FOOTNOTES
[1] There will be an opportunity to notice that incredible dereliction of reminiscence which prompted him to transfer what he had rightly ascribed to Giorgione, in the Florentine edition, 1550, to the elder Palma in the subsequent ones. See [Lecture on Chiaroscuro].
[2] It ought not, however, to be disguised, that the history of art, deviating from its real object, has been swelled to a diffuse catalogue of individuals, who, being the nurslings of different schools, or picking something from the real establishers of art, have done little more than repeat or mimic rather than imitate, at second hand, what their masters or predecessors had found in nature, discriminated and applied to art in obedience to its dictates. Without depreciating the merits of that multitude who strenuously passed life in following others, it must be pronounced a task below history to allow them more than a transitory glance; neither novelty nor selection and combination of scattered materials, are entitled to serious attention from him who only investigates the real progress of art, if novelty is proved to have added nothing essential to the system, and selection to have only diluted energy, and by a popular amalgama to have been content with captivating the vulgar. Novelty, without enlarging the circle of fancy, may delight, but is nearer allied to whim than to invention; and an Ecclectic system without equality of parts, as it originated in want of comprehension, totters on the brink of mediocrity, sinks art, or splits it into crafts decorated with the specious name of schools, whose members, authorised by prescript, emboldened by dexterity of hand, encouraged by ignorance, or heading a cabal, subsist on mere repetition, with few more legitimate claims to the honours of history than a rhapsodist to those of the poem which he recites.
[3] Abstract of the Laws of the Royal Academy, article Professors: page 21.
[4] This has been done in a superior manner by J. G. Herder, in his Ideen zur Philosophie der geschichte der Menschheit, Vol. iii. Book 13, a work translated under the title of Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, 4to.
[5] This account is founded on the conjectures of Mr. Riem, in his Treatise on die Malerey der Alten, or the Painting of the Ancients, 4to. Berlin, 1787.
[6] Pausanias Attic, c. xxviii. The word used by Pausanias καταγραψαι, shews that the figures of Parrhasius were intended for a Bassorelievo. They were in profile. This is the sense of the word Catagrapha in Pliny, xxxv. c. 8. he translates it “obliquas imagines.”
[7] By the authority chiefly of Pamphilus the master of Apelles, who taught at Sicyon. ‘Hujus auctoritate,’ says Pliny, xxxv. 10. ‘effectum est Sicyone primum, deinde et in tota Græcia, ut pueri ingenui ante omnia diagraphicen, hoc est, picturam in buxo, docerentur,’ &c. Harduin, contrary to the common editions, reads indeed, and by the authority, he says, of all the MSS. graphicen, which he translates: ars ‘delineandi,’ desseigner, but he has not proved that graphice means not more than design; and if he had, what was it that Pamphilus taught? he was not the inventor of what he had been taught himself. He established or rather renewed a particular method of drawing, which contained the rudiments, and facilitated the method of painting.
[8] Pausan. Phocica, c. xxv. seq.
[9] This I take to be the sense of Μεγεθος here, which distinguished him, according to Ælian, Var. Hist. iv. 3. from Dionysius of Colophon. The word Τελειοις in the same passage: και ἐν τοις τελειοις ἐιργαζετο τα ἀθλα, I translate: he aimed at, he sought his praise in the representation of essential proportion; which leads to ideal beauty.
The κρειττους, χειρους, ὁμοιους; or the βελτιονας ἦ καθ’ ἡμας, ἦκαι τοιουτους, ἠ χειρονας, of Aristotle, Poetic. c. 2. by which he distinguishes Polygnotus, Dionysius, Pauson, confirms the sense given to the passage of Ælian.
[10] παρειῶν το ἐνερευθες, ὁιαν την Κασσανδραν ἐν τη λεσχη ἐποιησε τοις Δελφοις. Lucian: ειχονες. This, and what Pausanias tells of the colour of Eurynomus in the same picture, together with the coloured draperies mentioned by Pliny; makes it evident, that the ‘simplex color’ ascribed by Quintilian to Polygnotus and Aglaophon, implies less a single colour, as some have supposed, than that simplicity always attendant on the infancy of painting, which leaves every colour unmixed and crudely by itself. Indeed the Poecile (ἡ ποικιλη στοα) which obtained its name from his pictures, is alone a sufficient proof of variety of colours.
[11] Hic primus species exprimere instituit, Pliny, xxxv. 96. as species in the sense Harduin takes it, ‘oris et habitus venustas,’ cannot be refused to Polygnotus, and the artists immediately preceding Apollodorus, it must mean here the subdivisions of generic form; the classes.
At this period we may with probability fix the invention of local colour, and tone; which, though strictly speaking it be neither the light nor the shade, is regulated by the medium which tinges both. This, Pliny calls ‘splendour.’ To Apollodorus Plutarch ascribes likewise the invention of tints, the mixtures of colour and the gradations of shade, if I conceive the passage rightly: Ἀπολλοδωρος ὁ Ζωγραφος Ἀνθρωπων πρωτος ἐξευρων φθοραν και ἀποχρωσιν Σκιας, (Plutarch, Bellone an pace Ath, &c. 346.) This was the element of the ancient Αρμογη, that imperceptible transition, which, without opacity, confusion or hardness, united local colour, demi-tint, shade and reflexes.
[12] ‘Pinxit et monochromata ex albo.’ Pliny, xxxv. 9. This Aristotle, Poet. c. 6. calls λευκογραφειν.
[13] In lineis extremis palmam adeptus——minor tamen videtur, sibi comparatus, in mediis corporibus exprimendis. Pliny, xxxv. 10. Here we find the inferiority of the middle parts merely relative to himself. Compared with himself, Parrhasius was not all equal.
[14] Theseus, in quo dixit, eundem apud Parrhasium rosa pastum esse, suum vero carne. Plin. xxxv. 11.
[15] The epithet which he gave to himself of Ἀβροδιαιτος, the delicate, the elegant, and the epigram he is said to have composed on himself, are known: See Athenæus, l. xii. He wore, says Ælian, Var. Hist. ix. 11. a purple robe and a golden garland; he bore a staff wound round with tendrils of gold, and his sandals were tied to his feet and ancles with golden straps. Of his easy simplicity we may judge from his dialogue with Socrates in Xenophon; ἀπομνημονευατων, 1. iii. Of his libidinous fancy, beside what Pliny says, from his Archigallus, and the Meleager and Atalanta mentioned by Suetonius in Tiberio, c. 44.
[16] In the portico of the Piræus by Leochares; in the hall of the Five-hundred, by Lyson: in the back portico of the Ceramicus there was a picture of Theseus, of Democracy and the Demos, by Euphranor. Pausan. Attic. i. 3. Aristolaus, according to Pliny was a painter, ‘e severissimis.’
[17] Cicero Oratore, 73, seq.—In alioque ponatur, aliudque totum sit, utrum decere an oportere dicas; oportere enim, perfectionem declarat officii, quo et semper utendum est, et omnibus: decere, quasi aptum esse, consentaneumque tempori et personæ; quod cum in factis sæpissime, tum in dictis valet, in vultu denique, et gestu, et incessu. Contraque item dedecere. Quod si poeta fugit, ut maximum vitium, qui peccat, etiam, cum probam orationem affingit improbo, stultove sapientis: si denique pictor ille vicit, cum immolanda Iphigenia tristis Calchas esset, mæstior Ulysses, moereret Menelaus, obvolvendum caput Agamemnonis esse, quoniam summum ilium luctum penicillo, non posset imitari: si denique histrio, quid deceat quærit: quid faciendum oratori putemus?
M. F. Quintilianus, 1. ii. c. 14.—Operienda sunt quædam, sive ostendi non debent, sive exprimi pro dignitate non possunt: ut fecit Timanthes, ut opinor, Cithnius, in ea tabula qua Coloten tejum vicit. Nam cum in Iphigeniæ immolatione pinxisset tristem Calchantem, tristiorem Ulyssem, addidisset Menelao quem summum poterat ars efficere Moerorem, consumptis affectibus, non reperiens quo digne modo Patris vultum possit exprimere, velavit ejus caput, et sui cuique animo dedit æstimandum.
It is evident to the slightest consideration, that both Cicero and Quintilian lose sight of their premises, and contradict themselves in the motive they ascribe to Timanthes. Their want of acquaintance with the nature of plastic expression made them imagine the face of Agamemnon beyond the power of the artist. They were not aware that by making him waste expression on inferior actors at the expence of a principal one, they call him an improvident spendthrift and not a wise œconomist.
From Valerius Maximus, who calls the subject ‘Luctuosum immolatæ Iphigeniæ sacrificium’ instead of immolandæ, little can be expected to the purpose. Pliny, with the digne of Quintilian has the same confusion of motive.
[18] It is observed by an ingenious Critic, that in the tragedy of Euripides, the procession is described, and upon Iphigenia’s looking back on her father, he groans, and hides his face to conceal his tears; whilst the picture gives the moment that precedes the sacrifice, and the hiding has a different object and arises from another impression.
——————ὡς δ’ εσειδεν Αγαμεμνων αναξ
ἐπι σφαγας στειχουσαν ἐις ἀλσος κορην
ἀνεστεναξε. Καμπαλιν στρεψας καρα
Δακρυα προηγεν. ὀμματων πεπλον προθεις.
[19] Pliny, l. xxxv. c. 18.
[20] Lysippum Sicyonium—audendi rationem cepisse pictoris Eupompi responso. Eum enim interrogatum, quem sequeretur antecedentium, dixisse demonstrata hominum multitudine, naturam ipsam imitandam esse, non artificem. Non habet Latinum nomen symmetria, quam diligentissime custodivit, nova intactaque ratione quadratas veterum staturas permutando: Vulgoque dicebat, ab illis factos, quales essent, homines: a se, quales viderentur esse. Plin. xxxiv. 8.
[21] Μαλλον δε Ἀπελλης ὁ Ἐφεσιος παλαι ταυτην προῦλαβε την ἐικονα· Και γας ἀυ και ὁυτος διαβληθεις προς Πτολεμαιον——
Λουκιανου περι του μ. ῤ. Π. Τ. Δ.
[22] Apelles was probably the inventor of what artists call glazing. See Reynolds on Du Fresnoy, note 37. vol. iii.
[23] In matri interfectæ infante miserabiliter blandiente. Plin. 1. xxxiv. c. 9.
[24] A design of Raphael, representing the lues of the Trojans in Creta, known by the print of Marc Antonio Raymondi.
[25] Reynolds’ Disc. V. vol. i p. 120. Euphranoris Alexander Paris est: in quo laudatur quod omnia simul intelligantur, judex dearum, amator Helenæ, et tamen Achillis interfector. Plin. 1. xxxiv. 8.
[26] See the Hymn (ascribed to Homer) on Apollo.
[27] See the account of this in Vasari; vita di P. Brunelleschi, tom. ii. 114. It is of wood, and still exists in the chapel of the family Gondi, in the church of S. Maria Novella. I know that near a century before Donato, Giotto is said to have worked in marble two bassorelievos on the campanile of the cathedral of Florence; they probably excel the style of his pictures, as much as the bronze works executed by Andrea Pisano, from his designs, at the door of the Battisterio.
[28] Masaccio da S. Giovanni di Valdarno born in 1402, is said to have died in 1443. He was the pupil of Masolino da Panicale.
[29] Andrea Mantegna died at Mantoua, 1505. A monument erected to his memory in 1517, by his sons, gave rise to the mistake of dating his death from that period.
[30] Luca Signorelli died at Cortona 1521, aged 82.
[31] Lionardo da Vinci is said to have died in 1517, aged 75, at Paris.
[32] The flying birds of paste, the lions filled with lilies, the lizards with dragons wings, horned and silvered over, savour equally of the boy and the quack. It is singular enough that there exists not the smallest hint of Lorenzo de Medici having employed or noticed a man of such powers and such early celebrity; the legend which makes him go to Rome with Juliano de Medici at the access of Leo X, to accept employment in the Vatican, whether sufficiently authentic or not, furnishes a characteristic trait of the man. The Pope passing through the room allotted for the pictures, and instead of designs and cartoons, finding nothing but an apparatus of distillery, of oils and varnishes, exclaimed, Oimè costui non è per far nulla, da che comincia a pensare alla fine innanzi il principio dell’ opera! From an admirable sonnet of Lionardo, preserved by Lomazzo, he appears to have been sensible of the inconstancy of his own temper, and full of wishes, at least, to correct it.
Much has been said of the honour he received by expiring in the arms of Francis I. It was indeed an honour, by which destiny in some degree atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at Pavia.
[33] Frà. Bartolomeo died at Florence 1517, at the age of 48.
[34] Michael Angelo Buonarroti born at Castel-Caprese in 1474, died at Rome 1564, aged 90.
[35] Like Silanion—‘Apollodorum fecit, fictorem et ipsum, sed inter cunctos diligentissimum artis & inimicum sui judicem, crebro perfecta signa frangentem, dum satiare cupiditatem nequit artis, et ideo insanum cognominarum. Hoc in eo expressit, nec hominem ex ære fecit sed Iracundiam.’ Plin. 1. xxxiv. 7.
[36] When M. Angelo pronounced oil-painting to be Arte da donna e da huomini agiati e infingardi, a maxim to which the fierce Venetian manner has given an air of paradox, he spoke relatively to fresco: it was a lash on the short-sighted insolence of Sebastian del Piombo, who wanted to persuade Paul III. to have the last judgment painted in oil. That he had a sense for the beauties of oil colour, its glow, its juice, its richness, its pulp, the praises which he lavished on Titiano, whom he called the only painter, and his patronage of Frà. Sebastian himself, evidently prove. When young, M. Angelo attempted oil-painting with success; the picture painted for Angelo Doni is an instance, and probably the only intire work of the kind that remains. The Lazarus, in the picture destined for the cathedral at Narbonne, rejects the claim of every other hand. The Leda, the cartoon of which, formerly in the palace of the Vecchietti at Florence, is now in the possession of W. Lock, Esq., was painted in distemper; (a tempera); all small or large oil pictures shown as his, are copies from his designs or cartoons, by Marcello Venusti, Giacopo da Pontormo, Battista Franco, and Sebastian of Venice.
[37] Raphael Sanzio, of Urbino, died at Rome 1520, at the age of 37.
[38] Giorgio Barbarelli, from his size and beauty called Giorgione, was born at Castel Franco, in the territory of Venice, 1478, and died at Venice, 1511.
[39] Titiano Vecelli, or as the Venetians call him, Tiziàn, born at Cador in the Friulese, died at Venice, 1576, aged 99.
[40] The birth and life of Antonio Allegri, or as he called himself Læti, surnamed Correggio, is more involved in obscurity than the life of Apelles. Whether he was born in 1490 or 94 is not ascertained; the time of his death in 1534 is more certain. The best account of him has undoubtedly been given by A. R. Mengs in his Memorie concernenti la vita e le opere di Antonio Allegri denominato il Correggio. Vol. ii. of his works, published by the Spaniard D. G. Niccola d’Azara.
[41] Pelegrino Tibaldi died at Milano in 1592, aged 70.
[42] Sebastiano, afterwards called Del Piombo from the office of the papal signet, died at Rome in 1547, aged 62.
[43] Daniel Ricciarelli, of Volterra, died in 1566, aged 57.
[44] Now the first ornament of the exquisite collection of J. J. Angerstein, Esq.
[45] Giorgio Vasari, of Arezzo, died in 1584, aged 68.
[46] Julio Pipi, called Romano, died at Mantoua in 1546, aged 54.
[47] Francesco Primaticcio, made Abbé de St. Martin de Troyes, by Francis I., died in France 1570, aged 80.
[48] Polydoro Caldara da Caravaggio was assassinated at Messina in 1543, aged 51.
[49] Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed Il Caravaggi, knight of Malta, died 1609, aged 40.
[50] Nicolas Poussin, of Andely, died at Rome 1665, aged 71.
[51] Salvator Rosa, surnamed Salvatoriello, died at Rome 1673, aged 59.
[52] Of the portraits which Raphael in fresco scattered over the compositions of the Vatican, we shall find an opportunity to speak. But in oil the real style of portrait began at Venice with Giorgione, flourished in Sebastian del Piombo, and was carried to perfection by Titiano, who filled the masses of the first without entangling himself in the minute details of the second. Tintoretto, Bassan, and Paolo of Verona, followed the principle of Titiano. After these, it migrated from Italy to reside with the Spaniard Diego Velasquez; from whom Rubens and Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France and England, with unequal success. France seized less on the delicacy than on the affectation of Vandyck, and soon turned the art of representing men and women into a mere remembrancer of fashions and airs. England had possessed Holbein, but it was reserved for the German Lely, and his successor Kneller, to lay the foundation of a manner, which, by pretending to unite portrait with history, gave a retrograde direction for near a century, to both. A mob of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls, ruffled Endymion’s, humble Juno’s, withered Hebe’s, surly Allegroes, and smirking Pensierosa’s, usurped the place of truth, propriety and character. Even the lamented powers of the greatest painter, whom this country and perhaps our age produced, long vainly struggled, and scarcely in the eve of life succeeded to emancipate us from this dastard taste.
[53] Francesco Mazzuoli, called il Parmegiano, died at Casal Maggiore in 1540, at the age of 36. The magnificent picture of the St. John, we speak of, was begun by order of the Lady Maria Bufalina, and destined for the church of St. Salvadore del Lauro at Città di Castello. It probably never received the last hand of the master, who fled from Rome, where he painted it, at the sacking of that city, under Charles Bourbon, in 1527; it remained in the refectory of the convent della Pace for several years, was carried to Città di Castello by Messer Giulio Bufalini, and is now in England. The Moses, a figure in fresco at Parma, together with Raphael’s figure of God in the vision of Ezekiel, is said, by Mr. Mason, to have furnished Gray with the head and action of his bard: if that was the case, he would have done well, to acquaint us with the poet’s method, of making ‘Placidis coire immitia.’
[54] Lodovico Carracci died at Bologna 1619, aged 64.
Agostino Carracci died at Parma in 1602, at the age of 44. His is the St. Girolamo in the Certosa, near Bologna; his, the Thetis with the nereids, cupids, and tritons, in the gallery of the palace Farnese. Why, as an engraver, he should have wasted his powers on the large plate from the crucifixion, painted by Tintoretto, in the hospitio of the school of St. Rocco, a picture, of which he could not express the tone, its greatest merit, is not easily unriddled. Annibale Carracci died at Rome in 1609, at the age of 49.
SONNET OF AGOSTINO CARRACCI.
Chi farsi un buon Pittor cerca, e desia,
Il disegno di Roma habbia alla mano,
La mossa coll’ ombrar Veneziano,
E il degno colorir di Lombardia.
Di Michel’ Angiol la terribil via
Il vero natural di Tiziano,
Del Correggio lo stil puro, e sovrano,
E di un Rafel la giusta simetria.
Del Tibaldi il decoro, e il fondamento,
Del dotto Primaticcio l’inventare,
E un po di gratia del Parmigianino.
Ma senza tanti studi, e tanto stento,
Si ponga l’opre solo ad imitare,
Che qui lasciocci il nostro Niccolino.
Malvasia, author of the Felsina Pittrice, has made this sonnet the text to his drowsy rhapsody on the frescoes of Lodovico Carracci and some of his scholars, in the cloisters of St. Michele in Bosco, by Bologna. He circumscribes the ‘Mossa Veneziana,’ of the sonnet, by ‘Quel strepitoso motivo & quel divincolamento’ peculiar to Tintoretto.
[56] Guido Reni died in 1642, aged 68. Giov. Lanfranco died at Naples in 1647 aged 66. Franc. Albani died in 1660, aged 82. Domenico Zampieri, called il Domenichino, died in 1641, aged 60. Franc. Barbieri of Cento, called il Guercino, from a cast in his eye, died in 1667, aged 76.
[57] Pietro Berretini, of Cortona, the painter of the cieling in the Barberini hall, and of the gallery in the lesser Pamphili palace; the vernal suavity of whose fresco-tints no pencil ever equalled, died at Rome in 1669, aged 73. Luca Giordano, nick-named Fa-presto, or Dispatch, from the rapidity of his execution, the greatest machinist of his time, died in 1705, aged 76.
[58] We are informed by the Editor of the Latin translation of Albert Durer’s book, on the symmetry of the parts of the human frame, (Parisiis, in officina Caroli Perier in vico Bellovaco, sub Bellerophonte, 1557, fol.) that, during Albert’s stay at Venice, where he resided for a short time, to procure redress from the Signoria, for the forgery of Marc Antonio, he became familiar with Giovanni Bellini: and that Andrea Mantegna, who had heard of his arrival in Italy, and had conceived an high opinion of his execution and fertility, sent him a message of invitation to Mantoua, for the express purpose of giving him an idea of that form of which he himself had obtained a glimpse from the contemplation of the antique. Andrea was then ill, and expired before Albert, who immediately prepared to set out for Mantoua, could profit by his instructions. This disappointment, says my author, Albert never ceased to lament during his life. How fit the Mantouan was to instruct the German, is not the question here; but Albert’s regret seems to prove that he felt a want which his model could not supply; and that he had too just an idea of the importance of the art to be proud of dexterity of finger or facility of execution, when employed on objects essentially defective or comparatively trifling. The following personal account of Albert deserves to be given in the Latin Editor’s own words: ‘E Pannonia oriundum accepimus—Erat caput argutum, oculi micantes, nasus honestus & quern Greci Τετράγωνον vocant; proceriusculum collum, pectus amplum, castigatus venter, femora nervosa, crura stabilia: sed digitis nihil dixisses vidisse elegantius.’
Albert Durer was the scholar of Martin Schön and Michael Wolgemuth, and died at Nuremberg in 1528, aged 57.
[59] Lucas Jacob, called Lucas of Leyden, and by the Italians, Luca d’Ollanda, died at Leyden in 1533.
[60] Peter Paul Rubens, of Cologne, the disciple of Adam Van Ort and Otho Venius, died at or near Antwerp in 1641, aged 63.
See the admirable character given of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, annexed to his journey to Flanders, vol. ii. of his works.
[61] Anthony Vandyck died in London, 1641, at the age of 42.—The poetic conception of Abraham Diepenbeck may be estimated from the Temple des Muses of Mr. de Marolles; re-edited but not improved by Bernard Picart.
[62] Rembrandt died, at Amsterdam? in 1674, aged 68.
[63] Hans Holbein, of Basle, died in London, 1544, at the age of 46. Peter Francis Mola, the scholar of Giuseppe d’Arpino and Franc. Albani, was born at the village of Coldre, of the diocese of Balerna, in the bailliage of Mendrisio, in 1621, and died at Rome in 1666.
[64] Eustache le Sueur, bred under Simon Voüet, died at Paris in 1655, at the age of 38. His fellow scholar and overbearing rival Charles le Brun, died in 1690, aged 71.
[65] For the best account of Spanish art, see Lettera di A. R. Mengs a Don Antonio Ponz. Opere di Mengs, vol. ii. Mengs was born at Ausig, in Bohemia, in 1728, and died at Rome in 1779.
Ὑλῃ και τροποις μιμησεως διαφερουςι.
Πλουταρχ. Π. Αθ. κατα Π. ἠ καθ’ ἐ. ἐνδ.
See Lessings Laokoon. Berlin 1766. 8vo.
[67] All minute detail tends to destroy terrour, as all minute ornament, grandeur. The catalogue of the cauldron’s ingredients in Macbeth, destroys the terrour attendant on the mysterious darkness of preternatural agency; and the seraglio trappings of Rubens, annihilate his heroes.
Ἐγω δε πλεον ἐλπομαι
Λογον Ὀδυσσεος, ἠ παθεν,
Δια τον ἁδυεπη γενεσθ Ὁμηρον
Ἐπει ψευδεεσσιν ὁι ποτανᾳ γε μαχανᾳ
Σεμνον ἐπεστι τι. σοφια δε
Κλεπτει παραγοισα μυθοις.
Πινδαρ. Νεμ. Ζ.
[69] M. F. Quintilianus, l. xii. 10.—Concipiendis visionibus (quas ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΑΣ vocant) Theon Samius—est præstantissimus.
At quomodo fiet ut afficiamur? neque enim sunt motus in nostra potestate. Tentabo etiam de hoc dicere. Quas Φαντασιας græci vocant, nos sanè visiones appellamus; per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repræsentantur animo, ut eas cernere oculis ac præsentes habere videamur: has quisquis bene conceperit, is erit in affectibus potentissimus. Hunc quidam dicunt ἐυφαντασιωτον, qui sibi res, voces, actus, secundum verum optume finget: quod quidem nobis volentibus facile continget.
Nam ut inter otia animorum et spes inanes, et velut somnia quædam vigilantium, ita nos hæ de quibus loquimur, imagines persequuntur, ut peregrinari, navigare, præliari, populos alloqui, divitiarum quas non habemus, usum videamur disponere; nec cogitare, sed facere: hoc animi vitium ad utilitatem non transferemus? ut hominem occisum querar, non omnia quæ in re præsenti accidisse credibile est, in oculis habebo? non percussor ille subitus erumpet? non expavescet circumventus? exclamabit, vel rogabit, vel fugiet? non ferientem, non concidentem videbo? non animo sanguis, et pallor et gemitus, extremus denique expirantis hiatus insidebit?
Idem, l. vi. c. 11.
Theon numbered with the ‘Proceres’ by Quintilian, by Pliny with less discrimination is placed among the ‘Primis Proximos;’ and in some passage of Plutarch, unaccountably censured for impropriety of subject, ατοπια, in representing the madness of Orestes.
[70] Αιλιανου ποικ. ιστορ. l. ii. c. 44. Θεωνος του Ζωγραφου πολλα μεν και ἀλλα ὁμολογει την χειρουργιαν ἀγαθην οὐσαν, ἀ ταρ οὐν και τοδε το γραμμα.——Και ἐιπες ἀν ἀυτον ἐνθουσιᾶν, ὡσπερ εξ Ἀρεος μανεντα.——Και σφαττειν βλεπων, και ἀπειλῶν δι ὁλου του σχηματος, ὁτι μηδενος φεισεται.
[71] The name of Agasias, the scholar or son of Dositheos, the Ephesian, occurs not in ancient record; and whether he be the Egesias of Quintilian and Pliny, or these the same, cannot be ascertained; though the style of sculpture, and the form of the letters in the inscription are not much at variance with the character which the former gives to the age and style of Calon and Egesias; ‘Signa—duriora et Tuscanicis proxima.’ The impropriety of calling this figure a gladiator has been shewn by Winkelmann, and on his remark, that it probably exhibits the attitude of a soldier, who signalized himself in some moment of danger, Lessing has founded a conjecture, that it is the figure of Chabrias, from the following passage of Corn. Nepos: ‘Elucet maxime inventum ejus in proelio, quod apud Thebas fecit, cum Boetiis subsidio venisset. Namque in eo victoriæ fidente summo duce Agesilao, fugatis jam ab eo conductitiis catervis, reliquam phalangem loco vetuit cedere; obnixoque genu scuto, projectâque hastâ, impetum excipere hostium docuit. Id novum Agesilaus intuens, progredi non est ausus, suosque jam incurrentes tubâ revocavit. Hoc usque eo in Græcia famâ celebratum est, ut illo statu Chabrias sibi statuam fieri voluerit, quæ publicè ei ab Atheniensibus in foro constituta est. Ex quo factum est, ut postea athletæ, cæterique artifices his statibus in statuis ponendis uterentur, in quibus victoriam essent adepti?’
On this passage, simple and unperplexed, if we except the words, ‘cæterique ‘artifices,’ where something is evidently dropped or changed, there can, I trust, be but one opinion—that the manœuvre of Chabrias was defensive, and consisted in giving the phalanx a stationary, and at the same time—impenetrable posture, to check the progress of the enemy; a repulse, not a victory was obtained; the Thebans were content to maintain their ground, and not a word is said by the historian, of a pursuit, when Agesilaus, startled at the contrivance, called off his troops: but the warriour of Agasias rushes forward in an assailing attitude, whilst with his head and shield turned upwards he seems to guard himself from some attack above him. Lessing, aware of this, to make the passage square with his conjecture, is reduced to a change of punctuation, and accordingly transposes the decisive comma after ‘scuto,’ to ‘genu,’ and reads ‘obnixo genu,’ scuto projectâque hastâ,—docuit.’ This alone might warrant us to dismiss his conjecture as less solid than daring and acute.
The statue erected to Chabrias in the Athenian forum was probably of brass, for ‘statua’ and ‘statuarius,’ in Pliny at least, will I believe always be found relative to figures and artists in metal; such were those which at an early period the Athenians dedicated to Harmodios and Aristogiton: from them the custom spread in every direction, and iconic figures in metal, began, says Pliny, to be the ornaments of every municipal forum.
From another passage in Nepos, I was once willing to find in our figure an Alcibiades in Phrygia, rushing from the flames of the cottage fired to destroy him, and guarding himself against the javelins and arrows which the gang of Sysamithres and Bagoas showered on him at a distance. ‘Ille,’ says the historian, ‘sonitu flammæ? excitatus, quod gladius ei erat subductus, familiaris sui subalare telum eripuit—et—flammæ vim transit. Quem, ut Barbari incendium effugisse viderunt, telis eminus missis, interfecerunt. Sic Alcibiades annos circiter quadraginta natus, diem obiit supremum.’
Such is the age of our figure, and it is to be noticed that the right arm and hand, now armed with a lance, are modern; if it be objected, that the figure is iconic, and that the head of Alcibiades, cut off after his death, was carried to Pharnabazus, and his body burned by his mistress; it might be observed in reply, that busts and figures of Alcibiades must have been frequent in Greece, and that the expression found its source in the mind of Agasias. On this conjecture however I shall not insist: let us only observe that the character, forms and attitude, might be turned to better use than what Poussin made of it. It might form an admirable Ulysses bestriding the deck of his ship to defend his companions from the descending fangs of Scylla, or rather, with indignation and anguish, seeing them already snatched up and writhing in the mysterious gripe:
Ἀυταρ ἐγω καταδυς κλυτα τευχεα, και δυο δυoρε
Μακρ’ ἐν χερσιν ἑλων, ἐις ἰκρια νηος ἐβαινον
Πρωρης——ἐκαμον δε μοι ὀσσε
Παντη παπταινοντι προς ἦεροειδεα πετρην
Σκεψαμενος δε——
Ἠδη των ἐνοησα ποδας και χειρας ὑπερθεν
Ὑψος’ ἀειρομενων——
Odyss. M. 328. seq.
[72] Sebbene il divino Michel Agnolo fece la gran Cappella di Papa Julio, dappoi non arrivò a questo segno mai alla metà, la sun virtù non aggiunse mai alla forza di quei primi studi. Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, p. 13.—Vasari, as appears from his own account, never himself saw the cartoon: he talks of an ‘infinity of combatants on horseback,’ of which there neither remains nor ever can have existed a trace, if the picture at Holkham be the work of Bastiano da St. Gallo. This he saw, for it was painted, at his own desire, by that master, from his small cartoon in 1542, and by means of Monsignor Jovio transmitted to Francis I. who highly esteemed it; from his collection it however disappeared, and no mention is made of it by the French writers for near two centuries. It was probably discovered at Paris, bought and carried to England by the late Lord Leicester. That Vasari, on inspecting the copy, should not have corrected the confused account he gives of the cartoon from hearsay, can be wondered at, only by those, who are unacquainted with his character as a writer. One solitary horse and a drummer on the imaginary back-ground of the groups engraved by Agostino Venetiano, are all the cavalry remaining of Vasari’s squadrons, and can as little belong to Michel Agnolo as the spot on which they are placed.
The following are his own words: ‘Si vedeva dalle divine mani di Michelagnolo chi affrettare lo armarsi per dare ajuto a’compagni, altri affibbiarsi la corazza, e molti metter altre armi indosso, ed infiniti combattendo a cavallo cominciare la zuffa.’
Vasari, Vita di M. A. B. p. 183. ed. Bottari.
Ὁ δε, πως μεγεθυνει τα Δαιμονια;——Την
Ὁρμην ἀντων κοσμικῳ διαστηματι καταμετρει.
Longinus; § 9.
[74] Much has been said of the loss we have suffered in the marginal drawings which Michael Angelo drew in his Dante. Invention may have suffered in being deprived of them; they can, however, have been little more than hints of a size too minute to admit of much discrimination. The true terrours of Dante depend as much upon the medium in which he shews, or gives us a glimpse of his figures, as on their form. The characteristic outlines of his fiends, Michael Angelo personified in the dæmons of the last judgment, and invigourated the undisguised appetite, ferocity or craft of the brute, by traits of human malignity, cruelty, or lust. The Minos of Dante, in Messer Biagio da Cesena, and his Charon, have been recognized by all; but less the shivering wretch held over the barge by a hook, and evidently taken from the following passage in the xxiid of the Inferno:
Et Graffiacan, che gli era più di contra
Gli arroncigliò l’impegolate chiome;
E trasse ’l sù, che mi parve una lontra.
None has noticed as imitations of Dante in the xxivth book, the astonishing groups in the Lunetta of the brazen serpent; none the various hints from the Inferno and Purgatorio scattered over the attitudes and expressions of the figures rising from their graves. In the Lunetta of Haman, we owe the sublime conception of his figure to the subsequent passage in the xviith c. of Purgatory:
Poi piobbe dentro al’ alta phantasia
Un Crucifisso, dispettoso e fiero
Nella sua vista, e lo qual si moria.
The bassorelievo on the border of the second rock, in Purgatory, furnished the idea of the Annunziata, painted by Marcello Venusti from his design, in the sacristy of St. Giov. Lateran, by order of Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, the select friend and favourite of Michael Angelo.
We are told that Michael Angelo represented the Ugolino of Dante, inclosed in the tower of Pisa; if he did, his own work is lost: but if, as some suppose, the bassorelievo of that subject by Pierino da Vinci, be taken from his idea, notwithstanding the greater latitude, which the sculptor might claim, in divesting the figures of drapery and costume; he appears to me, to have erred in the means employed to rouse our sympathy. A sullen but muscular character, with groups of muscular bodies and forms of strength, about him, with the allegoric figure of the Arno at their feet, and that of Famine hovering over their heads, are not the fierce Gothic chief, deprived of revenge, brooding over despair in the stony cage; are not the exhausted agonies of a father, petrified by the helpless groans of an expiring family, offering their own bodies for his food, to prolong his life.
Dixeris egregiè, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum.——
Q. Horat. Flacci de A. P. v. 47.
[76] Matt. 17. 5. 6. See Fiorillo, geschichte, &c. 104. seq.
[77] The vision on Tabor, as represented here, is the most characteristic produced by modern art. Whether we consider the action of the apostles overpowered by the divine effulgence and divided between adoration and astonishment; or the forms of the prophets ascending like flame, and attracted by the lucid centre, or the majesty of Jesus himself, whose countenance, is the only one we know, expressive of his superhuman nature. That the unison of such powers, should not, for once, have disarmed the burlesque of the French critic, rouses equal surprise and indignation.
[78] The group in the Ludovisi, ever since its discovery, absurdly misnamed Pætus and Arria, notwithstanding some dissonance of taste and execution, may with more plausibility claim the title of Hæmon and Antigone.
[79] The whole of the gallery of Luxemburg by Rubens is but a branch of its magnificence: general as the elements, universal and permanent as the affections of human nature, allegory breaks the fetters of time, it unites with boundless sway, mythologic, feodal, local incongruities, fleeting modes of society and fugitive fashions: thus, in the picture of Rubens, Minerva, who instructs, the Graces that surround the royal maiden at the poetic fount, are not what they are in Homer, the real tutress of Telemachus, the real dressers of Venus, they are the symbols only of the education which the princess received. In that sublime design of Michael Agnolo, where a figure is roused by a descending genius from his repose on a globe, on which he yet reclines, and with surprize discovers the phantoms of the passions which he courted, unmasked in wild confusion flitting round him, M. Agnolo was less ambitious to express the nature of a dream, or to bespeak our attention to its picturesque effect and powerful contrasts, than to impress us with the lesson, that all is vanity and life a farce, unless engaged by virtue and the pursuits of mind.
[80] L’Aurora Sonnacchiosa.
[81] Speaking of the figure of Christ by Raphael in the Madonna del Spasimo, he calls it ‘Una Figura d’un Carattere fra quel di Giove, e quello d’Apollo; quale effettivamente deve esser quello, che corrisponde a Cristo, aggiungendovi soltanto l’espressione accidentale della passione, in cui si rappresenta.’ Opere 11. 83.
[82] It is engraved by Villamena.
[83] The composition, and in some degree the lines, but neither its tone nor effect, may be found among the etchings of Le Fevre.
[84] I cannot quit this picture without observing, that it presents the most incontrovertible evidence of the incongruities arising from the jarring coalition of the grand and ornamental styles. The group of Lazarus may be said to contain the most valuable relic of the classic time of modern, and perhaps the only specimen left of M. Agnolo’s oil-painting: an opinion which will scarcely be disputed by him, who has examined the manner of the Sistine chapel, and in his mind compared it with the group of the Lazarus, and that with the style and treatment of the other parts.
[85] In a picture which he painted at Rome for Bindo Altoviti, it represented ‘Un Cristo quanto il vivo, levato di croce, e posto in terra a’ piedi della Madre; e nell’ aria Febo, che oscura la faccia del sole, e Diana quella della Luna. Nel paese poi, oscurato da queste Tenebre, si veggiono spezzarsi alcuni monti di pietra, mossi dal terremoto, e certi corpi morti di santi risorgendo, uscire de sepolcri in vari modi; il quale quadro, finito che fu, per sua grazia non dispiacque al maggior pittore, scultore, e architetto, che sia stato a’ tempi nostri passati?’ The compliment was not paid to M. Agnolo himself, for the word ‘passati’ tells that he was no more, but it levied a tribute on posterity.
Vita di Giorgio Vasari.
[86] A miracle means an act performed by virtue of an unknown law of Nature.
[87] The form, but not the soul, of Julio’s composition has been borrowed by Rubens, or the master of the well known picture in the gallery of Dulwich college. Few can be unacquainted with the work of Vandyke, spread by the best engravers of that school. The picture of Rembrandt is the chief ornament of the collection in the garden-house of the Schönborn family, in one of the suburbs of Vienna: has been etched on a large scale, and there is a copy of it in the gallery at Cassel. A circumstantial account of it may be found in the Eighth Letter, vol. iii. of Küttner’s Travels.
[88] Nella arte della pittura aggiunse costui alla maniera del colorire ad olio, una certa oscurità; donde banno dato i moderni gran forza e rilievo alle Loro figure. Vasari vita di Lion. da Vinci, p. 559. ed. 1550.
[89] In the greater part of the cartoons, it does not appear that chiaroscuro had more than an ordinary share of attention:
In the Miraculous Draught plain day-light prevails.
In the miracle at the Temple-gate a more forcible and more sublime effect would have been obtained from a cupola-light and pillars darkened on the fore-ground.
In the exceccation of Elymas, composition and expression owe little of their roundness and evidence to chiaroscuro.
Apposition seems to have arranged the Sacrifice at Lystra.
If Dionysius and Damaris, in the cartoon of the Areopagus, had more forcibly refracted by dark colours or shade, the light against the speaker, effect and subject would have gained.
Considered individually or in masses, the chiaroscuro in the cartoon of Ananias appears to be perfect; but the Donation of the Keys owes what impression it makes on us in a great measure to the skilful distribution of its light and shade.
[90] In the following absurd description of the well-known picture in the palace Pitti: ‘It consists of three half-figures, one of which represents Martin Luther in the habit of an Augustin Monk, who plays on a harpsichord; Calvin stands by him in a chorister’s dress, with a violin in his hand: opposite you see a young lively girl in a bonnet with a plume of white feathers; by her Giorgione meant to represent the noted Catharine, Luther’s mistress and wife,’ &c. Fiorillo, vol. ii. p. 63. To expose the ignorant credulity which dictated this passage, it is sufficient to observe, that Giorgione died 1511, and that Calvin was born 1508.
[91] In every edition of the Vite subsequent to his own of 1550. The following passage deserves to be given in his own words: ‘Giorgione di Castel franco; il quale sfumò le sue pitture e dette una terribil’ movenzia a certe cose come è una storia nella scuola di san Marco a Venezia, dove è un tempo turbido che tuona, et trema il dipinto, et le figure si muovono & si spiccano da la tavola per una certa oscurità di ombre bene intese.’ Proemio della terza Parte delle Vite, p. 558.
[92] A La Scuola di S. Marco La Tempesta Sedata dal Santo, ove fra Le altre cose sono tre remiganti ignudi, pregiatissimi pel disegno, e per le attitudini. Lanzi storia, &c. Tomo II. parte prima. Scuola Veneta.
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