Beauty is not confined to the waving line of Hogarth, or to objects smooth and soft, as Mr. Burke thought, but is multiform in nature, and therefore admits of a diversity of tastes; yet it is not an arbitrary principle subject to the fancy of every individual, but like harmony in music, it vibrates on the imagination and affections of a cultivated mind, as doth the octave in a well tuned instrument;—the tutored ear perceives the slightest discordance in sounds, and the cultivated eye detects with equal facility the want of harmony in art or nature. It has been said "that the peasant youth, would require more red in the cheek of his beauty, than would be agreeable to a man of cultivated taste," and the inference was, "that the delicate is more beautiful than the florid," but in fact, they are each beautiful in their place. In rustic life, amidst the scenes of the vintage, in the hay field, or milking the cow—how beauteous is the flush and healthful bloom of the cottage maiden! The ruby lip and liquid laughing eye bespeak the joyous heart, pleased with its vocation. Here, the delicate and courtly dame of polished life would appear unequal to the task; would be incongruous to the scene, and as much out of place as epic verse in pastoral poetry;—yet in her proper sphere
| "——those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul, Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart," |
she moves the attractive star of cultivated taste.
The choice of these subjects, constitutes the difference between the Dutch and the Italian schools of art. The former painted pastoral scenery with a fidelity incomparably superior to the Italians, yet greatly inferior in the higher excellencies of art. They are justly admired for their attention to detail, to exact finish, and all the results of "mere mechanic pains," but are void of classical taste, of moral instruction, and the poetry of the imagination, that highest effort of genius. Their works may therefore be beautiful, but never sublime, and their attempts at historic painting degrade it to something worse than caricature. I remember to have seen in the Louvre, a little painting of this school, designed for "Peter denying his Lord in Pilate's house." The interior was a Holland kitchen; boors were smoking before a chimney place, or playing at cards on a tub reversed; a coarse looking woman held Peter by his collar, and chanticleer sat perched on a beam of the house. The costume and furniture were equally out of keeping, but executed with the most harmonious tone and finest touch of the pencil. Now the same subject in the schools of Italy would represent a hall becoming the governor of Judea, soldiers in Roman costume would be grouped around an antique vase of embers, placed upon a tripod, and Peter would quail under the pert recognition of a beautiful damsel; the grey dawn would appear through the intercolumniations of the portico, and the warning clarion of the cock would be expressed on the brow of the conscience-stricken Apostle.
This may not be considered a fair comparison, but rather the antithesis of the two schools. What then shall we take as the highest effort of Dutch genius? The Bull of Paul Potter!1 As well might we compare a wax figure of Tecumseh with the Apollo Belvidere, or the Sleeping Beauty with the Venus de Medicis. But, if indeed, it be the highest effort of genius to produce an exact representation of things, the modeller in wax, is superior to the sculptor in marble, and the Bull at the Hague, to the Transfiguration in the Vatican. As no one of any pretension to taste will ever assent to this conclusion, I must again insist, that art aspires to a higher attainment than the mere portraiture of nature, and claims poetic honors; it is the poetry of form and color: it selects the agreeable from the discordant parts of the great prototype—combines and disposes them—and without changing the features, elevates and ennobles them; it seizes upon incidental effects to cast a shadow over the asperities of objects, and throws a broad and brilliant light on the more beautiful parts. When Dominichino was asked what obscured a part of his picture, "una neblia si passa," was his reply; and by thus imagining a passing cloud, he was enabled to preserve that breadth of light and shade so remarkable in the English school at present. The Italians however, did not often seek after effect; they did not address themselves so much to the eye, as to the judgment; and their distinguishing excellence is correctness of design and dignity of character. It was this that acquired for them the praise of a "grand gusto," or sublimity of style, superior to all other artists.
1 This is esteemed the greatest of the Dutch school.
G. C.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.