Walpole has with justice remarked, that 'in the commencement of the reign of George I., in 1714, the arts of England were sunk almost to their lowest ebb.' The preceding sketch verifies the observation; and from the singular anomaly of a nation, during the most flourishing period of its literature, possessing a taste absolutely contemptible in the fine arts, evinces the truth of the principles advocated throughout these pages. From the Restoration to the accession of George III., the arts had never once been regarded as adding to national respectability, nor as connected with national feeling. The people crowded to have their portraits taken, without inquiring or conceiving that there was anything to know beyond the mere mechanical art. The sovereign, instead of regarding the progress of elegant taste as an important object of legislation, looked out for a limner merely as a necessary appurtenance of a court. As our monarchs of this period, not even excepting Anne, through the predilections of her husband, were, as regards painting, better acquainted with Continental art, and some more attached to everything foreign, British genius, of course overlooked, was never once called forth. Some stray Italian, Dutchman, or German, was caught hold of, patronised by royalty, supported by the nobility, and never thought of by the nation beyond face-painting in the metropolis. From the middle of the seventeenth to the first forty years of the eighteenth century, when national talent at length began to break forth in its own strength, such was the state of patronage, and the artists who enjoyed its benefits were but little qualified to create a national interest; for their mannerism and foreign modes served only the more decidedly to exclude a characteristic style, and, as must ever be the case in similar instances, prevented any developement of native originality. Another great cause of our wretched taste in the arts, and which perhaps in part grew out of these more general causes, was, that the real genius of the land was bent upon the pursuits of literature and science; while the nation had not attained that degree of refinement, security, and opulence, which enable a people to enjoy and to reward the exertions of mind, as at the present day, in all its separate and diversified departments of action. Between literary eminence and excellence in art there seems a natural connexion, as depending upon principles of taste and modes of exercise nearly similar. Letters and the Fine Arts, then, have generally been carried to the highest perfection among the same people; they have flourished in conjunction, and they have fallen together. It is to be remarked, however, that the former have always preceded; the noblest effusions of poetry have long been the delight of his country before the painter or the sculptor have reached an equal merit. Nor is this casual precedence. The labours of the poet are a necessary, in fact a creative preparation; by their rapid and wide circulation, they soften the sensibilities, arouse the imagination, give to taste an existence and a feeling of its object, and awake the mind to a consciousness of its intellectual wants. They constitute, also, a common chronicle, whether of fiction or of reality, whose events are clear to, and quickly recognisable by all. Fancy thus obtains a lore of its own, whose legends delight by repetition, and whose imagery animates the canvass or the marble with forms loved of old. Poetry, then, must precede art. All this advantage of preparation and expectancy was denied to the infancy of English painting. Milton's verse, not inferior to any precursor of Phidias or of Raphael, instead of being, as Homer's or Dante's, for centuries the manual of his countrymen, was barely known. Dryden, Addison, Pope, were yet but forming the public mind. In many respects, too, even had there not existed artists capable of constituting an epoch, the writings of these distinguished men are not favorable to vigorous originality of thought in art. Their own immediate productions are impressed with the genuine stamp of nationality, but their abstract system of criticism is often timid, almost always conventional; while in every remark on that subject, they show inexperience of the true object and philosophy of art. Even Addison here writes as a mere antiquarian, and Dryden with all the enthusiasm of poetry indeed, but with little of the sober judgment which must guide the more laborious hand and less undefined shapes of the painter. Again, the intellectual temperament and state of society favorable to the arts is directly opposed to those which promote scientific knowledge. Indeed, between the spirit of analytical inquiry, of minute research, which belongs to the investigations of science, and the creative fancy which tends to the successful exercise of the poet's or painter's art, the dissimilarity appears so great, that among the same people and at the same period, high eminence in both has never yet been attained. The amazing demonstrations of Newton, then, and the profound speculations of Locke, were by no means favorable to painting, while so entirely in infancy. They spread abroad a different taste—they engaged in the pursuit every ardent and aspiring mind. The sublime mysteries unveiled by the genius of Newton gave an especial bias to men's minds, and caused his own age to view with indifference, as light and valueless, pursuits which seemed but to minister to the amenities of life, or to hang only as graceful ornaments upon society.
Having thus faintly traced the rise and progress of painting in connexion with the history of the country, we now proceed briefly to examine the principles and the practice of the British school, under the general heads of Portrait, Historical, and Landscape Painting.
CHAPTER XIV.
Sir Joshua Reynolds is the founder of the English school. He is also the author of much that presently forms the most objectionable practice. Like every great artist, Sir Joshua must be viewed in two lights—as he stands in reference to the circumstances of his own age, and as an individual master in his profession. As the immediate successor, then, of the artists already named, and as elevating the art from their inanity to the state in which he left it, he justly ranks among the small number who compose the reformers of taste. In this aspect, his genius exhibits no ordinary claims to the gratitude of posterity, while here his merits are presented in the most favorable light. For when these are considered, on the other hand, as regards the present influence of the principles upon which the reformation, or perhaps commencement, of the English school was established, there will be found defect both in practice and theory. Indeed, the theoretical part of his professional education appears to have been founded, in the first instance, upon the erroneous modes of the writers of the age of Louis XIV., which were never laid aside, though to a certain extent modified by his studies in Italy. In fact, the pictures and the writings of Sir Joshua bear in this respect a striking resemblance—that the beauties of each break forth in despite of theory. Nature and good feeling, operating unrestrained, give to his paintings their best graces, when the ideal perfection at which he aimed has at happy moments been forgotten. In like manner, his discourses are admirable, when they deliver practical precepts, explain the suggestions of experience, or endeavor to reconcile refined taste with common sentiment. But when they speak of the abstractions and idealities of art, they become, and have already proved, most treacherous guides. This he has himself exemplified, for he has uniformly gone astray where he has implicitly followed these guides; and it may be shown that the besetting sins of the English school spring from the same sources. Sir Joshua's theory and his practice were in more than one respect inconsistent, while neither adhered so closely to, or at least did not render nature, so faithfully and so minutely, as is desirable. His perceptions of form he derived, or professed to derive, from Michael Angelo; but his practice is founded upon the principles of Rembrandt. From the explanation of these already given, with this anticipation, at some length, it must at once appear, that they were little calculated kindly to amalgamate with the decided lines, refined science, and lofty abstractions of the Florentine. But even of these principles, Sir Joshua did not follow the most valuable portion, namely, the rigid fidelity of imitation which they enjoined. He adopted them only in their concentration of light, and deep contrast of shadow, and in their massive coloring, intended for inspection at a certain distance. Instead of careful resemblance, he substituted middle forms, and large masses without details; or, to refer here to his own words, which he has most directly illustrated in his whole practice:—'the great style in art, and the most perfect imitation of nature, consist in avoiding the details and peculiarities of particular objects;' and again: 'the perfection of portrait painting consists in giving the general idea or character, without individual peculiarities.'
Now, whether these principles be regarded as they affect the practice of an imitative art, and more especially in the department of portraiture; or whether they be examined in reference to the philosophy of taste and composition in historical painting, we apprehend they will be found not only reprehensible in themselves, but to be the ground work upon which have been reared the present errors of our school. It is for this reason that we shall examine them at some length.
There are two styles or modes of representation in painting, which agree in producing the same general effect of resemblance, but differ in the extent to which the resemblance of individual forms is carried; or perhaps, if the expression be allowed, in the number of particular similitudes composing the aggregate resemblance. It is evident from this definition, that the portion of mental pleasure, or exercise of the imagination, arising from contemplating the productions of an imitative art, merely as such, will be increased just in proportion to the facilities afforded of augmenting comparisons between the prototype and the representation. If this be denied, it follows that the coarsest scene-painting is equal to the most finished landscape of Claude; for the general effect must be alike true in each. But again, since painting has not, like poetry, the advantage of repeated and progressive impressions; the object which the painter must hold constantly, and as primary, in view, is to add power to the first burst of effect which his work is to produce upon the mind. When, therefore, attention to the individual resemblances has caused to be neglected or overlooked the grand result or aggregate of resemblance, one of the greatest possible errors is committed. The performance is justly condemned to a low grade in art, because the author has both mistaken the real strength of the instrument which he wields, and has shown himself defective in the highest quality of genius,—comprehension and creation of a whole. Thus there are two extremes in art; and even on the adage of common life, the mean must be preferable. Hence, then, even thus far Sir Joshua's maxim, and the maxim of too large a proportion of our native school generally, appears to be erroneous, 'in avoiding details and individual character.' But in each of these extremes are found its respective, and to excellence, indispensable advantages. The nearer, therefore, they can be approached and reconciled, the more perfect will be the style. If this be doubted, the practice of the best masters will accord with a conclusion derived from the very nature of an art at once imitative and liberal. If we examine in this view the remains of classic sculpture, we find, indeed, the masses and divisions few and simple, in order to preserve the harmony and force of general effect; but so far from details being excluded, the Elgin marbles have the very veins of the horses marked, and are in every respect highly finished; and as we approach the era of Alexander, though this particular circumstance in certain cases be laid aside, yet the general divisions become even more numerous, and the details still more minute. Among the moderns, again, those masters in the art now considered, who are esteemed the most excellent, are singularly remarkable for the quantity and variety of detail which they have harmonized into one grand and perfect whole. For this we refer to the heads of Raphael, Titian, Coreggio, and Vandyke, which, though broad and grand in general effect, are so far from being defective in detail, that each separate part would form a perfect study. If, again, the history of art be considered, it has been shown, both in sculpture and in painting, that during the infancy of each art, details were imitated, while the mind was yet unable to grasp the entire subject. As improvement advanced, and genius attained the full mastery of its weapons, truth and number of constituents, grandeur and unity of design, crowned the whole. Inversely, decline is perceived to commence in the neglect of those fine and almost evanescent details, which compose the breathing, the master-touches of a work of art. Successively the progress of corruption advances, till little remain save large harsh masses, from which state the downward path is rapid, to the complete destitution of even general form. How strongly, for instance, and in how short a space, was this exemplified in the fortunes of Greek sculpture in Rome! From the finishing of even Ludovico Caracci, to the sprawlings of Luca Giordano, how brief was the interval! from the exquisitely pencilled and speaking portraits of Vandyke to the glaring vacancies, the undetailed middle forms, of Lely and Kneller!
These reasonings, so varied in their origin, give but one uniform conclusion, the very reverse of the principle upon which English portraits have been painted, with few exceptions, from the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds to those of the present day;—a conclusion, showing that the excellence of art, and the most perfect imitation of nature, do not consist in 'the avoiding of details,' but in the happy union of detail and of individual resemblance with greatness and breadth of general power. To avoid details is to rest contented with an inferior aim in art—to avoid, in fact, the chief difficulty and the chief glory that mark the career of the artist.
This gross style of mechanical practice, which the theory now combated certainly originated, has spread over the whole of English portraiture a coarseness of effect and unfinished appearance, destitute of the agreeable lightness of a sketch, and yet without the clear and well-defined solidity of a highly-wrought picture. In like manner, the striving at some delusive, some shadowy excellence of general expression, instead of representing the air and character exactly as in the countenance of the sitter, has greatly depreciated the intellectual qualities of our art. Hence the unmeaning, common-place look which most of portraits cast at the spectator. Doubtless, in every countenance there is a general impress of thought or feeling, which may be said to constitute the habitual mental likeness of the individual. This it is of the first importance faithfully to transfer to the canvass. Without this, indeed, the most correct and elaborate pronouncing of the separate features is of no comparative value. Hence, however, it by no means follows, that 'individual peculiarities' are to be resigned. On the contrary, when judiciously introduced, they will give force by the very addition of individuality to the general resemblance. It is this which imparts the speaking impress of thought and mind to the portraits of Raphael and Titian, where 'the rapt soul sitting in the eye' seems to breathe, in all its historic energies, from the canvass. It astonishes, indeed, that such precepts should have been delivered by one who must have been sensible, that the reformation which he accomplished in contemporary art, was mainly owing to his having exploded the very same notions of generalizing resemblance, and of middle forms, held by his predecessors. In fact, Reynolds was superior to Lely or Kneller, or even Hudson, chiefly as he approached nearer to nature, by discarding mannered, conventional, and systematic modifications of her realities. And he is superior to himself exactly in those works where he has left out his own peculiar 'ways of seeing nature,' and has given her honestly and faithfully as she actually did appear. Thus his best portraits are those of his intimate friends;—men whose habits of thought and action were pressed upon him by constant observance, and in veneration of whom, and of all that belonged to them, he forgot his system in the subject before him. Such are the portraits of Dr Johnson, of Baretti, of Goldsmith, of Burney, and two of the finest and most powerful likenesses in the world, of John Hunter and Bishop Newton. As it was with Sir Joshua, so will it be with every other artist. He must not merely imitate, he must resign himself to, nature; become as a little child, leaving all artifice and false knowledge, and receive from her the precepts of truth and soberness.