name), the curious art of weaving; and, finally, of the art to be industriously idle.1 Fine art, a term apparently of eighteenth-century invention,2 he does not use, supplying its place by such phrases as 'liberal arts,' and 'arts that polish life,' and by combinations like 'arts and eloquence,' 'spacious art and high knowledge,' and 'civility of manners, arts, and arms.' Clearly, then, to Milton every adept is an artist, whether in the exercise of his craft he concocts a broth, charts the heavens, or writes an epic; because behind all three exhibitions of power lies a definite regulative theory. Milton no doubt recognizes a difference between useful and fine art, or between mere dexterity and artistic productivity; but for him that difference does not lie in the presence or absence of technical principles. As he conceives them, the fine arts, equally with all others, must be governed by laws, and subject to method. In other words, Milton certainly accepts the view of Aristotle: 'As . . . there is no art which is not a rationally productive state of mind, nor any such state of mind which is not an art, it follows that art must be the same as a productive state of mind under the guidance of true reason." This concept, together with Milton's emphasis 'The following usage is curious, and not, so far as I know, duplicated in Milton: 'But he [Plautius] sending first the Germans, whose custom was, armed as they were, to swim with ease the strongest current, commands them to strike especially at the horses, whereby the chariots, wherein consisted their chief art of fight, became unserviceable.' Hist. Brit. (Bk. 2), Works 5.49. In the year 1603, 'fine arts' had been casually employed by Ben Jonson to indicate the expedient mannerisms of the Court, the same to which Spenser (Colin Clout 701-702) had referred in the lines, A filed toung furnisht with termes of art, 'Eth. Nic. 6.4, trans. by Welldon, p. 182. upon function, must be borne in mind as a supplement to the fragmentary data that follow. To begin with the lesser fine arts, his references to carving in cedar, marble, ivory, and gold, and to the embellishment lent by gold and precious stones, show that Milton was not unobservant of fine handicraft; yet he rarely mentions small decorative objects. Unlike Spenser, he is not particularly attracted by the work of 'guileful goldsmiths' and 'cunning craftsmen'; the dissimilarity is typical in the descriptions of Mercilla's throne in the Faerie Queene and of Satan's throne in Paradise Lost. Spenser's sovereign sat Upon a throne of gold full bright and sheene, Adorned all with gemmes of endlesse price, As either might for wealth have gotten bene, Or could be framed by workmans rare device; And all embost with lions and with flour-delice. All over her a cloth of state was spred, Not of rich tissew, nor of cloth of gold, Nor of ought else that may be richest red, But like a cloud, as likest may be told, That her brode spreading wings did wyde unfold; Whose skirts were bordred with bright sunny beams, Glistring like gold, amongst the plights enrold, And here and there shooting forth silver streames, Mongst which crept litle angels through the glittering gleames.1 Milton thus enthrones the Monarch of Hell: High on a throne of royal state, which far Faerie Queene 5. 9. 27-28. 'P. L. 2. 1-5. Should we explain the unlikeness in these passages by a corresponding unlikeness in the interests of the two poets, or by a difference in the respective literary types? In any case the difference does not come from a sense of restriction on Milton's part. He did not feel himself shut off from the use of concrete imagery by his supernatural subject. On the contrary, he says that his task is to represent supernatural phenomena in familiar terms-to measure Things in Heaven by things on Earth;' and several times implies that part of his endeavor is to find earthly parallels to heavenly magnificence.3 Nor do the minute descriptions Of workes with loome, with needle, and with quill, that embellish Spenser's poetry, find parallels in Milton. Tapestry is spoken of in Comus (line 324), and in Elegia Sexta (line 39), in each case without comment. The only other references, in Eikonoclastes and in the tenth chapter of A Defence of the People of England, point more to Milton's classicism (both being reminiscent of Virgil) than to an interest in the art of ornamental weaving. As for simpler, 'Spenser's frequent allusions to examples of fine workmanship possibly reflect his own taste less than the substance of his reading. The romantic poetry both of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance abounds in appreciations of the skill of handicraftsmen, which may, in their turn, be reminiscent of the classical descriptions of helmets and shields and drinking-cups. Compare Virgil's praise of the carving of Alcimedon, Eclogue 3. 37 ff. P. L. 6. 893. 'P. L. 6. 297–301; cf. P. L. 1. 768 ff., 10. 306 ff. Works 3. 513. •Works 8. 223. more domestic, types of needlework, serving a twofold end of use and beauty, it is not Milton, but Comus, who says: Course complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler.1 The poet's own opinion may be more fairly expressed in his commendation of Edward the Confessor for being 'nothing puffed up with the costly robes he wore, which his queen with curious art had woven for him in gold." Yet who shall say how much Milton intended to praise the king for an indifference to 'curious art,' and how much for his superiority to cloth of gold? Spenser, with his admiration for the exercise of 'the fine needle and nyce thread,' and his feeling that so often Did the workmanship farre passe the cost,' would have quickly seen that if modesty entered in at all, it could do so only in the person of the Queen. Of painting Milton says almost nothing. His only reference in the poetry' denies that the so-called shadingpencil can reproduce the sparkling portal of Heaven; but the subject is manifestly unfit for such reproduction, and the remark has little importance. In Animadversions upon the 1 Comus 749-751. Hist. Brit. (Bk. 6), Works 5. 291–292. 'Faerie Queene 4. 4. 15. See above, p. 31, n. 1. This valuation of an object according to the workmanship expended upon it is also to be found in the romances. It appears in Tasso; and for an example from the literature of mediaeval romance we may quote these couplets from the Cligés of Chrétien de Troyes (lines 1539-1542): Mout iert buene et riche la cope: Et qui a voir dire n'açope, 'P. L. 3. 509. Remonstrant's Defence,1 painting is, by contrast with the art of divinity, rated as 'almost mechanic.' In Eikonoclastes2 the bad painter, obliged to label his picture in order 'to tell passengers what shape it is,' helps Milton to a simile. Only twice more in the prose is painting mentioned; in neither case does what is said pertinently bear upon the art. This paucity of reference astonishes the critics. Coleridge comments upon it as follows: It is very remarkable that in no part of his writings does Milton take any notice of the great painters of Italy, nor, indeed, of painting as an art; while every other page breathes his love and taste for music. Yet it is curious that in one passage in the Paradise Lost Milton has certainly copied the fresco of the Creation in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. I mean those lines: Now half appeared The tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts—then springs as broke from bonds, an image which the necessities of the painter justified, but which was wholly unworthy, in my judgment, of the enlarged powers of the poet. Adam, bending over the sleeping Eve, in the Paradise Lost, and Dalilah approaching Samson, in the Agonistes, are the only two proper pictures that I remember in Milton." Among other pictures that seem equally graphic is that of the dismay of Adam at Eve's recital upon returning from the Tree of Knowledge: 410. 1 Works 3.234. Here architecture and painting are coupled. • Works 3. 510. 'See below, p. 37 'Coleridge, Table Talk, Aug. 7, 1832, Works, ed. by Shedd, 6.409– |