Before the seventeenth century, Germany makes no appearance in a general history of sculpture; and even now she is more celebrated for her writers on the philosophy, than for her artists in the practice, of the art. Still the genius of the nation we should be inclined to estimate as highly favorable to its future advancement. In Vienna, Rauchmüller; in Silesia, Leigebe; at Berlin, Schluter, Millich, Barthel, and others, have proved this estimate not unfounded. While our more immediate contemporaries, Ohnmacht, Sonnenschein, Nahl, the two Shadofs, especially the younger, whose Spinning Girl is one of the most exquisite imitations of simple nature which modern art can show, do not discourage this hope; if indeed artists be not carried away by that unnatural striving after marvellous effect, which has wrought so much injury to common sense and right feeling in German literature.
On reviewing the history of modern sculpture during its rise and perfection, to the decline immediately antecedent to the present century, we find that, from the commencement of the fifteenth century, when the art began to rank among national causes of exertion and feeling, progress towards perfection, and in the most direct path, was rapid. Hence it has been the singular distinction of the sculptors of this period, to have left models in their own works, while their previous discoveries enabled those who immediately followed also to produce models. They have thus remained original in an age of originality. During the sixteenth century, causes more remotely connected with real patriotism—an ostentatious desire of splendour, not an unaffected love of refinement—operated in the promotion of the arts; and in Sculpture, in particular, the artificial excitement imparted a portion of its spirit to its effects. From the age of Michael Angelo inclusive, we find that the desire of novelty, a continued endeavor to extend the boundaries of art, by the introduction of imaginary perfections inconsistent with its real character and excellence, were the rocks on which was made fatal shipwreck of truth, of simplicity, and of beauty. These imagined improvements were directed to the acquisition of two grand objects. A style of composition was aimed at, more purely ideal, less connected with nature, than is to be found in the remains of the ancient, or in the works of the early modern masters. Genius hovered on the very confines of credibility and of the impossible, deriving the elements of its creations from imaginings awful and imposing, embodied in forms of gloomy sublimity and power, overwhelming—not awakening—to the human sympathies. As characteristics of this imaginative style, the proportions are enlarged, the expressions forced, and action and energy are given, destructive of grace and reality. Art is raised to regions where nature is unknown, and where the very highest exertions of intellect and fancy could hardly sustain interest. This was more especially the style of the Tuscan school, and it fell with its great founder, who had placed the art on this dangerous height. But, in the second place, sculpture was sought to be assimilated to painting, and merit was estimated by the extent to which imitation was carried—in difficulty and variety of effect, in complicated detail, in volume of drapery, and, latterly, even in facility of production. This taste first began decidedly in the school of Bernini, and exclusively cherished the powers of mechanical execution, in preference to the unobtrusive but essential beauties of purity and correctness of design. Hence the rapid decline; for statues soon became merely confused masses of drapery, without drawing, and without science. Still the chisel was wielded with great mechanical dexterity; but before the middle of the eighteenth century, every moral beauty, sentiment, truth, feeling, had disappeared from the labours of the sculptor.
CHAPTER IX.
Art has never been reformed, after a lapse from high eminence, by mere imitation of examples, however excellent; nor by only following rules for the correction of error. It is here as in morals, example succeeds where precept would fail. Some mind of uncommon firmness and good sense is required, who, beginning with nature, brings to the work of reformation original powers and severe judgment; fancy and feeling, with correctness and cultivated taste: one, in short, of those rare minds whose merits, great in themselves, become incomparably greater viewed with the times in which they commenced their career; whose exertions, wonderful in their own accomplishments, are yet more admirable from the progress which thereby others have been enabled to effect. Such a genius was that possessed by Canova, a name venerable alike for virtue and for talents. Born, in 1757, in a distant and otherwise unknown hamlet, in the territory of Treviso—fallen upon evil days in his art—of the most obscure parentage, destined to fill the humble and laborious occupation of village stone-cutter—remote, in the first instance, from every advice and assistance, he rose to be the companion of princes, the restorer of art, and the generous patron of merit friendless as his own. We know not whether more to love or to admire Canova. In his fifteenth year, repairing to Venice, the cloisters of a convent supplied him, through the benevolence of the good fathers, with a work-shop; and only fifteen years afterwards, through a struggle of poverty, yet redeemed by prudence and industry, and sweetened by independence, he erected in St Peter's the monument of Ganganelli—the first fruits of a spirit, whose sobriety of temperament, more valuable and more rare than mere original invention, here exhibited a correctness which would amend, with a vigour which would elevate, a fallen age.
A series of more than two hundred compositions, of which this was the first, standing itself nobly conspicuous, yet only a step from previous imbecility, presents too extensive a field for particular description, or minute examination. The remembrance is yet fresh upon our memory, when, arranged in a funereal hall, representations of these works might well have been deemed the labours of a generation; and while now about to describe the originals, we bear in recollection, that to view these a considerable portion of Europe has been traversed. Thus numerous, and widely extending the influence of their style, these productions certainly, require careful notice. Avoiding details, then, we shall class them under Heroic subjects; Compositions of softness and grace—Monumental erections and Relievos.
The superiority of Canova, has been questioned in the first of these departments only. He has been admitted a master of the beautiful—hardly of the grand. Or rather, perhaps, while his claims have been universally recognised in representing the softer graces of loveliness, his powers in the sublimities of severe and masculine composition are less generally appreciated. This estimation is unjust, having been originated and maintained by causes entirely extrinsic to the genius or labours of the artist. In not one, but many groups and single statues, he has attained some of the loftiest aims of sculpture. In manly and vigorous beauty of form, the Perseus; in forceful expression and perfection of science, the Pugilists—a work, in its peculiar range, one of the most classical of modern art; in harmonious and noble composition, uniting nature and poetic feeling, the Theseus combating the Centaur; in the terrible of sentiment and suffering, the Hercules;—these, with the Ajax, Hector, Paris, Palamedes, all belonging to the grand style of art, may challenge comparison with any works of the modern chisel, in the beauties of sustained effect, learned design, boldness yet exquisite delicacy of execution; while as to number, the series here is unparalleled in the history of any single mind. In the majestic or venerable realities of portraiture, again, there is Napoleon, Pius VI., Washington, Ganganelli, Rezzonico.
In the second department, the compositions of Canova have enriched modern art with the most glowing conceptions of elegance and grace; raised, and yet more refined, by the expression of some elevating or endearing sentiment. Here, indeed, has been allotted his peculiar and unapproachable walk. Yet it may justly be doubted, whether he be not superior in the former class, where his merit has hitherto been denied or doubted. True, one or two works in the second, as the Venus recumbent, the Nymph, and Cupid, are superior, as examples of beauty and grace, to any one of masculine character which might be compared with them; but, as a class, the second is less uniformly dignified and excellent than the first. The great defect here, indeed, is a want of dignity in the female figures; which, though equally removed from the flimsy affectations of his immediate predecessors, as from the robust and austere proportions of the Tuscan school, are not always free from the meagre and the cold where grace is to be united with sweetness. This seems to be occasioned by a want of harmony between the just height and roundness of the forms—from an absence of those firm, yet gracious contours, meeting, yet eluding the eye, rounded into life and dissolving in the animated marble, which render, for instance, the Medicean so incomparably superior to the Venus of Canova. Throughout the whole of this class, there frequently runs a character of composition too ornate—too elaborately pleasing, and which would appear still more decidedly, were it not accompanied by inimitable ease, and were not every part, even to the minutest ornament, an emanation of the same refined taste and cultivated mind. It is this, chiefly, which spreads their delightful charm of consistency over these works; there is, on close examination, little derived immediately and simply from nature. Every choice has finally, but not obviously, been determined after much thought and many trials. All is that perfection of art, by which art itself is best concealed, and which to its creations lends the enchantment of nature's own sweetest graces.
In the monumental series of works, Canova displays all the practical excellences of his genius, with more, perhaps, of originality and simplicity than generally characterise his other labours. This class consists of architectural elevations, supporting colossal statues, and of tablets in relievo. Of the former, the tombs of the Popes at Rome, of Alfieri at Florence, and of the Archduchess Maria Christina at Vienna, are magnificent examples. The second constitutes a numerous and very beautiful class, which, though composed of nearly the same simple elements of design, a female figure, or a genius, in basso relievo, mourning over a bust or an urn, yet exhibit much diversity of character and arrangement. From each of these an example might be selected in the tomb of the Archduchess, and the grand relievo of the O'Hara family mourning over the funereal couch of the deceased daughter and wife—equal to anything in the whole compass of art. To those who deny the merit of Canova in relief, we recommend the study of this monument. The former, representing a procession bearing to the tomb the ashes of the dead, is one of the most arduous and noblest compositions extant; and, judging from our own impressions, no record of mortality ever better accomplished its purpose, whether to awaken regret for departed virtue, or to tell, by its own perfection, that in man there exists an intelligence which shall survive beyond the grave.