(_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.