ds, recognize as a whole, that which
remains unmodified by some imaginative power, which alone can give
unity to separate and distinct objects. Yet, as it regards man,
all true Art does, and must, find its proper object in the
_Individual_: as without individuality there could not be
character, nor without character, the human being.
But here it may be asked, In what manner, if we resort not to actual
portrait, is the Individual Man to be expressed? We answer, By
carrying out the natural individual predominant _fragment_ which
is visible to us in actual Form, to its full, consistent developement.
The Individual is thus idealized, when, in the complete accordance of
all its parts, it is presented to the mind as a _whole_.
When we apply the term _fragment_ to a human being, we do not
mean in relation to his species, (in regard to which we have already
shown him to be a distinct whole,) but in relation to the Idea, to
which his predominant characteristic suggests itself but as a
partial manifestation, and made partial because counteracted by
some inadequate exponent, or else modified by other, though minor,
characteristics.
How this is effected must be left to the Artist himself. It is
impossible to prescribe a rule that would be to much purpose for any
one who stands in need of such instruction; if his own mind does not
suggest the mode, it would not even be intelligible. Perhaps our
meaning, however, may be made more obvious, if we illustrate it by
example. We would refer, then, to the restoration of a statue, (a
thing often done with success,) where, from a single fragment, the
unknown Form has been completely restored, and so remoulded, that the
parts added are in perfect unity with the suggestive fragment. Now the
parts wanting having never been seen, this cannot be called a mere
act of the memory. Nevertheless, it is not from nothing that man can
produce even the _semblance_ of any thing. The materials of the
Artist are the work of Him who created the Artist himself; but over
these, which his senses and mind are given him to observe and collect,
he has a _delegated power_, for the purpose of combining and
modifying, as unlimited as mysterious. It is by the agency of this
intuitive and assimilating Power, elsewhere spoken of, that he is able
to separate the essential from the accidental, to proceed also from a
part to the whole; thus educing, as it were, an Ideal nature from the
germs of the Actual.
Nor does
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