The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861, by Various
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Title: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861
Release Date: February 16, 2004 [eBook #11117]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY VOLUME 7, NO. 40, FEBRUARY, 1861
***E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
Among artists, William Page is a painter.
This proposition may seem, to the great public which has so long and so well known him and his works, somewhat unnecessary. There are few who are not familiar with his paintings. Whether these seem great or otherwise, whether the Venus be pure or gross, we may not here discuss; the public has, and will have, many estimates; yet on one point there is no difference of opinion, apparently. The world willingly calls him whose hand wrought these pictures a painter. It has done so as a matter of course; and we accept the title.
But perhaps the title comes to us from this man's studio, charged with a significance elevating it above the simply self-evident, and rendering it worthy of the place we have given it as a germ proposition.
Not every one who uses pigments can say, "I also am a painter." To him who would make visible the ideal, there are presented the marble, the pencil, and the colors; and should he employ either of these, just in proportion to his obedience to the laws of each will he be a sculptor, a designer, or a painter; and the revelations in stone, in light and shade, or on canvas, shall be his witnesses forevermore,--witnesses of him not only as an artist, in view of his relation to the ideal world, but as possessing a right to the especial title conferred by the means which he has chosen to be his interpreter.
The world has too much neglected these means of interpretation. It has condemned the science which would perfect the art, as if the false could ever become the medium of the true. The art of painting has suffered especially from the influence of mistaken views.