The tremendous effect it has--an effect upon the soul--is
created by a combination of shapes, of proportions, of different levels,
of different heights, by consummate graduation. And these shapes,
proportions, different levels, and heights, are seen in dimness. Not
that jewelled dimness one loves in Gothic cathedrals, but the heavy
dimness of windowless, mighty chambers lighted only by a rebuked
daylight ever trying to steal in. One is captured by no ornament,
seduced by no lovely colors. Better than any ornament, greater than
any radiant glory of color, is this massive austerity. It is like
the ultimate in an art. Everything has been tried, every strangeness
_bizarrerie_, absurdity, every wild scheme of hues, every preposterous
subject--to take an extreme instance, a camel, wearing a top-hat, and
lighted up by fire-works, which I saw recently in a picture-gallery
of Munich. And at the end a genius paints a portrait of a wrinkled old
woman's face, and the world regards and worships. Or all discords have
been flung together pell-mell, resolution of them has been deferred
perpetually, perhaps even denied altogether, chord of B major has been
struck with C major, works have closed upon the leading note or the
dominant seventh, symphonies have been composed to be played in the
dark, or to be accompanied by a magic-lantern's efforts, operas been
produced which are merely carnage and a row--and at the end a genius
writes a little song, and the world gives the tribute of its breathless
silence and its tears.
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