FINE ARTS
Objects of the Article.—In the Encyclopædia there is some account, under the head Arts, of the general theory and history of the Fine Arts, including Poetry, Eloquence, Painting, Statuary, and Architecture. The term, in its widest application, would also embrace Music, Dancing, Theatrical Exhibition; and in general, all those arts, in which the powers of imitation or invention are exerted, chiefly with a view to the production of pleasure, by the immediate impression which they make on the mind. The phrase has of late, we think, been restricted to a narrower and more technical signification; namely, to Painting, Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, which appeal to the eye as the medium of pleasure; and by way of eminence, to the two first of these arts. In the present article, we shall adopt this limited sense of the term; and shall endeavour to develope the principles upon which the great Masters have proceeded, and also to inquire, in a more particular manner, into the state and probable advancement of these arts in this Country.
Ruling Principle of the Fine Arts.—The great works of art, at present extant, and which may be regarded as models of perfection in their several kinds, are the Greek statues—the pictures of the celebrated Italian Masters—those of the Dutch and Flemish schools—to which we may add the comic productions of our own countryman, Hogarth. These all stand unrivalled in the history of art; and they owe their pre-eminence and perfection to one and the same principle,—the immediate imitation of nature. This principle predominated equally in the classical forms of the antique, and in the grotesque figures of Hogarth; the perfection of art in each arose from the truth and identity of the imitation with the reality; the difference was in the subjects; there was none in the mode of imitation. Yet the advocates for the ideal system of art would persuade their disciples, that the difference between Hogarth and the antique does not consist in the different forms of nature which they imitated, but in this, that the one is like, and the other unlike nature. This is an error, the most detrimental, perhaps, of all others, both to the theory and practice of art. As, however, the prejudice is very strong and general, and supported by the highest authority, it will be necessary to go somewhat elaborately into the question in order to produce an impression on the other side.
What has given rise to the common notion of the ideal, as something quite distinct from actual nature, is probably the perfection of the Greek statues. Not seeing among ourselves any thing to correspond in beauty and grandeur, either with the features or form of the limbs in these exquisite remains of antiquity, it was an obvious, but a superficial conclusion, that they must have been created from the idea existing in the artist’s mind, and could not have been copied from anything existing in nature. The contrary, however, is the fact. The general form, both of the face and figure, which we observe in the old statues, is not an ideal abstraction, is not a fanciful invention of the sculptor, but is as completely local and national (though it happens to be more beautiful) as the figures on a Chinese screen, or a copperplate engraving of a negro chieftain in a book of travels. It will not be denied that there is a difference of physiognomy as well as of complexion in different races of men. The Greek form appears to have been naturally beautiful, and they had, besides, every advantage of climate, of dress, of exercise, and modes of life to improve it. The artist had also every facility afforded him in the study and knowledge of the human form, and their religious and public institutions gave him every encouragement in the prosecution of his art. All these causes contributed to the perfection of these noble productions; but we should be inclined principally to attribute the superior symmetry of form common to the Greek statues, in the first place, to the superior symmetry of the models in nature, and in the second, to the more constant opportunities for studying them. If we allow, also, for the superior genius of the people, we shall not be wrong; but this superiority consisted in their peculiar susceptibility to the impressions of what is beautiful and grand in nature. It may be thought an objection to what has just been said, that the antique figures of animals, &c., are as fine, and proceed on the same principles as their statues of gods or men. But all that follows from this seems to be, that their art had been perfected in the study of the human form, the test and proof of power and skill; and was then transferred easily to the general imitation of all other objects, according to their true characters, proportions, and appearances. As a confirmation of these remarks, the antique portraits of individuals were often superior even to the personifications of their gods. We think that no unprejudiced spectator of real taste can hesitate for a moment in preferring the head of the Antinous, for example, to that of the Apollo. And in general, it may be laid down as a rule, that the most perfect of the antiques are the most simple;—those which affect the least action, or violence of passion;—which repose the most on natural beauty of form, and a certain expression of sweetness and dignity, that is, which remain most nearly in that state in which they could be copied from nature without straining the limbs or features of the individual, or racking the invention of the artist. This tendency of Greek art to repose has indeed been reproached with insipidity by those who had not a true feeling of beauty and sentiment. We, however, prefer these models of habitual grace or internal grandeur to the violent distortions of suffering in the Laocoon, or even to the supercilious air of the Apollo. The Niobe, more than any other antique head, combines truth and beauty with deep passion. But here the passion is fixed, intense, habitual;—it is not a sudden or violent gesticulation, but a settled mould of features; the grief it expresses is such as might almost turn the human countenance itself into marble!
In general, then, we would be understood to maintain, that the beauty and grandeur so much admired in the Greek statues were not a voluntary fiction of the brain of the artist, but existed substantially in the forms from which they were copied, and by which the artist was surrounded. A striking authority in support of these observations, which has in some measure been lately discovered, is to be found in the Elgin marbles, taken from the Acropolis at Athens, and supposed to be the works of the celebrated Phidias. The process of fastidious refinement and indefinite abstraction is certainly not visible there. The figures have all the ease, the simplicity, and variety, of individual nature. Even the details of the subordinate parts, the loose hanging folds in the skin, the veins under the belly or on the sides of the horses, more or less swelled as the animal is more or less in action, are given with scrupulous exactness. This is true nature and true art. In a word, these invaluable remains of antiquity are precisely like casts taken from life. The ideal is not the preference of that which exists only in the mind, to that which exists in nature; but the preference of that which is fine in nature to that which is less so. There is nothing fine in art but what is taken almost immediately, and, as it were, in the mass, from what is finer in nature. Where there have been the finest models in nature, there have been the finest works of art.
As the Greek statues were copied from Greek forms, so Raphael’s expressions were taken from Italian faces; and we have heard it remarked, that the women in the streets at Rome seem to have walked out of his pictures in the Vatican.
Sir Joshua Reynolds constantly refers to Raphael as the highest example in modern times (at least with one exception) of the grand or ideal style; and yet he makes the essence of that style to consist in the embodying of an abstract or general idea, formed in the mind of the artist by rejecting the peculiarities of individuals, and retaining only what is common to the species. Nothing can be more inconsistent than the style of Raphael with this definition. In his Cartoons and in his groupes in the Vatican, there is hardly a face or figure which is any thing more than fine individual nature finely disposed and copied. The late Mr. Barry, who could not be suspected of a prejudice on this side of the question, speaks thus of them: “In Raphael’s pictures (at the Vatican) of the Dispute of the Sacrament, and the School of Athens, one sees all the heads to be entirely copied from particular characters in nature, nearly proper for the persons and situations which he adapts them to; and he seems to me only to add and take away what may answer his purpose in little parts, features, &c.; conceiving, while he had the head before him, ideal characters and expressions, which he adapts these features and peculiarities of face to. This attention to the particulars which distinguish all the different faces, persons, and characters, the one from the other, gives his pictures quite the verity and unaffected dignity of nature, which stamp the distinguishing differences betwixt one man’s face and body and another’s.”
If any thing is wanting to the conclusiveness of this testimony, it is only to look at the pictures themselves; particularly the Miracle of the Conversion, and the Assembly of Saints, which are little else than a collection of divine portraits, in natural and expressive attitudes, full of the loftiest thought and feeling, and as varied as they are fine. It is this reliance on the power of nature which has produced those masterpieces by the prince of painters, in which expression is all in all;—where one spirit,—that of truth,—pervades every part, brings down Heaven to Earth, mingles Cardinals and Popes with Angels and Apostles,—and yet blends and harmonizes the whole by the true touches and intense feeling of what is beautiful and grand in nature. It is no wonder that Sir Joshua, when he first saw Raphael’s pictures in the Vatican, was at a loss to discover any great excellence in them, if he was looking out for his theory of the ideal,—of neutral character and middle forms.
There is more an appearance of abstract grandeur of form in Michael Angelo. He has followed up, has enforced, and expanded, as it were, a preconceived idea, till he sometimes seems to tread on the verge of caricature. His forms, however, are not middle, but extreme forms, massy, gigantic, supernatural. They convey the idea of the greatest size and strength in the figure, and in all the parts of the figure. Every muscle is swollen and turgid. This tendency to exaggeration would have been avoided, if Michael Angelo had recurred more constantly to nature, and had proceeded less on a scientific knowledge of the structure of the human body; for science gives only the positive form of the different parts, which the imagination may afterwards magnify, as it pleases, but it is nature alone which combines them with perfect truth and delicacy, in all the varieties of motion and expression. It is fortunate that we can refer, in illustration of our doctrine, to the admirable fragment of the Theseus at Lord Elgin’s, which shows the possibility of uniting the grand and natural style in the highest degree. The form of the limbs, as affected by pressure or action, and the general sway of the body, are preserved with the most consummate mastery. We should prefer this statue as a model for forming the style of the student to the Apollo, which strikes us as having something of a theatrical appearance, or to the Hercules, in which there is an ostentatious and over-laboured display of anatomy. This last figure is so overloaded with sinews, that it has been suggested as a doubt, whether, if life could be put into it, it would be able to move. Grandeur of conception, truth of nature, and purity of taste, seem to have been at their height when the masterpieces which adorned the temple of Minerva at Athens, of which we have only these imperfect fragments, were produced. Compared with these, the later Greek statues display a more elaborate workmanship, more of the artifices of style. The several parts are more uniformly balanced, made more to tally like modern periods: each muscle is more equally brought out, and more highly finished as a part, but not with the same subordination of each part to the whole. If some of these wonderful productions have a fault, it is the want of that entire and naked simplicity which pervades the whole of the Elgin marbles.
Works of the Grecian and Italian Artists.—Having spoken here of the Greek statues, and of the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo, as far as relates to the imitation of nature, we shall attempt to point out, to the best of our ability, and as concisely as possible, what we conceive to be their general and characteristic excellences. The ancients excelled in beauty of form; Michael Angelo in grandeur of conception; Raphael in expression. In Raphael’s faces, particularly his women, the expression is very superior to the form; in the ancient statues the form is the principal thing. The interest which the latter excite, is in a manner external; it depends on a certain grace and lightness of appearance, joined with exquisite symmetry and refined susceptibility to voluptuous emotions; but there is in general a want of pathos. In their looks, we do not read the workings of the heart; by their beauty they seem raised above the sufferings of humanity, by their beauty they are deified. The pathos which they exhibit is rather that of present and physical distress, than of deep internal sentiment. What has been remarked of Leonardo da Vinci, is also true of Raphael, that there is an angelic sweetness and tenderness in his faces, in which human frailty and passion are purified by the sanctity of religion. The ancient statues are finer objects for the eye to contemplate; they represent a more perfect race of physical beings, but we have little sympathy with them. In Raphael, all our natural sensibilities are heightened and refined by the sentiments of faith and hope, pointing mysteriously to the interests of another world. The same intensity of passion appears also to distinguish Raphael from Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo’s forms are grander, but they are not so informed with expression. Raphael’s, however ordinary in themselves, are full of expression, ‘even to o’erflowing;’ every nerve and muscle is impregnated with feeling,—bursting with meaning. In Michael Angelo, on the contrary, the powers of body and mind appear superior to any events that can happen to them; the capacity of thought and feeling is never full, never strained or tasked to the extremity of what it will bear. All is in a lofty repose and solitary grandeur, which no human interest can shake or disturb. It has been said that Michael Angelo painted man, and Raphael men; that the one was an epic, the other a dramatic painter. But the distinction we have stated is, perhaps, truer and more intelligible, viz. that the one gave greater dignity of form, and the other greater force and refinement of expression. Michael Angelo, in fact, borrowed his style from sculpture. He represented, in general, only single figures (with subordinate accompaniments), and had not to express the conflicting actions and passions of a multitude of persons. It is therefore a mere truism to say that his compositions are not dramatic. He is much more picturesque than Raphael. The whole figure of his Jeremiah droops and hangs down like a majestic tree surcharged with showers. His drawing of the human form has the characteristic freedom and boldness of Titian’s landscapes.
After Michael Angelo and Raphael, there is no doubt that Leonardo da Vinci, and Correggio, are the two painters, in modern times, who have carried historical expression to the highest ideal perfection; and yet it is equally certain that their heads are carefully copied from faces and expressions in nature. Leonardo excelled principally in his women and children. We find, in his female heads, a peculiar charm of expression; a character of natural sweetness and tender playfulness, mixed up with the pride of conscious intellect, and the graceful reserve of personal dignity. He blends purity with voluptuousness; and the expression of his women is equally characteristic of ‘the mistress or the saint.’ His pictures are worked up to the height of the idea he had conceived, with an elaborate, felicity; but this idea was evidently first suggested, and afterwards religiously compared with nature. This was his excellence. His fault is, that his style of execution is too mathematical; that is, his pencil does not follow the graceful variety of the details of objects, but substitutes certain refined gradations, both of form and colour, producing equal changes in equal distances, with a mechanical uniformity. Leonardo was a man of profound learning as well as genius, and perhaps transferred too much of the formality of science to his favourite art.
The masterpieces of Correggio have the same identity with nature, the same stamp of truth. He has indeed given to his pictures the utmost softness and refinement of outline and expression; but this idea, at which he constantly aimed, is filled up with all the details and varieties which such heads would have in nature. So far from any thing like a naked abstract idea, or middle form, the individuality of his faces has something peculiar in it, even approaching the grotesque. He has endeavoured to impress habitually on the countenance, those undulating outlines which rapture or tenderness leave there, and has chosen for this purpose those forms and proportions which most obviously assisted his design.
As to the colouring of Correggio, it is nature itself. Not only the general tone is perfectly true, but every speck and particle is varied in colour, in relief, in texture, with a care, a felicity, and an effect, which is almost magical. His light and shade are equally admirable. No one else, perhaps, ever gave the same harmony and roundness to his compositions. So true are his shadows,—equally free from coldness, opacity, or false glare;—so clear, so broken, so airy, and yet so deep, that if you hold your hand so as to cast a shadow on any part of the flesh which is in the light, this part, so shaded, will present exactly the same appearance which the painter has given to the shadowed part of the picture. Correggio, indeed, possessed a greater variety of excellences in the different departments of his art, than any other painter; and yet it is remarkable, that the impression which his pictures leave upon the mind of the common spectator, is monotonous and comparatively feeble. His style is in some degree mannered and confined. For instance, he is without the force, passion, and grandeur of Raphael, who, however, possessed his softness of expression, but of expression only; and in colour, in light and shade, and other qualities, was quite inferior to Correggio. We may, perhaps, solve this apparent contradiction by saying, that he applied the power of his mind to a greater variety of objects than others; but that this power was still of the same character; consisting in a certain exquisite sense of the harmonious, the soft and graceful in form, colour, and sentiment, but with a deficiency of strength, and a tendency to effeminacy in all these.
After the names of Raphael and Correggio, we shall mention that of Guido, whose female faces are exceedingly beautiful and ideal, but altogether commonplace and vapid, compared with those of Raphael or Correggio; and they are so, for no other reason but that the general idea they convey is not enriched and strengthened by an intense contemplation of nature. For the same reason, we can conceive nothing more unlike the antique than the figures of Nicholas Poussin, except as to the preservation of the costume; and it is perhaps chiefly owing to the habit of studying his art at second-hand, or by means of scientific rules, that the great merits of that able painter, whose understanding and genius are unquestionable, are confined to his choice of subjects for his pictures, and his manner of telling the story. His landscapes, which he probably took from nature, are superior as paintings to his historical pieces. The faces of Poussin want natural expression, as his figures want grace; but the back grounds of his historical compositions can scarcely be surpassed. In his plague of Athens, the very buildings seem stiff with horror. His giants, seated on the top of their fabled mountains, and playing on their Pan’s pipes, are as familiar and natural as if they were the ordinary inhabitants of the scene. The finest of his landscapes is his picture of the Deluge. The sun is just seen, wan and drooping in his course. The sky is bowed down with a weight of waters, and Heaven and earth seem mingling together.
Titian is at the head of the Venetian school. He is the first of all colourists. In delicacy and purity Correggio is equal to him, but his colouring has not the same warmth and gusto in it. Titian’s flesh-colour partakes of the glowing nature of the climate, and of the luxuriousness of the manners of his country. He represents objects not through a merely lucid medium, but as if tinged with a golden light. Yet it is wonderful in how low a tone of local colouring his pictures are painted,—how rigidly his means are husbanded. His most gorgeous effects are produced, not less by keeping down, than by heightening his colours; the fineness of his gradations adds to their variety and force; and, with him, truth is the same thing as splendour. Every thing is done by the severity of his eye, by the patience of his touch. He is enabled to keep pace with nature, by never hurrying on before her; and as he forms the broadest masses out of innumerable varying parts and minute strokes of the pencil, so he unites and harmonises the strongest contrasts by the most imperceptible transitions. Every distinction is relieved and broken by some other intermediate distinction, like half notes in music; and yet all this accumulation of endless variety is so managed, as only to produce the majestic simplicity of nature; so that to a common eye there is nothing extraordinary in his pictures, any more than in nature itself. It is, we believe, owing to what has been here stated, that Titian is, of all painters, at once the easiest and the most difficult to copy. He is the most difficult to copy perfectly, for the artifice of his colouring and execution is hid in its apparent simplicity; and yet the knowledge of nature, and the arrangement of the forms and masses in his pictures, is so masterly, that any copy made from them, even the rudest outline or sketch, can hardly fail to have a look of high art. Because he was the greatest colourist in the world, this, which was his most prominent, has, for shortness, been considered as his only excellence; and he has been said to have been ignorant of drawing. What he was, generally speaking, deficient in, was invention or composition, though even this appears to have been more from habit than want of power; but his drawing of actual forms, where they were not to be put into momentary action, or adapted to a particular expression, was as fine as possible. His drawing of the forms of inanimate objects is unrivalled. His trees have a marked character and physiognomy of their own, and exhibit an appearance of strength or flexibility, solidity or lightness, as if they were endued with conscious power and purpose. Character was another excellence which Titian possessed in the highest degree. It is scarcely speaking too highly of his portraits to say, that they have as much expression, that is, convey as fine an idea of intellect and feeling, as the historical heads of Raphael. The chief difference appears to be, that the expression in Raphael is more imaginary and contemplative, and in Titian more personal and constitutional. The heads of the one seem thinking more of some event or subject, those of the other to be thinking more of themselves. In the portraits of Titian, as might be expected, the Italian character always predominates; there is a look of piercing sagacity, of commanding intellect, of acute sensibility, which it would be in vain to seek for in any other portraits. The daring spirit and irritable passions of the age and country, are distinctly stamped upon their countenances, and can be as little mistaken as the costume which they wear. The portraits of Raphael, though full of profound thought and feeling, have more of common humanity about them. Titian’s portraits are the most historical that ever were painted; and they are so, for this reason, that they have most consistency of form and expression. His portraits of Hippolito de Medici, and of a young Neapolitan nobleman, lately in the gallery of the Louvre, are a striking contrast in this respect. All the lines of the face in the one, the eye-brows, the nose, the corners of the mouth, the contour of the face, present the same sharp angles, the same acute, edgy, contracted, violent expression. The other portrait has the finest expansion of feature and outline, and conveys the most exquisite idea possible, of mild, thoughtful sentiment. The consistency of the expression constitutes as great a charm in Titian’s portraits, as the harmony of the colouring. The similarity sometimes objected to his heads, is partly national, and partly arises from the class of persons whom he painted. He painted only Italians; and in his time it rarely happened, that any but persons of the highest rank, Senators or Cardinals, sat for their pictures. The similarity of costume of the dress, the beard, &c. also adds to the similarity of their appearance. It adds, at the same time, to their picturesque effect; and the alteration in this respect, is one circumstance among others that has been injurious, not to say fatal, to modern art. This observation is not confined to portrait; for the hired dresses with which our historical painters clothe their figures sit no more easily on the imagination of the artist, than they do gracefully on the lay-figures over which they are thrown.
Giorgioni, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, and the Bassans, are the remaining great names of the Venetian school. The excellence of all of them consisted in the bold, masterly, and striking imitation of nature. Their want of ideal form and elevated character is, indeed, a constant subject of reproach against them. Giorgioni takes the first place among them; for he was in some measure the master of Titian, whereas the others were only his disciples. The Carraccis, Domenichino, and the rest of the Bolognese school, formed themselves on a principle of combining the excellences of the Roman and Venetian painters, in which they for a while succeeded to a considerable degree; but they degenerated and dwindled away into absolute insignificance, in proportion as they departed from nature, or the great masters who had copied her, to mould their works on academic rules, and the phantoms of abstract perfection.
Flemish and Dutch Painters.—Rubens is the prince of the Flemish painters. Of all the great painters, he is perhaps the most artificial,—the one who painted most from his own imagination,—and, what was almost the inevitable consequence, the most of a mannerist. He had neither the Greek forms to study from, nor the Roman expression, nor the high character, picturesque costume, and sun-burnt hues which the Venetian painters had immediately before them. He took, however, what circumstances presented to him,—a fresher and more blooming tone of complexion, arising from moister air, and a colder climate. To this he added the congenial splendour of reflected lights and shadows cast from rich drapery; and he made what amends he could for the want of expression, by the richness of his compositions, and the fantastic variety of his allegorical groups. Both his colouring and his drawing were, however, ideal exaggerations. But both had particular qualities of the highest value. He has given to his flesh greater transparency and freshness than any other painter; and this excellence he had from nature. One of the finest instances will be found in his Peasant Family going to Market, in which the figures have all the bloom of health upon their countenances; and the very air of the surrounding landscape strikes sharp and wholesome on the sense. Rubens had another excellence; he has given all that relates to the expression of motion in his allegorical figures, in his children, his animals, even in his trees, to a degree which no one else has equalled, or indeed approached. His drawing is often deficient in proportion, in knowledge, and in elegance, but it is always picturesque. The drawing of N. Poussin, on the contrary, which has been much cried up, is merely learned and anatomical: he has a knowledge of the structure and measurements of the human body, but very little feeling of the grand, or beautiful, or striking, in form. All Rubens’s forms have ease, freedom, and excessive elasticity. In the grotesque style of history,—as in the groups of satyrs, nymphs, bacchanals, and animals, where striking contrasts of form are combined with every kind of rapid and irregular movement, he has not a rival. Witness his Silenus at Blenheim, where the lines seem drunk and staggering; and his procession of Cupids riding on animals at Whitehall, with that adventurous leader of the infantine crew, who, with a spear, is urging a lion, on which he is mounted, over the edge of the world; for beyond we only see a precipice of clouds and sky. Rubens’s power of expressing motion perhaps arose from the facility of his pencil, and his habitually trusting a good deal to memory and imagination in his compositions; for this quality can be given in no other way. His portraits are the least valuable productions of his pencil. His landscapes are often delightful, and appear like the work of fairy hands.
It remains to speak of Vandyke and Rembrandt, the one the disciple of Rubens, the other the entire founder of his own school. It is not possible for two painters to be more opposite. The characteristic merits of the former are very happily summed up in a single line of a poetical critic, where he speaks of
‘The soft precision of the clear Vandyke.’
The general object of this analysis of the works of the great masters, has been to show, that their pre-eminence has constantly depended, not on the creation of a fantastic, abstract excellence, existing nowhere but in their own minds, but in their selecting and embodying some one view of nature, which came immediately under their habitual observation, and which their particular genius led them to study and imitate with success. This is certainly the case with Vandyke. His portraits, mostly of English women, in the collection in the Louvre, have a cool refreshing air about them, a look of simplicity and modesty even in the very tone, which forms a fine contrast to the voluptuous glow and mellow golden lustre of Titian’s Italian women. There is a quality of flesh-colour in Vandyke which is to be found in no other painter, and which exactly conveys the idea of the soft, smooth, sliding, continuous, delicately varied surface of the skin. The objects in his pictures have the least possible difference of light and shade, and are presented to the eye without passing through any indirect medium. It is this extreme purity and silvery clearness of tone, together with the facility and precision of his particular forms, and a certain air of fashionable elegance, characteristic of the age in which he flourished, that places Vandyke in the first rank of portrait painters.
If ever there was a man of genius in the art, it was Rembrandt. He might be said to have created a medium of his own, through which he saw all objects. He was the grossest and the least vulgar, that is to say, the least common-place in his grossness, of all men. He was the most downright, the least fastidious of the imitators of nature. He took any object, he cared not what, how mean soever in form, colour, and expression, and from the light and shade which he threw upon it, it came out gorgeous from his hands. As Vandyke made use of the smallest contrasts of light and shade, and painted as if in the open air, Rembrandt used the most violent and abrupt contrasts in this respect, and painted his objects as if in a dungeon. His pictures may be said to be ‘bright with excessive darkness.’ His vision had acquired a lynx-eyed sharpness from the artificial obscurity to which he had accustomed himself. ‘Mystery and silence hung upon his pencil.’ Yet he could pass rapidly from one extreme to another, and dip his colours with equal success in the gloom of night, or in the blaze of the noon-day sun. In surrounding different objects with a medium of imagination, solemn or dazzling, he was a true poet; in all the rest, he was a mere painter, but a painter of no common stamp. The powers of his hand were equal to those of his eye; and indeed he could not have attempted the subjects he did, without an execution as masterly as his knowledge was profound. His colours are sometimes dropped in lumps on the canvas; at other times they are laid on as smooth as glass; and he not unfrequently painted with the handle of his brush. He had an eye for all objects as far as he had seen them. His history and landscapes are equally fine in their way. His landscapes we could look at for ever, though there is nothing in them. But ‘they are of the earth, earthy.’ It seems as if he had dug them out of nature. Every thing is so true, so real, so full of all the feelings and associations which the eye can suggest to the other senses, that we immediately take as strong an affection to them as if they were our home—the very place where we were brought up. No length of time could add to the intensity of the impression they convey. Rembrandt is the least classical and the most romantic of all painters. His Jacob’s Ladder is more like a dream than any other picture that ever was painted. The figure of Jacob himself is thrown in one corner of the picture like a bundle of clothes, while the angels hover above the darkness, in the shape of airy wings.
It would be needless to prove that the generality of the Dutch painters copied from actual objects. They have become almost a bye-word for carrying this principle into its abuse, by copying every thing they saw, and having no choice or preference of one thing to another, unless that they preferred that which was most obvious and common. We forgive them. They perhaps did better in faithfully and skilfully imitating what they had seen, than in imagining what they had not seen. Their pictures at least show, that there is nothing in nature, however mean or trivial, that has not its beauty and some interest belonging to it, if truly represented. We prefer Vangoyen’s views on the borders of a canal, the yellow-tufted bank, and passing sail, or Ruysdael’s woods and sparkling waterfalls, to the most classical or epic compositions which they could have invented out of nothing; and we think that Teniers’s boors, old women, and children, are very superior to the little carved ivory Venuses in the pictures of Vanderneer; just as we think Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode is better than his Sigismunda, or as Mr. Wilkie’s Card-Players is better than his Alfred. We should not assuredly prefer a Dutch Fair by Teniers to a Cartoon by Raphael; but we suspect we should prefer a Dutch Fair by Teniers to a Cartoon by the same master; or we should prefer truth and nature in the simplest dress, to affectation and inanity in the most pompous disguise. Whatever is genuine in art must proceed from the impulse of nature and individual genius.
French and Spanish Painters.—In the French school there are but two names of high and established reputation, N. Poussin and Claude Lorraine. Of the former we have already spoken; of the latter we shall give our opinion when we come to speak of our own Wilson. We ought not to pass over the names of Murillo and Velasquez, those admirable Spanish painters. It is difficult to characterize their peculiar excellences as distinct from those of the Italian and Dutch schools. They may be said to hold a middle rank between the painters of mind and body. They express not so much thought and sentiment, nor yet the mere exterior, as the life and spirit of the man. Murillo is probably at the head of that class of painters who have treated subjects of common life. After making the colours on the canvass feel and think, the next best thing is to make them breathe and live. But there is in Murillo’s pictures of this kind a look of real life, a cordial flow of native animal spirits, which we find nowhere else. We might here refer particularly to his picture of the Two Spanish Beggar Boys, in the collection at Dulwich College, which cannot easily be forgotten by those who have ever seen it.
Progress of Art in Britain.—We come now to speak of the progress of art in our own Country,—of its present state,—and the means proposed for advancing it to still higher perfection.
Hogarth.—We shall speak first of Hogarth, both as he is the first name in the order of time that we have to boast of, and as he is the greatest comic painter of any age or country. His pictures are not imitations of still life, or mere transcripts of incidental scenes or customs; but powerful moral satires, exposing vice and folly in their most ludicrous points of view, and with a profound insight into the weak sides of character and manners, in all their tendencies, combinations, and contrasts. There is not a single picture of his, containing a representation of merely natural or domestic scenery. His object is not so much ‘to hold the mirror up to nature,’ as ‘to show vice her own feature, scorn her own image.’ Folly is there seen at the height—the moon is at the full—it is the very error of the time. There is a perpetual collision of eccentricities, a tilt and tournament of absurdities, pampered into all sorts of affectation, airy, extravagant, and ostentatious! Yet he is as little a caricaturist as he is a painter of still life. Criticism has not done him justice, though public opinion has. His works have received a sanction which it would be vain to dispute, in the universal delight and admiration with which they have been regarded, from their first appearance, to the present moment. If the quantity of amusement, or of matter for reflection which they have afforded, is that by which we are to judge of precedence among the intellectual benefactors of mankind, there are perhaps few persons who can put in a stronger claim to our gratitude than Hogarth. The wonderful knowledge which he possessed of human life and manners, is only to be surpassed (if it can be) by the powers of invention with which he has arranged his materials, and by the mastery of execution with which he has embodied and made tangible the very thoughts and passing movements of the mind. Some persons object to the style of Hogarth’s pictures, or the class to which they belong. First, Hogarth belongs to no class, or, if he belongs to any, it is to the same class as Fielding, Smollett, Vanbrugh, and Molière. Besides, the merit of his pictures does not depend on the nature of his subjects, but on the knowledge displayed of them, on the number of ideas, on the fund of observation and amusement contained in them. Make what deductions you please for the vulgarity of the subjects—yet in the research, the profundity, the absolute truth and precision of the delineation of character,—in the invention of incident, in wit and humour, in life and motion, in everlasting variety and originality,—they never have, and probably never will be, surpassed. They stimulate the faculties, as well as amuse them. ‘Other pictures we see, Hogarth’s we read.’[[54]]
There is one error which has been frequently entertained on this subject, and which we wish to correct, namely, that Hogarth’s genius was confined to the imitation of the coarse humours and broad farce of the lowest life. But he excelled quite as much in exhibiting the vices, the folly, and frivolity of the fashionable manners of his time. His fine ladies do not yield the palm of ridicule to his waiting-maids, and his lords and his porters are on a very respectable footing of equality. He is quite at home, either in St. Giles’s or St. James’s. There is no want, for example, in his Marriage à la Mode, or his Taste in High Life, of affectation verging into idiotcy, or of languid sensibility that might
‘Die of a rose in aromatic pain.’
Many of Hogarth’s characters would form admirable illustrations of Pope’s Satires, who was contemporary with him. In short, Hogarth was a painter of real, not of low life. He was, as we have said, a satirist, and consequently his pencil did not dwell on the grand and beautiful, but it glanced, with equal success at the absurdities and peculiarities of high or low life, ‘of the great vulgar and the small.’
To this it must be added, that he was as great a master of passion as of humour. He succeeded in low tragedy, as much as in low or genteel comedy, and had an absolute power in moving the affections and rending the hearts of the spectators, by depicting the effects of the most dreadful calamities of human life, on common minds and common countenances. Of this, the Rake’s Progress, particularly the Bedlam scene, and many others, are unanswerable proofs. Hogarth’s merits, as a mere artist, are not confined to his prints. In general, indeed, this is the case. But when he chose to take pains, he could add the delicacies of execution and colouring in the highest degree to those of character and composition; as is evident in his series of pictures, all equally well painted, of the Marriage à la Mode, exhibited lately at the British Institution.
Wilson.—We shall next speak of Wilson, whose pictures may be divided into three classes:—his Italian landscapes, or imitations of the manner of Claude,—his copies of English scenery,—and his historical compositions. The first of these are, in our opinion, by much the best; and we appeal, in support of this opinion, to the Apollo and the Seasons, and to the Phaeton. The figures are of course out of the question (these being as uncouth and slovenly as Claude’s are insipid and finical); but the landscape, in both pictures, is delightful. In looking at them, we breathe the air which the scene inspires, and feel the genius of the place present to us. In the first, there is the cool freshness of a misty spring morning; the sky, the water, the dim horizon, all convey the same feeling. The fine grey tone, and varying outline of the hills; the graceful form of the retiring lake, broken still more by the hazy shadows of the objects that repose on its bosom; the light trees that expand their branches in the air; and the dark stone figure and mouldering temple, that contrast strongly with the broad clear light of the rising day,—give a charm, a truth, a force and harmony to this composition, which produce the greater pleasure the longer it is dwelt on. The distribution of light and shade resembles the effect of light on a globe. The Phaeton has the dazzling fervid appearance of an autumnal evening; the golden radiance streams in solid masses from behind the flickering clouds; every object is baked in the sun;—the brown fore-ground, the thick foliage of the trees, the streams, shrunk and stealing along behind the dark high banks,—combine to produce that richness, and characteristic unity of effect, which is to be found only in nature, or in art derived from the study and imitation of nature. These two pictures, as they have the greatest general effect, are also more carefully finished than any other pictures we have seen of his.
In general, Wilson’s views of English scenery want almost every thing that ought to recommend them. The subjects he has chosen are not well fitted for the landscape-painter, and there is nothing in the execution to redeem them. Ill-shaped mountains, or great heaps of earth, trees that grow against them without character or elegance, motionless waterfalls, a want of relief, of transparency and distance, without the imposing grandeur of real magnitude (which it is scarcely within the province of art to give),—are the chief features and defects of this class of his pictures. In more confined scenes, the effect must depend almost entirely on the difference in the execution and the details; for the difference of colour alone is not sufficient to give relief to objects placed at a small distance from the eye. But, in Wilson, there are commonly no details,—all is loose and general; and this very circumstance, which might assist him in giving the massy contrasts of light and shade, deprived his pencil of all force and precision within a limited space. In general, air is necessary to the landscape painter; and, for this reason, the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland afford few subjects for landscape-painting. However stupendous the scenery of that country is, and however powerful and lasting the impression which it must always make on the imagination, yet the effect is not produced merely through the medium of the eye, but arises chiefly from collateral and associated feelings. There is the knowledge of the physical magnitude of the objects in the midst of which we are placed,—the slow, improgressive motion which we make in traversing them;—there is the abrupt precipice, the torrent’s roar, the boundless expanse of the prospect from the highest mountains,—the difficulty of their ascent, their loneliness and silence; in short, there is a constant sense and superstitious awe of the collective power of matter, of the gigantic and eternal forms of nature, on which, from the beginning of time, the hand of man has made no impression, and which, by the lofty reflections they excite in us, give a sort of intellectual sublimity even to our sense of physical weakness. But there is little in all these circumstances that can be translated into the picturesque, which makes its appeal immediately to the eye.
Wilson’s historical landscapes, his Niobe, Celadon and Amelia, &c. do not, in our estimation, display either true taste or fine imagination, but are affected and violent exaggerations of clumsy common nature. They are made up mechanically of the same stock of materials,—an over-hanging rock, bare shattered trees, black rolling clouds, and forked lightning. The figures, in the most celebrated of these, are not like the children of Niobe, punished by the Gods, but like a group of rustics, crouching from a hail-storm. We agree with Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Wilson’s mind was not, like N. Poussin’s, sufficiently imbued with the knowledge of antiquity to transport the imagination three thousand years back, to give natural objects a sympathy with preternatural events, and to inform rocks, and trees, and mountains with the presence of a God. To sum up his general character, we may observe, that, besides his excellence in aërial perspective, Wilson had great truth, harmony, and depth of local colouring. He had a fine feeling of the proportions and conduct of light and shade, and also an eye for graceful form, as far as regards the bold and varying outlines of indefinite objects; as may be seen in his foregrounds, &c., where the artist is not tied down to an imitation of characteristic and articulate forms. In his figures, trees, cattle, and in everything having a determinate and regular form, his pencil was not only deficient in accuracy of outline, but even in perspective and actual relief. His trees, in particular, frequently seem pasted on the canvass, like botanical specimens. In fine, we cannot subscribe to the opinion of those who assert, that Wilson was superior to Claude as a man of genius; nor can we discern any other grounds for this opinion, than what would lead to the general conclusion,—that the more slovenly the performance the finer the picture, and that that which is imperfect is superior to that which is perfect. It might be said, on the same principle, that the coarsest sign-painting is better than the reflection of a landscape in a mirror; and the objection that is sometimes made to the mere imitation of nature, cannot be made to the landscapes of Claude, for in them the Graces themselves have, with their own hands, assisted in selecting and disposing every object. Is the general effect in his pictures injured by the details? Is the truth inconsistent with the beauty of the imitation? Does the perpetual profusion of objects and scenery, all perfect in themselves, interfere with the simple grandeur and comprehensive magnificence of the whole? Does the precision with which a plant is marked in the fore-ground, take away from the air-drawn distinctions of the blue glimmering horizon? Is there any want of that endless airy space, where the eye wanders at liberty under the open sky, explores distant objects, and returns back as from a delightful journey? There is no comparison between Claude and Wilson. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another Raphael before there would be another Claude. His landscapes have all that is exquisite and refined in art and nature. Every thing is moulded into grace and harmony; and, at the touch of his pencil, shepherds with their flocks, temples and groves, and winding glades, and scattered hamlets, rise up in never-ending succession, under the azure sky and the resplendent sun, while
‘Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces, and the hours in dance,
Leads on the eternal spring.——’
Michael Angelo has left, in one of his sonnets, a fine apostrophe to the earliest poet of Italy:
‘Fain would I, to be what our Dante was,
Forego the happiest fortunes of mankind.’
What landscape-painter does not feel this of Claude.[[55]]
Gainsborough.—We have heard an anecdote connected with the reputation of Gainsborough’s pictures, which rests on pretty good authority. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the Academy dinners, speaking of Gainsborough, said to a friend,—‘He is undoubtedly the best English landscape-painter.’ ‘No,’ said Wilson, who overheard the conversation, ‘he is not the best landscape-painter, but he is the best portrait-painter in England.’ They were both wrong; but the story is creditable to the versatility of Gainsborough’s talents.
Those of his portraits which we have seen are not in the first rank. They are in a good measure imitations of Vandyke; and have more an air of gentility, than of nature. His landscapes are of two classes or periods; his early and his later pictures. The former are minute imitations of nature, or of painters who imitated nature, such as Ruysdael, &c. some of which have great truth and clearness. His later pictures are flimsy caricatures of Rubens, who himself carried inattention to the details to the utmost limit that it would bear. Many of Gainsborough’s latter landscapes may be compared to bad water-colour drawings, washed in by mechanical movements of the hand, without any communication with the eye. The truth seems to be, that Gainsborough found there was something wanting in his early manner, that is, something beyond the literal imitation of the details of natural objects; and he appears to have concluded rather hastily, that the way to arrive at that something more, was to discard truth and nature altogether. His fame rests principally, at present, on his fancy-pieces, cottage-children, shepherd-boys, &c. These have often great truth, great sweetness, and the subjects are often chosen with great felicity. We too often find, however, even in his happiest efforts, a consciousness in the turn of the limbs, and a pensive languor in the expression, which is not taken from nature. We think the gloss of art is never so ill bestowed as on such subjects, the essence of which is simplicity. It is perhaps the general fault of Gainsborough, that he presents us with an ideal common life, of which we have had a surfeit in poetry and romance. His subjects are softened, and sentimentalised too much; it is not simple unaffected nature that we see, but nature sitting for her picture. Our artist, we suspect, led the way to that masquerade style, which piques itself on giving the air of an Adonis to the driver of a hay-cart, and models the features of a milk-maid on the principles of the antique. His Woodman’s Head is admirable. Nor can too much praise be given to his Shepherd Boy in a Storm; in which the unconscious simplicity of the boy’s expression, looking up with his hands folded and with timid wonder,—the noisy chattering of a magpie perched above,—and the rustling of the coming storm in the branches of the trees, produce a most delightful and romantic impression on the mind.
Gainsborough was to be considered, perhaps, rather as a man of delicate taste, and of an elegant and feeling mind, than as a man of genius; as a lover of the art, rather than an artist. He devoted himself to it, with a view to amuse and soothe his mind, with the ease of a gentleman, not with the severity of a professional student. He wished to make his pictures, like himself, amiable; but a too constant desire to please almost unavoidably leads to affectation and effeminacy. He wanted that vigour of intellect, which perceives the beauty of truth; and thought that painting was to be gained, like other mistresses, by flattery and smiles. It was an error which we are disposed to forgive in one, around whose memory, both as an artist and a man, many fond recollections, many vain regrets, must always linger.[[56]]
Sir Joshua Reynolds.—The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds, both from his example and instructions, has had, and still continues to have, a considerable influence on the state of art in this country. That influence has been on the whole unquestionably beneficial in itself, as well as highly creditable to the rare talents and elegant mind of Sir Joshua; for it has raised the art of painting from the lowest state of degradation,—of dry, meagre, lifeless inanity, to something at least respectable, and bearing an affinity to the rough strength and bold spirit of the national character. Whether the same implicit deference to his authority, which has helped to advance the art thus far, may not, among other causes, limit and retard its future progress? Whether there are not certain original errors, both in his principles and practice, which, the farther they are proceeded in, the farther they will lead us from the truth? Whether there is not a systematic bias from the right line by which alone we can arrive at the goal of the highest perfection?—are questions well worth considering.
We shall begin with Sir Joshua’s merits as an artist. There is one error which we wish to correct at setting out, because we think it important. There is not a greater or more unaccountable mistake than the supposition that Sir Joshua Reynolds owed his success or excellence in his profession, to his having been the first who introduced into this country more general principles of the art, and who raised portrait to the dignity of history from the low drudgery of copying the peculiarities, meannesses, and details of individual nature, which was all that had been attempted by his immediate predecessors. This is so far from being true, that the very reverse is the fact. If Sir Joshua did not give these details and peculiarities so much as might be wished, those who went before him did not give them at all. Those pretended general principles of the art, which, it is said, ‘alone give value and dignity to it,’ had been pushed to their extremest absurdity before his time; and it was in getting rid of the mechanical systematic monotony and middle forms, by the help of which Lely, Kneller, Hudson, the French painters, and others, carried on their manufactories of history and face painting, and in returning (as far as he did return) to the truth and force of individual nature, that the secret both of his fame and fortune lay. The pedantic, servile race of artists, whom Reynolds superseded, had carried the abstract principle of improving on nature to such a degree of refinement, that they left it out altogether; and confounded all the varieties and irregularities of form, feature, character, expression or attitude, in the same artificial mould of fancied grace and fashionable insipidity. The portraits of Kneller, for example, seem all to have been turned in a machine; the eye-brows are arched as if by a compass; the mouth curled, and the chin dimpled, the head turned on one side, and the hands placed in the same affected position. The portraits of this mannerist, therefore, are as like one another as the dresses which were then in fashion; and have the same ‘dignity and value’ as the full bottomed wigs which graced their originals. The superiority of Reynolds consisted in his being varied and natural, instead of being artificial and uniform. The spirit, grace, or dignity which he added to his portraits, he borrowed from nature, and not from the ambiguous quackery of rules. His feeling of truth and nature was too strong to permit him to adopt the unmeaning style of Kneller and Hudson; but his logical acuteness was not such as to enable him to detect the verbal fallacies and speculative absurdities which he had learned from Richardson and Coypel; and, from some defects in his own practice, he was led to confound negligence with grandeur. But of this hereafter.
Sir Joseph Reynolds owed his vast superiority over his contemporaries to incessant practice, and habitual attention to nature, to quick organic sensibility, to considerable power of observation, and still greater taste in perceiving and availing himself of those excellences of others, which lay within his own walk of art. We can by no means look upon Sir Joshua as having a claim to the first rank of genius. He would hardly have been a great painter, if other greater painters had not lived before him. He would not have given a first impulse to the art, nor did he advance any part of it beyond the point where he found it. He did not present any new view of nature, nor is he to be placed in the same class with those who did. Even in colour, his pallet was spread for him by the old Masters, and his eye imbibed its full perception of depth and harmony of tone, from the Dutch and Venetian schools, rather than from nature. His early pictures are poor and flimsy. He indeed learned to see the finer qualities of nature through the works of art, which he, perhaps, might never have discovered in nature itself. He became rich by the accumulation of borrowed wealth, and his genius was the offspring of taste. He combined and applied the materials of others to his own purpose, with admirable success; he was an industrious compiler, or skilful translator, not an original inventor in art. The art would remain, in all its essential elements, just where it is, if Sir Joshua had never lived. He has supplied the industry of future plagiarists with no new materials. But it has been well observed, that the value of every work of art, as well as the genius of the artist, depends, not more on the degree of excellence, than on the degree of originality displayed in it. Sir Joshua, however, was perhaps the most original imitator that ever appeared in the world; and the reason of this, in a great measure, was, that he was compelled to combine what he saw in art, with what he saw in nature, which was constantly before him. The portrait-painter is, in this respect, much less liable than the historical painter, to deviate into the extremes of manner and affectation; for he cannot discard nature altogether, under the excuse that she only puts him out. He must meet her, face to face; and if he is not incorrigible, he will see something there that cannot fail to be of service to him. Another circumstance which must have been favourable to Sir Joshua was, that though not the originator in point of time, he was the first Englishman who transplanted the higher excellences of his profession into his own country, and had the merit, if not of an inventor, of a reformer of the art. His mode of painting had the graces of novelty in the age and country in which he lived; and he had, therefore, all the stimulus to exertion, which arose from the enthusiastic applause of his contemporaries, and from a desire to expand and refine the taste of the public.
To an eye for colour and for effects of light and shade, Sir Joshua united a strong perception of individual character,—a lively feeling of the quaint and grotesque in expression, and great mastery of execution. He had comparatively little knowledge of drawing, either as it regarded proportion or form. The beauty of some of his female faces and figures arises almost entirely from their softness and fleshiness. His pencil wanted firmness and precision. The expression, even of his best portraits, seldom implies either lofty or impassioned intellect or delicate sensibility. He also wanted grace, if grace requires simplicity. The mere negation of stiffness and formality is not grace; for looseness and distortion are not grace. His favourite attitudes are not easy and natural, but the affectation of ease and nature. They are violent deviations from a right line. Many of the figures in his fancy-pieces are placed in postures in which they could not remain for an instant without extreme difficulty and awkwardness. We might instance the Girl drawing with a Pencil, and some others. His portraits are his best pictures, and of these his portraits of men are the best; his pictures of children are the next in value. He had fine subjects for the former, from the masculine sense and originality of character of many of the persons whom he painted; and he had also a great advantage (as far as practice went) in painting a number of persons of every rank and description. Some of the finest and most interesting are those of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith (which is, however, too much a mere sketch), Baretti, Dr. Burney, John Hunter, and the inimitable portrait of Bishop Newton. The elegant simplicity of character, expression, and drawing, preserved throughout the last picture, even to the attitude and mode of handling, discover the true genius of a painter. We also remember to have seen a print of Thomas Warton, than which nothing could be more characteristic or more natural. These were all Reynolds’s intimate acquaintances, and it could not be said of them that they were men of ‘no mark or likelihood.’ Their traits had probably sunk deep into the artist’s mind; he painted them as pure studies from nature, copying the real image existing before him, with all its known characteristic peculiarities; and, with as much wisdom as good-nature, sacrificing the graces on the altar of friendship. They are downright portraits, and nothing more, and they are valuable in proportion. In his portraits of women, on the contrary (with very few exceptions), Sir Joshua appears to have consulted either the vanity of his employers or his own fanciful theory. They have not the look of individual nature, nor have they, to compensate the want of this, either peculiar elegance of form, refinement of expression, delicacy of complexion, or gracefulness of manner. Vandyke’s attitudes have been complained of as stiff and confined. Reynolds, to avoid this defect, has fallen into the contrary extreme of negligence and contortion. His female figures which aim at gentility, are twisted into that serpentine line, the idea of which he ridiculed so much in Hogarth. Indeed, Sir Joshua, in his Discourses (see his account of Correggio), speaks of grace as if it were nearly allied to affectation. Grace signifies that which is pleasing and natural in the posture and motions of the human form, as Beauty is more properly applied to the form itself. That which is stiff, inanimate, and without motion, cannot, therefore, be graceful; but, to suppose that a figure, to be graceful, need only be put into some languishing or extravagant posture, is to mistake flutter and affectation for ease and elegance.
Sir Joshua’s children, as we have said above, are among his chef d’œuvres. The faces of children have in general that want of precision of outline, that prominence of relief, and strong contrast of colour, which were peculiarly adapted to his style of painting. The arch simplicity of expression, and the grotesque character which he has given to the heads of his children, were, however, borrowed from Correggio. His Puck is the most masterly of all these; and the colouring, execution, and character, alike exquisite. The single figure of the Infant Hercules is also admirable. Many of those to which his friends have suggested historical titles are mere common portraits or casual studies. Thus the Infant Samuel is an innocent little child saying its prayers at the bed’s feet: it has nothing to do with the story of the Hebrew prophet. The same objection will apply to many of his fancy-pieces and historical compositions. There is often no connection between the picture and the subject but the name. Even his celebrated Iphigenia (beautiful as she is, and prodigal of her charms) does not answer to the idea of the story. In drawing the naked figure, Sir Joshua’s want of truth and firmness of outline, became more apparent; and his mode of laying on his colours, which, in the face and extremities, was relieved and broken by the abrupt inequalities of surface and variety of tints in each part, produced a degree of heaviness and opacity in the larger masses of flesh-colour, which can indeed only be avoided by extreme delicacy, or extreme lightness of execution.
Shall we speak the truth at once? In our opinion, Sir Joshua did not possess either that high imagination, or those strong feelings, without which no painter can become a poet in his art. His larger historical compositions have been generally allowed to be most liable to objection, in a critical point of view. We shall not attempt to judge them by scientific or technical rules, but make one or two observations on the character and feeling displayed in them. The highest subject which Sir Joshua has attempted was the Count Ugolino, and it was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a total failure. He had, it seems, painted a study of an old beggar-man’s head; and some person, who must have known as little of painting as of poetry, persuaded the unsuspecting artist, that it was the exact expression of Dante’s Count Ugolino, one of the most grand, terrific, and appalling characters in modern fiction. Reynolds, who knew nothing of the matter but what he was told, took his good fortune for granted, and only extended his canvass to admit the rest of the figures. The attitude and expression of Count Ugolino himself, are what the artist intended them to be, till they were pampered into something else by the officious vanity of friends—those of a common mendicant at the corner of a street, waiting patiently for some charitable donation. The imagination of the painter took refuge in a parish work-house, instead of ascending the steps of the Tower of Famine. The hero of Dante is a lofty, high-minded, and unprincipled Italian nobleman, who had betrayed his country to the enemy, and who, as a punishment for his crime, is shut up with his four sons in the dungeon of the citadel, where he shortly finds the doors barred against him, and food withheld. He in vain watches with eager feverish eye the opening of the door at the accustomed hour, and his looks turn to stone; his children one by one drop down dead at his feet; he is seized with blindness, and, in the agony of his despair, he gropes on his knees after them,
——‘Calling each by name
For three days after they were dead.’
Even in the other world, he is represented with the same fierce, dauntless, unrelenting character, ‘gnawing the skull of his adversary, his fell repast.’ The subject of the Laocoon is scarcely equal to that described by Dante. The horror there is physical and momentary; in the other, the imagination fills up the long, obscure, dreary void of despair, and joins its unutterable pangs to the loud cries of nature. What is there in the picture to convey the ghastly horrors of the scene, or the mighty energy of soul with which they are borne?[[57]] His picture of Macbeth is full of wild and grotesque images; and the apparatus of the witches contains a very elaborate and well arranged inventory of dreadful objects. His Cardinal Beaufort is a fine display of rich mellow colouring; and there is something gentlemanly and Shakespearian in the King and the attendant Nobleman. At the same time, we think the expression of the Cardinal himself is too much one of physical horror, a canine gnashing of the teeth, like a man strangled. This is not the best style of history. Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, is neither the tragic muse nor Mrs. Siddons; and we have still stronger objections to Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy.
There is a striking similarity between Sir Joshua Reynolds’s theory and his practice; and as each of these has been appealed to in support of the other, it is necessary that we should examine both. Sir Joshua’s practice was generally confined to the illustration of that part of his theory, which relates to the more immediate imitation of nature, and it is to what he says on this subject, that we shall chiefly direct our observations at present.
He lays it down as a general and invariable rule, that ‘the great style in art, and the most PERFECT IMITATION OF NATURE, consists in avoiding the details and peculiarities of particular objects.’ This sweeping principle he applies almost indiscriminately to Portrait, History, and Landscape; and he appears to have been led to the conclusion itself, from supposing the imitation of particulars to be inconsistent with general truth and effect. It appears to us, that the highest perfection of the art depends, not on separating but on uniting general truth and effect with individual distinctness and accuracy.
First, it is said, that the great style in painting, as it relates to the immediate imitation of external nature, consists in avoiding the details of particular objects. It consists neither in giving nor avoiding them, but in something quite different from both. Any one may avoid the details. So far, there is no difference between the Cartoons, and a common sign-painting. Greatness consists in giving the larger masses and proportions with truth;—this does not prevent giving the smaller ones too. The utmost grandeur of outline, and the broadest masses of light and shade, are perfectly compatible with the utmost minuteness and delicacy of detail, as may be seen in nature. It is not, indeed, common to see both qualities combined in the imitations of nature, any more than the combination of other excellences; nor are we here saying to which the principal attention of the artist should be directed; but we deny, that, considered in themselves, the absence of the one quality is necessary or sufficient to the production of the other.
If, for example, the form of the eye-brow is correctly given, it will be perfectly indifferent to the truth or grandeur of the design, whether it consists of one broad mark, or is composed of a number of hair-lines, arranged in the same order. So, if the lights and shades are disposed in fine and large masses, the breadth of the picture, as it is called, cannot possibly be affected by the filling up of those masses with the details, that is, with the subordinate distinctions which appear in nature. The anatomical details in Michael Angelo, the ever-varying outline of Raphael, the perfect execution of the Greek statues, do not destroy their symmetry or dignity of form; and, in the finest specimens of the composition of colour, we may observe the largest masses combined with the greatest variety in the parts of which those masses are composed.
The gross style consists in giving no details; the finical in giving nothing else. Nature contains both large and small parts, both masses and details; and the same may be said of the most perfect works of art. The union of both kinds of excellence, of strength with delicacy, as far as the limits of human capacity, and the shortness of human life would permit, is that which has established the reputation of the most successful imitators of nature. Farther, their most finished works are their best. The predominance, indeed, of either excellence in the best Masters, has varied according to their opinion of the relative value of these qualities,—the labour they had the time or the patience to bestow on their works,—the skill of the artist,—or the nature and extent of his subject. But, if the rule here objected to (that the careful imitation of the parts injures the effect of the whole), be once admitted, slovenliness would become another name for genius, and the most unfinished performance be the best. That such has been the confused impression left on the mind by the perusal of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, is evident from the practice, as well as conversation, of many (even eminent) artists. The late Mr. Opie proceeded entirely on this principle. He left many admirable studies of portraits, particularly in what relates to the disposition and effect of light and shade; but he never finished any of the parts, thinking them beneath the attention of a great artist. He went over the whole head the second day as he had done the first, and therefore made no progress. The picture at last, having neither the lightness of a sketch, nor the accuracy of a finished work, looked coarse, laboured, and heavy. Titian is the most perfect example of high finishing. In him the details are engrafted on the most profound knowledge of effect, and attention to the character of what he represented. His pictures have the exact look of nature, the very tone and texture of flesh. The variety of his tints is blended into the greatest simplicity. There is a proper degree both of solidity and transparency. All the parts hang together; every stroke tells, and adds to the effect of the rest. Sir Joshua seems to deny that Titian finished much; and says that he produced, by two or three strokes of his pencil, effects which the most laborious copyist would in vain attempt to equal. It is true, he availed himself in some degree of what is called execution, to facilitate his imitation of the details and peculiarities of nature; but it was to facilitate, not to supersede it. There can be nothing more distinct than execution and daubing. Titian, however, made a very moderate, though a very admirable, use of this power; and those who copy his pictures will find that the simplicity is in the results, not in the details. To conclude our observations on this head, we will only add, that, while the artist thinks there is any thing to be done, either to the whole or to the parts of his picture, which can give it still more the look of nature, if he is willing to proceed, we would not advise him to desist. This rule is the more necessary to the young student, for he will relax in his attention as he grows older. And again, with respect to the subordinate parts of a picture, there is no danger that he will bestow a disproportionate degree of labour upon them, because he will not feel the same interest in copying them, and because a much less degree of accuracy will serve every purpose of deception.
Secondly, with regard to the imitation of expression, we can hardly agree with Sir Joshua, that ‘the perfection of portrait-painting consists in giving the general idea or character without the individual peculiarities.’ No doubt, if we were to choose between the general character, and the peculiarities of feature, we ought to prefer the former. But, they are so far from being incompatible with, that they are not without some difficulty distinguishable from, each other. There is a general look of the face, a predominant expression arising from the correspondence and connection of the different parts, which it is of the first and last importance to give; and without which, no elaboration of detached parts, or marking of the peculiarities of single features, is worth any thing; but which, at the same time, is not destroyed, but assisted by the careful finishing, and still more by giving the exact outline of each part.
It is on this point that the modern French and English schools differ, and (in our opinion) are both wrong. The English seem generally to suppose, that if they only leave out the subordinate parts, they are sure of the general result. The French, on the contrary, as erroneously imagine, that, by attending successively to each separate part, they must infallibly arrive at a correct whole; not considering that, besides the parts, there is their relation to each other, and the general expression stamped upon them by the character of the individual, which to be seen must be felt; for it is demonstrable, that all character and expression, to be adequately represented, must be perceived by the mind, and not by the eye only. The French painters give only lines and precise differences; the English only general masses, and strong effects. Hence the two nations reproach one another with the difference of their styles of art,—the one as dry, hard, and minute,—the other as gross, gothic, and unfinished; and they will probably remain for ever satisfied with each other’s defects, as they afford a very tolerable fund of consolation on either side.
Much has been said of historical portrait; and we have no objection to this phrase, if properly understood. The giving historical truth to a portrait, means, then, the representing the individual under one consistent, probable, and striking view; or showing the different features, muscles, &c. in one action, and modified by one principle. A portrait thus painted may be said to be historical; that is, it carries internal evidence of truth and propriety with it; and the number of individual peculiarities, as long as they are true to nature, cannot lessen, but must add to the strength of the general impression.
It might be shown (if there were room in this place) that Sir Joshua has constructed his theory of the ideal in art, upon the same mistaken principle of the negation or abstraction of particular nature. The ideal is not a negative but a positive thing. The leaving out the details or peculiarities of an individual face does not make it one jot more ideal. To paint history, is to paint nature as answering to a general, predominant, or preconceived idea in the mind, of strength, beauty, action, passion, thought, &c.; but the way to do this is not to leave out the details, but to incorporate the general idea with the details;—that is, to show the same expression actuating and modifying every movement of the muscles, and the same character preserved consistently through every part of the body. Grandeur does not consist in omitting the parts, but in connecting all the parts into a whole, and in giving their combined and varied action: abstract truth or ideal perfection does not consist in rejecting the peculiarities of form, but in rejecting all those which are not consistent with the character intended to be given; and in following up the same general idea of softness, voluptuousness, strength, activity, or any combination of these through every ramification of the frame. But these modifications of form or expression can only be learnt from nature, and therefore the perfection of art must always be sought in nature. The ideal properly applies as much to the idea of ugliness, weakness, folly, meanness, vice, as of beauty, strength, wisdom, magnanimity, or virtue. The antique heads of fauns and satyrs, of Pan or Silenus, are quite as ideal as those of the Apollo or Bacchus; and Hogarth adhered to an idea of humour in his faces, as Raphael did to an idea of sentiment. But Raphael found the character of sentiment in nature as much as Hogarth did that of humour; otherwise neither of them would have given one or the other with such perfect truth, purity, force, and keeping. Sir Joshua Reynolds’s ideal, as consisting in a mere negation of individuality, bears just the same relation to real beauty or grandeur as caricature does to true comic character.[[58]]
Present State of British Art.—It is owing either to a mistaken theory of elevated art, or to the want of models in nature, that the English are hitherto without any painter of serious historical subjects, who can be placed in the first rank of genius. Many of the pictures of modern artists have shown a capacity for correct and happy delineation of actual objects and domestic incidents, only inferior to the masterpieces of the Dutch School. We might here mention the names of Wilkie, Collins, Heaphy, and many others. We have portrait-painters, who have attained to a very high degree of excellence in all the branches of their art. In landscape, Turner has shown a knowledge of the effects of air, and of powerful relief in objects, which was never surpassed. But in the highest walk of art—in giving the movements of the finer or loftier passions of the mind, this country has not produced a single painter, who has made even a faint approach to the excellence of the great Italian painters. We have, indeed, a good number of specimens of the clay-figure, the anatomical mechanism, the regular proportions measured by a two-foot rule;—large canvasses, covered with stiff figures, arranged in deliberate order, with the characters and story correctly expressed by uplifted eyes or hands, according to old receipt-books for the passions;—and with all the hardness and inflexibility of figures carved in wood, and painted over in good strong body colours, that look ‘as if some of nature’s journeymen had made them, and not made them well.’ But we still want a Prometheus to give life to the cumbrous mass, to throw an intellectual light over the opaque image,—to embody the inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye,—to lay bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of little comparative value which can be completely translated into another language,—of which the description in a common catalogue conveys all that is expressed by the picture itself; for it is the excellence of every art to give what can be given by no other, in the same degree. Much less is that picture to be esteemed, which only injures and defaces the idea already existing in the mind’s eye,—which does not come up to the conception which the imagination forms of the subject, and substitutes a dull reality for high sentiment; for the art is in this case an incumbrance, not an assistance, and interferes with, instead of adding to, the stock of our pleasurable sensations. But we should be at a loss to point out (we will not say any English picture, but certainly) any English painter, who, in heroic and classical composition, has risen to the height of his subject, and answered the expectation of the well-informed spectator, or excited the same impression by visible means, as had been excited by words, or by reflection.[[59]] That this inferiority in English art is not owing to a deficiency of genius, imagination, or passion, is proved sufficiently by the works of our poets and dramatic writers, which, in loftiness and force, are not surpassed by those of any other nation. But whatever may be the depth of internal thought and feeling in the English character, it seems to be more internal; and (whether this is owing to habit, or physical constitution) to have, comparatively, a less immediate and powerful communication with the organic expression of passion,—which exhibits the thoughts and feelings in the countenance, and furnishes matter for the historic muse of painting. The English artist is instantly sensible that the flutter, grimace, and extravagance of the French physiognomy, are incompatible with high history; and we are at no loss to explain in this way, that is, from the defect of living models, how it is that the productions of the French school are marked with all the affectation of national caricature, or sink into tame and lifeless imitations of the antique. May we not account satisfactorily for the general defects of our own historic productions, in a similar way,—from a certain inertness and constitutional phlegm, which does not habitually impress the workings of the mind in correspondent traces on the countenance, and which may also render us less sensible of these outward and visible signs of passion, even when they are so impressed there? The irregularity of proportion, and want of symmetry, in the structure of the national features, though it certainly enhances the difficulty of infusing natural grace and grandeur into the works of art, rather accounts for our not having been able to attain the exquisite refinements of Grecian sculpture, than for our not having rivalled the Italian painters in expression.
Mr. West does not form an exception to, but a confirmation of, these general observations. His pictures have all that can be required in what relates to the composition of the subject; to the regular arrangement of the groups; the anatomical proportions of the human body; and the technical knowledge of expression,—as far as expression is reducible to abstract rules, and is merely a vehicle for the telling of a story; so that anger, wonder, sorrow, pity, &c. have each their appropriate and well-known designations. These, however, are but the instrumental parts of the art, the means, not the end; but beyond these, Mr. West’s pictures do not go. They never ‘snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’ They exhibit the mask, not the soul of expression. We doubt, whether, in the entire range of Mr. West’s productions, meritorious and admirable as the design and composition often are, there is to be found one truly fine head. They display a total want of gusto. In Raphael, the same divine spirit breathes through every part; it either agitates the inmost frame, or plays in gentle undulations on the trembling surface. Whether we see his figures bending with all the blandishments of maternal love, or standing in the motionless silence of thought, or hurried into the tumult of action, the whole is under the impulse of deep passion. But Mr. West sees hardly any thing in the human face but bones and cartilages; or, if he avails himself of the more flexible machinery of nerves and muscles, it is only by rule and method. The effect is not that which the soul of passion impresses on the countenance, and which the soul of genius alone can seize; but such as might, in a good measure, be given to wooden puppets or pasteboard figures, pulled by wires, and taught to open the mouth, or knit the forehead, or raise the eyes in a very scientific manner. In fact, there is no want of art or learning in his pictures, but of nature and feeling.
Means of Promoting the Fine Arts.—It is not long ago that an opinion was very general, that all that was wanting to the highest splendour and perfection of the arts in this country might be supplied by Academies and public institutions. We believe the most sanguine promoters of this scheme have at present relaxed in their zeal. There are three ways in which Academies and public institutions may be supposed to promote the fine arts; either by furnishing the best models to the student; or by holding out immediate emolument and patronage; or by improving the public taste. We shall bestow a short consideration on the influence of each.
First, a constant reference to the best models of art necessarily tends to enervate the mind, to intercept our view of nature, and to distract the attention by a variety of unattainable excellence. An intimate acquaintance with the works of the celebrated masters may indeed add to the indolent refinements of taste, but will never produce one work of original genius, one great artist. In proof of the general truth of this observation, we might cite the history of the progress and decay of art in all countries where it has flourished. It is a little extraordinary, that if the real sources of perfection are to be sought in Schools, in Models, and Public Institutions, that whereever schools, models, and public institutions have existed, there the arts should regularly disappear,—that the effect should never follow from the cause.
The Greek statues remain to this day unrivalled,—the undisputed standard of the most perfect symmetry of form. In Italy the art of painting has had the same fate. After its long and painful struggles in the time of the earlier artists, Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Massacio, and others, it burst out with a light almost too dazzling to behold, in the works of Titian, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Correggio; which was reflected, with diminished lustre, in the productions of their immediate disciples; lingered for a while with the school of the Carraccis, and expired with Guido Reni. From that period, painting sunk to so low a state in Italy as to excite only pity or contempt. There is not a single name to redeem its faded glory from utter oblivion. Yet this has not been owing to any want of Dilettanti and Della Cruscan societies,—of academies of Florence, of Bologna, of Parma, and Pisa,—of honorary members and Foreign Correspondents—of pupils and teachers, professors and patrons, and the whole busy tribe of critics and connoisseurs.
What is become of the successors of Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vandyke? What have the French Academicians done for the arts; or what will they ever do, but add intolerable affectation and grimace to centos of heads from the antique, and caricature Greek forms by putting them into opera attitudes? Nicholas Poussin is the only example on record in favour of the contrary theory, and we have already sufficiently noticed his defects. What extraordinary advances have we made in our own country in consequence of the establishment of the Royal Academy? What greater names has the English school to boast than those of Hogarth, Reynolds, and Wilson, who created it? Even the venerable President of the Royal Academy was one of its founders.
Again, we might cite, in support of our assertion, the works of Carlo Maratti, of Raphael Mengs, or of any of the effeminate school of critics and copyists, who have attempted to blend the borrowed beauties of others in a perfect whole. What do they contain, but a negation of every excellence which they pretend to combine? The assiduous imitator, in his attempts to grasp all, loses his hold of that which was placed within his reach, and, from aspiring at universal excellence, sinks into uniform mediocrity. The student who has models of every kind of excellence constantly before him, is not only diverted from that particular walk of art, in which, by patient exertion, he might have obtained ultimate success, but, from having his imagination habitually raised to an overstrained standard of refinement, by the sight of the most exquisite examples in art, he becomes impatient and dissatisfied with his own attempts, determines to reach the same perfection all at once, or throws down his pencil in despair. Thus the young enthusiast, whose genius and energy were to rival the great Masters of antiquity, or create a new æra in the art itself, baffled in his first sanguine expectations, reposes in indolence on what others have done; wonders how such perfection could have been achieved,—grows familiar with the minutest peculiarities of the different schools,—flutters between the splendour of Rubens, and the grace of Raphael, and ends in nothing. Such was not Correggio. He saw and felt for himself; he was of no school, but had his own world of art to create. That image of truth and beauty, which existed in his mind, he was forced to construct for himself, without rules or models. As it had arisen in his mind from the contemplation of nature, so he could only hope to embody it to others, by the imitation of nature. We can conceive the work growing under his hands by slow and patient touches, approaching nearer to perfection, softened into finer grace, gaining strength from delicacy, and at last reflecting the pure image of nature on the canvass. Such is always the true progress of art; such are the necessary means by which the greatest works of every kind have been produced. They have been the effect of power gathering strength from exercise, and warmth from its own impulse—stimulated to fresh efforts by conscious success, and by the surprise and strangeness of a new world of beauty, opening to the delighted imagination. The triumphs of art were victories over the difficulties of art; the prodigies of genius, the result of that strength which had grappled with nature. Titian copied even a plant or a piece of common drapery from the objects themselves; and Raphael is known to have made elaborate studies of the principal heads in his pictures. All the great painters of this period were thoroughly grounded in the first principles of their art; had learned to copy a face, a hand, or an eye, and had acquired patience to finish a single figure, before they undertook to paint extensive compositions. They knew that though Fame is represented with her head above the clouds, her feet rest upon the earth. Genius can only have its full scope, where, though much may have been done, more remains to do; where models exist chiefly to show the deficiencies of art, and where the perfect idea is left to be filled up in the painter’s imagination. When once the stimulus of novelty and of original exertion is wanting, generations repose on what has been done for them by their predecessors, as individuals, after a certain period, rest satisfied with the knowledge they have already acquired.
With regard to the pecuniary advantages arising from the public patronage of the arts;—the plan unfortunately defeats itself; for it multiplies its objects faster than it can satisfy their claims; and raises up a swarm of competitors for the prize of genius from the dregs of idleness and dulness. The real patron is anxious to reward merit, not to encourage gratuitous pretensions to it; to see that the man of genius takes no detriment, that another Wilson is not left to perish for want;—not to propagate the breed of embryo candidates for fame. Offers of public and promiscuous patronage can in general be little better than a species of intellectual seduction, administering provocatives to vanity and avarice, and leading astray the youth of the nation by fallacious hopes, which can scarcely ever be realized. At the same time, the good that might be done by private taste and benevolence, is in a great measure defeated. The moment that a few individuals of discernment and liberal spirit become members of a public body, they are no longer anything more than parts of a machine, which is usually wielded at will by some officious, overweening pretender; their good-sense and good-nature are lost in a mass of ignorance and presumption; their names only serve to reflect credit on proceedings in which they have no share, and which are determined on by a majority of persons who have no interest in the arts but what arises from the importance attached to them by regular organization, and no opinions but what are dictated to them by some self-constituted judge. As far as we have had an opportunity of observing the conduct of such bodies of men, instead of taking the lead of public opinion, of giving a firm, manly, and independent tone to that opinion, they make it their business to watch all its caprices, and follow it in every casual turning. They dare not give their sanction to sterling merit, struggling with difficulties, but take advantage of its success, to reflect credit on their own reputation for sagacity. Their taste is a servile dependant on their vanity, and their patronage has an air of pauperism about it. Perhaps the only public patronage which was ever really useful to the arts, or worthy of them, was that which they received first in Greece, and afterwards in Italy, from the religious institutions of the country; when the artist felt himself, as it were, a servant at the altar; when his hand gave a visible form to Gods or Heroes, Angels or Apostles; and when the enthusiasm of genius was exalted by mingling with the flame of national devotion. The artist was not here degraded, by being made the dependant on the caprice of wealth or fashion, but felt himself at once the servant and the benefactor of the public. He had to embody, by the highest efforts of his art, subjects which were sacred to the imagination and feelings of the spectators; there was a common link, a mutual sympathy between them in their common faith. Every other mode of patronage, but that which arises, either from the general institutions and manners of a people, or from the real unaffected taste of individuals, must, we conceive, be illegitimate, corrupted in its source, and either ineffectual or injurious to its professed object.
Lastly, Academies and Institutions may be supposed to assist the progress of the fine arts, by promoting a wider taste for them.
In general, it must happen in the first stages of the arts, that as none but those who had a natural genius for them would attempt to practise them,—so none but those who had a natural taste for them, would pretend to judge of or criticise them. This must be an incalculable advantage to the man of true genius; for it is no other than the privilege of being tried by his peers. In an age when connoisseurship had not become a fashion; when religion, war, and intrigue, occupied the time and thoughts of the great, only those minds of superior refinement would be led to notice the works of art, who had a real sense of their excellence; and, in giving way to the powerful bent of his own genius, the painter was most likely to consult the taste of his judges. He had not to deal with pretenders to taste, through vanity, affectation, and idleness. He had to appeal to the higher faculties of the soul,—to that deep and innate sensibility to truth and beauty, which required only fit objects to have its enthusiasm excited,—and to that independent strength of mind, which, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism, hailed and fostered genius whereever it met with it. Titian was patronised by Charles V. Count Castiglione was the friend of Raphael. These were true patrons and true critics; and, as there were no others (for the world, in general, merely looked on and wondered), there can be little doubt that such a period of dearth of factitious patronage would be most favourable to the full developement of the greatest talents, and to the attainment of the highest excellence.
By means of public institutions, the number of candidates for fame, and pretenders to criticism, is increased beyond all calculation, while the quantity of genius and feeling remain much the same as before; with these disadvantages, that the man of original genius is often lost among the crowd of competitors who would never have become such, but from encouragement and example, and that the voice of the few whom nature intended for judges, is apt to be drowned in the noisy and forward suffrages of shallow smatterers in Taste.