Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts

by John Robert Scott

The natural feelings of man, when he enters into society with his fellow-creatures, first induce him to improve by the means thence acquired the arts necessary to his existence and well-being: whose want he every day felt in his separate and detached state, and for whose melioration he has just reason to hope from the union of combined force, and from the co-operation of confederated talents. Presst incessantly by the demands for the sustenance of animal life, to supply them plentifully is not only his first care, but also that of the community with which he has associated, if it is even one degree removed from the savage state: and hence, in this early period of growing civilization, the tending of flocks and the tilling of fields, Pasturage and Agriculture, are deemed not only necessary but honourable occupations; the simplicity of untutored man ever leading him to estimate that to be most laudable which he finds to be most useful. These being advanced to a certain degree of excellence, which, though far inferior to what they are obviously capable of attaining, is yet sufficient not only for the comfortable but for the indulgent enjoyment of life, new desires arise, new wants spring up; and their gratification is pursued with an eagerness correspondent to the novelty of their origin, and the untried force of their impression. The cravings of our animal nature being amply provided for by the ingenuity of the inhabitants, by the fertility of the soil, or by the conjoint operation of both, the imagination begins in the luxuriance of abundance to picture to itself new sources of delight, and spurning, not without some contempt, the mere provision for existence, to fancy ideal pleasures, and to search out with anxious care and laboured pains those objects which may gratify them. And man, finding himself possessed of more than a sufficiency to supply all his wants, is willingly inclined to impart some share of that redundance to those who will contribute to his convenience and satisfaction; to those who will render his comforts at all times more comfortable, who will relieve the languors of his lassitude, and fill up the vacuities of his leisure with amusement. As there always were some to whom labour had no charms, other more agreeable means of acquiring support were quickly sought out, and the inventive powers of the mind were stretched to form those imagined pleasures whose want was felt, and whose reward was ready.

Hence Architecture, Painting, and Statuary, (with strict propriety denominated the fine arts) primarily arose; hence they derived their most assiduous cultivation, and hence the utmost perfection to which they have yet attained. Unsatisfied with the hut that merely protected from the inclemencies of the elements, and, in the moments of repose, from the unwarned attacks of the savages of the forest, man soon sought out for more permanent, more pleasing habitations: to which experience first joined increased [conveniences], and then his inventive faculties, sometimes aided by fortunate chance, sometimes led on by correct fancy, added those ornaments that have stood the test of ages, and fixed those proportions that have uniformly approved themselves to all the judicious through the revolving course of various centuries. The ingenuity of love taught the fair nymph to portray the shadow of that favoured youth whose merits had won her heart, that even in his absence she might feast her mind with beholding some similitude of his form: and hence the imagination, impregnated by the nascent thought, conceived those possibilities of excellence in painting, and that source of intellectual enjoyment thence arising, which Zeuxis and Parrhasius exhibited to the admiring eyes of Greece, and which Raphael and Michael Angelo have displayed to the enraptured contemplation of the modern world. Poetry, it is true, early indeed enabled mankind, by the fascinating power of its melodious sounds and its persuasive numbers, to "raise monuments[e] more durable than brass," and to consecrate to immortality those illustrious persons who had entitled themselves to lasting fame by their deserts. But, even long antecedent to that period, the desire of having some representative form of reverenced or beloved individuals had taught men to make some likenesses of them in rude sculptures of stone or ivory: though destitute of the advantage of colouring, yet more impressively striking to the senses than the productions of painting, had they then existed (which may be doubted), and, from the nature of their materials, less liable to the injuries of the weather. These, we acknowledge, were cold, inanimate, and destitute of all appearance of motion; till Dædalus contrived to give expression to the countenance and action to the limbs; on which succeeding artists improving, each rivalling and then surpassing his predecessor, at length produced those "works to wonder at," the exquisite, the unmatched, the divine dignity of the Apollo Belvedere, the energy, the athletic force of the Borghese combatant, the agonized expression of the Laocoon, and the tearful sorrows of the Niobe.

The expectations formed of the enjoyments to be derived from the masterly productions of these Arts have in no one instance been disappointed; but, we may assert without fear of contradiction, have in every case been greatly exceeded: for though the emanations of the arts, with the single exception of the Apollo Belvedere, may have fallen short of that ideal excellence which forms their standard in each duly cultivated mind, as, in the department of literature, the great Roman orator states to have been the case with his own admirable compositions, they have yet confessedly arrived at a degree of beauty, a splendor of effect, and a power of impression, hardly to be hoped, and not easily to be conceived.

Should it then be demanded, what causes produced this transcendent beauty, this unrivalled grace, this combination of pleasing form and perfect utility? They will be found, not in any fortuitous concurrence of accidents, not in any benign aspect of the planets, not in any genial influence of the atmosphere, as has been weakly imagined and absurdly asserted by certain self-denominated Philosophers of the continent; but to have been the effects of much labour and much pains, of much study and much industry, of great national encouragement, and of the peculiar situation of that fortunate land wherein they were advanced from their salient principle to their matured perfection.

To confine ourselves to Greece, with which and its history, by means of its incomparable writers, we are best acquainted: the first striking circumstance in their favour was, that in it they were not borrowed, nor imported, nor caused by foreign imitation, but were the home-bred produce of the country; and therefore, however cultivated and improved, always retained the rich raciness of a native soil. Successive generations of artists arose, each excelling the other in merit, and each of these had a correspondent race of their countrymen ready to admire, and prepared to applaud them. No fastidious delicacy, no affected superiority of discernment or skill, repressed their talents, or curbed their genius: but free scope was given to the boldest of their flights, and, when they happened to succeed, the praise of their own age was their sure and adequate reward. The productions of the earlier periods would not have, indeed, pleased in the polished age of Pericles, unless as illustrative of the progress of the arts; for then more captivating models were every day produced, more enchanting examples were every day exhibited to the view. But in their own age, and their own time, being superior to all that had been seen before, they were thought matchless performances, and so received with undisputed plaudits the highest estimation. This connate temper of the times (if I may use the expression) proved a most powerful incentive to the abilities of the artists, and ensured to them, if surpassing in merit their predecessors, honourable regard, and that fame[f] which above all other considerations was dear to a Grecian heart. Hence labour and pains, assiduity and exertion, were unremittingly applied to advance their peculiar art, to smooth its asperities, to ornament its nakedness, to improve whatever of excellent existed in it, and to aim at still farther capabilities of excellence. Certain of the approbation of their contemporaries, repressed by no ideas of unattainable perfection, which were the growth of latter times and of the greatest refinement, they daily added something to the common stock; and though that something was in itself, perhaps, inconsiderable, it yet raised its possessor to no common degree of celebrity. Thus the arts advanced, proceeding from strength to strength, constantly receiving accessions of improvement, which were favoured by many conspiring, and retarded by no unpropitious circumstances: and, being native to the country, the abilities of the artists in a great measure formed the taste of the age, as its fostering admiration constituted their most flattering reward.

From a situation perfectly dissimilar, though the Romans long and sedulously cultivated the arts, yet their noblest efforts never equalled the best works of the Grecian school; of which the sacred remnants still remain unrivalled and unmatched. For amongst them they were not indigenous, but introduced as it were by violence; by the power of the conquering sword, and by the plundering of insatiable rapacity: each of the Roman generals, however ignorant or unpolished himself, yet pillaging vanquished Greece of the choicest works of her happier days. Thus, indeed, exquisite models and patterns of consummate beauty were procured for the rustic Latians,[g] on which they wrought with assiduity, and attempted to emulate: but their redundancy was rather oppressive than co-operative, and their very perfection tended to prevent an encouraging esteem of the rising artists. For the judgment, or what we call the Taste, of the public being formed not gradually, and by progressive steps of improving art, but all at once, and (as it were) at a bound, assumed a squeamish delicacy which nothing imperfect [would] please, and which delighted more in finding faults than in discovering beauties. And this cause, whose operation is alike powerful and general, contributed more to keep down the Roman arts, and to prevent them from equalling the Greek, than any inferiority of talents, or than any want of continued application and culture.

The case has been the same in the modern world, and it will be found universally true, that where the arts have arisen from natural, or nearly natural causes, and have thence proceeded by gradual advances to higher degrees of perfection, the judgment or taste of the nation similarly meliorating with their improvement, they have attained, and will attain, the utmost excellence which the abilities of the artists can give them: but when brought forward among a people by extraneous circumstances, such as the force of conquests, the commanding influence of supreme power, or the efforts of affected imitation, though they may bloom and flourish for a season, that they never will arrive at that richness of maturity they have been seen to possess elsewhere, nor will enjoy that vigour of growth which native juices infuse; but, like hothouse plants, though fairly seeming, are yet vapid to the sense, and when bereft of their borrowed heat, quickly sink, rot, and die.

The progress of the arts in the ancient world, with the astonishing excellence to which they were carried, was also much aided by the manners and customs there prevailing, and in constant and daily practice. To games and vigorous exercises the ancients were remarkably addicted, regarding them both as liberal amusements and as a preparatory discipline for the active occupations of war, in which each freeman of the state knew himself obliged to engage at a certain period of his life, and which he could not avoid without being damned to never-ceasing infamy. Now all these were performed naked, as well on account of the warmth of the atmosphere as to preclude all unequal advantages, and to habituate the mind fearlessly to expose the person to the assaults of incumbent danger. Hence the human figure was hourly exhibited to the inspecting view of the attentive beholder, whether sculptor or painter, in all its various forms of grace and elegance, of strength and force, or of agony and torture: and these not the assumed appearances of fictitious feeling, but the vivid effects of actual endurance, and glowing from the mint of present impression. These were not to be sought in Schools and Academies, they were not the lifeless colourings of mercenary hirelings, but the energies of men emulous of fame, and conscious that their characters with their countrymen would be materially influenced by their performances in these favourite contests. Contests which as amusements were the delight of all, which as exercises were the duty of multitudes; which hoary age beheld with rapture, as recalling the remembrance of the days of their prime, and which unfledged youth gazed on with transport, as picturing those deeds whereby they panted soon to be distinguished. Thus nothing but the most careless inattention could avoid noting the distinctive marks of the various passions and affections, which nature writes in very legible characters: and as all from repeated observation were equally well acquainted with them, in their representation by the artist nothing short of the most exact and accurate likeness could hope for tolerance, much less for approbation.

Their scientific knowledge of anatomy, as applicable and subservient to medical purposes, was perhaps inferior to ours, for they appear not to have enjoyed the advantage in their principal cities of such men as the Hunters[h] and Cleghorn:[] but that inferiority proved not injurious to the artist, who chiefly engaged in imitating the prominent features of the human frame when thrown into action, amply compensated for his ignorance of the theory of muscular motion, of the nervous system, and of osteology, by the effects of observation incessantly repeated on the most striking objects, and, it may be, the more impressive from coming unsought and uninculcated. In fact they could scarcely avoid making this observation: it was presst on them from every quarter; it was urged on them by every incident. If they attended their morning exercises, it was excited there; if they resorted to their evening amusements, it was roused there also. In the retirement of the country it was not allowed to sleep; in the bustle of the city it was awakened to all its vivacity. From private enjoyment, from public security; from the recreations of peace, from the toils of war; from the vacuities of idleness, and from the labours of industry it alike received nurture, support, and aliment. Thus reiteratedly enforced, its effects became, like those of a second nature, interwoven with the habitudes of the mind, and called forth into action, when the occasion required, with readiness and facility, without effort and without premeditation. Hence the wonders that we are told of the astonishing power of their paintings, limited as we know they were in the number of their colours; of which though we are deprived of the sight by the lapse of time, yet are they rendered credible, nay, fully verified, to us by the matchless remains of their statues; whose transcendent merit we have ocular demonstration that neither prejudice had praised nor ignorance had extolled beyond their real deserts. Hence the truth of nature in the Laocoon, where the expression of suffering is not confined to the agitated visage, but is as forcibly marked in the agonized foot as in the distorted countenance. Hence every muscle moves, every sinew is stretched, every atom of the figure conspires to the general effect in the Borghese combatant:[k] and hence each particular part of the Farnesian Hercules represents, as forcibly as the entire statue, that character of superior manly strength and resistless might, which ancient tales have taught us to connect with the idea of the person of that fabled hero.

It cannot be inferred from what has been here said that there is intended any unqualified approbation of the custom of appearing naked; which so generally prevailed among the ancients, and more especially among the Greeks. Surely no: for its indecency is obvious; it smoothed the path to many immoralities, and doubtless tended in no slight degree to inflame, if not kindle, some notorious vices to which they were eminently addicted. But it has been merely considered with respect to its subserviency to promote the arts of painting and sculpture: and its powerful and salutary influence on them seems so apparent as to be nearly incontestible. It co-operated with other causes, yet to be mentioned, to give them that superlative excellence which, through a long succession of centuries, has excited uniform admiration; and which yet, superlative as it was, fell short of the ideas of it entertained and cherished by the artists.