These words were said of our first parents by our greatest poet, after the influence of a pure religion had developed the real nature of the female character, and determined the place which woman was to hold in the scale of nature; but the idea had been expressed in a still finer manner two thousand years before, by the sculptors of antiquity; and amidst all the degradation of ancient manners, the prophetic genius of Grecian taste contemplated that ideal perfection in the character of the sexes, which was destined to form the boundary of human progress in the remotest ages of human improvement.
The Apollo strikes a stranger with all its divine grandeur on the first aspect; subsequent examination can add nothing to the force of the impression which is then received; The Venus produces at first less effect, but gains upon the mind at every renewal, till it rivets the affections even more than the greatness of its unequalled rival—emblematic of the charm of female excellence, which, if it excites less admiration at first than the loftier features of manly character, is destined to acquire a deeper influence, and lay the foundation of more indelible affection.
The Dying Gladiator is perhaps, after the two which we have mentioned, the finest statue which the Louvre contains. The moment chosen is finely adapted for that expression of ideal beauty, which may be produced even in a subject naturally connected with feelings of pain. It is not the moment of energy or struggling, when the frame is convulsed with the exertion it is making, or the countenance is deformed by the tumult of passion; it is the moment of expiring nature, when the figure is relaxed by the weakness of decay, and the mind is softened by the approach of death; the moment when the ferocity of combat is forgotten in the extinction of the interest which it had excited, when every unsocial passion is stilled by the weakness of exhausted nature, and the mind, in the last moments of life, is fraught with finer feelings than had belonged to the character of previous existence. It is a moment similar to that in which Tasso has so beautifully described the change in Clorinda's mind, after she had been mortally wounded by the hand of Tancred, but in which he was enabled to give her the inspiration of a greater faith, and the charity of a more gentle religion:—
Amico h'ai vinto: io te perdon. Perdona
Tu ancora, al corpo no che nulla pave
All'alma si: deh per lei prega; e dona
Battesme a me, ch'ogni mia colpa lave;
In queste voci languide risuona
Un non so che di flebile e soave
Ch'al cor gli scende, ed ogni sdegno ammorza,
Egli occhi a lagrimar gl'invoglia e sforza.
The greater statues of antiquity were addressed to the worshippers in their temples; they were intended to awaken the devotion of all classes of citizens—to be felt and judged by all mankind. They were intended to express characters superior to common nature, and they still express them. They are free, therefore, from all the peculiarities of national taste; they are purified from all the peculiarities of local circumstances; they have been rescued from that inevitable degradation to which art is uniformly exposed, by taste being confined to a limited society; they have assumed, in consequence, that general character, which might suit the universal feelings of our nature, and that permanent expression which might speak to the hearts of men through every succeeding age. The admiration, accordingly, for those works of art, has been undiminished by the lapse of time; they excite the same feelings at the present time, as when they came fresh from the hand of the Grecian artist, and are regarded by all nations with the same veneration on the banks of the Seine, as when they sanctified the temples of Athens, or adorned the gardens of Rome.
Even the rudest nations seem to have felt the force of this impression. The Hungarians and the Cossacks, as we ourselves have frequently seen, during the stay of the allied armies in Paris, ignorant of the name or the celebrity of those works of art, seemed yet to take a delight in the survey of the statues of antiquity; and in passing through the long line of marble greatness which the Louvre presents, stopt involuntarily at the sight of the Venus, or clustered round the foot of the pedestal of the Apollo;—indicating thus, in the expression of unaffected feeling, the force of that genuine taste for the beauty of nature, which all the rudeness of savage manners, and all the ferocity of war, had not been able to destroy. The poor Russian soldier, whose knowledge of art was limited to the crucifix which he had borne in his bosom from his native land, still felt the power of ancient beauty, and in the spirit of the Athenians, who erected an altar to the Unknown God, did homage in silence to that unknown spirit which had touched a new chord in his untutored heart.
From the impression produced on our minds by the collection in the Louvre, we were led to form some general conclusions concerning the history and object of the arts of Painting and Sculpture, which we shall presume to state, as what suggested themselves to us on the contemplation of the greatest assemblage of the works of art which has ever been formed; but which we give, at the same time, with the utmost diffidence, and merely as the result of our own feelings and reflections.
The character of art in every country appears to have been determined by the disposition of the people to whom it was addressed, and the object of its composition to have varied with the purpose it was called on to fulfil.—The Grecian statues were designed to excite the devotion of a cultivated people; to embody their conceptions of divine perfection; to realise the expression of that character of mind which they imputed to the deities whose temples they were to adorn: It was grace, or strength, or majesty, or the benignity of divine power, which they were to represent by the figures of Venus, of Hercules, of Jupiter, or of Apollo. Their artists accordingly were led to aim at the expression of general character; to exclude passion, or emotion, or suffering, from their design, and represent the figures in that state of repose where the permanent expression of mind ought to be displayed. It is perhaps in this circumstance that we are to discern the cause both of the peculiarity and the excellence of the Grecian statuary.
The Italian painters were early required to effect a different object. Their pictures were destined to represent the sufferings of nature; to display the persecution or death of our Saviour, the anguish of the Holy Family, the heroism of martyrs, the resignation of devotion. In the infancy of the arts, accordingly, they were led to study the expression of passion, of suffering, and of temporary emotion; to aim at rousing the pity, or exciting the sympathy, of the spectators; and to endeavour to characterise their works by the representation of temporary passion, not the expression of permanent character. Those beautiful pictures in which a different object seems to have been followed—in which the expression is that of permanent emotion, not transient passion, while they captivate our admiration, seem to be exceptions from the general design, and to have been suggested by the peculiar nature of the subject represented, or a particular firmness of mind in the artist. In these causes we may perhaps discern the origin of the peculiar character of the Italian school.
In the French school, the character and manners of the people seem to have carried this peculiarity to a still greater length. Their character led them to seek in every thing for stage effect; to admire the most extravagant and violent representations, and to value the efforts of art, not in proportion to their imitation of the expressions of nature, but in proportion to their resemblance to those artificial expressions on which their admiration was founded. The vehemence of their manner on the most ordinary occasions, rendered the most extravagant gestures requisite for the display of real passion; and their drama accordingly exhibits a mixture of dignity of sentiment, with violence of gesture, beyond measure surprising to a foreign spectator. The same disposition of the people has influenced the character of their historical painting; and it is to be remembered, that the French school of painting succeeded the establishment of the French drama. It is hence that they have generally selected the moment of theatrical effect—the moment of phrenzied passion, of unparalleled exertion, and that their composition is distinguished by so many striking contrasts, and so laboured a display of momentary effect.