Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts

by John Robert Scott

The peculiar situation of Greece, from the first beginnings of the arts to their most flourishing period, contributed also materially to their improvement and perfection. In its utmost extent not a country of large dimensions, it was yet divided and subdivided into a number of independent states; each eager for distinction, each emulous of fame, each jealous of all superiority in their neighbours. Never for any length of time subject to the dominion of masters, till the overwhelming influence of the Macedonian sunk them all into common slavery, their constitutions were free, or what they regarded as free: in which each citizen felt himself equally interested with any other to extend the reputation, to exalt the glory, and to enlarge the consequence of the state. And when the pre-eminence of power had assigned to Sparta, and afterwards to Athens, that preponderance of authority and weight of consequence necessary to a leading state, first among its equals; still, from national spirit and from deep-rooted habits, an emulation every where prevailed of rivalling in the first rank of reputation each of their neighbours, although they had conceded to one of them the dignity of command. With the single exception of Sparta, where the stern discipline of Lycurgus effectually prevented their progress, as after the arts had began to arise their cultivation was diffused and eagerly pursued throughout all Greece; the praise of excellence in them early became and long continued an object of the first importance with all its various states. They regarded them not only as a means of internal ornament, in which yet they much prided themselves, but also of external character; a means which might raise to higher fame than the most celebrated their favoured district, however inferior to them in political power. Hence the possession of an artist of distinguished abilities and superior talents was considered as a national concern: and the esteem wherein he was held, the popularity he acquired, and the dignified stations to which with fair prospects of success he might aspire, were answerable to the consequence which his genius was thought to confer on his native land.

As this sentiment was universal, animating the minds and guiding the conduct of all the different states, its influence on the improvement of the arts, and on the exertions of their professors, was powerful in the extreme. They were not deemed the lucrative trades of mechanical men, by which some fame and much money might be procured; but the ennobling occupations of the best-deserving citizens, anxiously labouring to exalt the reputation of their country, and to raise her to a more envied eminence among the surrounding and rival republics. And the citizens thus employed were conscious, in addition to the common motives of rivalry generally prevalent at all times among men of spirit engaged in the same pursuits, that not only their individual character, but the fame of their nation, was implicated in their labours; and fired by the warm energy of that recollection, they wrought with a glowing heat, with an ardour of enthusiasm that, in repeated instances, burst forth in the brightest blaze of excellence. For their exertions in their particular arts were not thought, either by themselves or by the public, the mere efforts of competition of sculptors, painters, or architects, with their fellow artists; but trials of merit between adjacent communities, each vain of their present character, each aiming at higher distinction, each hoping for the pre-eminence: to which trials the eminent artists stept forwards the champions of a people, not the combatants in a private contest.

Hence with unremitting zeal beauty and grace, strength and spirit, truth and nature, were investigated through all their different forms, were examined with minute attention, were applied with scrupulous accuracy. It little weighed with the professor what his own countrymen, however polished, judged of his work, what impression it made on them, or what plaudits of theirs it called forth: but how it would be received at the Olympic or Isthmian games, at the general assembly of all Greece; where each skilful eye and each intelligent mind would be employed in scrutinizing it without favour or affection, and would compare it as well with the best productions of similar art then known as with the elaborate essays of contemporary artists. Thus whatever of genius, or talents, or skill, or judgment, or industry, each man possessed, was called forth into action by motives the most operative on the human mind, whose power is known and confessed: and the consequence was the rapid and unequalled improvement of the Arts. Improvement which still astonishes, and which we are sometimes inclined to imagine the effort of a superior race of beings to those with whom we converse: but which arose from causes strong and cogent indeed, but natural, and without difficulty discoverable.

Something not unlike this happened at the revival of the arts in Europe, and contributed materially to their advancement. For Italy, which was their cradle, was then broken into a number of independent states, mostly free, and rivalling each other in every praise of prowess and policy. Hence, when the revival of the arts furnished a new source of fame, it was pursued with avidity; and the various schools formed in its different cities vied with each other for superiority, and by their laudable rivalry promoted the progress of the arts with extraordinary celerity. And though, perhaps, these schools, which soon became distinguished by peculiar merits, may not finally have contributed to the perfection of the arts, as leading their respective students rather to pursue the attainment of that one distinct merit than to aim at the acquisition of universal excellence; yet, at the close of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century, by their praiseworthy emulation and vigorous exertions, they were singularly useful, and essentially tended to the rapid improvement of the reviving arts. Their fame added much to the splendor and reputation of the cities wherein they were settled, and that circumstance proved a very perceptible incentive to invigorate their talents and to animate their exertions; and so produced, though in an inferior degree, not a little of that spirited labour, of that enthusiastic devotion to their profession, which had aided so considerably the progress of the arts in Greece. We say in an inferior degree; because the Italian cities, though sensible of their worth, and persuaded of their public utility, never bestowed on individual professors such extraordinary marks of attention and reverence as the Grecian states were in the habit of lavishing on their more illustrious artists; and, consequently, the cause being lessened, the effect must have been proportionably diminished. In truth this species of rivalry, in which states or nations, however small, feel themselves interested, has ever proved one of the strongest stimulatives that could be applied to abilities; as it combines the patriotic affections of the worthy citizen with the natural ambition of the artist, and alike operates on some of the most powerful public and private springs of action.

But the labour and pains, the study and industry early employed and long continued, in the cultivation of the arts, naturally and necessarily advanced their progress in a striking manner: raising them to such a height of perfection as we weakly think unattainable, because we will not use the adequate means of endeavouring to attain it. Labour is to man, from his constitution and his frame, the real price of every truly valuable acquisition; which, though indolence spurns and idleness rejects, always brings its own reward with it, whether we are ultimately successful or not, in the consciousness of having acted a manly part, and in the vigour of mind and health of body which it, and it alone, invariably confers. Some fortuitous instances may be mentioned of those who have possessed both without its aid; of those who, nursed on the lap of indolence, and folded in the arms of idleness, have enjoyed that first of human blessings, a sound mind in a sound body: but they are instances to astonish, not examples to incite. This is even more strictly and peculiarly true as it regards the arts, than it is in several other cases. For the great merit of painting and sculpture consisting in their exact and captivating copies of nature, and of architecture in its combination of beauty with grandeur, of convenience with magnificence, it is obvious that these qualities are never the casual effects of chance and accident, of lucky hits and fortunate events; but the steady results of pains and care, of study and attention.

Of this truth the professors of the arts in Greece were quickly and fully convinced; and applied that conviction to its only proper purpose, to an unremitting labour on their own appropriate pursuit: a labour which, paramount over each other object, neither pleasure prevented, nor politics precluded, nor the calls of animal life hindered. To excel in their art, to surpass their predecessors, to outstrip their competitors, to be the conspicuous subject of Grecian admiration, were the objects of their daily thoughts and of their nightly dreams: objects which scarce for a moment retired from their view, or, if for a moment retiring, it was only that they might recur again with renovated force. The[l] multa dies et multa litura which the Roman poet ascribes to the Grecian writers, and to which he truly attributes their superior merit, were still more eminently true of their artists; who applied to the completion of their various works a severity of study and a perseverance of labour that to us, habituated to very different manners indeed, seem surprizing; but of which the authenticated accounts cannot be disputed. As exalted character, not the mere making of money, was the aim to which their thoughts were directed, it was pursued with that eagerness which honest ambition ever creates: and though, incidentally, fortune frequently followed their fame, as it came unsought for, none of its degrading motives swayed their conduct.

It was not the idea of the[m] hundred talents which he received, great as that sum was (for not one drachma of it would he have received had not his work been approved), that inspirited the genius of Phidias when he was sculpturing the Olympian Jupiter; but the reflection that by his skill the rude block was to be transformed into the representative likeness of the father of gods and men, to be the admiration and adoration of his enraptured countrymen: and hence profound study, exquisite pains, and incessant labour, were employed to produce that statue, which thence became afterwards the wonder of the world. Under the impulse of such impressions must the Apollo Belvedere have come from the hands of its unequalled sculptor: for though we know not the history of that incomparable statue, yet its expression of dignity more than human, its unforced graceful ease which nature can but faintly copy, its perfect symmetry, and union of complete beauty with full bodily strength, tell more than a thousand witnesses the pains, the study, and the labour that must have been unremittingly exerted to produce it.

It would argue a silly prejudice, not a due sense of the merits of the ancients, to attempt to insinuate that this labour and study, to which we are inclined to attribute so much, was universal. No; for in Greece then, as with ourselves now, there were among the artists (what in the modern phrase we call) fine gentlemen: persons of too sublime a genius to condescend to study, and of too delicate a frame to submit to labour. The character of the species has been preserved, though the names of its individuals have long, long since been forgotten. But they never promoted the progress, never advanced the improvement of any art: but, like their amiable successors, followed a trade for support, and did not cultivate a profession with dignity. But the persons of whom we speak, as distinguished by these qualities, were those worthy citizens who addicted themselves to no art without adorning and improving it; whose names ennobled the age in which they lived; who then were never mentioned without reverence, nor yet, at this far distant period, are ever thought on without respect. By their studies and their labours, vigorously and undeviatingly exerted, was the progress of the arts promoted, their improvement accelerated, and their near approximation to perfection effected: they thus experimentally proving the energetic power of these valuable qualities, and leaving examples to fire the emulation of the spirited and the active in each future age.

In addition to the circumstances already mentioned, whose power and efficiency on the progress of the arts we have endeavoured to point out, there must be called to mind the great national encouragement which they received in Greece, and the extraordinary influence which it must have had on the warm imaginations of its gay and high-spirited inhabitants. The desire of distinction and honour is a principle interwoven in the constitution of our nature; and though, like most others we possess, it is liable to perversion, is in itself not only blameless but laudable; inciting the best exertions of talents where they are, and often supplying their place where it finds them not. There are no countries, however adverse the regent of the day may have yoked his horses from them, where its operation is not more or less felt: and in exact proportion to the civilization and mental improvement of each country, its ascendency has ever been found to be high, its dominion to be great. This is strictly true even with regard to the estimation of private individuals: but the applause of a whole people has invariably been deemed the most just meed of the most exceeding merit, ever since nations have assumed a fixed and stable form. Now this applause formed an important part of the great national rewards by which Greece fostered the arts; and it was a part that peculiarly came home both to the business and bosoms of each worthy citizen, and caused every pulse of a Grecian heart to vibrate to its impression. Their characteristic fondness of fame is known and acknowledged; but this applause, though by them in itself extravagantly valued, was not a mere empty, flattering sound: for, from the constitutions prevailing in nearly every state of Greece, it was the sure conductor to domestic dignity, to political power, and to commanding sway in the public deliberations. The first offices of the state, and the prime trusts of the government, were open to that distinguished artist whose admired performances had secured the universal suffrage. They were often without seeking offered by popular gratitude to his acceptance; nay, sometimes with honest violence forced on his unwilling reception. Thus the principles of interest, ambition, popularity, confessedly some of the most powerful that guide the conduct of mankind, were called forth in aid of that natural bent or disposition which had induced the man to cultivate any particular art: and the consequence was such as might be expected from the efficiency of such operative motives, surpassing merit and supreme excellence.

Another species of national encouragement, nearly connected with this, was the certainty which the eminent artist enjoyed that, whenever the occasion offered, his talents would be employed to erect, or to decorate with the labours of his pencil or his chissel, the temples, the theatres, the porticoes, the places of public assembling of the cities of Greece; where his works, contributing amply to his fortune from their munificent reward, would contribute more to his fame when exposed to the scrutinizing view of that intelligent people. He had no cause to fear that his abilities would be overlooked or buried in obscurity by prepossession, partiality, or prejudice: he had no apprehensions to dread from the effects of interested relationship, of commanding influence, of narrow local attachment, or of proud and presuming ignorance. If his merit was acknowledged his employment was sure; and he was even courted by the general voice to exert his talents for the public credit, not depressed in their exertion by mean and base affections. He was not obliged to solicit for employment with humiliating applications, and, when employed, to labour under the multiplied disadvantages of deficient or stinted means, of complying with vitiated judgments, of submitting to the senseless whims of folly and caprice. Full scope was given to the fertility of his imagination, to the extent of his genius, to the vigour of his fancy: whilst all the powers of his mind and all the vigour of his body, all the ingenuity of his head and all the dexterity of his hands, were impelled to their best performances by the consciousness that all deficiencies would be imputable solely to himself, the public being free from the slightest suspicion of having either curbed or confined his abilities. As no elevation of genius made him giddy, hence grace and beauty, strength and vigour, expression and passion, respectively marked his performances; and his fame became connected with the edifices, the statues, the paintings, that ornamented the country, which struck every eye, and which none beheld without recollecting with respect the able artist whose workmanship had produced them.