. Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers. things and their literal imitation,slightly vulgar and clever. Admit that they are as perfectas they are celebrated and you will have before your eyes aunique antithesis, what La Bruyere calls opposition truthsthat illuminate one another. I shall not astonish anyone in saying that the NightWatch possesses no charm, and the fact is without exampleamong the fine works of pictorial art. It is amazing, it isdisconcerting, it is imposing, but it absolutely lacks thatinsinuating quality that convinces us, and it almost alwaysfails to please
. Great pictures, as seen and described by famous writers. things and their literal imitation,slightly vulgar and clever. Admit that they are as perfectas they are celebrated and you will have before your eyes aunique antithesis, what La Bruyere calls opposition truthsthat illuminate one another. I shall not astonish anyone in saying that the NightWatch possesses no charm, and the fact is without exampleamong the fine works of pictorial art. It is amazing, it isdisconcerting, it is imposing, but it absolutely lacks thatinsinuating quality that convinces us, and it almost alwaysfails to please us at first. In the first place, it shocks ourlogical sense and that habitual visual rectitude that lovesclear forms, lucid ideas, and clearly formulated boldness;something warns us that our imagination as well as ourreason will be only half satisfied and that even the mindthat is most easily won over will not submit till the last andwill not surrender without dispute. This is due to variouscauses that do not all arise from the picture, — the light is. THE NIGHT WATCH 125 detestable; the frame of dark wood in which the paintingis drowned spoils its middle values, and its bronze scale ofcolour, and its force, and makes it look much more smokedthan it is; and, lastly and above all, the exigencies of theplace prevent the picture from being hung at the properheight, and, against all the laws of the most elementaryperspective, oblige you to look at it from the same level. You are aware that the Night Watch, rightly or wrongly,passes for an almost incomprehensible work, and that con-stitutes its chief prestige. Perhaps it would have made farless noise in the world, if for two centuries people had notkept up the habit of trying to find out its meaning insteadof examining its merits, and persisted in the mania ofregarding it as a picture enigmatical above all. Taking it literally, what we know of the subject seemsto me sufficient. In the first place, we know the namesand quality of t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublish, booksubjectpainting
