But this is digressing: the question is, may not the moral effect of painting be still counted on, if the painter be himself imbued with the right spirit?[ 34]
There is, in the academy at Antwerp, a picture by Rubens, which represents St. Theresa kneeling before Christ, and interceding for the souls in purgatory. The treatment of the subject is exceedingly simple; the upper part of the picture is occupied by the Redeemer, with his usual attributes, and the saint, habited as a nun. In the lower part of the picture, instead of a confused mob of tormented souls, and flames, and devils with pitchforks, the painter has represented a few heads as if rising from below. I remember those of Adam, Eve, and Mary Magdalene. I remember—and never shall forget—the expression of each! The extremity of misery in the countenance of Adam; the averted, disconsolate, repentant wretchedness of Eve, who hides her face in her hair; the mixture of agony, supplication, hope, in the face of the Magdalene, while a cherub of pity extends his hand to her, as if to aid her to rise, and at the same time turns an imploring look towards the Saviour. As I gazed upon this picture, a feeling sank deep into my heart, which did not pass away with the tears it made to flow, but has ever since remained there, and has become an abiding principle of action. This is only one instance out of many, of the moral effect which has been produced by painting.
To me it is amusing, and it cannot but be interesting and instructive to the philosopher and artist, to observe how various people, uninitiated into any of the technicalities of art, unable to appreciate the amount of difficulties overcome, are affected by pictures and sculpture. But in forming our judgment, our taste in art, it is unsafe to listen to opinions springing from this vague kind of enthusiasm; for in painting, as in music—"just as the soul is pitched, the eye is pleased."
I amuse myself in the gallery here with watching the countenances of those who look at the pictures. I see that the uneducated eye is caught by subjects in which the individual mind sympathizes, and the educated taste seeks abstract excellence. Which has the most enjoyment? The last, I think. Sensibility, imagination, and quick perception of form and colour, are not alone necessary to feel a work of art; there must be the power of association; the mind trained to habitual sympathy with the beautiful and the good; the knowledge of the meaning, and the comprehension of the object of the artist.
In the gallery here there are eighty-eight pictures of Rubens—some among the very finest he ever painted; for instance, that splendid picture, Castor and Pollux carrying off the daughters of Leucippus, so full of rich life and movement; the destruction of Sennacherib's host; Rubens and his wife, full lengths, seated in a garden; that wonderful picture of the defeat of the Amazons; the meeting of Jacob and Laban; the picture of the Earl of Arundel and his wife, with other figures, full lengths;[ 35] and a series of the designs for the large paintings of the history of Marie de' Medici, now in the Louvre. His group of boys with fruits and flowers, exhibits the richest, loveliest combination of colours ever presented to the eye; and on that wonderful picture of the fallen (or rather falling) angels, he has lavished such endless variety of form, attitude, and expression, that it would take a day to study it. It is not a large picture: the eye, or rather the imagination, easily takes in the general effect of tumult, horror, destruction, but the understanding dwells on the detail with still increasing astonishment and admiration. These are a few that struck me, but it is quite in vain to attempt to particularize.
One may begin by disliking Rubens in general, (I think I did,) but one must end by standing before him in ecstacy and wonder. It is true, that always luxuriant, he is often gross and sensual—he can sometimes be brutally so. His bacchanalian scenes are not like those of Poussin, classical, godlike debauchery, but the abandoned drunken revelry of animals—the very sublime of brute licentiousness; and painted with a breadth of style, a magnificent luxuriance of colour, which renders them more revolting. The physique predominates in all his pictures, and not only to grossness, even to ferocity. His picture here of the slaughter of the Innocents, makes me sick—it has absolutely polluted my imagination. Surely this is not the vocation of high art.—And as for his martyrdoms—they are worse than Spagnoletto's.
For all this, he is the Titan of painting: his creations are "of the earth and earthy," but he has called down fire and light from heaven, wherewith to animate and to illumine them.
Rubens is just such a painter as Dryden is a poet, and vice versâ: his women are just like Dryden's women, gross, exaggerated, unrefined animals: his men, like Dryden's men, grand, thinking, acting animals. Like Dryden, he could clothe his genius in thunder, dip his pencil in the lightning and the sunbeams of heaven, and rush fearlessly upon a subject which others had trembled to approach. In both we see a singular and extraordinary combination of the plainest, coarsest realities of life, with the loftiest imagery, the most luxurious tints of poetry. Both had the same passion for allegory, and managed it with equal success. "The thoughts that breathe and words that burn" of Dryden, may be compared to the living, moving forms, the glowing, melting, dazzling hues of Rubens, under whose pencil
"Desires and adorations,