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Painting the Human
Soul
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
One of the most frequent tendencies in the artists whose
work might be considered typical of the twentieth century
is the deformation of man. Fleeing from copying reality with
the form habitually seen by the human eye, they represent
it with alterations aimed at manifesting its deeper aspect.
Theoretically there is nothing wrong with that.
However, it is noteworthy that when they alter how men normally
appear, many of the most typically modern artists actually
deform the human form almost to the point of hideousness.
Thus it is not difficult to find perfectly conical human
figures in modern canvases; a tiny head, shoulders a little
wider than the head, waist much broader than the shoulders,
legs that appear to grow up to the ankles that are joined
to literally immense feet.
Other sculptures will show necks that are not merely very
large but deformed, showing in one or another point of alarmingly
enlarged thyroid glands.
In a word, if some magician appeared to any normally sensible
man and offered him a potion to transform his body into a
typical figure of modern art, his offer would receive an energetic
and immediate refusal.
This obsession with the deformed, the ugly, or even the
hideous has reached the limits of the inconceivable in certain
artistic works. Look, for example, at the picture labeled
"Our Image" that we publish here. It is the moral
figure of the human race as a typically ultramodern artist
would chose to represent it.
Nobody denies that there are terrible moral and physical
deformities in the universe and that it may be licit for an
artist to represent them as long as that does not give rise
to an offense against morals.
However, it is an erroneous position to paint only horror.
It is wrong to neither paint nor sculpt except to deform.
Such artist act as if the universe were nothing but a receptacle
of ignominies. This is an indisputably false and dangerous
conception not only of men but the world. At the root of this
tendency for the hideous is a desperate and blasphemous vision
of the creation which is a work of God.
Paintings and sculptures made under the influence of that
vision deform the soul. Ambiences impregnated with this state
of spirit can only degrade man. They extinguishing all the
movements of the intelligence and will toward a truly noble,
pure and elevated ideal.
We present here by way of contrast a picture representing
a man in his maturity taken from among the immense number
of artistic works of past centuries.
It represents much more than the physical aspect of this
man, his state of spirit or his moral make up. It is Richelieu
painted from three different angles by Phillippe de Champaigne.
All the qualities and defects of this grand statesman are
reflected in this admirable study in which the human soul
is portrayed in what is most intimate, lively and subtle.
The artist does not have to resort for this end to deformations
that degrade human nature itself.
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