HOW
TO STUDY PICTURES
A
clever writer could therefore, naturally is worsted. this to scene your imagination, and move your represent
emotions,
This
much more
vividly than this picture does. true of most so-called "historical" pictures.
is
There have been excej^tions, notably the Surrender of Breda by Velasquez, to which we have alluded in another
But
in that everything is e^^isode and to one moment in
chapter.
made subordinate
to
— namely,
one that in it, which the Vanquished hands the key of the city to the On the part of the one is exhibited noble resigVictor. on that of the other, an equally noble magnannation imity in this most trying ordeal each j^roves himself a hero. For our enjoyment of the picture we do not need ;
;
to
know
names or the circumstances that lead up to Although the event commemorated oc-
their
the incident.
curred in Velasquez's lifetime, he passed beyond the
and temporary and gave
local
his representation a typal
significance.
But
Like precisely what Piloty has not done. of the "historical" painters, he has selected a sub-
most
this
is
would yield opportunity for striking contrasts and for display of skill in drawing and archaologand then, by crowding the canvas with ical research that
ject,
;
learned details, cleverly represented, seeks to impose upon the spectator an impression of something grander
than the ordinary ical
own
— heroic.
For, as a rule, the "histor-
"
j^ainter thinks that the representation of life of his " " he has learned to draw the human day is vulgar ;
form and draperies after classic models, idealizing nature and then rummages amid the dust of antiquity, to ;
find subjects that will demonstrate his skill in represent[
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