Dissertation on the Progress of the Fine Arts

by John Robert Scott

The effect of this kind of encouragement on the arts was great, is manifest, and need be but slightly mentioned: yet, perhaps, may appear the more striking from contrasting it with some practices of more modern times. In them the first city in the world has disgraced itself with all who have eyesight, by employing to erect its most expensive building[n] an architect because the man was a citizen: and, in more countries of Europe than one, statues and paintings are exhibited as commemorative of illustrious public deeds, where contorsion and extravagance, where flutter and glare, form the predominant characters; but they dishonour those countries, on account of the artists engaged to execute them being employed because they were the favourites of despots, the flatterers of titled harlots, or the relations of directors; whilst men of the first talents and merit in their profession were pining in indigence and obscurity, unnoticed and unfriended. The consequences of this latter conduct none will say that we have reason to boast of from the superlative excellence of modern art; but what has been felt from it may readily induce us to believe how essentially its direct opposite must have promoted the progress of the arts in Greece.

The vast sums expended by the Grecian states on their public monuments and their public works (vast, indeed, when the comparative value of money then and now is considered), tended much to assist the progress of the arts, and to aid their high improvement. For, though we have unquestionable reason to believe that the sordid motive of private profit was not the first principle in the minds of those great artists who have immortalized their names by their works, yet without a certain liberality of expence their ideas could not have been realized, their works could not have been executed; and that liberality they found limited commonly by nothing but the public means, and often not even by them. We know from the gravest and clearest authorities with what lavish expenditure scenic representations were exhibited at Athens, with what unbounded magnificence her temples, her tribunals, her porticoes were decorated: we equally well know the splendor of Corinth, a near neighbouring city; the incalculable price of its paintings, the inestimable value of its statues, and that from the coalesced mass of its molten metals there arose, at its destruction, a compound more highly prized by the Romans than gold. The other principal cities were alike studious of embellishment, alike emulous of ornament, and in various proportions enjoyed them according to the circumstances of time and situation: but Delphi and Olympia, the grand seats of the national religion and the national games, concentered in themselves each choicest production of genius, each happiest effort of art, each transcendent display of excellence; amassed with a judgment that delighted, with a profusion that surprized, and with an expence that astonished.

This generous spirit in carrying on and completing public works which, though it may sometimes be pushed to an excess (as, perhaps, was the case in Greece), is so truly honourable to any people, had, and obviously must have had, the most decided influence in advancing and improving the arts, and in giving them that degree of perfection which has never yet been exceeded, nor even equalled. It excited exertion, by the security that its efforts would not be suffered to remain undisplayed, but would be invited to add loveliness to the beautiful, and splendor to the magnificent; it roused the full force of emulation, by the certainty that superior merit would receive superior rewards, and neither be permitted to languish in privacy nor to pine in poverty; and it invigorated the boldest flights of genius, by the firm assurance that there was a prevalent spirit ready to countenance, prepared to adopt, and anxious to encourage them. It would be no small absurdity to affirm that fortune, as well as fame, had not attractions for a Grecian artist; for it must ever be absurd to affirm generally the absence of the operation of general principles: and therefore the great pecuniary recompences which their talents procured had, doubtless, a proportionate influence on all their labours to improve their art; though, it may be, less in that region than in many other countries. And from the combined efficacy of these several kinds of national encouragement, which, like different branches of the same tree, spring all from the same root, the progress of the arts was furthered so essentially, was advanced so highly, as we have heard of with wonder, and have seen with amazement.

So complex having been the causes, so slow and progressively gradual the progress of the Fine Arts, highly grateful must it be to every truly British breast to consider the rapid advances they have made in this favoured Isle within the last fifty years: advances certainly unmatched in their former history, as in that period they have arisen from the utmost imbecility of infantine weakness (indeed almost from non-entity) to a vigorous maturity that leaves far behind them the emasculate efforts and puny productions of all other contemporary European nations. The causes of this unequalled improvement have notoriously been the countenance and fostering protection of his present Majesty, an admirer and intelligent judge of their merit, and the ardent spirit of emulation excited among the artists themselves by such exalted and distinguishing notice. These co-operating have produced an exertion of talents, a display of abilities, and emanations of genius that always wore in existence, but which required concurring circumstances to bring them into full action, and to cause them to expand their latent energies. And had the general patronage been correspondent to these fortunate incidents, had not the fashionable jargon of presumptuous, self-created, arbiters of taste, affecting to despise National art, vitiated the public mind, or rather strengthened an ancient prejudice there floating, it is not easy to conceive how much greater still would have been their progress. It is at least certain that our ingenious young artists would have been amply encouraged to exert themselves, and not suffered, after the most promising exhibitions of dawning talents, to pine in indigence and wretchedness, to sink into obscurity and oblivion, or (like the illfated, but most meritorious Proctor[o]) to hasten, in the very opening of life, the termination of mortal existence from the excruciating pressure of continued penury and misery.

Thus having attempted to investigate the progress of the arts, and to what was owing that supreme excellence which they formerly attained, we seem to have reasonable grounds to conclude that it flowed from such natural and moral causes as, at all times and in all cases, are known powerfully to affect the feelings and to actuate the conduct of man. No whimsical refinements, no marvellous mysteries, no imaginary and fantastic theories have been had recourse to: but lighted on our way by the irradiating torch of authentic history, and unseduced by the false glare of lying legends, we have not dared so much to affirm what, in certain situations, our fellow-creatures MUST do, as to detail with some care what in fact they DID do. If what we have here advanced has not the attraction of novelty to allure, it is hoped that it is not deficient in the recommendation of truth to convince. It has not been thought necessary formally to refute the sentiments of those profound Philosophers, who have sagaciously discovered the causes of the inferiority of the arts in some countries and of their superiority in others, and consequently the perfection to which they arrived in Greece, in the power of the solar beams in certain latitudes, in the influences of the atmosphere, and in those of terrestrial and celestial vapours: for if the causes here assigned appear fully adequate to the end produced, as we conceive they do, it must be idle to shew the inutility of others, gratuitously brought forth from the inexhaustible storehouse of fancy, and supported by any thing rather than solid reasoning. It must be allowed that they very roundly assert, but as fallaciously argue, whenever they deign to argue on this subject: for mere assertions, positive, pompous, presuming, but assertions still, are the commonest weapons of their warfare. And, possibly, it would neither be reputable to contest the specious subtilty of the sophisms of even such sages, nor honourable to conquer the powerless imbecility of their assertions.

It is but fair to avow that this enquiry into the progress of the arts has not been entered on for the sole purpose of ascertaining, as far as we were able, the causes of the surpassing excellence to which they were carried in Greece, without at the same time intimating, with due deference to superior judgments and to superior authority, the efficacy of the same causes, at all times and in all countries, in improving and exalting them. As human nature is the same at all periods, though diversified in its exterior shew by the various customs, modes, and manners, that variously prevail, it cannot be seriously doubted but that those principles, which have been found by experience in one country to powerfully sway its conduct, and to incite its efforts in the Arts to their noblest productions, would be equally efficient and equally successful elsewhere, were they fairly applied, and as vigorously exerted. We have no satisfactory reason for believing that either the mental or corporeal powers of man have degenerated in the succession of ages: and we well know that, by the benefits of experience and invention, considerable aids have been added to both, to methodize their motions and to facilitate their operations. Our profounder and better-studied knowledge of Metaphysics, our improved skill in Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, and our more accurate acquaintance with the principles of colours, with their combinations and their shades, all confessedly tend to these points. Should then the same liberal public encouragement be displayed, by those possessed of the power of displaying it, as dignified the best days of Greece; should the same labour, the same pains, the same study, the same industry, be used by modern artists as distinguished their truly illustrious predecessors; we might not vainly hope to see the arts carried to still greater perfection than they have ever yet attained; we might expect to behold their deficiencies supplied, their utilities increased, their energies enlarged, and their beauties augmented.

On national encouragement it becomes not the mediocrity of our talents and station to presume to decide; yet, possibly, it will not be judged too vauntingly confident to say that it should in all cases be spirited, generous, impartial, and should not be subjected to the caprices of power, to the varying humours of the transient depositaries of the public confidence, nor to the inconstant and ever-mutable gusts of popular phrenzy. What effect such encouragement would have on the artists themselves can, indeed, be only conjectured; for such encouragement has never yet been exhibited in the modern world: but that conjecture is neither vague nor random, as it is guided by permanent principles, and directed by the known influence of steady affections on the human heart. It may be affirmed then, with some assurance, that it would inspirit their labours, that it would multiply their pains, that it would invigorate their studies, that it would augment their industry: for such were heretofore its experienced consequences in similar cases, and therefore they are reasonably to be expected again. They would not waste their youth in the riot of lawless pleasure, and so treasure up sickness and sorrow for the days of their prime: they would not spend their hours in the ceaseless pursuit of the intoxicating amusements of some great capital: they would not lay out their whole attention on the low and subordinate, but gainful, branches of their trade, in contempt of the superior features of their Art, and of its possible improvement: but concentring all their powers, all their abilities, all their faculties, in the advancement of their peculiar pursuit, would rapidly raise themselves from the drudgery of mechanical workmanship to the proud elevation of professional exertion. Thus the arts, advanced by so conspicuous a change of manners in their cultivators, and by an encouragement differing so widely from the paltry private patronage pretending to that name, would attain that state of perfection to which their admirers fondly wish to see them carried; but which they must wish in vain till something like the changes here etched out shall have taken place. And that what depends on the artists has not been too sanguinely supposed, nor too strongly pictured, will surely not be asserted: for it has only been supposed that they are men of common sense and natural feelings; that they are not insensible to the allurements of each dignified distinction in life; that they have hearts that can be warmed and minds that can be roused.

That much higher ideas might justly be formed of some artists we can positively affirm from personal knowledge; as we know some who have really the souls of Artists; who, even in present circumstances, instead of grovelling all their lives in mean and sordid occupations, adventurously dare to soar into the immense void of possible excellence; and whose characters it would be highly grateful to portray, were not the desire restrained by the consciousness of inability to do justice to their merits. Such men, indeed, by the vigour of their genius, counteract the disadvantages to which they may be exposed, and, bursting the barriers of opposing obstacles with spirit all their own, impart to the arts whatever of addition or improvement they receive; elucidating their obscurities, polishing their asperities, and lopping their luxuriancies: and their number might be increased to any given amount. But until that halcyon period shall arrive, if it ever shall arrive, when the arts shall be considered as real national objects, and receive real national encouragement (without which, it must be confessed, all extraordinary progress in them is not generally to be expected), their beauty, their grace, their grandeur, depend on these men alone. And conscious of the high ground whereon they stand, as the champions of truth and nature against fashion and futility, and caprice and extravagance, and of the possible benefits resulting from their labours in giving passion to the mute canvas, expression to the inanimate block, and magnificence to utility in each public edifice; they will not suffer themselves to be discouraged by temporary neglect, nor to be disheartened by temporary preferences of the incapable and undeserving. They will strengthen their minds to encounter the provoking criticisms of pert and petulant presumption; they will scorn the contempts of self-conceited and ignorant folly, however highly seated; and they will meet with firm dignity the misjudging decisions of purse-proud affluence. And conscious worth shall crown them with a wreath of honour, greener than ever bloomed on the brow of an Olympic conqueror; their own hearts shall applaud them; their works shall form a lasting monument to the immortality of their names; and their fame shall float down the current of future ages with daily increasing strength, with daily augmented splendor.

The final result then of our enquiry on this amusing and interesting subject is, that we have the best grounds for concluding the progress of the arts originally, and the great perfection to which they were carried in Greece, to have arisen from natural and moral causes of confessed efficacy, and not from any casual circumstances, extraneous to and independent of man: and we deem it reasonable to think that the same causes, operating as uncontroledly any where else within the extent of the temperate climates, would most probably again produce the same effects. Far from indulging any licence of imagination, or from giving wing to its flights, it has been endeavoured rather carefully to detail facts than wantonly to invent systems. Of the evidence, which to us has appeared convincing, the public will judge: of the rectitude of our intention in producing it we are sure, for it is only to incite public reward, to encourage study, and labour, and industry.

[e] Exegi monumentum ære perennius. Horatii Carmi. Lib. iii. Ode 30.