THE INFANT HERCULES.
"No eminent work of art that we are acquainted with ever proved with more irresistible evidence, the truth of Hesiod's axiom, that "the half excels the whole," than the infant Demigod before us; whose tremendous superiority of conception and style not only scorns all alliance with the motley mob of whom the painter condemned him to make a part, but cannot, with any degree of justice, be degraded into a comparison with any figure which has reached us, of an Infant Hercules on ancient or modern monuments of art. Whatever homage conjecture may pay to the powers of Xeuxis, whose "Jupiter Enthroned," and "Infant Hercules," tradition joins as works of equal magnificence, it will be difficult for fancy to seek an image of loftier or more appropriate conception than that of the heroic child before us, whose magnitude of form, irresistibility of grasp, indignant disdain, and sportive ease of action, equally retain his divine origin, and disclose the germ of the future power destined to clear society and rid the earth of monsters.
"This infant, like the infants of Michael Angelo, and of what we possess of the ancients, teems with the man, but without that sacrifice of puerility observable in them. Modern art has allotted the province of children to Fiammingo; it seems to belong, with a less disputable title, to Reynolds, who inspired the pulpy cheeks and milky limbs of the Fleming with the manners, (ἬΘΗ) habits, and the mind of infancy, when first emerging form, instinct to will, sprouts to puerility, displays the dawn of character, and the varied symptoms of imitation; but above all, that unpremeditated grace, the innate gift and privilege of childhood, in countenance, attitude, and action."
Notwithstanding his great acquirements in the classics, acuteness of mind, and knowledge of some of the branches of natural philosophy, Fuseli neither solicited nor was offered any literary or other honours (except those of the Royal Academy) in this country. Expressing one day my surprise at this, he answered, "What are such things worth? for I have known men on whom the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws has been conferred by the University of Oxford, which prides itself for classical knowledge, who cannot read correctly a line in the classics; and you know those who are Fellows of the Royal Society, who do not possess a philosophical knowledge even of the material on which they work."
Fuseli was seldom induced to speak on religion; but, as he attached himself to no particular form or sect, which is frequently the case with foreigners, it would be difficult to give a precise idea of his tenets. In religion, however, as well as on all other concerns, he thought for himself, unshackled by those restraints which forms, ceremonies, or opinions, often impose on the mind. No man that I have ever conversed with had a higher or more sublime notion of the attributes and benevolence of the Deity, and no one a better knowledge of the Bible. In this book he was deeply read, and recollected, when in conversation, not only those parts which, for historical facts, sublimity, pathos, or poetic beauty, are impressed on most minds, but also the minor circumstances, for he could from memory trace the several tribes, and tell you accurately the genealogy of any particular person. He seldom took up the Bible, which he frequently did, without shedding tears. One evening, when talking in a serious mood to a young lady, he related to her, in his own peculiar and forcible manner, the story of "Joseph and his Brethren," and with the greatest pathos; and at that part where Joseph falls on Benjamin's neck and wept, he burst out, while tears trembled in his eyes, "How finely that is expressed, there are beautiful things in that book! It's an exquisite book!" He had a perfect reliance on a future state of existence. "If I had not hope in this," he said, "I should hang myself, for I have lived and still live for nothing. I am certain I shall exist hereafter, for I feel that I have had powers given to me by the Deity, which time has not allowed me to exert or even to develope. I am capable of doing ten times more than I have done."
This prevailing impression broke forth on many occasions. He had accompanied Sir Thomas Lawrence to see a collection of fine casts from the antique, which had recently been formed by Jens Wolff, Esq. then Consul to his Danish Majesty, and which were arranged in a gallery built for the purpose by Mr. Smirke, at Sherwood Lodge, Battersea.
In a niche, at the end of the gallery, was placed the colossal statue of the Farnese Hercules, and by a novel arrangement of the lamps (the rest of the gallery being in total darkness), a very powerful effect was given to the statue, which had been turned with its back to the spectator, and thus presented a vast mass of shadow, defined only by its grand outline and the strength of the light beyond it; the source of which was concealed by the pedestal. Its appearance being singularly striking, in the course of the evening, Mr. Fuseli was taken down to see it. Sir Thomas Lawrence attended him, and for a few moments was disappointed by the silence of his friend; but on a servant bringing a light into the entrance-room, he perceived Fuseli excited even to tears, as he exclaimed with deep tremulous energy, "No man shall persuade me, that these emotions which I now feel are not immortal."
In farther corroboration of his opinions on this point, I may give the following conversation which I heard. Fuseli was maintaining the immortality of the soul; a gentleman present said, "I could make you or any man of sense disbelieve this in half an hour's conversation." Fuseli immediately answered, "That I am sure you could not, and I will take care you shan't."
Being pressed one day by his friend, the Reverend John Hewlett; upon his belief in the resurrection of Christ, that gentleman informs me, he answered, "I believe in a resurrection; and the resurrection of Christ is as well authenticated as any other historical fact." Although he was averse to religious controversy, and seldom entered into it, yet, if his forbearance made others press the subject, he soon shewed that he was not ignorant of the respective merits of the polemics in the Christian Church, who have in all times broached and supported contrary opinions upon disputed points. He has more than once said to me, "There are now no real Christians, for the religion of Christ died with its great Author; for where do we witness in those who bear his name, the humility, self abasement, and charity of their master, which qualities he not only taught, but practised?"
A detection of parallel passages in authors, or of similar figures in the pictures of painters, was a favourite amusement of Fuseli's, and he would sometimes indulge in these to the gratification and instruction of the company by the hour together, for no man was more acute in discovering plagiarism. I have been indulged by the kindness of a lady of great literary attainments with the following letter, which will give some notion of his power in this respect, as far as literature is concerned.
"Norbury Park.
"Some one, who had a right to write what he liked, even nonsense;—Tiberius, I believe, began a letter to the Roman senate thus: 'Conscript Fathers, you expect a letter from me; but may all the gods and goddesses confound me, if I know on what to write, how to begin, how to go on, or what to leave out:' his perplexity arose certainly from a cause very different from that which occasions mine, though the result appears to be nearly the same. Had I brought my eyes and mind with me, I might perhaps offer some tolerable observations on the charms that surround me, to one who is all eye and all mind; but she who is really possessed by one great object, is blind to all others; and though Milton could never have been the poet of 'Paradise Lost,' had he been born blind, blindness was of service to him when he composed it.
"When I saw you last, you wished me to point out the passage in Tasso, which appeared to me copied from the Homeric description of the Cestus of Venus, in the Fourteenth Book of the Ilias; I have transcribed it from one which I found here in the library:—
"Teneri sdegni, e placide e tranquille
Repulse, cari vezzi, e liete paci,
Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci:
Fuse tai cose tutte, e poscia unille,
Ed al foco temprò di lente faci;
E ne formò quel sì mirabil cinto,
Di ch' ella aveva il bel fianco succincto.'
"These ingredients have been tried, they have been tasted, they are the fruits of a lover's paradise; yet, here they are nothing but an empty catalogue; and if they have a charm, it lies in the melting genius of the language: compare them with the following lines from the Vision of Arthur, in Spenser.
"Caresses sweet, and lovely blandishment,
She to me made, and bade me love her dear,
For dearly sure her love to me was bent,
As when meet time approached, should appear;
But whether dreams delude, or true it were,
Was never heart so ravished with delight.
"When I awoke and found her place devoid,
And nought but pressed grass, where she had lyen,
I sorrowed as much as erst I joyed,
And washed all the place with watery eyn;
From that day forth I cast in careful mind,
To seek her out——
"Thus, as he spoke, his visage waxed pale.
Here is soul, action, passion.
"Adieu,
"Henry Fuseli."
CHAPTER XV.
Character of Fuseli as an Artist.—His early style.—His ardent pursuit of excellence in design.—His neglect of mechanical means, particularly as regards Colours.—His professional independence, unmixed with obstinacy.—His preeminent faculty of invention, and success in the portraiture of the ideal.—His deficiencies as to correctness, and disinclination to laborious finish.—Causes of his limited popularity as a Painter.—His felicity in Likenesses.—His colour and chiar' oscuro.—His qualities as a Teacher of the Fine Arts.—His ardent love of Art.—Arrangements as to the disposal of his Works, &c.—List of his Subjects exhibited at the Royal Academy, from 1774 to 1825.
It now remains to speak of Fuseli as an artist, and on this subject it is not necessary to be very diffuse, having been favoured with the able article, to be found in the Appendix, from the pen of William Young Ottley, Esq., a gentleman who was for many years the intimate friend of Fuseli, whose talents as an amateur artist, whose knowledge, taste, and judgment in the Fine Arts are so eminently conspicuous, and whose claims to distinction are so well known to the public by his various works.
It has been shewn throughout this memoir, that the Fine Arts was the ruling passion of Fuseli, but that his father took more than ordinary pains to prevent his becoming an artist, and even checked his wishes to practise in the Fine Arts as an amusement; hence, the benefits which are considered to arise from that early education which artists usually receive, were altogether withheld from him. His style of drawing in early life was formed from those prints, which he could only consult by stealth, in his father's collection, and these were chiefly from the German school. From this circumstance, his early works have figures short in stature, with muscular, but clumsy limbs. But in the invention of the subject, even in his youth, he took the most striking moment, and impressed it with novelty and grandeur; hence some of his early productions tell the stories which they are intended to represent, with a wonderful felicity, and, in this respect, are little inferior to his later works; a circumstance which he himself was not backward to acknowledge. Fuseli always aimed to arrive at the highest point of excellence, particularly in design, and constantly avowed it. When young, he wrote in the Album of a friend, "I do not wish to build a cottage, but to erect a pyramid;" and to this precept he adhered during life, scorning to be less than the greatest. Until he was twenty-five years of age, he had never used oil colours; and he was so inattentive to these materials, that during life he took no pains in their choice or manipulation. To set a palette, as artists usually do, was with him out of the question; he used many of his colours in a dry, powdered state, and rubbed them up with his pencil only, sometimes in oil alone, which he used largely, at others, with an addition of a little spirit of turpentine, and not unfrequently in gold size; regardless of the quantity of either, or their general smoothness when laid on, and depending, as it would appear to a spectator, more on accident for the effect which they were intended to produce, than on any nice distinction of tints in the admixture or application of the materials. It appears doubtful whether this deficiency in his early education, and his neglect also of mechanical means, will be detrimental to his fame as an artist, particularly in the minds of those who can penetrate beyond the surface; for if he had been subjected to the trammels of a school, his genius would have been fettered; and it is then probable that we should have lost those daring inventions, that boldness and grandeur of drawing, (incorrect, certainly, sometimes in anatomical precision,) so fitting to his subjects, and that mystic chiar' oscuro, which create our wonder and raise him to the first rank as an artist. He was always proud of having it believed that, in the Fine Arts in particular, in some of the languages, and in many branches of literature, he had arrived at celebrity and eminence, more by his own unassisted endeavours than from the instructions of others. And, in reference to this, he on one occasion exclaimed, in the words of Glendower, with a considerable degree of self-complacency—
"Where is he living, clipped in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
Which calls me pupil!"[68]
After quitting his paternal roof, the first work of art which, as I have before stated, appeared to impress his mind with the grandeur of its proportions, was Rëichel's colossal figure of St. Michael, over the gateway of the Arsenal at Augsburg; and he afterwards, from having seen this, altered in some degree the proportions of his figures. But still, most of the faults of the German school, in this particular, remained, until after he had visited Italy. The works of the ancients in sculpture, the frescoes of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and the oil paintings of the great masters of the Italian school which he studied there, particularly the two first, produced a still greater change in the proportions of his figures, and he founded his future works upon them: if, however, any figure or group of figures may be quoted to have had a greater influence in this, or to have impressed his mind with more than ordinary notions of grandeur, the two colossal marble statues[69] by Phidias and Praxiteles upon Monte Cavallo, may be instanced; these chiefly regulated his proportions and influenced his style, although it must be acknowledged that, in the length of limbs, he frequently exceeded them. I have heard him dilate upon the sensations which were produced upon his mind when he has sometimes contemplated these grand works of art, on an evening, when the sky was murky for some distance above the horizon, and they were illuminated by occasional flashes of vivid lightning.
Fuseli paid much attention, and gave due consideration to the suggestions of others, respecting his own performances, particularly with regard to the proportions of his figures, and indeed courted the observations not only of the learned, but of those also who are unskilled in the art, and usually profited by their remarks. When Mr. Ottley, then a very young man, and always an admirer of the Fine Arts, was introduced to him by Mr. Seward, in the year 1789, he was painting the picture of "Wolfram introducing Bertram of Navarre to the place where he had confined his wife with the skeleton of her Lover,"[70] which was exhibited the following year, this gentleman observed, "I like your composition much, but I think the proportions of the figures in the back-ground, those, I mean, of the Baron and his friend, too long in the lower limbs." Fuseli paused for a time, and then answered, "You are right," and immediately reduced them in height.
In invention, which is not within the rules of art, and therefore may be considered the highest quality of a poet or a painter; no man has gone beyond him, and perhaps he possessed this quality in a higher degree than any other artist, since the restoration of the Fine Arts in Europe. The portfolios of drawings which he left, fully establish his claim, in this respect, to his being considered a genius of the first class, and as such place him in the highest rank of artists, Michael Angelo and Raphael not excepted. These drawings were made with wonderful felicity and facility; and a spectator would be astonished to see with what ease and power he invented and executed them. In telling the story of the subject, he was never deficient; and the designs made by him would be enough to occupy the lives of many painters to put them upon canvass; for there was no very striking incident in the poets in particular, or in the historians, from Hesiod down to our own times, which, at some period of his long life, had not been the subject of his pencil. On his drawings, he usually put the time when, and place where made; but I know of no instance of his having placed either his name or a monogram upon a picture.
No artist had a more vivid fancy than Fuseli, or was more happy in pourtraying superhuman and ideal beings: thus, the visions of Dante and Spenser, and the poetic flights of Shakspeare and Milton, were stamped even with originality by his pencil; and those scenes which, from their difficulty to be represented on paper or on canvass, would deter most artists from attempting them, were his favourite subjects; and in his delineation of them, he may generally be placed on a par with, and he occasionally soars above, the poet. Perhaps to no man can the following lines be more aptly applied than to Fuseli:—
"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the painter's brush
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name."
It is, therefore, in these visionary scenes in which he shone most, and which defy competition; for "the daring pencil of Fuseli transports us beyond the boundaries of nature, and ravishes us with the charm of the most interesting novelty."[71] In works of this nature, an occasional extravagance of drawing rather tends to encrease than to diminish their interest; so he was thus enabled to introduce therein those heroic and epic forms so peculiar to himself, which do not so well accord with subjects of sober history. Fuseli frequently invented the subjects of his pictures without the aid of the poet or historian, as in his composition of "Ezzelin," "Belisaire," and some others; these he denominated "philosophical ideas made intuitive, or sentiment personified." On one occasion he was much amused by the following enquiry of Lord Byron:—"I have been looking in vain, Mr. Fuseli, for some months, in the poets and historians of Italy, for the subject of your picture of Ezzelin; pray, where is it to be found?" "Only in my brain, my Lord," was the answer; "for I invented it."
In composition, which has been not inaptly termed "the painter's invention," he was very happy; for in his productions there are never "figures to let;" but there is a general link, and one and all tend to tell the story, and influence the spectator. The disposition and folding of the drapery were always appropriate and good. He had a high feeling of grandeur in his male, and of beauty in his female forms: although, in the former, strength of muscular action is often exaggerated, and in the latter there is occasionally a degree of apparent voluptuousness; yet he gave to both great truth of physiognomic expression, being always intent upon the intellectual part of his art. He was well acquainted with osteology, or the form and position of the bones in the human body; in these he seldom erred, although, perhaps, they were often too strongly marked. He was also skilled in the theory of the anatomy of the muscles; but as he never painted from, and seldom consulted, living models after he quitted Italy, except when he occasionally acted as "visitor in the Life Academy;" so, when he put a figure on paper or on canvass into a position which he had never seen it assume, either in a statue or in nature, he was occasionally incorrect in its muscular action. The models in the "Life Academy" did not tend to correct him in this, he being more intent upon the progress of the pupils than his own information: they were therefore usually placed by him in attitudes to correspond with the antique figures. As no individual form has been found, in all its parts, to approach, in point of symmetry, to the celebrated works of the ancient sculptors, so, when Fuseli has been solicited to paint frequently from life, he has said, "Nature puts me out;" meaning to convey this notion, that he searched in vain in the individual for that beauty or grandeur which he had mentally contemplated. Although he was happy in delineating playful scenes, yet those which create terror or sympathy in the mind, were his general and favourite subjects, and these he treated with great power; yet, in carrying the terrible to its utmost limits, I know of no subject from his pencil calculated to create horror or disgust. He invented and composed his pictures with great rapidity, and if he thought of a subject, and had not a canvass of a convenient size, it was frequently his practice to rub in the new idea upon a finished picture; hence some of his ablest productions are lost. As his mind was ever intent upon something new, it cost him an effort to finish a picture; which disposition, it appears, he inherited; for, in speaking of an ancestor, Matthias Füessli, who died at Zurich in the year 1665, he thus expresses himself:—"His extensive talent was checked by the freaks of an ungovernable fancy, which seldom suffered him to finish his work. His subjects, in general, were battles, towns pillaged, conflagrations, storms."[72]
In painting his pictures, Fuseli used indiscriminately the right hand or the left; but as the latter was more steady, if he were executing subjects on a small scale, which required more than ordinary neatness of touch, they were usually performed with the left. And although some of his small pictures were highly finished, and touched with great neatness, yet he excelled in those where the figures were of or above the size of nature.
The subjects of his pencil were never very popular; because they were generally drawn from poetic imagery, or from classical authors, which require a poetic eye and mind in the spectator, or a deep knowledge in the classics, to appreciate properly. He gloried in never having made his pencil a pander to the public taste, and that he had lived by painting what pleased himself, and was content to trust to time for a correct appreciation of his merits. "For when," as he said, "envy shall no longer hold the balance, the next century will become just, and the master impede no more the fame of his works." In going home with him one evening, in a coach, to Somerset House, after having left Mr. Johnson's house, Bonnycastle being present, Fuseli put to him the following question:—"Pray, Bonnycastle, what do you consider the reason that I am not popular as a painter, in a country which has produced Shakspeare and Milton?" Bonnycastle answered, "Because the public like familiar subjects, in which there may be individual beauty with fine colouring." "Is that their taste?" said Fuseli hastily: "then, if I am not their painter, they are not my critics."
He had a happy method of giving likenesses, from memory, of those persons whose physiognomic cast of countenance took his fancy; but the only portraits which he painted regularly from life, were those of Dr. Priestley, and Mrs. Neunham, a niece of Mr. Johnson's. The portrait of Dr. Priestley is very characteristic; and Fuseli always felt convinced that he should have succeeded as a portrait painter, beyond the expectations of his contemporaries, if he had turned his attention to that branch of the art.
It has been considered by some, who mistake style for manner, that Fuseli was in all respects a mannerist. That his pictures always have a marked and distinguishing character is true; but if he had a manner, it was peculiarly his own, and it belongs to no other artist. It must however, in justice, be confessed, that a sort of family-likeness runs through many of his figures. But if the pictures which composed his greatest work, the Milton Gallery, be critically compared, one with the other, it will be found that, in the invention of them in particular, few painters have made greater deviations than he has done; no two being composed or painted upon precisely the same principles.
As a colourist, Fuseli has never ranked high; for in his works there is generally nothing of that splendour which captivates us in the Venetian and Dutch schools, as they usually have the sobriety of tone which is more peculiar to fresco than to oil-painting; he was not unaware of this, and expresses himself thus, in one of his lectures on colour:—"Of this it is not for me to speak, who have courted, and still continue to court—colour, as a lover courts a disdainful mistress." But if, by the term colouring, be meant an adaptation of hues and general tone to the nature of the subject represented, then he may be considered, in the strictest sense of the word, a colourist. Yet, if we take a wider range, we shall find many examples in his pictures which must be acknowledged by every one to possess fine colour: thus, the back figure of a female (Sin) in "The bridging of Chaos," the child in "The Lapland Witches," and the figure of Sin in the picture of "Sin pursued by Death," may be adduced as unanswerable proofs of this fact.
When the excellence of particular pigments to produce fine colouring has been the topic of conversation, he has said, "The colours, as now prepared in England, are sufficently good; it only requires the mind and eye to adapt, and the hand to regulate them."
In chiar'oscuro, or the art of giving a single figure, or a composition of figures, their true light and shadow, Fuseli was a perfect master, and deserves unmixed praise for the breadth of his masses, and for directing the eye of the spectator to the principal figures or features in his pictures. In this, perhaps, no master in the British school has gone beyond him; for in his productions we witness that union of subject and tone, brought about by a skilful adaptation and disposition of light and shadow, which we look for in vain in the works of many other painters.
As a teacher of the Fine Arts, whether Fuseli be considered in his capacity of Professor of Painting, or in that of Master in the schools of the Royal Academy, his knowledge stands unrivalled; in the first, for critical acumen; and in the second, which now more properly comes under consideration, for the soundness of his judgment, for the accuracy of his eye, and for the extensive knowledge which he possessed of the works of the ancient and modern masters. To the students he was a sure guide and able master, ever ready to assist by his instructions modest merit, and to repress assumption; and if he felt convinced that a youth was not likely to arrive at eminence as an artist, he was the first to persuade him to relinquish that pursuit, rather than proceed in the path which would only end in ruin or disappointment. He always held the opinion, however liable to objection, that there is no such thing in the universe of mind as
——"a flower born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air;"
for every man, he considered, would shew what is in him, and do all that his nature has qualified him to do. To those who presumed upon a talent which they did not possess, no man was more severe. It was no uncommon thing with him, if he found in the Antique Academy a young man careless about the accuracy of his lines, and intent only upon giving a finished appearance to his drawing, to cut in, with his sharp thumb nail, a correct outline, and thus spoil, in the opinion of the student, his elaborate work. That the English school of design gained great advantages by his appointment of Keeper of the Academy, cannot be doubted; and, to be convinced of this, it is only necessary to refer to the able works of living artists, Hilton, Etty, Wilkie, Leslie, Mulready, Haydon, Briggs, and others, who were his pupils.
Notwithstanding the variety of his acquisitions, and his profound knowledge in, and love for, literature, his "ruling passion" was the Fine Arts; but he never intruded them as the subject of conversation, unless pressed to do so. He evinced this "ruling passion strong in death;" for, just before his last illness, he had sent two pictures for the then ensuing exhibition of the Royal Academy; the larger one, "A Scene from Comus," finished; the smaller, "Psyche passing the Fates," in an unfinished state, intending, as is the common practice with the Academicians, to glaze and harmonize this picture in the situation where it was to be placed. Its unfinished condition frequently occupied his thoughts during his illness, and he, but two days before his death, spoke of it with great solicitude to Sir Thomas Lawrence, wishing it either to be withdrawn, or that some painter of talents would harmonize it for him. The last work on which his pencil was employed, and on which he painted a few days previously to his death, was a scene from Shakspeare's King John: in this picture, the figure of Lady Constance in particular, is finely designed, and grief is admirably depicted in her countenance; he was painting this for James Carrick Moore, Esq., and it was nearly completed when he died.
The works of art, and the library, which Fuseli left, were disposed of as follows:—His drawings and sketches were purchased at a liberal price, by Sir Thomas Lawrence.[73] The Marquis of Bute, the Countess of Guilford, and other friends, bought pictures and books, at prices named by myself, to a considerable amount, and the remaining pictures, and the sketches in oil, were sold by Mr. Christie, and the prints and books by Mr. Sotheby. A large collection of beautiful drawings, of entomological subjects, chiefly by Mr. Abbot, of Georgia, in North America, a small part of which cost him two hundred guineas, were the only articles reserved, as no sum was offered which was considered as at all adequate to the value of these, which had been Fuseli's favourite study and amusement.
The following is a list of the pictures and drawings exhibited by Fuseli at the Royal Academy, from 1774 to the year 1825 inclusive, making a total of sixty-nine pictures.
1774—The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (a drawing).
1777—A scene in Macbeth.
1780—Ezzelin Bracciaferro musing over Meduna, slain by him for disloyalty during his absence in the Holy Land.—Satan starting from the touch of Ithuriel's lance.—Jason appearing before Pelias, to whom the sight of a man with a single sandal had been predicted fatal.
1781—Dido, "Illa graves oculos, &c." (Æneid 4.)—Queen Katherine's Vision. (Vide Shakspeare's Henry VIII. Act 5.)—A Conversation.
1782—The Nightmare.
1783—The Weird Sisters—Perceval delivering Balisane from the enchantment of Urma. (Vide Tale of Thyot.)—Lady Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury. (Vide Shakspeare's King John.)
1784—Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep.—Œdipus with his Daughters, receiving the Summons of his Death. (Sophocles.)
1785—The Mandrake; a charm. (Vide Ben Jonson's Witches.)—Prospero. (Vide Tempest.)
1786—Francesca and Paolo. (Vide Dante's Inferno.)—The Shepherd's Dream. (Vide Paradise Lost, Book I. line 781.)—Œdipus devoting his Son. (Vide Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles.)
1788—Theseus receiving the clue from Ariadne (a finished Sketch).
1789—Beatrice. (Vide Much Ado about Nothing.)
1790—Wolfram introducing Bertram of Navarre to the place where he had confined his Wife, with the Skeleton of her Lover. (Vide Contes de la Reine de Navarre.)
1792—Falstaff in the Buck-basket. (Vide Merry Wives of Windsor.)—Christ disappearing at Emaus.
1793—Macbeth; the Cauldron sinking, the Witches vanishing. (Sketch for a large picture.)—Amoret delivered from the enchantment of Busirane, by Britomart. (Vide Spenser.)
1798—Richard the Third in his Tent, the Night preceding the Battle of Bosworth, approached and addressed by the Ghosts of several whom, at different periods of his Protectorship and Usurpation, he had destroyed.
1799—The Cave of Spleen. (Vide Rape of the Lock.)
1800—The Bard. (Vide Gray.)—The Descent of Odin (ditto).—The Fatal Sisters (ditto).
1801—Celadon and Amelia. (Vide Thomson's Seasons.)
1803—Thetis and Aurora, the Mothers of Achilles and Memnon the Ethiopian, presenting themselves before the throne of Jupiter, each to beg the life of her Son, who were proceeding to single combat. Jupiter decided in favour of Achilles, and Memnon fell. (Vide Æschylus.)
1804—The Rosicrusian Cavern. (Vide Spectator.)
1805—The Corinthian Maid.
1806—Count Ugolino, Chief of the Guelphs, of Pisa, locked up by the opposite party with his four sons, and starved to death in the Tower which from that event acquired the name of Torre della Fame. (Vide Inferno.)—Milton dictating to his Daughter.
1807—Criemhild, the Widow of Sivril, shews to Trony, in prison, the head of Gunther, his accomplice in the assassination of her Husband.
1808—Cardinal Beaufort terrified by the supposed Apparition of Gloucester. (Vide Henry VI. Part 2d, Act 3rd, Scene 3.)
1809—Romeo contemplating Juliet in the Monument. (Vide Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet.)—The encounter of Romeo and Paris in the Monument of the Capulets (ditto).
1810—Hercules, to deliver Theseus, assails and Wounds Pluto on his Throne. (Vide Iliad, Book V. v. 485.)
1811—Macbeth consulting the vision of the armed Head. (Vide Shakspeare's Macbeth.)—Sarpedon slain in battle, carried home by Sleep and Death. (Iliad, Book XVII. v. 682.)—Richard the Third starting from the Apparition of those whom he had assassinated. (Vide Shakspeare.)—Dion seeing a female Spectre overturn his altars and sweep his hall. (Vide Plutarch's Life of Dion.)
1812—Lady Macbeth seizes the daggers (a sketch for a large picture).—The Witch and the Mandrake. (Vide Ben Jonson.)—Eros reviving Psyche. (Apuleius.)—Ulysses addressing the Shade of Ajax in Tartarus.
1814—Sigelind, Sifrid's mother, roused by the contest of the good and evil Genius about her infant son. (Vide Liet der Nibelunge XI.)—Queen Mab.
"She gallops night by night through lovers' brains."
(Vide Romeo and Juliet.)—Criemhild mourning over Sifrid. (Vide Liet der Nibelungen XVII.)
1817—Perseus starting from the cave of the Gorgons. (Hesiod's Shield of Hercules.)—Theodore in the haunted wood, deterred from rescuing a female chased by an infernal Knight. (Vide Boccaccio's Decameron.)—Criemhild throwing herself on the body of Sivril, assassinated by Trony, (Das Nibelungen Lied.)—Sivril, secretly married to Criemhild, surprised by Trony on his first interview with her after the victory over the Saxons (ditto).
1818—Dante, in his descent to Hell, discovers amidst the flight of hapless lovers whirled about in a hurricane, the forms of Paolo and Franscesca of Rimini. (Vide Inferno, Canto 5.)—A scene of the Deluge.
1820—An Incantation. (See the Pharmaceutria of Theocrites.)—Criemhild, the Widow of Siegfried the Swift, exposes his body, assisted by Sigmond her father, King of Belgium; in the minster at Worms, and swearing to his assassination, challenges Hagen, Lord of Trony, and Gunther, King of Burgundy, his brother, to approach the corpse, and on the wounds beginning to flow, charges them with the murder. (Lied der Nibelungen, Adventure 17. 4085, &c.)—Ariadne, Theseus, and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. (Vide Virgil, Æn. 6.)
1821—Amphiaraus, a chief of the Argolic league against Thebes, endowed with prescience, to avoid his fate, withdrew to a secret place known only to Eriphyle his wife, which she, seduced by the presents of Polynices, disclosed: thus betrayed, he, on departing, commanded Alcmæon his son, on being informed of his death, to destroy his mother. Eriphyle fell by the hand of her son, who fled, pursued by the Furies.—Jealousy (a sketch).—Prometheus delivered by Hercules (a drawing).
1823—The Dawn,
"Under the opening eye-lids of the morn:
What time the gray-fly winds his sultry horn."
Vide Milton's Lycidas.
1824—Amoret delivered by Britomart from the spell of Busyrane. (Vide Fairy Queen.)
1825—Comus. (Vide Milton.)—Psyche.
Such were the labours of Fuseli, for exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts; but these are only a small part of the pictures executed by him, during a long and arduous life,—works which will shew to posterity the energies of his mind, the richness of his invention, and the profundity of his knowledge.
APPENDIX.
The following article upon the character of Fuseli, as an artist, is from the pen of William Young Ottley, Esq. F.S.A.
"A very slight comparison of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds with the portraits habitually produced by the painters of this country during the first half of the last century, and whose merits, for the most part, as pictures, now fit them only for the housekeeper's room or the garret, will suffice to establish his claim as a restorer of art and a reformer of public taste. Somewhat later, Mr. West produced his 'Death of Wolfe,' and some other pictures representing subjects of our national history, which much surpassed what had before been done among us in that way; and in landscape, we had the now justly admired Wilson.
"In the highest department of painting however, which not improperly may be termed poetic or epic painting, we had still no artist of any eminence; when in the year 1779, Mr. Fuseli, after a stay of eight years in Italy, came and settled among us. Of Mortimer, who had shortly before died young, great expectations, it is true, had been formed; and we had then also Cipriani, a Florentine, who, in his way an excellent draughtsman, long continued uninterruptedly to furnish our portfolios with pretty designs of sporting Nymphs, Cupids, and Graces. But the former, although conversant with the human figure, was too easily led to imitate the deformed and squalid in nature, and was deficient in greatness of style; and the genius of the latter wanted the nerve requisite to fit him for subjects requiring force and expression.
"The genius of Mr. Fuseli was of a very different class. An intimate acquaintance with the learned languages had early enabled him to fill his mind from the rich storehouses of ancient poesy; he was all energy and imagination. But in his youth, not then intending to practise painting professionally, he had not subjected himself, as an artist, to the restraints of an academic education. To curb his genius afterwards was impossible; and to this circumstance we must attribute much of that fine wildness of character which distinguishes his performances; not unmixed, it is true, with a certain exaggeration of manner in the drawing and action of the figures, but which still no person of fancy would consent to exchange for the regulated but cold manner too often learned in schools. Had it been the intention of Mr. Fuseli to devote his pencil to the representation of subjects of real, sober history, the every-day occurrences of life, this peculiarity in his style, often amounting to extravagance, would have been inapplicable. But it has ever been his aim, especially in his larger works, to soar in the sublime regions of Poetry; and what, it may be asked, is Poetry, if entirely divested of amplification?
"A style founded upon ordinary nature, such as we see every day, is certainly ill-fitted to subjects of the above elevated description; and should it be objected, as a consequence of this fact, that such subjects are therefore not the proper subjects for painting at all, may it not be asked, what is then to be said of many of the greatest works of Michelangiolo, of several of those of Raffaelle, of the admired performances of Giulio Romano at Mantua, and of many of the most extensive compositions even of Rubens? Nor can it be insisted that such cases are not in point, inasmuch as those artists did not use the same exaggeration of style in their naked figures as we see in those of Mr. Fuseli: for, although they did not exaggerate in the same manner, yet they all did exaggerate; Michelangiolo, by giving to his figures that immensity of character, which has occasioned them to be appropriately styled 'a race of giants;' Raffaelle and Giulio, amongst other things, by encreasing in thickness the limbs of their figures beyond what nature will commonly be found to justify; and Rubens, by a mixed augmentation of muscle and obesity, which, were his figures alive, might, perhaps, be found to have given them, in most cases, the appearance of encreased strength, without the reality: to say nothing of Parmigiano, whose works, though deservedly esteemed, often display, in the outlines and proportions of the figures, a far greater degree of extravagance than can generally be detected in those of the respected Professor of Painting to our Royal Academy.[74] But enough has been said to shew that the greatest artists have not thought that a style of drawing strictly imitative of common nature, was well adapted to subjects of an ideal character. It may be proper that we should now add a few words upon the style of Mr. Fuseli in particular.
"It is well known that the human figure, trained and disciplined by gymnastic exercises, presents to the eye an appearance very different from that which we perceive in the bodies of persons of inert habits accidentally seen naked, or stripped for the purpose of being drawn from. The frequent opportunities of viewing the human figure naked, which were afforded to the ancient Greek artists, by the public games and festivals used among them, could not fail to render this familiar to them; and accordingly, besides the correctness of proportion which we admire in their works, we find in their statues the nicest distinctions of this kind, exactly suited to the age, dignity, and habits of life of the different personages they were intended to represent. To their figures of Gods and Heroes, it is well known they were accustomed to give proportions more or less differing from those which they commonly adopted when representing the figures of ordinary men; and this variation from any thing like a common standard is especially observable in the celebrated colossal statue upon Monte Cavallo, of the sublime excellence of which all men may now form a judgment from the bronze cast of it lately erected in one of our parks: for, besides that the arch formed under the breast by the ribs, and the divisions of the abdominal muscles are more strongly marked in that statue than in almost all others, the lower limbs bear to the rest of the figure a greater proportionate length than we find in perhaps any other example of ancient sculpture. A figure like this, uniting in the fullest manner strength and activity with dignity, was peculiarly adapted to subjects of an elevated and energetic character, such as at all times pressed upon the imagination of Mr. Fuseli; and accordingly he made its proportions the basis of his style. If it be urged that he too constantly kept to the proportions of the above model, it may be answered that few or none of the painters of modern times have shewn a disposition to imitate the ancients in that nice discrimination of character in their naked figures, which has been noticed above; and it is well known that it has been objected, even against Michelangiolo, the greatest designer of all, that the numerous figures in his stupendous 'Last Judgment,' however varied in attitude, are all of nearly the same character of form. The fact is, that Mr. Fuseli's style of design is of the most elevated kind, and consequently best suited to subjects of a very elevated character.
"In respect of invention, composition, clair-obscure, the works of Mr. Fuseli generally merit unmixed praise; and although in the more technical parts of colouring, they have not equal pretensions, still in this also they deserve commendation; being commonly painted in that solemn tone of colouring which we admire in the works of the greatest fresco-painters, and which Sir Joshua Reynolds observes to be so well adapted to the higher kind of pictorial representation. As an inventor, he equals the greatest painters that have lived since the restoration of the art. No one was ever more fully gifted with the rare faculty of at once discovering, in the writer he is perusing, the point of the story, and the moment of time, best calculated to produce a forcible effect in painting. The loftier his subject, the more easily he reaches it; and when he undertakes that at which another artist would tremble, he is the most sure of success. The truth of this was especially made manifest in the year 1799, when Mr. Fuseli exhibited publicly a large collection of his works, under the title of 'The Milton Gallery;' the subjects of by far the greater part of the pictures having been taken by him from the 'Paradise Lost.' The magnificent imagery of this poem, the beautiful, the sublime, or the terrific character of the personages represented in it, and of the actions described, all combined to fit it for the display of the artist's surprising genius in its fullest force; besides which, the style of Mr. Fuseli was here exactly suited to his subject. But although the series, as a whole, was one of the greatest works of painting ever produced, (certainly in its kind the most perfect,) elevating the painter to the same rank as the poet; it failed, as the poem itself had originally done, to ensure to its author that immediate share of public favour which was his due, and which is sure to be attendant upon successful endeavours in those inferior branches of the art which are more within the range of public capacity.
"But the fashion or opinion of the day, in matters of taste, is not always the judgment of posterity; and it cannot be too much regretted that the principal pictures of the series, at least, have not been kept together for the future advantage of our artists, and the gratification of those whose studies might hereafter qualify them to appreciate their excellence. For be it remembered, by such persons as might otherwise be too readily induced to undervalue that which they do not understand, that Sir Joshua Reynolds became, in the latter part of his life, 'clearly of opinion that a relish for the higher excellencies of the art is an acquired taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultivation, great labour, and attention.'"