We are fully and painfully aware how opposed some of these views are to the received criticism and popular practice of art in England; but it were beyond our purpose to inquire into the many causes which combine to render our countrymen averse from the impartial study, as well as to the even partial adoption of them. Hogarth, the incarnation of our national taste in painting, saw in those spiritualised cherubim which usually minister to the holiest compositions of the Umbrian school, only "an infant's head with a pair of duck's wings under its chin, supposed always to be flying about and singing psalms."[115] The form conveyed by the eye, and the description of it traced by the pen, are here in accurate unison. Alas! how hopelessly blinded the writer's mental vision. As directly opposed to such grovelling views, and contrasting spiritual with material perceptions of art, it may not be out of place here to cite a passage from Savonarola, whose stern genius gladly invoked the muse of painting to aid his moral and political reformations. "Creatures are beautiful in proportion as they participate in and approximate the beauty of their creator; and perfection of bodily form is relative to beauty of mind. Bring hither two women equally perfect in person; let one be a saint, the other a sinner. You shall find that the saint will be more generally loved than the sinner, and that on her all eyes will be directed."
These quotations illustrate two extremes,—ribald vulgarity on the one hand, and transcendental mysticism on the other, between which the standard of sound criticism may be sought. It would be as unreasonable to suppose Hogarth capable of comprehending or appreciating the fervid conceptions of Christian art, as to look for sympathy from Savonarola, with his pot-house personifications. Each of those styles has its peculiar merit, which cannot fairly be considered with reference to the other: they differ in this among many respects,—that whilst English caricatures and Dutch familiar scenes are addressed to the most uncultivated minds, Umbrian or Sienese paintings can be understood only after long examination and elevated thought. The former, therefore, gratify the unintelligent many, the latter delight an enlightened few.
The difficulty of justly appreciating this branch of æsthetics is greater among ourselves than is generally imagined, as our best authorities have entirely misled us, from themselves overlooking its true bent. More alive to the naturalism and technical merits of painting than to subtleties of feeling and expression, they are neither conscious of the aims nor aware of the principles of purist art. They look for perfection where only pathos should be sought. Burnet, a recent and valuable writer, considers Barry "one of those noble minds ruined by a close adherence to the dry manner of the early masters," an analogy which cannot but surprise those who compare the respective works of those thus brought unconsciously into contrast. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds was not exempt from prejudice on this point, for he sneers at the first manner of Raffaele as "dry and insipid," and avers that until Masaccio, art was so barbarous, "that every figure appeared to stand upon his toes." There is but one explanation applicable to assertions thus inconsistent at once with fact and with sound criticism, in a writer so candid and generally so careful. Living in an age devoid of Catholic feeling (we employ the phrase in an æsthetic sense), which classed in the same category of contempt all painting before Michael Angelo, and speaking of "an excellence addressed to a faculty which he did not possess," he assumed, without observation or inquiry, that "the simplicity of the early masters would be better named penury, as it proceeds from mere want,—from want of knowledge, want of resources, want of abilities to be otherwise; that it was the offspring, not of choice, but of necessity." No argument is required to convince those who have impartially studied these masters, that a condemnation so sweeping is erroneous. In our day, the number of such persons is happily increasing, but there are still many impediments to a candid appreciation of the subject. So long as art was the handmaid of religion, its professors were ranked almost with those who ministered in the temple, and interpreted the records of inspiration. In absence of priests, their works became guides to popular devotion, and consequently were addressed to spectators who came to worship, not to criticise; whose credulous enthusiasm was nourished by yearnings of the heart, not by the cold judgment of the eye. How different the test applied by men who look upon such paintings as popish dogmas which it is a duty to repudiate, it may be to ridicule! How futile the perhaps more common error of trying them by the matured rules of pictorial execution, apart from their object and intention! Connoisseurship in painting, especially in England, has indeed too long consisted in a mere appreciation of its technical difficulties, and perception of their successful treatment. For it was not until Raffaele had attained grace, and Michael Angelo had mastered design,—until Correggio had blended light and shade into happy effect, and Titian had taught the gorgeous hues of his palette to mingle in harmony, that such perfections were looked for, or reduced to a standard. Why, then, apply such standard to works already old ere it had been adopted? The very imperfections of general treatment, the absence of linear perspective and anatomical detail, tended to develop what should be chiefly sought and most valued in these early productions; for the artist's time was thus free to elaborate the heads and extremities, until he gave them that grace and expression which constitutes their interest and their charm.
There are, however, no longer wanting writers in England, as well as in Germany, France, and Italy, to appreciate their lofty motives, and solemn feelings, and gentle forms. In the words of Ruskin, whose earnest and true thoughts are often most happily expressed, "the early efforts of Cimabue and Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, delivered by the stammering lips of infants," but they are unintelligible to "the multitude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art can bestow, and dead to the highest," for their beauties "can only be studied or accepted in the particular feeling that produced them." Under the modest title of Sketches Lord Lindsay has enriched our literature with the best history of Christian art as yet produced. He has brought to his task that sincerity of purpose, veneration for sacred things, and lively sense of beauty, which impart a charm to all he puts forth; and he has peculiarly qualified himself for its successful performance, by an anxious study of preceding writers, by a faithful, often toilsome, examination of monuments, even in the more obscure sites of Italy, and by a candour and accuracy of criticism seldom attained on topics singularly liable to prejudice. Public intelligence and taste must improve under such direction, notwithstanding passing sneers at "his narrow notions of admiring the faded and soulless attempts at painting of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries," or sapient conclusions that "the antiquities and curiosities of the early Italian painters would only infect our school with a retrograding mania of disfiguring art, and returning to the decrepit littleness of a period warped and tortured by monkish legends and prejudices."[116] In order to be comprehended, such "curiosities" must not only be seen, but studied maturely: both are in this country alike impracticable. When Wilkie first entered Italy, he found nothing to rank them above Chinese or Hindoo paintings,[*117] and could not discern the majestic simplicity ascribed to the primitive masters. Yet, ere six weeks had passed, he recorded the conviction "that the only art pure and unsophisticated, and that is worth study and consideration by an artist, or that has the true object of art in view, is to be found in the works of those masters who revived and improved the art, and those who ultimately brought it to perfection. These alone seem to have addressed themselves to the common sense of mankind. From Giotto to Michael Angelo, expression and sentiment seem the first thing thought of, whilst those who followed seem to have allowed technicalities to get the better of them, until, simplicity giving way to intricacy, they seem to have painted more for the artist and the connoisseur than for the untutored apprehensions of ordinary men." So, too, in writing to Mr. Phillips, R.A., he says, "respect for primitive simplicity and expression is perhaps the best advice for any school."[118]
Neither are religious innovations a necessary accompaniment of such tastes among ourselves, as is too generally supposed. The present reaction in favour of Romanist views, prevalent in England among a class of persons, many of whom are distinguished by high and cultivated intellect, as well as by youthful enthusiasm, takes naturally an æsthetic as well as theological direction. The faith and discipline, which they labour to revive, having borrowed some winning illustrations and much imposing pageantry from painting, sculpture, and architecture, their neophytes gladly avail themselves of accessories so attractive. Nor can it be doubted that the same qualities which render such persons impressionable to popish observances, predispose them to admire or imitate works of devotional art. Yet there is no compulsory connection between these tendencies. Conversion to pantheism is not a requisite for appreciating the Belvidere Apollo or the Medicean Venus; and a serious Christian may surely appreciate the feeling of the early masters, without bowing the knee to their Madonnas,—may admire the
"Prelibations, foretastes high,"
of Fra Angelico's pencil, whilst demurring to the miracles he has so charmingly portrayed.
There is another observation of Wilkie's which merits our notice: "Could their system serve, which I think it may, as the border minstrelsy did Sir Walter Scott, it would be to any student a most admirable groundwork for a new style of art." This somewhat hasty hint must be cautiously received. The very absence of technical excellence interests us in the formal compositions and flat surfaces of the early masters. We feel that movement and distance, foreshortening and relief, symmetry and contrast, tone and effect, are scarcely wanted, where "a truth of actuality is fearlessly sacrificed to a truth of feeling." We are forced to admit that men who regarded form but as the vehicle of expression, attained a severe grandeur, a noble repose, very different from exaggerated action. Archaisms of style are, however, ill suited to our times. Originally significant, they are now an affectation—the offspring of penury or perverted taste, rather than of spiritual purity. So must they seem in modern productions, affectedly divested of the artificial means and improved methods which centuries of progress have developed, by artists who forget their academic studies and neglect the contour of the living model, without attaining the old inspiration. The spirit which animated devotional limners being long dead, any imitation of their style must be mechanical—a reproduction of its mannerism after its motives are extinct. Whilst, therefore, I endeavour to point out the merits of the old religious limners, it is with no wish to see their manner revived. Among a generation whose faith has been remodelled, whose social and intellectual habits have been entirely revolutionised, the restoration of purist painting would be a mockery. But it should not, therefore, be forbidden us to study and sympathise with forms which, though rigid and monotonous, were sufficient to express the simple faith of early times, and in which earnestness compensates the absence of skill, and fervour the lack of power.
During the early years of the thirteenth century, there appeared on the lofty Apennines of Central Italy, one of those mysterious beings who, with few gifts of nature, are born to sway mankind; whose brief and eccentric career has left behind a brilliant halo, that no lapse of time is likely to dim. Giovanni Bernardoni, better known as St. Francis of Assisi, by his eloquence, his austerities, and all the appliances of religious enthusiasm, quickly gathered among the fervid spirits of his native mountains a numerous following of devoted disciples. In a less judicious church, he might, as a field-preacher, have become a most dangerous schismatic; but, with that foresight and knowledge of human nature which have generally distinguished the Romish hierarchy, the sectarian leader was welcomed as a missionary, "seraphic all in fervency," and in due time canonised into a saint, whilst his poverty-professing sect was recognised as an order, and became one of the most influential pillars of the Papacy.
It was