But to
discriminate that moment, to make it appreciable by us, that we
may "find" it, what a cobweb of allusions, what double and treble
reflexions of the mind upon itself, what an artificial light is
constructed and broken over the chosen situation; on how fine a
needle's point that little world of passion is balanced! Yet, in
spite of this intricacy, the poem has the clear ring of a central
motive. We receive from it the impression of one imaginative
tone, of a single creative act.
To produce such effects at all requires all the resources of
painting, with its power of indirect expression, of subordinate but
significant detail, its atmosphere, its foregrounds and
backgrounds. To produce them in a pre-eminent degree requires
all the resources of poetry, language in its most purged form, its
remote associations and suggestions, its double and treble lights.
These appliances sculpture cannot command. In it, therefore, not
the special situation, but the type, the general character of the
subject to be delineated, is all-important. In poetry and painting,
the situation predominates over the character; in sculpture, the
character over the situation. Excluded by the proper limitation of
its material from the development of exquisite situations, it has to
choose from a select number of types intrinsically interesting--
interesting, that is, independently of any special situation into
which they may be thrown.
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