"God's work invisible,
Not undiscover'd, their true stamp impress
On thought, creation's mirror, wherein do dwell
His unattained wonders numberless."
Of late years some painters have taken up the novelty of representing scriptural subjects as under the actual scenery and climate of the holy land, and attempted besides to portray the characteristics of the race,—a thing never dreamed of by the great painters of history. They are partial to skies hot and cloudless, and to European feelings not agreeable; forgetful of a land of promise and of wonder, and that these subjects belong, and must be modified to the mental vision of every age and country. They abhor the voluminous and richly coloured clouds, as unnatural. Can they not feel the passage—
"Who maketh the clouds his chariot?"
Let then, not only their forms, but their colours too, be as far as may be worthy Him whom they are said to bear. They are, as it were, the folding and unfolding volumes wherein the history of all creation is written. As they are prominent in the language of poetry, so should they ever be the materials for poetic art.
I speak of this noble character of cloud skies, because a writer of more persuasive power than mature judgement,—the Author of "Modern Painters,"—has condemned them; that he has not felt them is surprising. He has, however, in his second, in many respects admirable part, manifested such change of opinion, and has shown such a growing admiration for the old masters, whom in his first volume he treated with so little respect, nay, with perfect contempt, that I cannot doubt the operation of his better judgment, when in prosecuting his subject, he will be led to consider the use of these materials of nature to poetic art.
I must not, however, forget that I began this paper with questioning the title of Rubens as a colourist. It has been shown, that I consider no painter a colourist, who does not unite the two essentials of colour,—agreeability, and its perfect sympathy with the subject.
I have endeavoured to show in what this agreeability consists. I have not presumed to lay down any definite rules for the second great essential; but I have endeavoured by illustration to enforce its necessity; in this confident that a proper practice will follow, and be the necessary result
of a proper feeling. Now to speak of Rubens; what are his characteristics as a colourist? Wherein lies his excellence? I do not stop to repeat any of the extravagant praises that have been so freely lavished upon him. But I would ask, is there one important picture by his hand, wherein the colour is of a sentiment? Is there any one which, if you remove from it to such a distance as not to see the subject in its particulars, will indicate by its colouring what sort of narrative is to be told by a nearer inspection? Try him by those in our National Gallery. I will take first, his most powerful, and one of a subject most advantageous perhaps to his manner, because there is no very striking sentiment to be conveyed by it; for he seems scarcely serious in his treatment of this passage in the Roman history. I speak of his "Rape of the Sabines." Inasmuch as it is a picture of glare, and fluster, and confusion, it may be said to represent the subject; but such ought not to be the sentiment of it. But inasmuch as it has this glare, and is entirely deficient in all repose of colour, (for it is not requisite to representation of violent action, that there should not be that character of repose of colour which the essential agreeability demands,) the eye cannot rest upon it with satisfaction as a whole. You must approach it then nearer, to see how the particular objects are coloured. You will be pleased with the skill with which one colour is set off by another; and, doubtless, you will acknowledge a certain truth in the flesh tints: but all this while you are led away from the subject, draw no conclusion from it as a whole, and are induced to examine a detail which, however coloured with skill, and powerfully executed, is vulgar and disgusting. A mere trifle more of gross vulgarity would turn it into caricature, and you would think, that Rubens had been a successfully laborious satirist upon the narrative of the Roman historian. I confess that, but for its technical merits, which are lost upon most of the visitors of the Gallery, the picture would give me no pleasure whatever, nay, much disgust, as altogether derogatory to the dignity of art.
I purposely pass by his allegorical pictures as mere furniture for walls, not being subjects of sentiment; nor should I very much care if his "Peace and War" were in the sorry condition which has been wrongly given to it.
Examine then the Judgment of Paris. Here is a subject most favourable for him. It shows glaringly the defect of his manner. Admit that his flesh tints are most natural, that they are beautiful; has he not sacrificed too much to make them so? All, excepting these nude figures, is monotonous, has no relation by any tint to the figures, or to any idea of sentiment such a subject may be supposed to convey. The single excellence lies in the flesh-colouring of the three goddesses. But when I use the word excellence, I do not mean to say that in this respect he surpasses any other painter, as I will presently show. Now, there is a peculiarity in Rubens' method, and which strictly belongs to his colouring, from which arises what may be not improperly designated flimsiness, that is, the leaving too much of the first getting in of his picture, the first transparent sketchy brown. If in some respect this gives force to the more solid parts, by the contrast of the transparent with the opaque, yet is it rather a flashy force, in which the means become too visible; an entire substance is wanted; we come too immediately to the bare ground of the canvass. And this first colouring being a mere brown, not deserving the name of colour, as it is not the real colour of the objects upon which it is disposed, is in entire disagreement with the studied truth to nature in the other parts. There is every reason to believe that Rubens, after his return from Italy, was aware of this, by his partially adopting the Italian method of more generally solid painting and after glazing; but he returned to the Flemish method, and as it certainly was the more expeditious, it may have better suited his hand, and the demands upon it. Now, here it may be remarked, that even for the first essential—agreeability of colouring, that is, of the substance of the paint—it is necessary that it should be rich, really a substance, not a merely thin wash: such was the positive depth of even the