History of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture

by J. S. Memes

The leading events and principal masters in the past history of British art have now been rapidly surveyed. Upon the living ornaments of the school, individually, it scarcely falls under the province of the annalist, nor is it his intention, to dwell. It is not, that matter of still farther congratulation would not thus be afforded in the evidence of national progress; for at no time has the English school occupied a more elevated position, whether compared with others, or with itself. But, estimated thus highly and thus truly, the general eminence has still gradations, which, in entering upon detail, it would be incumbent to point out. The responsibility of this duty it is the wish to avoid. An opinion ventured upon works left by their authors to the guardianship of posterity, may be canvassed in its truth or falsehood as an abstract criticism, without either wounding the feelings of the living, or, it may be, injuring the value of professional labour. From judicious observations when called for, an artist has to fear nothing, and may profit much; but it should ever be remembered, that the professional merit must be humble indeed, which does not render the possessor superior to his self-constituted judge, who is himself not an artist. A sound judgment in literature, or an acquaintance with the general principles upon which all works of taste must necessarily be conducted, are not sufficient, without practical skill, truly to estimate a production of art. The poet employs vehicles of thought and signs of expression familiar to all as the use of reason; the means and instruments of the painter constitute in their management a peculiar science, in which excellence or defect is less appreciable by natural or untrained observation. Neglect of these principles of criticism has exposed to groundless censure, and to as injurious praise, both arts and artists.

When it is stated, that the modern English school surpasses every other in Europe, the inference is not to be assumed, that painting elsewhere has retrograded, but that, with us, art has advanced beyond the general improvement. During the present century, painting in France has been superior to any thing produced in that country since the age of Louis XIV., or, perhaps, it has in this space attained a greater glory. Italy has more than one master, who, in purity of style at least, excels any predecessor within the last fifty years. Now, if the representatives of these respective schools be compared, or if the universal works of each be taken as the criterion of merit, in either case it would not be difficult to show, that separately, or as a school, the British artists of the present age have made the greatest attainments towards excellence.

But compared with ourselves, has our course also been progressive? The affirmative here it is more difficult to prove. Reynolds, Hogarth, Wilson, Gainsborough, all contemporaries, certainly present a rare combination of genius and art. But besides these stars of the first magnitude, every other 'lesser light' twinkles with diminished ray. Now, as respects the general diffusion of most respectable eminence, this is far from being the case at present. In every branch, more than one master of high talent might be mentioned. Again, considering the representatives of each department in the present and in the former age, there can be no hesitation, everything considered, in giving the preference to our contemporaries. A remark of the late learned Fuseli is here quite to the purpose, while in itself perfectly correct: 'The works of Sir Joshua Reynolds are unequal, many of them are indifferent, though some cannot be surpassed; but, on the other hand, even the most inferior picture from the pencil of Sir Thomas Lawrence is excellent.' It is this extended and uniform excellence, as has appeared throughout the whole course of these investigations, which constitutes not only individual superiority, but which tends, most directly and most surely, to the exaltation of art.

Hogarth, again, stands alone rather in the peculiar dramatic character of his performances, than in their beauty or science, as bearing upon the promotion of universal improvement, or even as individual pieces of painting. His pictures, also, with few exceptions, are rather isolated representations than general exhibitions of manners; they are scenes displaying the singularities, more than the leading actions and feelings of life. Their effect is broad and true, and the moral powerful; but both are circumscribed by times, and by partial divisions among mankind. Wilkie, whose style of composition most nearly resembles Hogarth's, and with whom, therefore, he is to be compared, while he preserves all the force of individual character and delineation of living nature, has extended a far more comprehensive grasp of mind over the moralities of his subject. He has brought within the pencil's magic sway, and fixed there in permanent reality, the sorrows and the joys, the hopes, fears, and attachments, the occupations, customs, habits, and even amusements, of a whole unchanging class of mankind. This may appear to have been before accomplished, both in the English and Flemish schools. But here lies the distinction: Hogarth represents general ideas by particular signs. His forms and his expressions are individual modifications of the limited society to which they belong. The conceptions of Wilkie are the idealisms of his models. Each figure is not only pregnant with individuality of character and life, but is the true representative of the class whose constituent it is. Each expression, though generally but the index of humble feeling, sends abroad into the heart of every spectator its artless appeal. He has thus, in fact, applied the generalizations of higher art to the interests of common life, yet preserving its simplicity, its humbleness, and reality. The Dutch painters, again, have painted vulgar instead of common nature; nor, in the complete range of their school, is there once an example of that delightful sentiment, which our countryman has so successfully cast over his most lowly scenes, and by which he has redeemed them from every approach to vulgarity, without falling, as Gainsborough has sometimes done, into insipidity or mannerism.

In landscape, Turner has extended the boundaries of his art by the invention of prismatic colors, and by his novel applications of them. He is therefore decidedly a more original artist than Wilson, whose best works are those composed in imitation of Claude. But Turner by no means stands so much alone as did the masters of the former age; names in both divisions of Britain might be mentioned his equals in more than one respect. In the historical department, again, if we admit the late President's works, there can be no comparison between these and any former labours of the English school. But in all the possible varieties of historical composition, there are artists of great excellence either now living, or who have been taken from us within these few years; as Haydn, Martin, Allan of Edinburgh, Heapy, Collings, Fuseli, Harlow, Stothard, Cooper, Landseer, with others. In portraiture, Jackson, Phillips, and others, show, that even high excellence is not so confined as in the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lawrence is indeed the first artist in Europe, but he is ably supported. A little anecdote may here give some idea of the powers of Sir Thomas's pencil. On visiting, one evening, the apartment in the Vatican where his splendid portrait of George IV., in coronation robes, was then exhibited, we were much struck with the fixed attention immediately directed to it by an individual who had just entered. A deeper interest was excited on perceiving the stranger to be a celebrated native artist. Continuing for some time in total abstraction, during which the workings of his countenance clearly indicated admiration or astonishment, and, we thought, disappointment, with a sudden unconscious gesticulation, he exclaimed aloud, 'Dio—il tramontane!' as if saying 'Heavens! can that have been painted beyond the Alps!' and abruptly hurried away.

From the preceding remarks, and the names now enumerated, who are mentioned without any reference to comparative rank or merit as to each other, two inferences are deducible: first, That the masters more immediately in the public eye, as now at the head of the various departments of art, are on the whole superior to those of the last age; and, secondly, That between the former and their present contemporaries, the interval is small in comparison with the position occupied by Reynolds, Hogarth, Wilson, or Gainsborough, in relation to the school over which they presided. Hence the general conclusion seems evident, that in Britain, the art, as compared with itself, has continued to improve.

Compared with foreign art, the distinctive character of the English school is strongly marked. Painting on the Continent exhibits a striking uniformity of style, with such peculiarities as, on a general view, will not lessen the truth of a common classification. The Continental artist, then, studies to detail, but fails in power of general effect; his performances are more valuable as works of art and of imitation, than of imagination or abstract resemblance. The parts are beautifully made out, finely drawn; but the whole is too seldom connected by any animating principle of general similitude, uniting the separate elaborations into one broad and forcible harmony. Hence the dry, the meagre, and the disjointed particulars, the usual components of their labours, though in themselves truer than the constituents of British art—better drawn, it may be, and more carefully finished, as they almost always are, yet contrast disadvantageously with the bold and powerful, though large generalizations of our pencil. Nor can there be impartial question, though each be separately defective, that more genius is displayed in the latter than in the former. The English artist paints more to the mind; the French and the Italian to the eye. The first looks abroad upon the universal harmonies and oppositions of nature; the second scrutinizes and carefully renders the filling up of her aggregated forms, and the lesser concurrences of her general effects. Art, with us, represents objects as they seem in their relations, rather than as they actually exist; among our rivals, it delineates things as they are in themselves, to the neglect of those modifications by which reality is diversified through pleasing falsehood, especially as viewed in reference to a medium of expression, founded itself in delusion. In the one case, nature is seen and imitated as a picture; in the other, her operations and forms are contemplated as materials out of which pictures are to be wrought. Hence English art satisfies, but deceives; the foreign style does not deceive, but fails to satisfy.

Compared with itself, and with the real objects and essence of art, we have already pointed out the great defect in the practice of English art to be, imperfection in the details. In portraiture, this has spread to a ruinous extent; and with the most beautiful models in the world, British female portraits, speaking in general, are most decided failures. On this subject, nothing more remains to be said—we refer to the exquisite works of Lawrence, whose female heads are at once most striking, most lovely, and very highly finished;—we recommend a study of Vandyke's likenesses of the ladies of the Court of Charles, now in the Louvre. Let the natural grace and modesty, the delicacy of feature and transparency of tint, in these, be compared with similar works of the present day and practice—when it must at once appear how much is lost to art, and how great injustice is done to nature. In male portraits our practice is better, but only from the bolder lineaments of the subject. The inherent errors are the same—modelling with the pencil, rather than drawing—immense masses of dark shade to conceal the absence of all that should be present—and forcible rather than natural effect. There certainly now appears, however, in the productions of the most esteemed living masters, the progress of a more scientific and more perfect style.

In the walk of history, expression—that expression which comes from the natural outpourings of feeling—which animates the canvass of the early masters—and which seems to find its proper, spontaneous, accordant instrument in their pencil,—has yet been wanting. Next, our historical paintings are sadly defective in composition—not in the symmetrical arrangement and grouping of figures, but in the real poetry of the art, in the facile, the creative power over the means and materials of the science—in the skill of causing them to fall as if by chance, and without effort or visible design, into the most harmonious, most striking, and most effective combinations.