"Charles the First, &c." This picture may be considered in two different lights; as a picturesque composition, and as a representation of character. In the first, there cannot perhaps be conceived a more happy combination of the different materials, whose concurrence is required to constitute a harmonious whole. Nothing can surpass the comprehension which balances its masses of light and shade, equally lucid and juicy, deep and aërial, various and united; its colour at once soothes and invigorates our eye; but when we recover from the enamoured trance of technic enjoyment, we look for the character and the sentiment embodied by such art; we find, instead of Charles, a cold, flimsy, shuffling figure, with pretension to importance, but without dignity,—a man absorbed by his garment.
"La Kermesse, ou fête de Village—Kermis, or Village Gambols."—Rubens.
This is rustic mirth personified. Rapidity of conception and equality of execution equally surprise in this composition; variety and unity separate and combine its numerous groups; the canvass reels; the satiated eye might perhaps wish for a little more subordination, for a mass more eminently distinguished by white or black, to give a zest to the clogging sweetness of the general form. But Rubens worked under influence, and his pencil roamed through the whole without predilection: he was not here a painter; he was the instrument of untameable mirth. There is a group in this picture which seems to have been suggested by the struggling group of two soldiers in the cartoon of the horsemen, by Leonardo da Vinci. This may be judged a cold observation; but artists must judge coldly.
Zustris.—"Venus on her bed waiting for Mars, playing with Cupid and her Doves."
This wanton conceit is a singular phænomenon on the Dutch horizon of art. We know no more of Zustris than what the catalogue chooses to inform us; but his work proves, that if he could conceive amorously, or what might be better styled, libidinously, he grew cold in the progress of execution. The face of Venus does not assist her action. The picture wants shade, and glow, and keeping; but there is an idea of elegance in the lines, and the flesh wants only shade to become Venetian.
TITIAN—PORTRAIT OF TITIAN AND HIS MISTRESS.
The full value of this picture cannot perhaps be appreciated better than when it is considered after the examination of a portrait by Rubens. The unaffected breadth, the modest, unambitious reflexes, an air of suffusion rather than penciling, a certain resignation even in the touch, shew us Nature, rather than its image. This charming female displays a mind superior to the cares of the toilet she is engaged with, sees beyond the mirror which her lover holds, and at which her lover, if it be her lover, assists. The great merit of Titian, and perhaps his exclusive merit as to execution, is to be totally free from all pretence, from all affectation. His vehicle conveys the idea of the thing, and passes unobserved. To Tintoret, to Paolo—the thing in general served to convey the vehicle. The Miracle of St. Marc derives all its merit from that whirlpool of execution, which sweeps undistinguished all individual merit into one mighty mass. As a whole, of equal comprehension, energy, and suavity, it astonishes the common man of organs, and the artist who enters into the process of this amalgama, equally; but when the first charm is over, and we begin to examine the parts, we shall not find they were drawn forward, distanced, or excluded by propriety and character."
The intimacy which commenced in Paris, in the year 1801, between Fuseli and Mr. Robert Smirke, the celebrated architect, was kept up; and when he left England for Italy, the former gave him letters of introduction for Rome, which he found very useful. This kindness on the part of Fuseli, was acknowledged by Mr. R. Smirke in the following letter:
"Rome, March 20, 1803.
"dear sir,