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Math 7410: Lie Combinatorics and
Hyperplane Arrangements
Cornell University
Fall 2016
2 Monoids in Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Free Monoids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Comonoids in Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3 Monoidal Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1 Convolution Monoids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6 Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.1 Lagrange Inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.2 Formal Diffeomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6.3 Sewing and Ripping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
6.4 Invariants from Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7 Combinatorial Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.1 The antipode of E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7.2 The antipode of L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
7.3 The Coxeter Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7.4 The Tits Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7.5 The Partition Lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
7.6 Higher Hopf Monoid Axioms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.7 The action of Σ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8 Generalized Permutahedra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
8.1 The Coxeter complex as a fan of cones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
8.2 Polytopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
1
8.3 Permutahedra and Generalized Permutahedra . . . . . . . . . . 74
8.4 The species of generalized permutahedra . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9 Hyperplane Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.1 Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9.2 Flats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
9.3 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
9.4 Signed Sequence of a Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2
Contents by Lecture
Lecture 01 on August 23, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3
Lecture 24 on November 15, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4
Lecture 01: Species and Enumeration August 23, 2016
Administrative
There is a website with an indefinite schedule and some information.
For the first few weeks I will focus on combinatorics, but an algebraic
approach to it. This is the topic of species. There won’t be any prerequisites to
this portion for a few weeks. Later, we will discuss hyperplane arrangements,
which involves discrete geometry.
σ∗
P[I] P[J]
(τσ)∗ τ∗
P[K]
Also, idI∗ = idP[I] . Note that each σ∗ is invertible, and (σ∗ )−1 = (σ−1 )∗ .
It also follows that each set P[m] (see Remark 1.2) is acted upon by the
symmetric group Sm . The action is σ · x = σ∗ (x), for σ ∈ Sm , x ∈ P[m]. In
particular, σ∗ (x) ∈ P[m].
Remark 1.2 (Convention). [m] := {1, 2, 3, . . . , m}. We write P[m] = P[{1, 2, . . . , m}].
This action of the symmetric group allows us to reinterpret a species as a
collection {P[m]}m≥0 of Sm -sets. This uniquely determines P.
A morphism of species f : P → Q consists of maps fI : P[I] → Q[I], one for
each finite set I, such that for any bijection σ : I → J,
σ∗ fI (x) = fJ (σ∗ (x))
for all x ∈ P[I]. That is, the diagram below commutes.
fI
P[I] Q[I]
σ∗ σ∗
fJ
P[J] Q[J]
So in the end, a species is not actually that much. It’s just a collection of
Sm -sets. We want to use it to do some enumeration, and some algebra as well,
just as we use finite groups to encode combinatorial information.
5
Lecture 01: Species and Enumeration August 23, 2016
Definition 1.3. The species L of linear orders is defined on a set I as the set of
all linear orders on I.
L[I] = {linear orders on I}.
Π[I] = {partitions X of I}
Example 1.9. If I = {a, b, c, d}, with a partition X = {{a, c}, {b}, {d}}, the following
two composition aren’t the same but have the same underlying partition X.
E Π
where E is the exponential species, defined by E[I] = {∗I }. That is, E[I] always
has a single element, denoted ∗I .
6
Lecture 01: Species and Enumeration August 23, 2016
This says that species are a categorification of power series where we replace
numbers by sets.
Example 1.12.
X xn X xn X 1
L(x) = #L[n] = n! = xn =
n! n! 1−x
n≥0 n≥0 n≥0
X xn X xn
E(x) = #E[n] = = ex
n! n!
n≥0 n≥0
Π(x) is the generating function for the number of set partitions and Σ(x) is the
generating function for the number of ordered set partitions.
where the disjoint union is taken over all ordered decompositions of I (order of
S and T matters) such that S and T partition I.
On bijections (which are arrows in set× ), the Cauchy product acts as follows.
Given σ : I → J,
(P · Q)[I] ⊇ P[S] × Q[T ]
∗ )×(σ )∗
σ∗ (σS T
Example 1.15. E·k is the k-fold Cauchy product. This is the species of functions
to [k].
(E·k )[I] = {f : I → [k] | ffunction}
a
(E·k )[I] = E[S1 ] × . . . × E[Sk ]
I=S1 t...tSk
To see that these two are the same, notice that Si = f−1 (i) for each i ∈ [k].
7
Lecture 01: Species and Enumeration August 23, 2016
Proposition 1.16. The generating series for the Cauchy product is the product
of power series in Q[[x]].
(P · Q)(x) = P(x)Q(x)
Therefore,
X xn
(P · Q)(x) = #(P · Q)[n]
n!
n≥0
X X xn
= #P[i]#Q[j]
n!
n≥0 i+j=n
X xn X xn
= #P[n] #Q[n] = P(x)Q(x)
n! n!
n≥0 n≥0
Example 1.17.
X xn
(E · E)(x) = E(x)E(x) = e2x = 2n .
n!
n≥0
This is a proof of the fact that a set with n elements has 2n subsets, since E · E is
the species of subsets, so now we know that #(E · E)[n] = 2n .
Example 1.18.
(E·k )(x) = ekx
This proves that the number of functions [m] → [k] is km .
Definition 1.19. Let B be the species of bijections from a set I to itself, and D
the species of derrangements of I. (A derrangement is a bijection without fixed
points).
Claim 1.20. B = E · D
Proof. We have a
∼
B[I] = E[S] × D[T ],
I=StT
8
Lecture 01: Substitution August 23, 2016
Now using the fact that the Cauchy product corresponds to the product of
generating functions, we get that B(x) = E(x)D(x), and therefore
1 e−x
= ex D(x) =⇒ D(x) =
1−x 1−x
So we have derived the generating function for derrangements.
X
m
(−1)i
#D[m] = m! .
i!
i=0
#L[m] = m! = #B[m].
This begs the question: is L isomorphic to B? The answer is no; they are not
isomorphic because there is no canonical way to identify bijections on I with
orders on I unless the set I comes with a order already. Here is a proof of this
fact.
Proof. Let Sn act on L[I] by relabelling. This action has only one orbit.
Let Sn act on B[I] by relabelling. The number of orbits is the same as the
number of cycle types of the bijections, which is the number of partitions of #I.
So L and B are not the same species.
1.1 Substitution
Definition 1.22. Given species P and Q, with Q[∅] = ∅, their substitution
P ◦ Q is defined by
a Y
!
(P ◦ Q)[I] = P[X] × Q[S]
X`I S∈X
This looks strange, but it has a nice consequence for generating functions.
(P ◦ Q)(x) = P(Q(x)).
Proof. Exercise.
9
Lecture 02: Substitution August 25, 2016
Example 1.25.
∼Π
E ◦ E+ =
This gives us the generating function for Π.
x −1
Π(x) = ee
Example 1.26.
∼Σ
L ◦ E+ =
This gives us the generating function for Σ.
1
Σ(x) =
2 − ex
Definition 1.27. Let A be the species of rooted trees,
Recall that a rooted tree is a connected acyclic graph with a chosen vertex.
Let A~ be the species of planar rooted trees (that is, rooted trees with a linear
order on the set of children of each node).
~
(b) A(x) = xeA(x) and A(x) = x
~
1−A(x)
√
~ 1− 1−4x ~
(c) A(x) = 2 and A[m] = m!Cm−1
10
Lecture 02: Monoids in Species August 25, 2016
2 Monoids in Species
Remark 2.1 (Idea). A species M is a monoid if it carries an operation which is
associative and unital. If M were a set, this would be the definition of a usual
monoid.
The map µ has components µST : M[S] × M[T ] → M[I]. For x ∈ M[S] and
y ∈ M[T ], we write µST (x, y) = x · y.
Now, associativity simply means that whenever we have a set I with a
partition into three pieces I = R t S t T and x ∈ M[R], y ∈ M[S], z ∈ M[T ], then
x · (y · z) = (x · y) · z.
We can also describe what it means to be unital. There is 1 ∈ M[∅] such that
1 · x = x = x · 1 for every x ∈ M[I] for every I.
We need one more condition. For any bijection σ : I → J, with I = S t T ,
x ∈ M[S] and y ∈ M[T ], we must have σ∗ (x · y) = σ|S ∗ (x)σ|∗ (y).
T
(b) f∅ (1) = 1.
L Σ
(1)
E Π
These are all monoids, and all of these morphisms are morphisms of monoids.
L, Σ are noncommutative and E, Π are commutative.
How is L a monoid? Well, we define
11
Lecture 02: Free Monoids August 25, 2016
by concatenating the two orders. For example, if I = {a, b, c, d, e}, and `1 = adc
and `2 = be, then `1 `2 = adcbe.
We make E into a monoid in the only possibly way
where we concatenate the two compositions and the two tuples x and y. By
(x, y) we mean (x1 , . . . , xk , y1 , . . . , yh ).
12
Lecture 02: Free Monoids August 25, 2016
The unit is ((), ()), where the first () is the empty composition of ∅ and the
second () is the empty sequence of Q-structures.
There is a morphism of species Q → T (Q) given by
Q[I] → T (Q)[I]
x 7→ ((I), x)
where (I) is the composition of I with one block.
Proposition 2.8. Given a monoid M and a morphism of species f : Q → M, there
is a unique morphism of monoids fb: T (Q) → M such that
f
Q M
fb
T (Q)
b So for a set I, define fbI : T (Q)[I] → M[I] by
Proof. We only need to define f.
(F, x) 7→ fS1 (x1 ) · · · · · fSk (xk ).
Note that each fSi (xi ) ∈ M[Si ], and associativity allows us to omit the paren-
theses.
• E = S (X) = E ◦ X.
∼P=
Exercise 2.12. If X is the species concentrated on singletons, then P ◦ X = ∼
X ◦ P for any species P.
This means that L is the free monoid on X, and E is the free commutative
monoid on X. Compare with the free monoid on one element, which is N. This
is also the free commutative monoid on one generator, but this is not the case in
the category of species.
13
Lecture 02: Comonoids in Species August 25, 2016
z|I = z = z/φ .
Finally, the naturality of the map ∆ST is captures in the following. For any
σ : I → J a bijection, and any z ∈ C[I], then
σ∗ (z)|σ(S) = σS
∗
(z|S )
14
Lecture 03: Comonoids in Species August 30, 2016
µS,T µT ,S
M[I]
and cocommuativity as
switch
C[S] × C[T ] C[T ] × C[S]
∆S,T ∆T ,S
C[I]
15
Lecture 03: Monoidal Categories August 30, 2016
Let B be a species that is both a monoid and a comonoid. This means that it
has multiplication and comultiplication maps (where I = S t T ).
S A B
S0 T0
T C D
L Σ
E Π
These are all bimonoids, and moreover they are cocommutative. Given `1 ∈ L[S],
`2 ∈ L[T ], we can check that
(`1 · `2 )|S 0 = `1 |A · `2 |C
3 Monoidal Categories
We’re going to set aside species for now and talk about monoidal categories.
This framework will make it easier to talk about species and give a general
definition of monoids, comonoids, and bimonoids.
16
Lecture 03: Monoidal Categories August 30, 2016
• A category C,
• natural isomorphisms α, λ, ρ
∼
αA,B,C : (A • B) • C −→ A • (B • C)
∼
λA : A −→ I • A
∼
ρA : A −→ A • I
(A • B) • (C • D)
αA•B,C,D αA,B,C•D
((A • B) • C) • D A • (B • (C • D))
αA,B•C,D
(A • (B • C)) • D A • ((B • C) • D)
αA,I,B
(A • I) • B A • (I • B)
17
Lecture 03: Monoidal Categories August 30, 2016
(2) C = Veck , the category of vector spaces over a field k. Then the monoidal
structure is the tensor product over k, V ⊗k W. The unit object is k itself.
Here, α : (U ⊗ V) ⊗ W → U ⊗ (V ⊗ W) is the canonical isomorphism.
(αU,V,W )g
((U • V) • W)g (U • (V • W))g
⊗ Vy ⊗ Wz ) ⊗ Vy ⊗ Wz )
L L
g=xyz (Ux g=xyz (UX
Ux ⊗ Vy ⊗ Wz Ux ⊗ Vy ⊗ Wz
∈
∈
Definition 3.5. Let C be a monoidal category with monoidal unit I and monoidal
structure •. A triple (M, µ, ι) is a called a monoid in C if
(a) M is an object in C,
18
Lecture 03: Monoidal Categories August 30, 2016
(b) µ : M • M → M is a morphism in C
(c) ι : I → M is a morphism in C.
Example 3.7.
(1) In Set, with monoidal structure ×, the monoids are ordinary monoids.
(3) When C is the category of G-graded vector spaces, as above, and the
cocycle φ is trivial (meaning φ(g, h, k) = 1), then the monoids are G-
graded k-algebras. If G = Z2 , then these are called superalgebras.
(a) C is an object of C
(b) ∆ : C → C • C is a morphism of C
(c) ε : C → I is a morphism of C
∆ ε•idC idC •ε
C C•C I•C C•C C•I
∆ ∆•idC ∆
λ ρ
idC •C
C•C C•C•C C
Example 3.9.
19
Lecture 03: Convolution Monoids August 30, 2016
(1) In (Set, ×), every object has a unique comonoid structure. What is this
structure? Well, we have ∆ : C → C × C and ε : C → {∗}. Write ∆(x) =
(∆1 (x), ∆2 (x)) for functions ∆1 , ∆2 : C → C. The counit axiom says that
(f∗g)∗h
∆
C C•C
∆ ∆•id
id•∆ (f∗g)•h
C•C C•C•C
f•g•h
f•(g∗h) µ•id
M•M•M M•M
id•µ µ
µ
f∗(g∗h) M•M M
20
Similarly, we can check that u is a unit for this monoid.
Lecture 04: Braided Monoidal Categories September 1, 2016
Proof. Observe that the following diagram commutes. This shows that φ# (f ∗
g) = φ# (f) ∗ φ# (g)
f∗g
M•M µ M
f•g
∆
C C•C φ•φ φ
(φ◦f)•(φ◦g)
µ
N•N N
φ# (f)∗φ# (g)
βA,B : A • B → B • A.
21
Lecture 04: Braided Monoidal Categories September 1, 2016
βA,B•C
A•B•C B•C•A
βA•B,C
A•B•C C•A•B
ρA λA λA ρA
A A
A•B•C
βA,B •idC idA •βB,C
B•A•C A•C•B
idB •βA,C βA,C •idB
B•C•A C•A•B
Proof. The first two aren’t hard; we will only show the hexagon to illustrate how
to apply naturality of β.
A•B•C
βA,B •idC idA •βB,C
B•A•C βA,B•C
A•C•B
idB •βA,C βA,C •idB
βA,C•B
B•C•A C•A•B
22
Lecture 04: Braided Monoidal Categories September 1, 2016
Adding in the two arrows βA,B•C and βA,C•B , we see that the two triangles are
the axioms that are satisfied by the braiding and the larger square is naturality
of β.
A B B A
βA,B = β−1
A,B =
B A A B
Example 4.5. Let’s draw the hexagon from Proposition 4.3. We have that
A B C A B C
B A C A C B
=
B C A C A B
C B A C B A
Example 4.6.
23
Lecture 04: Monoids and Comonoids in Braided Categories September 1, 2016
(Note that these laws imply γ(x, 1) = 1 = γ(1, x)). Let C be the category
of G-graded vector spaces. View it as a monoidal category under • with
trivial associativity constraint α.
Define βV,W : V • W → W • V as follows. It’s components are
(V • W)g (W • V)g
⊗ Wy ⊗ Vy 0
L L
xy=g Vx x 0 y 0 =g Wx 0
Vx ⊗ Wy Wy ⊗ Vx
∈
∈
Example 4.8. In (Set, ×), if A and B are monoids, then so is A × B via (a, b) ·
(a 0 , b 0 ) = (aa 0 , bb 0 ).
24
Lecture 04: Monoids and Comonoids in Braided Categories September 1, 2016
µA µA
A
commutes. Dually, a comonoid (C, ∆, ε) is cocommutative if
βC,C
C•C C•C
∆ ∆
C
commutes.
Proposition 4.11. Let B be both a monoid and a comonoid in C, a braided
monoidal category. Then the following are equivalent.
(i) ∆ : B → B • B and ε • B → I are morphisms of monoids.
(ii) µ : B • B → B and ι : I → B are morphisms of comonoids.
(iii) The following diagrams commute:
µ ∆
B•B B B•B
∆•∆ µ•µ
id•βB,B •id
B•B•B•B B•B•B•B
ε•ε ι ι
B•B I•I I•I B•B I B
µ ∆ ε
id
ε ι
B I I B I
Definition 4.12. If any of the equivalent conditions in Proposition 4.11 is satis-
fied, then we call B a bimonoid.
Definition 4.13. We say that f : B → B 0 is a morphism of bimonoids if it is both
a morphism of monoids and comonoids. We say that f : H → H 0 is a morphism
of Hopf monoids if it is a morphism of bimonoids such that
S
H H
f f
S
H0 H0
25
Lecture 04: Hopf Monoids September 1, 2016
S•id
H•H H•H
∆ µ
ε ι
H I H
∆ µ
id•S
H•H H•H
Remark 4.15. Let’s organize everything we’ve defined so far. Given a braided
monoidal category (C, •, I, β), we have
objects
monoids comonoids
bimonoids
Hopf monoids
objects = sets
26
Lecture 05: Hopf Monoids September 6, 2016
So in the category of sets, comonoids are just sets because each set has a unique
comonoid structure given by the diagonal. We also see that every monoid is a
bimonoid, and it turns out that Hopf monoids are groups.
Why is a Hopf monoid in Set a group? Suppose that H is a Hopf monoid in
Set, with antipode S. We have that S ∗ id = u = id ∗ S. What does this mean?
Well, we have
∆ S×id µ
S ∗ id : B B×B B×B B
∈
∈
∈
∈
x (x, x) (S(x), x) S(x) · x
∈
∈
∈
x ∗ 1
So S ∗ id = u ⇐⇒ S(x) · x = 1 for all x ∈ B, and similarly, we see that
x · S(x) = 1 for all x ∈ B. Hence, H is a group.
Proposition 4.18. The antipode of a Hopf monoid reverses products and co-
27
Lecture 05: Linearization September 6, 2016
Proposition 4.20. Antipode preserves units and counits. That is, the following
diagrams commute.
S S
H H H H
ι ι ε ε
I I
28
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consciences; and others, who give you to understand much the same
thing as a good joke, out of sheer impertinence, constitutional
vivacity, and want of something to say. All these, it must be
confessed, are disagreeable people; and you repay their overanxiety
or total forgetfulness of you, by a determination to cut them as
speedily as possible. We meet with instances of persons who
overpower you by a sort of boisterous mirth and rude animal spirits,
with whose ordinary state of excitement it is as impossible to keep up
as with that of any one really intoxicated; and with others who seem
scarce alive—who take no pleasure or interest in any thing—who are
born to exemplify the maxim,
‘Not to admire is all the art I know
To make men happy, or to keep them so,—
I apprehend, with his own countrymen or ours, all the love and
loyalty would come to little, but for their hatred of the army opposed
to them. It is the resistance, ‘the two to kill at a blow,’ that is the
charm, and makes our fingers’-ends tingle. The Greek cause makes
no progress with us for this reason: it is one of pure sympathy, but
our sympathies must arise out of our antipathies; they were devoted
to the Queen to spite the King. We had a wonderful affection for the
Spaniards—the secret of which was that we detested the French. Our
love must begin with hate. It is so far well that the French are
opposed to us in almost every way; for the spirit of contradiction
alone to foreign fopperies and absurdities keeps us within some
bounds of decency and order. When an English lady of quality
introduces a favourite by saying, ‘This is his lordship’s physician, and
my atheist,’ the humour might become epidemic; but we can stop it
at once by saying, ‘That is so like a Frenchwoman!’—The English
excel in the practical and mechanic arts, where mere plodding and
industry are expected and required; but they do not combine
business and pleasure well together. Thus, in the Fine Arts, which
unite the mechanical with the sentimental, they will probably never
succeed; for the one spoils and diverts them from the other. An
Englishman can attend but to one thing at a time. He hates music at
dinner. He can go through any labour or pain with prodigious
fortitude; but he cannot make a pleasure of it, or persuade himself he
is doing a fine thing, when he is not. Again, they are great in original
discoveries, which come upon them by surprise, and which they
leave to others to perfect. It is a question whether, if they foresaw
they were about to make the discovery, at the very point of projection
as it were, they would not turn their backs upon it, and leave it to
shift for itself; or obstinately refuse to take the last step, or give up
the pursuit, in mere dread and nervous apprehension lest they
should not succeed. Poetry is also their undeniable element; for the
essence of poetry is will and passion, ‘and it alone is highly
fantastical.’ French poetry is verbiage or dry detail.
I have thus endeavoured to shew why it is the English fail as a
people in the Fine Arts, because the idea of the end absorbs that of
the means. Hogarth was an exception to this rule; but then every
stroke of his pencil was instinct with genius. As it has been well said,
that ‘we read his works,’ so it might be said he wrote them. Barry is
an instance more to my purpose. No one could argue better about
gusto in painting, and yet no one ever painted with less. His pictures
were dry, coarse, and wanted all that his descriptions of those of
others indicate. For example, he speaks of ‘the dull, dead, watery
look’ of the Medusa’s head of Leonardo, in a manner that conveys an
absolute idea of the character: had he copied it, you would never
have suspected any thing of the kind. His pen grows almost wanton
in praise of Titian’s nymph-like figures. What drabs he has made of
his own sea-nymphs, floating in the Thames, with Dr. Burney at their
head, with his wig on! He is like a person admiring the grace of an
accomplished rope-dancer; place him on the rope himself, and his
head turns;—or he is like Luther’s comparison of Reason to a
drunken man on horseback—‘set him up on one side, and he tumbles
over on the other.’ Why is this? His mind was essentially ardent and
discursive, not sensitive or observant; and though the immediate
object acted as a stimulus to his imagination, it was only as it does to
the poet’s—that is, as a link in the chain of association, as implying
other strong feelings and ideas, and not for its intrinsic beauty or
individual details. He had not the painter’s eye, though he had the
painter’s general knowledge. There is as great a difference in this
respect between our views of things as between the telescope and
microscope. People in general see objects only to distinguish them in
practice and by name—to know that a hat is black, that a chair is not
a table, that John is not James; and there are painters, particularly of
history in England, who look very little farther. They cannot finish
any thing, or go over a head twice: the first coup-d’œil is all they ever
arrive at, nor can they refine on their impressions, soften them down,
or reduce them to their component parts, without losing their spirit.
The inevitable result of this is grossness, and also want of force and
solidity; for, in reality, the parts cannot be separated without injury
from the whole. Such people have no pleasure in the art as such: it is
merely to astonish or to thrive that they follow it; or, if thrown out of
it by accident, they regret it only as a bankrupt tradesman does a
business which was a handsome subsistence to him. Barry did not
live, like Titian, on the taste of colours (there was here, perhaps—and
I will not disguise it—in English painters in general, a defect of
organic susceptibility); they were not a pabulum to his senses; he did
not hold green, blue, red, and yellow for ‘the darlings of his precious
eye.’ They did not, therefore, sink into his mind with all their hidden
harmonies, nor nourish and enrich it with material beauty, though
he knew enough of them to furnish hints for other ideas and to
suggest topics of discourse. If he had had the most enchanting object
in nature before him in his painting-room at the Adelphi, he would
have turned from it, after a moment’s burst of admiration, to talk of
the subject of his next composition, and to scrawl in some new and
vast design, illustrating a series of great events in history, or some
vague moral theory. The art itself was nothing to him, though he
made it the stalking-horse to his ambition and display of intellectual
power in general; and, therefore, he neglected its essential qualities
to daub in huge allegories, or carry on cabals with the Academy, in
which the violence of his will and the extent of his views found
proper food and scope. As a painter, he was tolerable merely as a
draftsman, or in that part of the art which may be best reduced to
rules and precepts, or to positive measurements. There is neither
colouring, nor expression, nor delicacy, nor striking effect in his
pictures at the Adelphi. The group of youths and horses, in the
representation of the Olympic Games, is the best part of them, and
has more of the grace and spirit of a Greek bas-relief than any thing
of the same kind in the French school of painting. Barry was, all his
life, a thorn in the side of Sir Joshua, who was irritated by the temper
and disconcerted by the powers of the man; and who, conscious of
his own superiority in the exercise of his profession, yet looked
askance at Barry’s loftier pretensions and more gigantic scale of art.
But he had no more occasion to be really jealous of him than of an
Irish porter or orator. It was like Imogen’s mistaking the dead body
of Cloten for her lord’s—‘the jovial thigh, the brawns of Hercules’: the
head, which would have detected the cheat, was missing!
I might have gone more into the subject of our apparent
indifference to the pleasure of mere imitation, if I had had to run a
parallel between English and Italian or even Flemish art; but really,
though I find a great deal of what is finical, I find nothing of the
pleasurable in the details of French more than of English art. The
English artist, it is an old and just complaint, can with difficulty be
prevailed upon to finish any part of a picture but the face, even if he
does that any tolerable justice: the French artist bestows equal and
elaborate pains on every part of his picture—the dress, the carpet,
&c.; and it has been objected to the latter method, that it has the
effect of making the face look unfinished; for as this is variable and
in motion, it can never admit of the same minuteness of imitation as
objects of still-life, and must suffer in the comparison, if these have
the utmost possible degree of attention bestowed on them, and do
not fall into their relative place in the composition from their natural
insignificance. But does not this distinction shew generally that the
English have no pleasure in art, unless there is an additional interest
beyond what is borrowed from the eye, and that the French have the
same pleasure in it, provided the mechanical operation is the same—
like the fly that settles equally on the face or dress, and runs over the
whole surface with the same lightness and indifference? The collar of
a coat is out of drawing: this may be and is wrong. But I cannot say
that it gives me the same disturbance as if the nose was awry. A
Frenchman thinks that both are equally out of drawing, and sets
about correcting them both with equal gravity and perseverance. A
part of the back-ground of a picture is left in an unfinished state: this
is a sad eye-sore to the French artist or connoisseur. We English care
little about it: if the head and character are well given, we pass it over
as of small consequence; and if they are failures, it is of even less. A
French painter, after having made you look like a baboon, would go
on finishing the cravat or the buttons of your coat with all the nicety
of a man milliner or button-maker, and the most perfect satisfaction
with himself and his art. This with us would be quite impossible.
‘They are careful after many things: with us, there is one thing
needful’—which is effect. We certainly throw our impressions more
into masses (they are not taken off by pattern, every part alike): there
may be a slowness and repugnance at first; but, afterwards, there is
an impulse, a momentum acquired—one interest absorbing and
being strengthened by several others; and if we gain our principal
object, we can overlook the rest, or at least cannot find time to attend
to them till we have secured this. We have nothing of the petit
maître, of the martinet style about us: we run into the opposite fault.
If we had time, if we had power, there could be no objection to giving
every part with the utmost perfection, as it is given in a looking-glass.
But if we have only a month to do a portrait in, is it not better to give
three weeks to the face and one to the dress, than one week to the
face and three to the dress. How often do we look at the face
compared to the dress? ‘On a good foundation,’ says Sancho Panza, ‘a
good house may be built’; so a good picture should have a good back-
ground, and be finished in every part. It is entitled to this mark of
respect, which is like providing a frame for it, and hanging it in a
good light. I can easily understand how Rubens or Vandyke finished
the back grounds and drapery of their pictures:—they were worth the
trouble; and, besides, it cost them nothing. It was to them no more
than blowing a bubble in the air. One would no doubt have every
thing right—a feather in a cap, or a plant in the foreground—if a
thought or a touch would do it. But to labour on for ever, and labour
to no purpose, is beyond mortal or English patience. Our clumsiness
is one cause of our negligence. Depend upon it, people do with
readiness what they can do well. I rather wonder, therefore, that
Raphael took such pains in finishing his draperies and back grounds,
which he did so indifferently. The expression is like an emanation of
the soul, or like a lamp shining within and illuminating the whole
face and body; and every part, charged with so sacred a trust as the
conveying of this expression (even to the hands and feet), would be
wrought up to the highest perfection. But his inanimate objects must
have cost him some trouble; and yet he laboured them too. In what
he could not do well, he was still determined to do his best; and that
nothing should be wanting in decorum and respect to an art that he
had consecrated to virtue, and to that genius that burnt like a flame
upon its altars! We have nothing that for myself I can compare with
this high and heroic pursuit of art for its own sake. The French fancy
their own pedantic abortions equal to it, thrust them into the Louvre,
‘and with their darkness dare affront that light!’—thus proving
themselves without the germ or the possibility of excellence—the
feeling of it in others. We at least claim some interest in art, by
looking up to its loftiest monuments—retire to a distance, and
reverence the sanctuary, if we cannot enter it.
‘They also serve who only stare and wait.’[40]