THE PAINTER.
1. Painting is the art of representing visible objects, by means of lines and colors, on a plane surface, so as to produce the appearance of relief. It is justly ranked among the highest of that class of arts denominated fine, or liberal; and its tendencies and powers being similar to those of poetry, it is considered an employment worthy of men of the most exalted rank.
2. The theory and practice of this ingenious and delightful art, are divided by its professors into five distinct branches,——invention, composition, design, chiaro-scuro, and coloring. Invention relates to the choice of subjects to be introduced into a picture. It is this which gives the highest character to the artist, as it affords the greatest opportunity to display the powers of his mind.
3. Composition regards the general distribution and grouping of figures, the choice of attitudes, the disposal of draperies, the situation of the scene itself, as well as the arrangement and connexion of the various parts of the scenery. Invention and composition are employed particularly in the first rough sketch of a picture.
4. Design refers to the expression of a proposed picture in simple contour, or outlines. It is applied in making the first rough sketch of the picture, whether in miniature or in its full size, as well as in the more accurate expression of the form of the figures, in its final finish. The artist, in making his design, is guided in drawing his lines by the rules of perspective, according to which he is able to foreshorten objects, and thereby diminish the space which they occupy, without giving them the appearance of diminished magnitude.
5. Perspective has been defined the art of delineating the outlines of objects on any given surface, as they would appear to the eye, if that surface were transparent, and the objects themselves were seen through it, from a fixed position. For example; when we look through a window at a mass of buildings, and observe that part of the glass to which each object, line, or point appears opposite, we find that their apparent position is very different from their real. A delineation of these objects on the glass, as they appear, would be termed a representation in perspective.
6. Correct perspective is the foundation of scientific painting; and, next in importance to this, is a proper distribution of light and shade. This branch of the art is called chiaro obscuro, or, when abridged, chiaro-scuro. The term is Italian in its origin, and its literal meaning is clear and obscure. To the skilful management of light and shade, we are indebted for the strength and liveliness of pictures, and their relief, or the elevation which certain parts appear to assume above the plane upon which the objects are represented.
7. By the aid of perspective and chiaro-scuro, very good representations in one color are attained. Drawings in India-ink and crayons, as well as pictures taken from engraved plates and wood-cuts, are specimens of such productions. But a nearer approach to the appearance of nature, is made by the employment of colors analogous to those which are found to exist in the objects to be represented.
8. To produce various hues in painting, the artist employs coloring substances, which, either alone or by mixture, are analogous to them all; and, in their use, he is careful to apply them in such a manner, that the true colors remain distinct from the lights and shades necessary to produce the objects in relief. Artificial colors are divided into warm and cold. The former are those in which red and yellow predominate; the latter are blue, gray, and others allied to them.
9. Before coloring substances can be applied in painting, they must be reduced to extreme fineness, and be mixed with some tenacious fluid, to cause them to adhere to the surface on which they are to be spread. The fluid employed for this purpose, and the mode of applying the colors, have given rise to the different kinds of painting, of which the following are the principal: crayon, water-color, distemper, fresco, and oil-painting.
10. The most simple mode of applying the colors is by means of crayons. They are made of black lead, a species of chalk, or of a mixture of coloring matter with gum, size, or clay. For painting in water-colors, the substances employed in communicating the tints are combined with gum, and formed into cakes or lozenges. When about to be used, they are dissolved in water, on glass or a glazed surface. The application in painting, is made by means of a camel's-hair pencil.
11. Painting in distemper is used for the execution of works on a large scale, such as stage scenery, and the walls of apartments. The coloring substances are mixed with water, rendered tenacious by size or solutions of glue, or by skimmed milk, increased in tenacity by a small quantity of thyme. Linseed or poppy oil often serves as a vehicle for the colors, in this kind of painting.
12. Paintings in fresco are executed on walls of plaster. The coloring matter mixed with water, being applied to the plaster while the latter is in a fresh state, sinks in, and incorporates itself with it, so as to become very durable. During the execution of the work, the plaster is applied to the wall in successive portions, no more being added at a time, than can be conveniently painted before it becomes dry. Works of this kind must be executed with great rapidity; and, on this account, patterns, called cartoons, are previously drawn on large paper, to guide the artist in his operations.
13. Oil painting derives its name from the mixture of the colors in oil. The oils used for this purpose are extracted from vegetables; and, on account of the rapidity with which they dry, are denominated drying oils. For most purposes, this mode of painting is decidedly superior to all others. It admits of a higher finish, as it allows the artist to retouch his works with greater precision. The colors also blend together more agreeably, and produce a more delicate effect. Oil paintings are executed on canvas, wood, or copper.
14. Paintings are imitated with surprising elegance, by cementing together colored pieces of glass and marble, as well as those of wood. Representations by these means, are called Mosaics, or Mosaic paintings. The cause of their having received this appellation cannot be ascertained. Some, without much reason, attribute the origin and name of this branch of the art to Moses. Others suppose that works of this kind have been thus denominated, because they were first employed in grottoes dedicated to the Muses.
15. Drawings and paintings are divided into classes, according to the nature of the objects represented, the principal of which are historical, architectural, landscape, marine, portrait, still life, grotesque, botanical, and animal. The subordinate divisions of these branches are very numerous.
16. The propensity to imitation, so deeply rooted in the human mind, is the foundation of the arts of design; and there can scarcely be indicated a lengthened period in the history of man, in which it was entirely inactive. It may have first been accidentally exhibited in tracing the form of some object in the sand; or resemblances in sticks and stones, may have originally suggested the idea of imitations by means of lines and colors.
17. Although painting and sculpture may be supposed to have existed, at least in a rude state, at a very early period, and even before the deluge, yet the reign of Semiramis, queen of Assyria, 2000 years before Christ, is the earliest to which authentic history extends. Diodorus Siculus relates that the queen, having thrown a bridge across the Euphrates, at Babylon, erected a castle at each end of it, and inclosed them with walls of considerable height, with towers upon them. The bricks of which they were constructed, were painted before they underwent the fire, and were so put together, that single figures, and even groups of them, were represented in colors.
18. This author supposes also, that the arts had attained nearly an equal degree of cultivation about the same time in Egypt, sculpture, as best serving idolatrous purposes, being in both countries much in advance of the sister art of painting. But, in neither country, was painting or sculpture brought to a great degree of perfection.
19. In Egypt, independent selection of objects, and variety of exhibition, never appear to have been much regarded. When a specific form of character had been once adopted, so it remained, and was repeated unchanged for ages. Little action, and no expression, was given to figures. The chief employment of the Egyptian artists, seems to have been the painting of the chests of mummies, and the ornaments on barges and earthenware.
20. Painting, in the early days of its existence, was employed chiefly in the exhibition and preservation of historical facts; and, wherever it remained faithful to these objects, it was obliged to sacrifice the beautiful to the significant. Only in those countries where alphabetical writing existed, could painting elevate itself to a fine art.
21. The Pelasgi, who expelled or subdued the earlier inhabitants of Greece, and colonized that country, probably brought with them the rudiments of this art; and it at length grew up with its sister arts. In some of the stages of its progress, this intelligent people, no doubt, received useful hints from other countries, and especially from Egypt; yet they finally surpassed all the nations of antiquity in this branch of art.
22. The Greeks, with singular care, have preserved the names of their artists from the earliest periods of their practice. Ardens, of Corinth, Telephanes and Crato, of Sycion, and some others, are noticed as such, when painting had advanced no farther than the mere circumscription of shadows by single lines.
23. The different kinds of painting, as marked by the successive stages of the art among the Greeks, are as follows; 1. The skiagram, or drawing in simple outlines, as in the circumscriptions of shadows. 2. The monogram, including both the outlines and others within them. 3. The monochrom, or picture in a single color. 4. The polychrom, or picture of many colors.
24. Although the names of the Grecian artists were carefully preserved, the time in which they lived was not distinctly marked until the 16th Olympiad, or 719 years before the commencement of our era. At this time, Candaules, king of Lydia, purchased a picture called the Battle of the Magnetes, for which he paid its weight in gold, although painted on boards. The name of the fortunate artist was Bularchus.
25. Notwithstanding the fame of this picture, Aglaophon and Polygnotus, of Thasos, who flourished 300 years after this period, were the first eminent painters. Polygnotus is said to have been the first who gave a pleasing air to the draperies and head-dresses of females, and to have opened the mouth so far as to exhibit the beauty of the teeth.
26. Still, painting is considered to have been in an inferior state, until the appearance of Timanthes, Parrhasius, and Zeuxis, who flourished about 375 years before Christ. These again were surpassed by their successors, Protogenes, Pamphilus, Melanthius, Antiphilus, Theon, Euphranor, Apelles, and Aristides, who carried the art to the greatest perfection to which it attained in ancient times.
27. Of the preceding list of artists, Apelles was the most famous, especially as a portrait painter. He was the intimate friend of Alexander the Great, who would never permit any other person to paint his likeness. His most celebrated painting, was this prince holding the lightning with which the picture is chiefly illuminated. By a happy application of perspective and chiaro-scuro, the hand with the lightning seemed to project from the picture.
28. From the time of these great masters, painting gradually declined, although the art continued to be practised by a succession of eminent men, who contended against the blighting influence of the luxury and the internal broils of their countrymen. But soon after Greece became subject to the Roman power, the practice of the fine arts nearly ceased in that country.
29. Before the foundation of Rome, the arts were cultivated, to some extent, in Etruria and Calabria; but the first Roman painter mentioned in history, was Fabius, a noble patrician, who painted, in the year of the city 450, the temple of the goddess Salus, and thereby obtained for himself and family the surname of Pictor. Yet the citizens do not seem to have profited by this example; for no other painter appeared among them until 150 years after that period. At this time, Pacuvius, the poet, amused himself, in the decline of life, with painting the temple of Hercules.
30. They were thus inattentive to the cultivation of this, as well as of the other fine arts, because they considered warfare, and the arts which tended directly to support this interest, as alone worthy of the attention of a citizen of their republic; and painting, even after the time of Pacuvius, was considered effeminate and disgraceful. Rome, therefore, cannot be said, at any time, to have produced a single artist who could approach the excellences of those of its refined neighbors, the Greeks.
31. They, however, having ornamented their metropolis and villas with specimens of the arts plundered from the cities of Greece and Sicily, began, at length, to appreciate their excellences; and finally, under the first emperors, they encouraged, with great munificence, the Greeks who resorted to their city for employment.
32. But, both sculpture and painting, as well as architecture, declined with Roman civilization. Still, they continued to exist, especially in the Byzantine or Eastern empire, although in a very inferior state. The art under consideration was preserved chiefly by its application to the purposes of Christianity. It was revived in Italy, in the beginning of the twelfth century, by means of several Grecian artists, who had been employed to ornament the churches, and other edifices at Pisa, Venice, and Florence.
33. The works of Apollonius, one of these Greeks, excited in Giovanni Cimabue a spirit of emulation; and, having been initiated into the practice of the art, he executed a picture of the Virgin Mary, as large as life, for a church dedicated to her, at Florence. This production excited enthusiastic delight in his fellow-citizens, who carried it in procession, with the sound of trumpets, to its place of destination, and celebrated the day as a public feast.
34. Encouraged by this applause, Cimabue pursued the art with ardor; and, although considered a prodigy in his time, his utmost efforts failed to produce tolerable specimens of the art. He, however, far excelled his immediate predecessors; and, by introducing more correct proportions, by giving more life and expression to his figures, and by some other improvements, he became the founder of the art as it exists in modern times. He was born at Florence, in 1240, and died at the age of sixty.
35. The favorite pupil of Cimabue, was Giotto, whom he raised from a shepherd to be a painter; and by him the art was still more relieved from the Greek imperfections. He abandoned the use of labels as means of distinguishing the different figures of a picture, and aimed at, and attained to, real expression. He marked out to the Italians the course in which the art should be pursued, as Polygnotus had done to the Greeks near 1800 years before; although, like him, he failed in fully exemplifying his principles.
36. His abilities procured him the patronage of Pope Boniface VIII., who employed him at Rome. From this time, the art of painting became attached to the papal dignity, and few succeeding pontiffs have neglected its use. The skill and celebrity of this ingenious artist excited great emulation, and the arts having obtained an earnest of profit and honor, no longer wanted skilful professors or illustrious patrons.
37. In 1350, fourteen years after the death of Giotto, his disciple, Jacopo Cassentino, and nine other artists, founded the Academy of St. Luke, at Florence. This was a grand epoch of the arts; as from this institution arose a large display of talent, increasing in splendor until, within 150 years, it gave to the world, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, and Raphael, besides others of great ability.
38. The art advanced but little after the time of Giotto, until the appearance of Masaccio. Under the hand of this great master, painting is said to have been greatly improved; and it was to him, that the artists who succeeded were indebted for a more sure and full direction of the course in which they ought to proceed. He was born in 1402, and died in 1443.
39. Leonardo da Vinci, who was born about two years after the death of Masaccio, brought the art to still greater perfection; and being endowed with uncommon genius, all the arts and sciences did not seem to afford a field sufficient for the exertion of his talents. He grasped at all, and succeeded far better than his predecessors in everything he undertook; but he wasted much of his time in experiments. Had he confined his great powers to the art of painting, he would probably have never been exceeded.
40. About the year 1410, oil came to be used as a vehicle for paints. It seems to have been first applied to this purpose in Flanders, by John Van Eyck, of Brussels; or it was, at least, first used by him successfully. The first hint of its utility in this application is thought, with reason, to have been obtained from its use as a varnish to pictures painted in water-colors.
41. The art of painting was introduced into Flanders about the time of Giotto, by several Flemings, who had been to Italy for the express purpose of learning it. It was also diffused in practice, about the same time, in Germany; and a particular style of the art grew up in each of these countries. But it was in Italy alone that the art may be said to have flourished in a high state of cultivation; and even there, the principal productions originated from artists of the Florentine school.
42. The art of painting was perfected, perhaps, as far as human ability can carry it, in the first half of the sixteenth century, by Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio; although it cannot be said that all its excellences were united in the productions of any one of these distinguished professors. Such a union has never yet been displayed, nor can it hardly be expected.
43. The art was essentially aided in its progressive stages of advancement by the liberal patronage of the family of the Medici, at Florence, and by the pontiffs, at Rome. Angelo and Raphael were both employed at Rome by Julius II. and Leo X., as well as by others who succeeded them in the papal chair, in ornamenting the palaces and sacred buildings. Their productions have never been exceeded in any country, and they still remain the objects of careful study by artists of this profession.
44. Titian was also liberally patronised at Rome, and in other parts of Italy, as well as in Spain and Germany, chiefly as a portrait and landscape painter. The unrivalled productions of these great masters, however, were fatal to the art in Italy, since their superior excellence extinguished emulation, by destroying the prospect of equal or superior success.
45. The flourishing state of the art in Italy, for so long a period, might be expected to have produced a taste for its cultivation in other parts of Europe; but this was the case only to a limited extent. No other countries have yet been particularly distinguished for artists in this branch of the fine arts, except Flanders and Holland; and these were chiefly indebted for the distinction to Peter Paul Rubens, of Antwerp, who was born at Cologne, in 1577, and to Paul Van Rhyn Rembrandt, who was born in 1606, in his father's mill, near Leyden. Some of the scholars of these masters were eminent painters. Anthony Vandyck, a pupil of the former, in particular, is said to have never yet been equalled as a portrait-painter.
46. Very little is known of the art in Spain, until about the year 1500, although it is supposed to have been cultivated with some success before that time. The examples which were left there by Titian produced a favorable impression, and several native artists of considerable eminence afterwards appeared; but the art became nearly extinct in the following age.
47. The proximity of France to Italy, and the employment of Leonardo da Vinci and other eminent artists of Italy by Francis I., together with the establishment of a school of fine arts, as stated in the preceding article, might have been expected to lay the foundation of exalted taste in this kingdom. Nevertheless, the only French painters whose names have come down to us with any pretensions to excellence for one hundred and fifty years, were Jean Cousin, Jaques Blanchard, Nicholas Poussin, and Charles Le Brun. The last, although inferior to Poussin, is at the head of the French school of painting.
48. The successors of Le Brun were not wanting in ability, yet, with a few exceptions, they failed in reaching an enviable eminence in the art, on account of their servile imitation of the false taste of their popular model. The fantastic style of Le Brun became unpopular in France some time previous to the revolution in that country; and another, of an opposite character, and by artists of other nations thought to be equally distant from true taste, has been since adopted.
49. Very little is known of the state of the fine arts in England until the time of Henry VIII., who encouraged the abilities of Hans Holbein, an eminent painter from Switzerland. But painting and sculpture, and particularly the former, having become intimately interwoven with the religion of the Church of Rome, fell into disrepute in England after the change of opinion on this subject in that country. They, however, began to revive in the eighteenth century, and England and English America have since produced some eminent painters, among whom are Hogarth, Reynolds, Opie, West, Copley, Trumbull, and Peale.
