advanced Mixed Mode Modeling
Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 307
Guidelines for 2D Simple Mixed Mode Modeling in 5.x 307
2D Simple Mixed Mode Modeling Considerations 308
2D Simple Mixed Mode Models 313
2D Electric Impedance Sensor Model 313
2D Metal Layer on a Dielectric Block Model 332
Heat Transfer 2 (ht2) Interface 346
Heat Transfer in Solids (ht) Interface 358

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 viii • Contents

First Principles as Applied to 2D Simple Mixed Mode

Model Definition 363
References364
Suggested Modeling Exercises 365
Chapter 8: 2D Complex Mixed Mode Modeling Using COMSOL
Multiphysics 5.x 367
Guidelines for 2D Complex Mixed Mode Modeling in 5.x 367
2D Complex Mixed Mode Modeling Considerations 368
2D Complex Mixed Mode Models Using the RF Module 370
Finding the Impedance of a Two (2) Wire,
Parallel-Wire, Air-Dielectric, Transmission Line 370
2D Finding the Impedance of a Two (2) Wire,
Parallel-Wire, Air-Dielectric, Transmission Line Model
Summary and Conclusions 389
2D Finding the Impedance of a Concentric,
Two (2) Wire, Transmission Line (Coaxial Cable) 389
2D Finding the Impedance of a Concentric,
Two (2) Wire  405
2D Axisymmetric Transient Modeling of a
Coaxial Cable 405
First Principles as Applied to 2D Complex Mixed Mode
Model Definition 431
References431
Suggested Modeling Exercises 432
Chapter 9: 3D Modeling Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 433
Guidelines for 3D Modeling in 5.x 433
3D Modeling Considerations 434
3D Models 438
3D Spiral Coil Microinductor Model 438
3D Linear Microresistor Beam Model 455
Multiphysics Thermal Linear Elastic 1 (te1)476
Heat Transfer in Solids (ht)477
First Principles as Applied to 3D Model Definition 489
References489
Suggested Modeling Exercises 490

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 Contents • ix

Chapter 10: Perfectly Matched Layer Models Using COMSOL

Multiphysics 5.x493
Guidelines for Perfectly Matched Layer (PML)
Modeling in 5.x 493
Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) Modeling
Guidelines and Coordinate Considerations 494
Perfectly Matched Layer Models 497
Building the 2D Concave Metallic Mirror PML Model 497
Building the 2D Energy Concentrator PML Model 517
First Principles as Applied to PML Model Definition 539
References540
Suggested Modeling Exercises 540
Chapter 11: Bioheat Models Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 543
Guidelines for Bioheat Modeling in 5.x 543
Bioheat Modeling Considerations 544
Bioheat Transfer Models 547
2D Axisymmetric Microwave Cancer Therapy Model 574
First Principles as Applied to Bioheat Model Definition 601
References602
Suggested Modeling Exercises 602
Appendix: A Brief Introduction to LiveLinkTM for MATLAB®
Using COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x 605
Guidelines for LiveLink Exploration through
Modeling in 5.x 605
Getting Started using LiveLink for MATLAB
with COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x on a
Windows® 10 platform 606
First Principles as Applied to Scripting and GUI Model
Definition614
References615
Suggested Modeling Exercises 615

Index617

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MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 10 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM
 Preface
The purpose of this second edition is to update the model building
­instructions to comply with COMSOL® Version 5.6, MATLAB® R2021a,
and later. The MATLAB material contained in the Appendix is revised and
updated to facilitate LIVELINK® interaction with COMSOL 5.x. This sec-
ond edition also introduces five new hands-on model building and problem-
solving techniques. In this new book, scientists, engineers, biophysicists,
and other readers interested in exploring the behavior of potential physi-
cal device structures built on a computer (a virtual prototype), can develop
exploratory models, before going to the workshop or laboratory and attempt-
ing to physically create the whatever-it-is (a real prototype).
The models presented herein are built within the context of the currently
well-established laws of the physical world (applied physics) and are explored
in light of widely applied, well-known, First Principle Analysis techniques.
As with any other method of problem solution (mathematically computed
answer), the information obtained (derived) through the use of such modeled
solutions, as these computer simulations (virtual prototypes), can ultimately
be only as accurate as the materials properties values and the fundamental
assumptions employed to build (create) these simulations.
The primary advantage of the combination of computer simulation (virtual
prototyping) and First Principles Analysis to explore artifacts (device struc-
tures) is that the modeler can try as many different approaches to the solu-
tion of the same underlying problem as are needed in order to get it right (or
close thereto) before fabrication of the device components and the assem-
bled device (real prototype) in the workshop or laboratory for the first time.

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 11 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 xii • Preface

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank David Pallai of Mercury Learning and Information for
his ongoing encouragement. I would also like to thank the many staff mem-
bers of COMSOL, Inc. for their help and encouragement.
I would especially like to thank Beverly E. Pryor, my wife, for her patience
and encouragement during the creation of the manuscript of this book. Any
residual errors in this work are mine and mine alone.
 Roger W. Pryor, Ph.D.
October 2021

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 12 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 Introduction
COMSOL Multiphysics software is a powerful, Partial Differential E­ quation
(PDE) solution engine. The basic COMSOL Multiphysics 5.x software has
over twenty-five (25) add-on modules that expand the capabilities of the
basic software into a broad collection of application areas: AC/DC, acous-
tics, batteries and fuel cells, CFD, chemical reaction engineering, electro-
deposition, geomechanics, heat transfer, MEMS, microfluidics, plasma, RF,
structural mechanics and subsurface flow, to name a few. The COMSOL
Multiphysics software also has other supporting software, such as the Opti-
mization Module, the Material Library Module, the CAD Import Module
and LiveLink™ interfaces for several engineering software programs.
In this book, scientists, engineers, and others interested in exploring the
behavior of different physical device structures through computer modeling
are introduced to the techniques of hands-on building and solving models
through the direct application of the basic COMSOL Multiphysics software,
along with some samples using the AC/DC, heat transfer, rf, ­semiconductor,
and structural mechanics modules. The next to the last technical chapter
explores the use of Perfectly Matched Layers in the RF Module. The final
technical chapter explores the use of the Bioheat Equation in the Heat
Transfer and RF Modules.
The models presented herein are built within the context of the physical
world (applied physics) and are presented in light of First Principle Analysis
techniques. The demonstration models emphasize the fundamental concept
that the information derived from the modeling solutions through the use of
these computer simulations is only as good as the materials coefficients and
the fundamental assumptions employed in building the models.

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 13 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 xiv • Introduction

The combination of computer simulation and First Principle Analysis gives

the modeler the opportunity to try a variety of approaches to the solution of
the same problem as needed in order to get the design right or nearly right
in the workshop or laboratory before the first device components are fabri-
cated and tested. The modeler can also use the physical device test results
to modify the model parameters and arrive at an improved solution more
rapidly than by simply using the cut and try methodology.

CHAPTER TOPICS
The eleven (11) technical chapters in this book demonstrate to the reader
the hands-on technique of model building and solving. The COMSOL con-
cepts and techniques used in these chapters are shown in Figure Int.1. The
COMSOL modules employed in the various models in specific chapters are
shown in Figure Int.2, and the physics concepts and techniques employed in
the various models in specific chapters are shown in Figure Int.3.

Concept/Technique 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Chapter:
0D Modeling •
1D Modeling • • •
2D Axisymmetric
• •
Coordinates
2D Axisymmetric
• • •
Modeling
2D Modeling • • • •
3D Modeling •
Animation • • •
Bioheat Equation •
Boolean Operations –
• • • • • •
geometry
Boundary Conditions • • • • • • • • • •
Conductive Media DC • • • • • •
Coupled Multiphysics
• • • • •
Analysis

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 14 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

 Introduction • xv

Concept/Technique 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Chapter:
Cylindrical
• • •
Coordinates
Deformed Mesh –
•
Moving Mesh
Domain Plot
• • • •
Parameter
Electromagnetics • • • • • •
Electronic Circuit
•
Modeling
Electrostatic Potentials • •
Fillet corners •
Floating Contacts •
Free Mesh Parameters • • • • • • •
Frequency Domain • • • • •
Global Equations • • • • • •
Heat Transfer
• • • • • • •
Coefficient
Laplacian Operator •
Lumped Parameters • •
Magnetostatic
• • •
Modeling
Materials Library • • • • • •
Mathematics –
•
Coefficient Form PDE
Mathematics –
•
General Form PDE
Maximum Element
• • • • •
Size
Mixed Materials
• •
Modeling
Mixed Mode Modeling • •
(continued)

MM2E5X.FM.2pp.indd 15 11/17/2021 4:19:39 PM

Other documents randomly have
different content
way to perfect victory. Thousands of painters have died without such
a feeling, and many thousands more will die without doing so."
In so far as the material is concerned, by means of which this
untransparent vitality of flesh is reproduced, the first medium to
declare its suitability for such an effect was the oil-pigment. Work in
mosaics is of all the least fitting to present us such a composite
effect. Its permanency is no doubt a recommendation, but inasmuch
as it can only express colour gradations through variously coloured
glass cubes or stones placed in juxtaposition, it is wholly unable to
reproduce the intermingling flow of one unified presentment of
many colours. Fresco and tempera painting carry us considerably
further in this direction. Yet in the case of fresco-painting the colours
are put on the wet plaster with too great rapidity, so that, on the
one hand, the greatest facility and sureness of brushwork is an
essential, and, on the other, the work has to be carried out with
broad adjacent strokes, which on account of their drying so rapidly
do not admit of a fine degree of finish[301]. The same kind of
difficulty meets us in the case of tempera-painting, a process[302]
which no doubt admits of great lucidity of expression[303] and
beautiful contrasts of light and shadow, yet for all that, by reason of
the fact that its medium dries so quickly, is less adapted to the
fusion and elaboration of its effects, and necessitates an articulate
surface made up of definite strokes of the brush. The oil pigment, on
the contrary, not only permits of the most tender and subtle melting
together and elaborate fusion of colour effect, so that transitions are
so imperceptible we cannot say where one colour begins and where
it leaves off, but it is, where its component elements are properly
fused and the execution of it is as it should be, itself remarkable for
a luminous quality like that of precious stones, and it can, by virtue
of its distinctions between opaque or transparent colours[304],
reproduce in a far higher degree than tempera painting the
translucency of different layers of colour.
The third and last point for our consideration in this connection is
the emanation[305] and mystery of colour in its entire effect. This
witchery of colour appearance will mainly be found, where the
substantive ideality of objects has become an effusion of spirit which
enters into the scheme and treatment of its coloured presentment.
In general, we may say that the magic consists in a handling of
colour by means of which we obtain an interplay of scenic effect
which is devoid of defined articulation as such, which is, in fact,
simply the result of moulding of colour in the finest degree of
fluency, a fusion of coloured material, an interplay of reflected points
which pass into one another, and are so fine and evanescent in their
gradations, so full of vital cohesion that the medium here seems
already to have entered that of musical sound. From the point of
view of modelling the mastery of chiaroscuro is part of this magic
result, an aspect of the art in which among the Italians Leonardo da
Vinci and, above all, Correggio were supreme. While introducing the
very deepest shadow, the transparency of this is not only preserved,
but is carried through imperceptible gradations to the most brilliant
light. By this means roundness in the moulding of form is complete;
there is no harshness of line or limit, but all is equable transition.
Light and shadow are not here merely in their immediate effect as
such, but gleam through one another much as a spiritual force is
operative through an external shell. It is just an effect like this we
find in the artistic treatment of colour, and the Dutch were no less
than others consummate masters of this. By virtue of this ideality,
this mutual relation between the parts, this interfusion of reflections
and colour scintillations, this alternation and evanescence of
transitional tones, a breath of soul and vitality is throughout
communicated in the brilliancy, depth, the mild and juicy illumination
of colour. It is this which gives us the magic effect of a masterpiece
of colour; it is the unique gift of the genius of the artist who is
himself the magician.
(γγ) And this brings us to the last point we have to discuss on this
part of our subject.
We started with the linear perspective, we passed on then to
drawing and concluded with colour; first considering light and shade
in its relation to modelling, and, secondly, viewing it as colour
simply, or more accurately, as the mutual relation between degrees
of brightness and darkness in colours, regarding it, moreover, in its
aspects of harmony, atmospheric perspective, flesh-colour and
magical effect. We have now to consider more directly[306] the
creative impulse of the artist in bringing about such colour effects.
The ordinary view is that the art of painting follows definite rules in
attaining its results. This is, however, only true of the linear
perspective, being as it is a wholly geometrical science, and even in
this case rules must not obtrude themselves in their abstract
stringency, if we are to preserve all that essentially contributes to
our art. And, in the second place, we shall find that artistic drawing
accommodates itself even less readily than perspective to universal
rules, but least of all is this true of colouring. Sense of colour ought
to be an artistic instinct or quality, should be as much a unique way
of looking at and composing existing tones of colour, as it should be
an essential aspect of creative power and invention. On account of
this personal equation in the production of colour, the way, that is,
the artist looks at and is active in the making of his world, the
immense variety which we find in different modes of treating, it is no
mere caprice and favourite mannerism of colouring, which is absent
from the facts in rerum natura, but lies in the nature of the case.
Goethe supplies us with an example of personal experience which,
as confided in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit," illustrates what I mean:
"As I returned to my cobbler's house [he had just visited the
Dresden Gallery] once more to take lunch I could scarce trust the
evidence of my eyes. I believed myself to see before me a picture of
Van Ostade[307], so complete it was, that you might have hung it
there and then in the Gallery. Composition of subject-matter, light,
shadow, brown tone of the whole, all that is admirable in this artist's
pictures I saw actually before me. It was the first time that I was
aware, to such a high degree of the power which I subsequently
exercised with intention, the power of seeing, that is, with the eyes
of the particular artist, to whose works I had just happened to
devote exceptional attention. This facility afforded me great
enjoyment, but also increased the desire from time to time to
persevere in the exercise of a talent which Nature seemed
ungracious enough to disallow me[308]." This variety in the manner
of colouring is exceptionally conspicuous in the painting of human
flesh, quite apart from all modifications rendered necessary by the
mode of lighting, age, sex, situation, and the like considerations.
And for the rest, whether the subject depicted be daily life, outside
or within the interior of private houses, taverns, churches, or other
buildings, or it be that of Nature's landscape, with its wealth of
objects and colour, which finds more or less accurate reflection in
the personal essay of any particular painter, the result cannot fail to
illustrate this varied play of form and colour effect[309], which will
infallibly appear, due as it is to the manner in which each
comprehends, reproduces, and creates his own work according to
his own outlook, experience and imaginative powers.
(c) We have hitherto, in discussing the several points of view which
are given effect to in the art of painting, referred, firstly, to its
content, and secondly to the sensuous medium in which such
content can be built up. We have in conclusion to define the mode
under which the artist is bound to conceive and execute his content
as a painter and under the conditions of his particular medium. We
will divide the very considerable matter which such an investigation
implies in the following manner:
First, we have to deal with the more general distinctions in forms of
conception, which it will be necessary to classify and follow in their
progressive advance to richer manifestations of life.
Secondly, we shall have to direct attention to the more definite
aspects, which, within these general types of conception, are more
directly referable to genuine pictorial composition, that is, the artistic
motives apparent in the particular situation and manner of grouping
selected.
Lastly, we propose to review rapidly the mode of characterization,
which results from distinctions of subject-matter no less than modes
of conception.
(α) With respect to the most generally prevailing modes of artistic
conception[310], we shall find these are in some measure due to the
content which has to be depicted, and in part are referable to the
course of the art's evolution, which does not from the first seek to
elaborate all that is apparent in any subject, but rather through a
variety of stages and transitions makes itself fully mistress of Life
and its manifestations.
(αα) The first position which the art of painting is able to secure still
betrays its origin from sculpture and architecture: in the entire mode
of its conception it is still in close association with these arts. And
this will pre-eminently be the case where the artist restricts himself
to individual figures, which he does not place before us in the vital
connections of an essentially concrete situation, but in the simple
independence of its self-repose. Out of the many sources of content
which I have indicated as adapted to painting, we shall find religious
subjects, Christ, his apostles, and the like are exceptionally suited to
such abstract treatment. Such figures as these must necessarily be
assumed to possess sufficient significance in their isolation, to be
complete in themselves, and to unfold an object sufficiently
substantive of adoration and love. Belonging to this type, particularly
in early art, we meet with examples of Christ or his saints isolated
without definite situation and environment. If we do find the latter it
mainly consists in architectural embellishments, particularly Gothic;
this is frequently the case in early Flemish or upper German art[311].
In this relation to architecture, among the columns and arches of
which such figures as the twelve apostles and others are frequently
composed, painting does not as yet attain to the life-like actuality of
its later development, and we find that even the figures still retain in
some measure a character which inclines to the statuesque, or to
some extent do not move beyond such a general type as we find
indicated in its fundamentals by Byzantine painting. For isolated
figures of this character, devoid of any background or only retaining
a purely architectonic outline, a more severe simplicity of colour, and
a more emphatic brilliancy, is as it should be. The oldest school of
painters have consequently employed a single-tinted ground of gold
instead of a rich natural landscape, a ground which the colours of
drapery have to confront, and to which they are compelled to adapt
themselves; these are consequently more decisive and glaring than
the colours employed in the periods of Art's finest bloom, just as we
find as a rule that simple vivid colours such as red, blue, and the
rest are most pleasing to uncultivated people.
To this earliest type of conception it is that for the most part the
miracle-working pictures belong. To such as to something
stupendous man is merely placed in a relation of stupidity, from
which the aspect of their artistic merit vanishes, so that they are not
brought nearer to his conscious life in friendly guise in accordance
with their vital humanity and beauty, and the very pictures which are
most revered in a religious sense are from an artistic standpoint the
most execrable.
If, however, isolated figures of this type do not supply an object for
devotion or interest as being already complete and independent
personality, their execution, carried out as it is in consonance with
the principle of statuesque conception, has no meaning at all.
Portraits, for example, are of interest to relatives who know the man
thus portrayed and his individuality. But where the personages thus
depicted are forgotten or unknown the sympathy which is excited by
their portraiture in a given action or situation, which gives definite
content to a particular character, is of a wholly different kind to that
which we find in the entirely simple type of conception above
referred to. Really great portraits, when they face us in the fullest
wealth of life all the means of art can display, possess in this wealth
itself the power to stand forth from and step out of their frames. In
looking at the portraits of Van Dyck, for example, more particularly
when the pose of the figure is not wholly full face, but slightly turned
away, the frame has struck me like the door of the world, which the
man before me enters. When consequently individuals do not
possess, as saints, angels and the like do, a characterization which is
in itself sufficiently complete and acknowledged, and are only
interesting by virtue of the definite character of a given situation,
some single circumstance or particular action, it is not suitable to
present them as independent figures. As an example of this the last
work of Kügelchen in Dresden was a composition of four heads, half
figures, namely, Christ, John the Evangelist, John the Baptist, and
the Prodigal Son. So far as Christ and John the Evangelist are
concerned I found the conception quite appropriate. But in the case
of the Baptist, and in every respect in that of the Prodigal Son, I
failed to connect with them the authentic character which could
justify a treatment of them as half-length portraits. In such cases it
is essential to place the figures in a condition of action or incident, or
at least to show them in situations, by means of which, in vital
association with external environment, they can assert the
individuality which marks an essentially exclusive whole. The head of
the Prodigal Son in the above picture expresses no doubt, very finely
too, pain, profound repentance and remorse, but the only indication
we have given us that this is the repentance of the Prodigal Son is a
very diminutive herd of swine in the foreground. Instead of a
symbolical reference of this kind we ought to see him among his
swine, or at least in some other scene of his life. The Prodigal Son,
in short, does not possess for us any further general characterization
complete as such in our minds and only exists, in so far as he is not
purely allegorical, in the well-known scenes of Biblical narrative. He
should be depicted to us as leaving his father's house, or in his
misery, his repentance and return, that is, in the concrete facts of
the tale. Those swine put in the foreground do not carry us much
further than a label with "The Prodigal Son" written on it.
(ββ) And generally it is obvious that painting, for the reason that its
function is to accept as its content the wealth of soul-life in all its
detail, is, to a yet greater extent than sculpture, unable to rest
satisfied with that repose on itself which is without defined situation
and the conception of a character taken by itself and alone simply. It
is bound to make the effort to exhibit such self-subsistency and its
content in specific situation, variety, and distinction of character
viewed in their mutual relations and in association with their
environment. It is, in fact, just this departure from purely eclectic
and traditional types, from the architectonic composition of figures
and the statuesque mode of conception; it is just this liberation from
all that is devoid of movement and action, this striving after a living
human expression, a characteristic individuality; it is this investment
of a content with all the detail of the ideal and external condition
that affects it which constitutes the advance of the art, in virtue of
which it secures its own unique point of view. Consequently to
painting as to no other plastic art is it not merely permitted, but it is
even required from it, that it should unfold dramatic realization, and
by the composition of its figures display their activity in a distinctly
emphasized situation.
(γγ) And, in the third place, closely connected with this absorption in
the complete wealth of existing life and the dramatic movement of
circumstance and character, we are aware of the importance which
is increasingly attached, both in conception and execution, to the
individuality and the vital wealth of the colour aspect of all objects,
in so far as in painting we attain to the supremest effects of vital
truth which are capable of being expressed purely by colour.
This magical result of appearance can, however, be carried to such a
pitch, that in contrast to it the exhibition of content becomes a
matter of indifference, and painting tends to pass over, in the mere
charm and perfume of its colour tones, and the contrast, fusion, and
play of their harmonies, into the art of music, precisely as sculpture,
in the elaboration of its reliefs, tends to associate itself with painting.
(β) What we have in the first instance now to pass in review are the
particular lines[312] that pictorial composition is constrained to
adhere to in its productions when presenting to us a definite
situation and the more immediate motives referable to it by virtue of
the way it concentrates and groups together various figures and
natural objects in one self-exclusive whole.
(αα) What is of fundamental and pre-eminent importance here is the
happy selection of a situation adapted to the art.
In this respect the imaginative powers of the painter possess an
immeasurable field to select from, a field whose limits extend from
the simplest situation[313] of an object insignificant in itself, such as
a wreath of flowers, or a wineglass composed with plates, bread,
and certain fruits, to rich compositions of important public events,
political actions, coronation fêtes, battles, or even the Last
Judgment, in which God the Father, Christ, his apostles, the heavenly
legions, nay, our entire humanity, and earth, heaven, and hell are
brought together. And here a closer inspection will show us that we
must clearly distinguish what is truly pictorial on the one hand from
that which is sculpturesque, and on the other from what is poetical
in the sense that it is only poetry that can fully express it.
The essential difference between a pictorial, and sculpturesque
situation consists, as we have already seen, in this, that the main
function of sculpture is to place before us that which is self-
subsistent in its tranquillity, without conflict under conditions that do
not affect it, in which distinctness of definition is not the main
demand, it is only in the relief that it really begins to approach a
group composition, and an epic expanse of figures begins to
represent actions involving motion, and which imply collision of
opposing forces. The art of painting, on the contrary, only
thoroughly takes up its proper task, when it moves away from
figures composed independently of their more concrete relations,
moves away from a situation that is deficient in its elaboration, in
order that it may thus pass into the sphere of living movement,
human conditions, passions, conflicts, actions in persistent
association with external environment, and even in its composition
of natural landscape is able to retain firmly this definite structure of
a given situation and its most lifelike individuality. It was for this
reason that from the first we maintained that painting was called
upon to effect the exposition of character, soul, and ideal qualities,
not in the way that this spiritual world enables us to recognize it
directly in its external shape, but in the way it evolves and expresses
its actual substance by means of actions.
And the truth we have just mentioned is that which brings painting
into closer relation with poetry. Both arts have in this respect an
advantage[314], and from another point of view, also a disadvantage.
Painting is unable to give us the development of a situation, event,
or action, as poetry or music, that is to say, in a series of changes; it
can only embody one moment of time. A simple reflection is
deducible from this, namely, that we must in this one moment have
placed before us the substance of the situation or action in its
entirety, the very bloom of it; consequently, that moment should be
selected in which all that preceded and followed it is concentrated in
one point. In the case of a battle, for example, this moment will be
that of victory. The conflict is still apparent, but its decisive
conclusion is equally so. The artist is able, therefore, to retain as it
were the residue of the Past, which, in the very act of withdrawal
and disappearance, still asserts itself in the Present, and furthermore
can suggest what has yet to be evolved as the immediate result of a
given situation. I cannot, however, here enlarge further on this head.
The painter, however, together with this disadvantage as against the
poet, is to this extent advantaged in that he can bring the precise
scene before our vision in all the appearance of its reality, can depict
it perfectly in all its detail. "Ut pictura poesis erit" is no doubt a
favourite saying which is particularly and pertinaciously advanced by
theorists, and is no doubt actually accepted and exemplified by
narrative poetry in its descriptions of the seasons, its flowers, and its
landscapes. Detailed transcription of such objects and situations is,
however, not only a very dry and tedious affair, and indeed, so far
from being exhaustive, always leaves something more to say. It is,
further, contrasted with painting, only a confusing result, because it
is forced to present as a successive series of ideas what painting
sets before our vision once and for all, so that we constantly tend to
forget what has gone before and lose it from our minds, despite the
fact that it should be held in essential relation with that which
follows, inasmuch as under the spatial condition it is in fact a part of
it, and only is significant in this association and this immediacy. It is,
however, just in this contemporaneous exposition of detail that the
painter can restore that which, in respect to the progressive series of
past and future events, he fails to secure.
There is, however, another respect in which painting yields place to
poetry and music, and that is in its lyrical quality. The art of poetry
can not only develop emotions and ideas generally as such
respectively, but also in their transitions, movement, and increased
intensity. In respect to concentrated intensity this is yet more the
case in music, which is essentially concerned with soul-movement.
To represent this painting has nothing beyond the expression of face
and pose; and if it does exclusively direct its effort, to what is
actually lyrical, it misconceives the means at hand. However much
the soul's passion may be expressed in the play of the countenance
or bodily movement, such expression should not be directly referable
to emotion as such, but to emotions in so far as they are present,
with a definite mode of expression, in an event or action. The fact
that it reveals ideality in external form therefore does not connote
the abstract meaning that it makes the nature of the soul visible by
means of physiognomy and form, under the mode of which it
expresses soul-life; it is rather just the individual situation of an
action, passion in some specific outburst thereof, by means of which
the emotion is unfolded and recognized. When, therefore, it is
attempted to interpret the poetical quality of painting under the
assumption that it should express the soul's emotion directly, without
a motive and action more near to it in facial expression and pose, all
that we do in such a case is to throw the art back upon an
abstraction, which its effort should precisely strive to be rid of; we
ask of it, in short, that it should master the peculiar and just
contribution of poetry; and if it attempts to do this the result will be
a barren and stale one.
I particularly insist on this point because in the exhibition of art we
had here last year (1828) several pictures from the so-called
Düsseldorf school have received much attention, the painters of
which, while displaying in their work considerable knowledge and
technical ability, have laid almost exclusive stress on this ideal
aspect, on material that is only capable of adequate presentment in
poetry. The content, for the most part borrowed from poems of
Goethe or from Shakespeare, Ariosto, and Tasso, may be generally
indicated as the ideal emotion of Love. As a rule the most capable of
these pictures set before us a pair of lovers, Romeo and Juliet, for
example, or Rinaldo and Armida, without any further situation, so
that these couples have nothing more to do and express except the
fact that they are in love with each other, in other words, they share
a mutual attraction, gaze on each other as lovers, and as lovers look
yet again. Naturally in such a case the main expression must be
concentrated in the mouth and eyes; and we may add that our
Rinaldo has been so placed relatively to his spider legs that he looks
very much as though he did not know what to do with them. They
are extensions which are entirely without meaning. Sculpture, as we
have seen, dispenses with the glance of eye, the soul-flash; painting,
on the other hand, seizes on this potent means of expression, but it
must not focus everything at this one point, it should not make the
fire or the refluent languor and yearning of the eye or soft
friendliness of lips the soul and centre of expression without any
other motives. Equally defective was the fisherman of Hübner, the
theme of which was borrowed from that famous poem of Goethe,
which depicts with such wonderful depth and charm of feeling the
indefinite yearning for the repose, coolness and purity of water. The
naked fisher lad, who in this picture is being drawn into the water,
has, just as the male figures in the other pictures have, a very
prosaic looking face, such as we could not imagine, if the features
were in repose, to be capable of profound or beautiful emotions.
And, as a rule, we cannot assert of these figures, whether male or
female, that they are beautiful in a healthy sense; they, on the
contrary, merely betray the nervous excitement, weakness, and
disease of Love and emotional life generally, which people have no
business to repeat and which we would willingly, whether in life or
Art, be spared. To the same class of conception belongs the way that
Schadow, the master of this school, has depicted Goethe's Mignon.
The character of Mignon is wholly poetical. What makes her
interesting is her Past, the severity of her destiny as it affects both
her inward and outward life, the conflict of her Italian, wholly excited
passion in a soul which is still obscure to itself, which can neither
decide upon a course of action or object, and which, being this
mystery to itself, merges itself in such and yet can do itself no good.
It is this self-expression wholly divided in itself and yet retiring into
itself, and only letting us see its confusion in isolated and unrelated
eruptions, which creates the awful interest we cannot fail to
experience in her. Such a network of contradictions we may no
doubt imagine in our minds, but the art of painting is wholly unable
to, present it to us, as Schadow has attempted to do, simply by
means of Mignon's form and physiognomy, without defining further
any situation or action. We may, therefore, assert generally that the
above-mentioned pictures are conceived without any real insight for
situations, motives, and expression. It is, in short, an inseparable
condition of genuine artistic representations of painting that the
entire subject-matter should be grasped with imaginative power,
should be made visible to us in figurative form, which is expressed
and manifests its ideal quality through a series of feeling, that is,
through an action, which is of such significance to the emotion, that
each and everything in the work of art appears to be entirely
appropriated by the imagination to express the content selected.
The old Italian painters have to a conspicuous degree, no less than
their modern fraternity, depicted love-scenes, and in part borrowed
the material from poetry; but they have known how to clothe the
same with imagination and delight. Cupid and Psyche, Cupid and
Venus, Pluto's rape of Proserpine, the rape of the Sabine women,
such and other similar subjects the old masters depicted in lifelike
and definite situations, in scenes properly motived and not merely as
simple emotion conceived without imaginative grasp, without action.
They have also borrowed love scenes from the Old Testament. We
may find an example in the Dresden Gallery, a picture of Giorgione,
in which Jacob, after his long journey, greets Rachel, presses her
hand and kisses her; in the distance there stand a pair of youths by
a spring, busily engaged in watering their herds, which are feeding,
a large number of them, in the dale. Another picture presents to us
Isaac and Rebecca. Rebecca gives Abraham's carls water to drink
and is recognized in doing so. In the same way scenes are taken
from Ariosto; we have Medor, for example, writing the name of
Angelica on the edge of a spring. When, therefore, people nowadays
refer to poetry in painting, this can only mean, as already insisted,
that we must grasp a subject imaginatively and suffer emotions to
unfold themselves in action; it excludes the idea of securing feeling
simply as such or endeavouring thus to express it. Even poetry,
which is capable of expressing emotion in its ideal or spiritual
substance, is unfolded in ideas, images, and descriptions. If this art
was content to abide by a mere "I love thee," repeated eternally, as
its entire expression, such a consummation no doubt, might prove
highly agreeable to those masters who have talked so much about
the poetry of poetry, but it would be the blankest prose for all that.
For art generally in its relation to emotion consists in the
apprehension and enjoyment of the same by means of the
imagination, which in poetry displays passion in its conceptions, and
satisfies us in their expression, whether that expression be lyrical, or
conveyed in epical events, or dramatic action. As a presentment of
the inward life of soul, however, in painting the mouth, eye, and
pose, do not alone suffice; we must have the total objective
realization in its concreteness to make valid and vouch for such
ideality.
The main thing, then, in a picture is that it present to us a situation,
the scene of some action. And closely associated with this we have
the primary law of intelligibility. In this respect religious subjects
possess the supreme advantage, that they are universally known.
The annunciation of the angel, the adoration of the shepherds or of
the three kings, the repose in the flight to Egypt, the crucifixion,
burial, resurrection, no less than the legends of the saints, were well
known subjects with the public, for whom such pictures were
painted, albeit to our own generation the stories of the martyrs are
removed to some distance. For a particular church, for example, it
was mainly the biography of its patrons or its guardian saints which
was represented. Consequently it was not always the painters
themselves who selected such subjects; particular circumstances
rendered such selection inevitable for particular altars, chapels, and
cloisters, so that the place where they are exhibited in itself
contributes to their elucidation. And this is, in part, necessary, for in
painting we do not find speech, words, and names, by which
interpretation of poetry may be materially assisted to say nothing of
all its other means. And in the same way in a royal residence,
council-hall, or parliament-building, scenes of great events,
important situations taken from the history of the state, city, and
building in which they are found are there, and receive a just
recognition in the place for which they were originally painted. It is
hardly likely, for instance, that in painting a picture for one of our
palaces an artist would select a subject borrowed from English or
Chinese history, or from the life of King Mithridates. It is otherwise in
picture galleries, where we have all kinds of subjects brought
together that we could wish to buy or possess as examples of fine
works of art. In such a case, of course, the peculiar relation of any
picture to a definite locale, no less than its intelligibility, so far as it is
thereby promoted, disappears. The same thing is true of the private
collection. The collector brings together just what he can get; the
principle is that of a public gallery, and his love of art or caprice may
extend in other directions.
Allegorical pictures are far inferior to those of historical content in
the matter of intelligibility; they are, moreover, for the reason that
the ideal vitality and emphatic characterization of the figures must in
great measure pass out of them, indefinite, and not motive to
enthusiasm. Landscapes and situations borrowed from the reality of
daily life, are, on the contrary, no less clear in their substantial
import than, in respect to their characterization, dramatic variety,
movement and wealth of existence, they supply a highly favourable
opportunity for inventive power and executive ability.
(ββ) To render the defined situation of a picture intelligible, in so far
as the artist is called upon to do this, the mere fact of its local place
of exposition and a general knowledge of its subject will not suffice.
As a general rule, these are purely external relations, under which
the work as a work of art is less affected. The main point of real
importance consists, on the contrary, in this that the artist be
sufficiently endowed in artistic sense and general talent to bring into
prominence and give form to the varied motives, which such a
situation contains, with all the bounty of invention. Every action, in
which the ideal world is manifested in that which is external,
possesses immediate modes of expression, sensuous results and
relations, which, in so far as they are actually the activities of spirit,
betray and reflect its emotion, and consequently can be utilized with
the greatest advantage as motives which contribute to the
intelligibility of the work no less than its individual character. It is, for
example, a frequent criticism of the Transfiguration picture of
Raphael, that the composition is cut up into two unrelated parts; and
this from an objective standpoint is the case. We have the
transfiguration on the hill and the incident of the possessed child in
the foreground. From an ideal[315] point of view, however, an
association of supreme significance is undoubtedly present. For, on
the one hand, the sensuous transfiguration of Christ is just this very
exaltation of himself above the earth and his removal from his
disciples, a removal which as such separation ought to be made
visible; and from a further point of view the majesty of Christ is in
this, an actual and particular case, to the highest degree emphasized
by the fact that the disciples are unable to heal the possessed child
without the assistance of their Master. In this instance, therefore,
this twofold action is throughout motived, and the association is
enforced before our eyes, both in its external and ideal aspect, by
the incident that a disciple expressly points to Christ who is removed
from them, and in doing so suggests the profounder truth of the Son
of God to be at the same time on Earth, in accordance with the truth
of that saying, "If two are gathered together in my name I am in the
midst of them." I will give yet another illustration. Goethe on one
occasion gave as a subject for a prize exhibition the representation
of Achilles in female garments at the coming of Odysseus. In one
drawing Achilles glances at the helmet of the armed hero, his heart
fires up at the sight, and in consequence of this emotion the pearl
necklace is broken which he wears round the neck. A lad seeks for
and picks up the pieces from the ground. Such is an example of
admirable motive.
Moreover, the artist finds he has to a more or less extent large
spaces to fill in; he requires landscape as background, lighting,
architectonic surrounding, and he has to introduce incidental figures
and objects and so forth. All this material he should apply, in so far
as it can be so adapted, as motives in the situation, and bring this
external matter into unity with his subject in such a way that it is no
longer insignificant. Two princes or patriarchs shake hands. If this is
indicative of a peace treaty, and the seal upon the same, warriors,
armed bands, and the like, preparations for a sacrifice to solemnize
the pact, will be an obviously fitting environment. If such people
happen to meet each other with a similar welcome on a journey,
other motives will be necessary. To invent the same in a way that
attaches real significance and individualization to the action, this it is
which more than anything else will test the artistic insight of the
painter so far as this aspect of his work is concerned. And in order to
promote this not a few artists have also attached symbolical
relations between background and the main action. In the
composition, for example, of the Adoration of the three Kings, we
not unfrequently find the holy Infant in His cradle beneath a ruined
roof, around Him the walls of a building falling in decay, and in the
background the commencement of a cathedral. The falling stone-
work and the rising cathedral directly suggest the victory of the
Christian church over paganism[316]. In the same way we find, not
unfrequently, in pictures, more especially of the Van Eyck school,
which depict the greeting of the angel Gabriel to Mary, flowering
lilies like stamens. They indicate the maidenhood of the mother of
God.
(γγ) Inasmuch as in the third place the art of painting, by virtue of
the principle of ideal and external variety, in which it is bound to give
clear definition to situations, events, conflicts, and actions, is forced
to deal on its way with many kinds of distinction and contradiction in
its subject-matter, whether purely natural objects or human figures,
and, moreover, receives the task to subdivide this composite
content, and create of it one harmonious whole, a way of posing and
grouping its figures artistically, becomes one of the most important
and necessary claims made upon it. Among the crowd of particular
rules and definitions, however, which are applicable to this subject,
what we are able to affirm in its most general terms can only be
valid in quite a formal way, and I will merely draw attention shortly
to a few of the main points.
The earliest mode of composition still remains entirely architectonic,
a homogeneous juxtaposition of figures or a regular opposition and
symmetrical arrangement, not merely of the figures themselves, but
also their posture and movements. We may add that at this stage
the pyramidal form of grouping is much in favour. When the subject
is the Crucifixion of our Lord such shapes follow as a matter of
course. Christ is suspended on high from the cross, and at the sides
we have a group of the disciples, Mary the mother, or saints. In
pictures of the Madonna also, in which Mary is seated with her Child
on a raised throne, and we find adoring apostles, martyrs, and so
forth, beneath them on either side we have a further illustration of
this form. Even in the Sistine Madonna picture this mode of grouping
is still in its fundamental features retained. And, generally, it brings
repose to the eye because the pyramids, by virtue of its apex, makes
the otherwise dispersed association coherent, giving an external
point of unity to the group[317].
Within the limits, however, of such a generally abstract symmetrical
composition, the pose of the figures may be marked in detail by
great vividness and individuality, and equally the general expression
and movement. The artist, while using in combination the means of
his art, will have his several planes, whereby he is able more
definitely to emphasize the more important figures as against the
others; and he can in addition avail himself of his scheme of lighting
and colour. The way he will arrange his groups to arrive at this result
is sufficiently obvious. He will not, of course, place his main figures
at the sides, or place subordinate ones in positions which are likely
to attract the highest attention. And similarly he will throw the
strongest light on objects which are part of the most significant
content, rather than leave them in shadow, and emphasize with such
strong light and the most conspicuous tints objects which are
incidental.
In the case he adopts a method of grouping less symmetrical, and
thereby more life-like, the artist will have to take especial pains not
to make the figures press too closely on each other, which results in
a confusion not unfrequently noticeable in certain pictures; we
should not be under the necessity of having first to identify limbs
and discover which belong to which, whether they be arms, legs, or
other properties, such as drapery, armour, and so forth. It will, on
the contrary, be wisest in the case of larger compositions, in the first
instance no doubt, to separate the whole into component parts
easily ascertained, but, at the same time, not to isolate them in
dispersion entirely. And particularly will this be advisable where we
have scenes and situations, which on their own account naturally
tend to a broad and disunited effect such as the gathering of manna
in the wilderness, market-fairs, and similar subjects.
On the above subject I must restrict myself here to these very
general observations.
(γ) Having thus, firstly, dealt with the general types of pictorial
composition, and, secondly, with a composition from the point of
view of selection of situations, arrangement of motives and
grouping, we will now add a few remarks upon the mode of
characterization, by means of which painting is to be distinguished
from sculpture and its ideal plastic character.
(αα) I have several times previously taken occasion to remark, that
in painting the ideal and external particularity of soul-life is admitted
in its freedom, and consequently is not necessarily that typical
beauty of individualization which is inseparable from the Ideal itself,
but one which is suffered to expand in every direction of particular
appearance, by virtue of which we obtain that which in modern
parlance is called characteristic. Critics have generally referred to
"the characteristic" thus understood as the distinctive mark of
modern art in its contrast to the antique; and, in the significance we
are here attaching to the term, no doubt the above contrast is just.
According to our modern criterion Zeus, Apollo, Diana, and the rest
are really not characters at all in this sense, although we cannot fail
to admire their infinitely lofty, plastic, and ideal individualities. We
already find a more articulate individualization is approached by the
Homeric Achilles, the Agamemnon and Clytemnestra of
Aeschylus[318], or the Odysseus, Antigone, and Ismene in the type
of spiritual development which by word and deed Sophocles unfolds
to us, a definition in which these figures subsist in what appears to
be consonant with their substantive nature, so that we can no doubt
discover the presentment of character in the antique if we are
prepared to call such creations characters. Still in Agamemnon, Ajax,
Odysseus, and the rest, the individualization remains throughout of a
generalized type, the character of a prince, of frantic rage, of
cunning in its more abstract determinacy. The individual aspect is in
the result closely intertwined with the general conception, and the
character is merged in an individualization of ideal import. The art of
painting, on the contrary, which does not restrain particularity within
the limits of such ideality, is more than anything else occupied with
developing the entire variety of that aspect of particularization which
is accidental, so that what we have now set before us, instead of
those plastic ideals of gods and men, is particular people viewed in
all the varied appearance of their accidental qualities. Consequently
perfection of corporeal form, and the fully realized consonancy of the
spiritual or ideal aspect with its free and sane existence, in a word,
all that in sculpture we referred to as ideal beauty, in the art of
painting neither make the same claim upon us, nor generally are
regarded as the matter of most importance, inasmuch as now it is
the ideality of soul-life itself, and its manifestation as conscious life
which forms the centre of interest. In this more ideal sphere that
realm of Nature is not so profoundly insistent. Piety of heart, religion
of soul can, no less than ethical sense, and activity in fact did in the
Silenus face of Socrates, find a dwelling in a bodily form which,
viewed on the outside simply, is ugly and distorted. No doubt in
expressing spiritual beauty, the artist will avoid what is essentially
ugly in external form, or will find a way to subdue and illumine it in
the power of the soul which breaks through it, but he cannot for all
that entirely dispense with ugliness[319]. For the content of painting,
as we have above depicted it at length, includes within itself an
aspect, for which it is precisely the abnormal and distorted traits of
human figures and physiognomy, which are most able to express.
This is no other than the sphere of what is bad and evil, which in
religious subjects we find mainly represented by the common
soldiers, who take a part in the passion of Christ, or by the sinners
and devils in hell. Michelangelo was pre-eminent in his delineation of
devils. In his imaginative realization, though we find he passes
beyond the scale of ordinary human life, yet at the same time an
affinity with it is retained. However much notwithstanding the
impersonations which painting sets before us necessarily disclose an
essentially complete whole of characteristic realization, we will not
go so far as to maintain that we cannot find in them an analogue of
that which we refer to as the Ideal in the most plastic type of
art[320]. In religious subjects, no doubt, the feature of all importance
is that of pure Love. This is exceptionally so in the case of the Virgin
mother, whose entire life reposes in this love; it is more or less the
same thing with the women who accompany the Master, and with
John, the disciple of Love. In the expression of this we may also find
the sensuous beauty of forms associated, as is the case with
Raphael's conceptions. Such a close affinity must not, however,
assert itself merely as formal beauty, but must be spiritually made
vital through the most intimate expression of soul-life, and thereby
transfigured; and this spiritual penetration must make itself felt as
the real object and content. The conception, too, of beauty, has its
real opportunity in the stories of Christ's childhood and those of John
the Baptist. In the case of the other historical persons, whether
apostles, saints, disciples, or wise men of antiquity, this expression
of an emphasized intensity of soul-life is rather simply an affair of
particular critical situations, apart from which they are mainly placed
before us as independent characters of the actual world of
experience, endowed with force and endurance of courage, faith and
action, so that what most determines the gist of their characters in
all its variety is an earnest and worthy manliness. They are not
ideals of gods, but entirely individualized human ideals; not simply
men, as they ought to be, but human ideals[321], as they actually
are in a certain place, to which neither particular definition of
character is wanting, nor yet a real association between such
particularity and the universal type which completes them.
Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, in his famous Last
Supper, have supplied examples of this type, in the composition of
which we find an entirely different quality of worth, majesty and
nobility present than in those presented by other painters[322]. This
is precisely the point at which painting meets on the same ground
with the ancients, without, however, sacrificing the character of its
own province.
(ββ) Inasmuch, moreover, as the art of painting, to the fullest extent
among the plastic arts, acknowledges the claim of the specific form,
and the individualized characterization to assert itself, so above all
we find here the transition to real portraiture. We should be
therefore wholly in the wrong if we condemned portrait painting as
incompatible with the lofty aims of art. Who indeed could desire to
lose the great number of excellent portraits painted by the great
masters? Who is not, quite apart from the artistic merits of such
works, curious to have definitely substantiated to their vision this
actual counterfeit of the idea of famous personalities, their genius,
and their exploits, which they may have otherwise had to accept
from history. For even the greatest and most highly placed man was,
or is, a veritable individual, and we desire to see in visible shape this
individuality, and the spiritual impression of it in all its most actual
and vital characteristics. But apart from objects, which lie outside
the purview of art, we may assert in a real sense, that the advances
in painting from its imperfect essays consist in nothing so much as
this very elaboration of the portrait. It was, in the first instance, the
pious and devotional sense which brought into prominence the ideal
life of soul. A yet finer art added new life to this sense by adding to
its product reality of expression and individual existence; and with
this profounder penetration into external fact the inward life of spirit,
the expression of which was its main object, was also enhanced and
deepened. In order, however, that the portrait should be a genuine
work of art the unity of the spiritual individuality must, as I have
already stated, be stamped upon it, and the spiritual impression of
the characterization must be the one mainly emphasized and made
prominent. Every feature of the countenance contributes to this
result in a conspicuous degree, and the fine instinct for detecting
such in the artist will declare itself by the way in which he makes
visible the unique impression of any personality by seizing and
emphasizing precisely those traits, and parts in which this distinctive
personal quality is expressed in its clearest and most vitally pregnant
embodiment. In this respect a portrait may be very true to Nature,
executed with the greatest perseverance, and yet entirely devoid of
life, while a mere sketch[323], a few outlines from the hand of a
master, may be infinitely more vivacious and arresting in its truth.
Such a study should, however, by indicating the lines or features of
real significance, reflect that character in its structural
completeness[324], if on the simplest scale, which the previous
lifeless execution and insistence upon crude fact glosses over and
renders invisible. The most advisable course, as a rule, is to maintain
a happy mean between such studies, and purely natural imitation.
The masterly portraits of Titian are of this type. The impression such
make on us is that of a complete personality. We get from them an
idea of spiritual vitality, such as actual experience is unable to
supply. The effect is similar to that afforded by the description of
great actions and events in the hands of a truly artistic historian. We
obtain from such a much loftier and vitally true picture of the facts
than any we could have taken from the direct evidence of our
senses. Concrete reality is so overburdened with the phenomenal,
that is incidental or accidental detail, that we frequently cannot see
the forest for the trees, and often the most important fact slips by us
as a thing of common or daily occurrence. It is the indwelling insight
and genius of the writer which first adds the quality of greatness to
events or actions, presenting them fully in a truly historical
composition, which rejects what is purely external, and only brings
into prominence that through which that ideal substance is vitally
unfolded. In this way, too, the painter should place before us the
mind[325] and character of the impersonation by means of his art. If
success is fully attained we may affirm that a portrait of this qualify
is more to the mark, more like the personality thus conceived than
the real man himself is. Albrecht Dürer has also executed portraits of
this character. With a few technical means the traits are emphasized
with such simplicity, definition, and dignity, that we wholly believe
ourselves to be facing spiritual life itself. The longer we look at such
a picture, the more profoundly we penetrate into it, the more it is
revealed to us. It reminds one of a clear-cut drawing, instinct with
genius, which completely gives expression to the characteristic, and
for the rest is merely executive in its colour and outlines in so far as
the same may make the characterization more intelligible, apparent,
and finished as a whole, without entering into all the importunate
detail of the facts of natural life. In the same way also Nature in her
landscape paints every leaf, branch, and blade to the last shadow of
a line or tint. Landscape painting, on the contrary, has no business
to attempt such elaboration, but may only follow her subject to a
principle of treatment, in which the expression of the whole is
involved, which emphasizes detail, but nevertheless does not copy
slavishly such particulars in all their threads, irregularities and so
forth, assuming it is to remain essentially characteristic and
individual work. In the human face the drawing of Nature is the
framework of bone in its harsh lines, around which the softer ones
are disposed and continue in various accidental details. Truly
characteristicportraiture, however, despite all the importance we may
rightly attach to these well defined lines, consists in other traits
indicated with equal force, the countenance in short as elaborated
by the creative artist.[326] In this sense we may say of the portrait
that it not only can, but that it ought to flatter, inasmuch as it
neglects what pertains to Nature's contingency, and only accepts
that which contributes to the characteristic content of the individual
portrayed, his most unique and most intimate self. Nowadays we
find it the fashion to give every kind of face just a ripple of a smile,
to emphasize its amiability, a very questionable fashion indeed, and
one hard to restrain within the limit imposed. Charming, no doubt;
but the merely polite amiability of social intercourse is not a
fundamental trait of any character, and becomes in the hands of
many artists only too readily the most insipid kind of sweetness.
(γγ) However compatible with portraiture the course of painting may
be in all its modes of production it should, however, make the
particular features of the face, the specific forms, ways of posing,
grouping, and schemes of colour consonant with the actual situation,
in which it composes its figures and natural objects in order to
express a content. For it is just this content in this particular
situation which should be portrayed.
Out of the infinitely diversified detail which in this connection we
might examine I will only touch upon one point of vital importance.
It is this that the situation may either be on its own account a
passing one, and the emotion expressed by it of a momentary
character, so that one and the same individual could express many
similar ones in addition and also feelings in contrast with it, or the
situation and emotion strikes at the very heart of a character, which
thereby discloses its entire and most intimate nature. Situations and
emotions of this latter type are the truly momentous crises in
characterization[327]. In the situations, for example, in which I have
already referred to the Madonna, one finds nothing, however
essentially complete the individualization of the Mother of God may
be in its composition, which is not a real factor in the embracing
compass of her soul and character. In this case, too, the
characterization is such that it is self-evident that she does not exist
apart from what she can express in this specific circumstance.
Supreme masters consequently have painted the Madonna in such
immortal maternal situations or phases. Other masters have still
retained in her character the expression of ordinary life otherwise
experienced and actual. This expression may be very beautiful and
life-like, but this form, the like features, and a similar expression
would be equally applicable to other interests and relations of
marriage lore. We are consequently inclined to regard a figure of this
type from yet other points of view than that of a Madonna, whereas
in the supremest works we are unable to make room for any other
thoughts but that which the situation awakens in us. It is on this
ground that I admire so strongly the Mary Magdalene of Correggio in
Dresden, and it will for ever awake such admiration. We have here
the repentant sinner, but we cannot fail to see that sinfulness is not
here the point of serious consideration[328]; it is assumed she was
essentially noble and could not have been capable of bad passions
and actions. Her profound and intimately self-imposed restraint
therefore can only be a return to that which she really is, what is no
momentary situation, but her entire nature. Throughout this entire
composition, whether we look at form, facial expression, dress,
pose, or environment, the artist has therefore not in the slightest
degree laid a stress on those circumstances, which might indicate sin
and culpability; she has lost the consciousness of those times, and is
entirely absorbed in her present condition, and this faith, this
instinct, this absorption appears to be her real and complete
character.
Such a complete reciprocity between soul-life and external
surroundings, determinacy of character and situation, the masters of
Italy have illustrated with exceptional beauty. In the example I have
already referred to of Kügelchen's picture of the Prodigal Son, on the
contrary, we have no doubt the remorse of repentance and grief
expressed to the life; but the artist has failed to secure the unity of
the entire character, which, apart from such an aspect of it, he
possessed, and of the actual conditions under which such was
depicted to us. If we examine quietly such features, we can only find
in them the physiognomy of any one we might chance to meet on
the Dresden bridge or anywhere else. In the case of a real
coalescence of character with the expression of a specific situation
such a result would be impossible; just as, in true genre-painting,
even where the concentration is upon the most fleeting moments of
time, the realization is too vivid to leave room for the notion that the
figures before us could ever be otherwise placed or could have
received other traits or an altered type of expression.
These, then, are the main points we have to consider in respect to
the content and the artistic treatment in the sensuous material of
painting, the surface, that is, and colour.

3. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PAINTING

In our consideration of this third section of our subject we are

unable to confine ourselves, as we have hitherto done, to a wholly
general examination of the content and purport appropriate to
painting, and the mode of configuration, which follows from its
principle, for in so far as this art is built up on the particularity of
characters and their situation, and upon form and its pose, colour,
and so forth, we are compelled to fix in our minds and discuss the
actual reality of this art's separate productions. No study of painting
is complete that does not take into its survey and is unable to enjoy
and criticize the pictures themselves, in which the aspects of it we
have examined are enforced. This is a general rule in the case of all
art, but it applies with exceptional force to painting among those we
have up to the present considered. In the case of architecture and
sculpture, where the embrace of the content is more restricted, the
means of exposition and configuration are to a less extent stamped
with wealth and distinctive modification, and the particular aspects
of their definition are simpler and more radical, we can more readily
avail ourselves of copies, descriptions, and casts. It is essential in
dealing with the art of painting that we should see the actual works
themselves. In this case mere descriptions, however important they
may be in a subsidiary sense, will not suffice. In the infinite variety,
however, of its explication, the various aspects of which are united in
particular works of art, these works appear to us in the first instance
as a mere motley array, which, by reason of the fact that our review
of it is based upon no principle of classification, is only to a small
extent able to disclose to us the unique quality of individual pictures.
And it follows from this that galleries, as a rule, if we are not already
able to connect with each picture our knowledge of the country,
period, school, and master to which it belongs, is simply a collection
without meaning, in which we lose ourselves. The most profitable
arrangement for study and enjoyment with our eyes is therefore an
exhibition based on historical sequence. A collection of this kind, co-
ordinated in relation to such a principle, unique and invaluable of its
class, we shall shortly be able to admire in the picture gallery of the
royal museum in this city[329]. In this we shall not only possess a
historical survey of the technique of art in its stages of development,
but shall have set before our minds, as an essential process with a
history, that articulation of its ideal content in the distinctions of its
schools, their various subject-matter, and their different modes of
artistic conception and treatment. It is only through having given us
a survey as consonant as this is with that vital process that we can
form an idea from its origins in traditional and eclectic types, of the
living growth of art, its search after expression and individual
characteristic, its liberation from the inactive and tranquil station of
its figures, that we can appreciate its progress to dramatic
movement, grouping, and all the wealth and witchery of its colour, or
finally learn to distinguish its schools, which either to some extent
treat similar subject-matter in a way peculiar to themselves, or are
distinct from each other by reasons of the variety of their respective
content.
A historical development of painting such as that referred to is of as
great importance to scientific observation and exposition as it is to
accurate study. The content of art as I have presented it, namely,
the elaboration of its material, the distinct and fundamental changes
in the mode of its conception, we find all this and more receives thus
for the first time its concrete coherence in a sequence and under a
classification which corresponds with the facts. It is therefore
incumbent on us to glance at this process, if only by way of
emphasis to what most immediately arrests attention.
In general the advance consists in this, that it originates in religious
subjects conceived still in a typical way, with simple architectonic
arrangement and unelaborated colour. After this, in an increasing
degree of fusion with religious situations, we get actuality, vital
beauty of form, individuality, depth of penetration, charm and
witchery of colouring, until Art finally turns its attention to the world
itself, makes itself master of Nature, the daily occurrence of ordinary
life, or what is of significance in national history whether present or
past, or portraiture and anything else down to the merest trifle and
the least significant fact, and with an enthusiasm equal to that it
devoted to the religious ideal, and pre-eminently in this sphere
secures not merely the most consummate result of technical
accomplishment, but also a treatment and execution which is most
full of life and personality. This progress is followed in clearest
outline if we take in succession the schools of Byzantine, Italian,
Flemish, Dutch, and German painting, after noting the most
prominent features of which briefly we shall finally indicate the
transition to the art of music[330].
(a) In our review of Byzantine painting we may remark to start with
that the practice of painting among the Greeks was to a definable
degree always carried on; and examples of antique work contributed
to the greater excellence of its results relatively to posture, draping,
and other respects. On the other hand the touch of Nature and life
wholly vanished from this art; in facial types it adhered strictly to
tradition; in its figures and modes of expression it was conventional
and rigid; in its general composition more or less architectonic. We
find no trace of natural environment and a landscape background.
The modelling, by means of light and shadow, brilliance and
obscurity, and their fusion, no less than perspective and the art of
lifelike grouping, either were not elaborated at all, or to a very slight
extent. By reason of this strict adherence to a single acknowledged
type independent artistic production had little room for its exercise.
The art of painting and mosaic frequently degenerated into a mere
craft, and became thereby lifeless and devoid of spirit, albeit such
craftsmen, equally with the workers on antique vases, possessed
excellent examples of previous work, which they could imitate so far
as pose and the folding of drapery was concerned. A similar type of
painting spread its sombre influence over the ravaged West and
more particularly in Italy. Here, however, although in the first
instance with beginnings of little strength, we are even at an early
date conscious of an effort to break away from inflexible forms and
modes of expression, and to face, at first, however, in a rough and
ready way, a development of loftier aim. Of Byzantine pictures we
may, on the contrary, affirm, as Herr von Rumohr[331] has
maintained of Greek Madonnas and images of Christ that "it is
obvious even in the most favoured examples, their origin was that of
the mosaic, and artistic elaboration was rejected from the first." In
other words[332] the Italians endeavoured even before the period of
their independent art development in painting, and in contrast to the
Byzantines to approximate to a more spiritual conception of Christian
subjects. The writer above-named draws attention also as
noteworthy support of his contention to the manner in which the
later Greeks and Italians respectively represented Christ on
crucifixes. According to this writer "the Greeks, to whom the sight of
terrible bodily suffering was of common occurrence, conceived the
Saviour suspended on the Cross with the entire weight of his body,
the lower part of the body swollen and the slackened knees bent to
the left, the bowed head contending with the pains of an awful
death. Their subject was consequently in its essentials bodily
suffering. The Italians, on the contrary, in their more ancient
monuments, while we must not overlook the fact that the
representation of the Virgin Mary with her Child no less than the
Crucified is only of rare occurrence, were accustomed to depict the
figure of the Saviour on the cross adopting, so it appears to us, the
idea of the victory of the spiritual, not as in the former case the
death of the body. And this unquestionably nobler conception asserts
itself at an early date in the more favoured parts of Western
Europe[333]." With this sketch I must here rest content.
(b) We have, however, secondly, another characteristic of art to
consider in the earlier development of Italian painting. Apart from
the religious content of the Old and New Testament and the
biographies of martyrs and saints, it borrows its subjects in the main
from Greek mythology, very seldom, that is, from the events of
national history, or, if we except portraits, from the reality of
contemporary life, and equally rarely, and only at a late stage and
exceptionally, from natural landscape. Now that which it before all
contributes to its conception and artistic elaboration of the subject-
matter of religion is the vital reality of spiritual and corporeal
existence, relatively to which at this stage all its forms are embodied
and endowed with animation. For this vitality the essential principle
on the spiritual side is that natural delightfulness, and on the
corporeal side is that beauty which is consonant with physical form,
a beauty which independently, as beautiful form, already displays
innocence, buoyancy, maidenhood, natural grace of temperament,
nobility, imagination, and a loving soul. If there is further added to a
naturel of this type the exaltation and adornment of the soul in
virtue of the ideal intimacy of religion and the spiritual characteristics
of a profounder piety established as a vitalizing principle of soul-life
in this essentially more admitted and inviolable province of spiritual
redemption[334],—in such a case we have presented to us thereby
an original harmony of form and its expression, which, wherever it is
perfected, vividly reminds us in this sphere of romantic art and
Christian art of the pure Ideal of art. No doubt also within a new
accord of this type the inward life of the heart will be predominant;
but this inward experience is a more happy, a purer heaven of the
soul, the way of return to which form what is sensuous and finite,
and the return to God, albeit the passage may be through a travail in
the profounder anguish of repentance and death, is, however, less
saturated with trouble and its insistency. And the reason of this is
that the pain is concentrated in the sphere of soul, of idea, of faith,
without making a descent into the region of passionate desire,
intractable savagery, obstinate self-seeking and sin, and only arriving
at the hardly won victory through smiting down such enemies of the
blessed state. It is rather a transition of ideal permanence[335], a
pain of the inward life, which feels itself as such suffering rather
simply in virtue of its enthusiasm, a suffering of more abstract type,
more spiritually abundant, which has as little need to brush away
bodily anguish as we have to seek signs in the characterization of its
bodily presence and physiognomy of obstinacy, uncouthness,
crookedness, or the traits of superficial and mean natures, in which
an obstinate conflict is first necessary, before such are meet to
express real religious feeling[336] and piety. This more benign[337]
intimacy of soul, this more original consonancy of exterior forms to
ideal experience of this kind is what creates the charming clarity and
the untroubled delight, which the genuinely beautiful works of Italian
painting excite and supply. Just as we say of instrumental music that
there is tone and melody in it, so, too, we find that the pure song of
soul floats here in melodious fusion over the entire configuration and
all its forms. And as in the music of the Italians and in the tones of
their song, when the pure strains ring forth without a forced
utterance, in every separate note and inflection of sound and
melody, it is simply the delight of the voice itself which rings out; so,
too, such an intimate personal enjoyment of the loving soul is the
fundamental tone of their painting[338]. It is the same intimacy,
clarity, and freedom which meet us again in the great Italian poets.
To start with this artistic resonance of rhymes in their terzets,
canzonets, sonnets, and stanzas, this accord, which is not merely
satisfied to allay its thirst for reverberation in the one repetition, but
repeats the echo three times and more, this is itself a euphony
which streams forth on its own account and for the sake of its own
enjoyment. And a like freedom is stamped upon the spiritual
content. In Petrarch's sonnets, sestets, and canzonets it is not so
much the actual possession of their subject, after which the heart
yearns; it is not the consideration and emotion which are involved in
the actual content of the poem as such, and which is therein
necessarily expressed; rather it is the expression itself which
constitutes the source of enjoyment. It is the self-delight of Love,
which seeks its bliss in its own mourning, its laments, its
descriptions, memories, and experience; a yearning, which is
satisfied in itself as such, and with the image, the spirit of those it
loves, is already in full possession of the soul, with which it longs to
unite itself. Dante, too, when conducted by his master Virgil through
hell and hell-fire, gazes at what is the culmination of horror, of
awfulness; he is fearful, he often bursts into tears, but he strides on
comforted and tranquil, without affright and anxiety, without the
sullenness and embitterment which implies "these things should not
be thus." Nay, even his damned in hell receive the blessedness of
eternity. Io eterno duro is inscribed over the gates of hell. They are
what they are, without repentance and longing; they do not speak of
their sufferings; they are as immaterial to us as they are to them, for
they endure for ever. Rather they are absorbed simply in their
personal experience and actions, secure of themselves as rooted in
the same interests, without lamentation and without yearning[339].
When we have grasped this trait of happy independence and
freedom of the soul in love we shall understand the character of the
greatest Italian painters. It is in this freedom that they are masters
of the detail of expression, and situation. On the wings of this
tranquillity of soul they can maintain their sovereignty over form,
beauty, and colour. In their most defined presentation of reality and
character, while remaining wholly on the earth and often only
producing portraits, or appearing to produce such, what we have are
pictures of another sun, another spring. They are roses which are
equally heavenly blossoms. And, consequently, we find that in their
beauty we do not have merely beauty of form, we do not have only
the sensuous unity of soul impressed on sensuous corporeal shapes;
we are confronted with this very trait of reconciled Love in every
mode, feature, and individuality of character. It is the butterfly, the
Psyche[340], which in the sunlight of its heaven, even hovers round
stunted flowers[341]. It is only by virtue of this rich, free, and
rounded beauty that they are able to unfold the ideals of the antique
art's more recent perfection.
Italian art has, however, not immediately and from the first attained
to such a point of perfection; it had in truth a long road to traverse
before it arrived there. And yet, despite this, the purity and
innocence of its piety, the largeness of the entire conception, the
unassuming beauty of form, this intimate revelation of soul[342], are
frequently and above all in the case of the old Italian masters most
conspicuous where the technical elaboration is still wholly
incomplete. In the previous century it was fashionable to depreciate
these earlier masters, and place them on one side as clumsy, dull,
and barren[343]. It is only in more recent times that they have been
once more rescued from oblivion by savants and artists; but the
wonder and imitation thus awakened has run off into the excess of a
preference which tends to deny the advances of a further
development in mode of conception and presentment, and can only
lead astray in the opposite direction.
In drawing the reader's more close attention to the more important
phases in the development of Italian art up to this period of its
fullest perfection, I will only briefly emphasize the following points
which immediately concern the characterization of the essential
aspects of painting and its modes of expression.
(α) After the earliest stage of rawness and barbarism the Italians
moved forward with a fresh impetus from that in the main
craftsmanship type of art which was planted by the Byzantines. The
compass of subjects depicted was, however, not extensive, and the
distinctive features of the type were austerity, solemnity, and
religious loftiness. But even at this stage—I am quoting the
conclusions of Herr von Rumohr—who is generally recognized as an