LETTER XLVI.
Rome.
I beg you may not suspect me of affectation, or that I wish to assume the character of a connoisseur, when I tell you, that I have very great pleasure in contemplating the antique statues and busts, of which there are such numbers in this city. It is a natural curiosity, and I have had it all my life in a strong degree, to see celebrated men, those whose talents and great qualities can alone render the present age an interesting object to posterity, and prevent its being lost, like the dark ages which succeeded the destruction of the Roman empire, in the oblivious vortex of time, leaving scarcely a wreck behind. The durable monuments raised to fame by the inspiring genius of Pitt, and the invincible spirit of Frederick, will command the admiration of future ages, outlive the power of the empires which they aggrandized, and forbid the period in which they flourished, from ever passing away like the baseless fabric of a vision. The busts and statues of those memorable men will be viewed, by succeeding generations, with the same regard and attention which we now bestow on those of Cicero and Cæsar. We expect to find something peculiarly noble and expressive in features which were animated, and which, we imagine, must have been in some degree modelled, by the sentiments of those to whom they belonged. It is not rank, it is character alone which interests posterity. We know that men may be seated on thrones, who would have been placed more suitably to their talents on the working-table of a taylor; we therefore give little attention to the busts or coins of the vulgar emperors. In the countenance of Claudius, we expect nothing more noble than the phlegmatic tranquillity of an acquiescing cuckold; in Caligula or Nero, the unrelenting frown of a negro-driver, or the insolent air of any unprincipled ruffian in power. Even in the high-praised Augustus we look for nothing essentially great, nothing superior to what we see in those minions of fortune, who are exalted, by a concurrence of incidents, to a situation in life to which their talents would never have raised them, and which their characters never deserved. In the face of Julius we expect to find the traces of deep reflection, magnanimity, and the anxiety natural to the man who had overturned the liberties of his native country, and who must have secretly dreaded the resentment of a spirited people; and in the face of Marcus Brutus we look for independence, conscious integrity, and a mind capable of the highest effort of virtue.
It is natural to regret, that, of the number of antique statues which have come to us tolerably entire, so great a proportion are representations of gods and goddesses. Had they been intended for real persons, we might have had a perfect knowledge of the face and figure of the greatest part of the most distinguished citizens of ancient Greece and Rome. A man of unrelaxing wisdom would smile with contempt, and ask, if our having perfect representations of all the heroes, poets, and philosophers recorded in history, would make us either wiser or more learned? to which I answer, That there are a great many things, which neither can add to my small stock of learning nor wisdom, and yet give me more pleasure and satisfaction than those which do; and, unfortunately for mankind, the greatest part of them resemble me in this particular.
But though I would with pleasure have given up a great number of the Jupiters and Apollos and Venuses, whose statues we have, in exchange for an equal, or even a smaller, number of mere mortals whom I could name; I by no means consider the statues of those deities as uninteresting. Though they are imaginary beings, yet each of them has a distinct character of his own of classical authority, which has long been impressed on our memories; and we assume the right of deciding on the artist’s skill, and applauding or blaming, as he has succeeded or failed in expressing the established character of the god intended. From the ancient artists having exercised their genius in forming the images of an order of beings superior to mankind, another and a greater advantage is supposed to have followed; it prompted the artists to attempt the uniting in one form, the various beauties and excellencies which nature had dispersed in many. This was not so easy a task as may by some be imagined; for that which has a fine effect in one particular face or person, may appear a deformity when combined with a different complexion, different features, or a different shape. It therefore required great judgment and taste to collect those various graces, and combine them with elegance and truth; and repeated efforts of this kind are imagined to have inspired some of the ancient sculptors with sublimer ideas of beauty than nature herself ever exhibited, as appears in some of their works which have reached our own times.
Though the works of no modern artist can stand a comparison with the great master-pieces now alluded to, yet nothing can be more absurd than the idea which some people entertain, that all antique statues are of more excellent workmanship than the modern. We see, every day, numberless specimens of every species of sculpture, from the largest statues and bassos-relievos, to the smallest cameos and intaglios, that are undoubtedly antique, and yet far inferior, not only to the works of the best artists of Leo the Tenth’s time, but also to those of many artists now alive in various parts of Europe. The passion for sculpture, which the Romans caught from the Greeks, became almost universal. Statues were not only the chief ornaments of their temples and palaces, but also of the houses of the middle, and even the lowest, order of citizens. They were prompted to adorn them with the figures of a few favourite deities, by religion, as well as vanity: no man, but an atheist or a beggar, could be without them. This being the case, we may easily conceive what graceless divinities many of them must have been; for in this, no doubt, as in every other manufactory, there must occasionally have been bungling workmen employed, even in the most flourishing æra of the arts, and goods finished in a very careless and hurried manner, to answer the constant demand, and suit the dimensions of every purse. We must have a very high idea of the number of statues of one kind or other, which were in old Rome, when we consider, how many are still to be seen; how many have at different periods been carried away, by the curious, to every country in Europe; how many were mutilated and destroyed by the gothic brutality of Barbarians, and the ill-directed zeal of the early Christians, who thought it a duty to exterminate every image, without distinction of age or sex, and without considering whether they were of God or man. This obliged the wretched heathens to hide the statues of their gods and of their ancestors in the bowels of the earth, where unquestionably great numbers of them still remain. Had they not been thus barbarously hewed to pieces, and buried, I had almost said, alive, we might have had several equal to the great master-pieces in the Vatican; for it is natural to imagine, that the rage of the zealots would be chiefly directed against those statues which were in the highest estimation with the heathens; and we must likewise imagine, that these would be the pieces which they, on their part, would endeavour, by every possible means, to preserve from their power, and bury in the earth. Of those which have been dug up, I shall mention only a very few, beginning with the Farnesian Hercules, which has been long admired as an exquisite model of masculine strength; yet, admirable as it is, it does not please all the world. I am told that the women in particular find something unsatisfactory, and even odious, in this figure; which, however majestic, is deficient in the charms most agreeable to them, and which might have been expected in the son of Jupiter and the beauteous Alcmena. A lady whom I accompanied to the Farnese palace, turned away from it in disgust. I could not imagine what had shocked her. She told me, after recollection, that she could not bear the stern severity of his countenance, his large brawny limbs, and the club with which he was armed; which gave him more the appearance of one of those giants that, according to the old romances, carried away virgins and shut them up in gloomy castles, than the gallant Hercules, the lover of Omphale. Finally, the lady declared, she was convinced this statue could not be a just representation of Hercules; for it was not in the nature of things, that a man so formed could ever have been a reliever of distressed damsels.
Without such powerful support as that of the fair sex, I should not have exposed myself to the resentment of connoisseurs, by any expression which they might construe an attack upon this favourite statue; but, with their support, I will venture to assert, that the Farnese Hercules is faulty both in his form and attitude: the former is too unwieldy for active exertion, and the latter exhibits vigour exhausted. A resting attitude is surely not the most proper in which the all-conquering god of strength could be represented. Rest implies fatigue, and fatigue strength exhausted. A reposing Hercules is almost a contradiction. Invincible activity, and inexhaustible strength, are his characteristics. The ancient artist has erred, not only in giving him an attitude which supposes his strength wants recruiting, but in the nature of the strength itself, the character of which should not be passive, but active.