108

or humanized universe, of which the human body, in its ideal proportions, was the prototype. In history, visions, beliefs, dogmas, myths, symbols, and emblems, the human form almost alone expressed everything that could be expressed by itself. Nature existed vaguely around this absorbing being. It was barely considered as a frame which would diminish and disappear of itself when man should take his place in it. p 132

Thus the style has the simplicity and clearness of the principle. It has for law, sincerity; for obligation, truth. Its first condition is to be familiar, natural and characteristic, whence results a whole of moral qualities, innocent simplicity, patient will, and directness. It might be called the transportation of domestic virtues from private life into the practice

109

of art, serving equally well for good conduct and good painting.

p 135

But, even as in the most practical life there are springs of action which elevate behaviour, thus in this art, reputed so positive, among these painters considered for the most part as nearsighted copyists, you feel a loftiness and goodness of soul, a tenderness for the true, a cordiality for the real, which give to their works a value that the things themselves do not seem to have. p 135-6

p 2-3-84

The Seeing Hand - Colin Eisler - H & R - 1975

Photography dealt a blow to both the naked and the nude. Daguerre's recording devil showed most people to look so much worse than one dared to think. The unblinking objectivity of the camera was utterly uninformed by the subliminal memory of a physical Golden Age that modified most earlier unclothed depictions no matter how