And yet, the more you come
to understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all colour
is no mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit upon
them by which they become expressive to the spirit, the better you
will like this peculiar quality of colour; and you will find that
quaint design of Botticelli's a more direct inlet into the Greek temper
than the works of the Greeks themselves even of the finest period. Of
the Greeks as they really were, of their difference from ourselves,
of the aspects of their outward life, we know far more than Botticelli,
or his most learned contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has
taken off the edge of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what
we owe to the Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli's
you have a record of the first impression made by it on minds turned
back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a world in which
it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the energy, the
industry of realization, with which Botticelli carries out his
intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence over the
human mind of the imaginative system of which this is perhaps the
central subject.
Pages:
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487