One of the most noted pictures at Windsor is that of the Misers, by Quintin Matsys. Its name is greater than its merits, like many other pictures which have a lucky or intelligible subject, boldly executed. The conception is good, the colouring bad; the drawing firm, and the expression coarse and obvious. We are sorry to speak at all disparagingly of Quintin Matsys; for the story goes that he was originally bred a blacksmith, and turned painter to gain his master’s daughter, who would give her hand to no one but on that condition. Happy he who thus gained the object of his love, though posterity may differ about his merits as an artist! Yet it is certain, that any romantic incident of this kind, connected with a well-known work, inclines us to regard it with a favourable instead of a critical eye, by enhancing our pleasure in it; as the eccentric character, the wild subjects, and the sounding name of Salvator Rosa have tended to lift him into the highest rank of fame among painters.
In the same room with the Misers, by the Blacksmith of Antwerp, is a very different picture by Titian, consisting of two figures also, viz. Himself and a Venetian Senator. It is one of the finest specimens of this master. His own portrait is not much: it has spirit, but is hard, with somewhat of a vulgar, knowing look. But the head of the Senator is as fine as anything that ever proceeded from the hand of man. The expression is a lambent flame, a soul of fire dimmed, not quenched by age. The flesh is flesh. If Rubens’s pencil fed upon roses, Titian’s was carnivorous. The tone is betwixt a gold and silver hue. The texture and pencilling are marrowy. The dress is a rich crimson, which seems to have been growing deeper ever since it was painted. It is a front view. As far as attitude or action is concerned, it is mere still-life; but the look is of that kind that goes through you at a single glance. Let any one look well at this portrait, and if he then sees nothing in it, or in the portraits of this painter in general, let him give up virtù and criticism in despair.
This room is rich in valuable gems, which might serve as a test of a real taste for the art, depending for their value on intrinsic qualities, and not on imposing subjects, or mechanical arrangement or quantity. As where ‘the still, small voice of reason’ is wanting, we judge of actions by noisy success and popularity; so where there is no true moral sense in art, nothing goes down but pomp, and bustle, and pretension. The eye of taste looks to see if a work has nature’s finest image and superscription upon it, and for no other title and passport to fame. There is a Young Man’s Head, (we believe in one corner of this room) by Holbein, in which we can read high and heroic thoughts and resolutions, better than in any Continence of Scipio we ever saw, or than in all the Battles of Alexander thrown into a lump. There is a Portrait of Erasmus, by the same, and in the same or an adjoining room, in which we see into the mind of a scholar and of an amiable man, as through a window. There is a Head by Parmegiano, lofty, triumphant, showing the spirit of another age and clime—one by Raphael, studious and self-involved—another, said to be by Leonardo da Vinci (but more like Holbein) grown crabbed with age and thought—and a girl reading, by Correggio, intent on her subject, and not forgetting herself. These are the materials of history; and if it is not made of them, it is a nickname or a mockery. All that does not lay open the fine net-work of the heart and brain of man, that does not make us see deeper into the soul, is but the apparatus and machinery of history-painting, and no more to it than the frame is to the picture.
We noticed a little Mater Dolorosa in one of the rooms, by Carlo Dolci, which is a pale, pleasing, expressive head. There are two large figures of his, a Magdalen and another, which are in the very falsest style of colouring and expression; and Youth and Age, by Denner, which are in as perfectly bad a taste and style of execution as anything we ever saw of this artist, who was an adept in that way.
We are afraid we have forgotten one or two meritorious pictures which we meant to notice. There is one we just recollect, a Portrait of a Youth in black, by Parmegiano. It is in a singular style, but very bold, expressive, and natural. There is (in the same apartment of the palace) a fine picture of the Battle of Norlingen, by Rubens. The size and spirit of the horses in the fore-ground, and the obvious animation of the riders, are finely contrasted with the airy perspective and mechanical grouping of the armies at a distance; and so as to prevent that confusion and want of positive relief, which usually pervade Battle-pieces. In the same room (opposite) is Kneller’s Chinese converted to Christianity—a portrait of which he was justly proud. It is a fine oil-picture, clear, tawny, without trick or affectation, and full of character. One of Kneller’s fine ladies or gentlemen, with their wigs and toupées, would have been mortally offended to have been so painted. The Chinese retains the same oily sly look, after his conversion as before, and seems just as incapable of a change of religion as a piece of terra cotta. On each side of this performance are two Guidos, the Perseus and Andromeda, and Venus attired by the Graces. We give the preference to the former. The Andromeda is a fine, noble figure, in a striking and even daring position, with an impassioned and highly-wrought expression of features; and the whole scene is in harmony with the subject. The Venus attired by the Graces (though full of beauties, particularly the colouring of the flesh in the frail Goddess) is formal and disjointed in the composition; and some of the actions are void of grace and even of decorum. We allude particularly to the Maid-in-waiting, who is combing her hair, and to the one tying on her sandals, with her arm crossing Venus’s leg at right angles. The Cupid in the window is as light and wanton as a butterfly flying out of it. He may be said to flutter and hover in his own delights. There are two capital engravings of these pictures by Strange.
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT
This palace is a very magnificent one, and we think, has been undeservedly neglected. It is Dutch-built, of handsome red brick, and belongs to a class of houses, the taste for which appears to have been naturalised in this country along with the happy introduction of the Houses of Orange and Hanover. The approach to it through Bushy-Park is delightful, inspiriting at this time of year; and the gardens about it, with their close-clipped holly hedges and arbours of evergreen, look an artificial summer all the year round. The statues that are interspersed do not freeze in winter, and are cool and classical in the warmer seasons. The Toy-Inn stands opportunely at the entrance, to invite the feet of those who are tired of a straggling walk from Brentford or Kew, or oppressed with thought and wonder after seeing the Cartoons.
Besides these last, however, there are several fine pictures here. We shall pass over the Knellers, the Verrios, and the different portraits of the Royal Family, and come at once to the Nine Muses, by Tintoret. Or rather, his Nine Muses are summed up in one, the back-figure in the right-hand corner as you look at the picture, which is all grandeur, elegance, and grace.—We should think that in the gusto of form and a noble freedom of outline, Michael Angelo could hardly have surpassed this figure. The face too, which is half turned round, is charmingly handsome. The back, the shoulders, the legs, are the perfection of bold delicacy, expanded into full-blown luxuriance, and then retiring as it were from their own proud beauty and conscious charms into soft and airy loveliness—
‘Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.’
Is it a Muse? Or is it not a figure formed for action more than contemplation? Perhaps this hypercritical objection may be true; and it might without any change of character or impropriety be supposed, from its buoyancy, its ease, and sinewy elasticity, to represent the quivered Goddess shaping her bow for the chase. But, at any rate, it is the figure of a Goddess, or of a woman in shape equal to a Goddess. The colour is nearly gone, so that it has almost the tone of a black and white chalk-drawing; and the effect of form remains pure and unrivalled. There are several other very pleasing and ably-drawn figures in the group, but they are eclipsed in the superior splendour of this one. So far the composition is faulty, for its balance is destroyed; and there are certain critics who could probably maintain that the picture would be better, if this capital excellence in it had been deliberately left out: the picture would, indeed, have been more according to rule, and to the taste of those who judge, feel, and see by rule only! Among the portraits which are curious, is one of Baccio Bandinelli, with his emblems and implements of sculpture about him, said to be by Correggio. We cannot pretend to give an opinion on this point; but it is a studious, powerful, and elaborately painted head. We find the name of Titian attached to two or three portraits in the Collection. There is one very fine one of a young man in black, with a black head of hair, the face seen in a three-quarter view, and the dark piercing eye, full of subtle meaning, looking round at you; which is probably by Titian, but certainly not (as it is pretended) of himself. It has not the aquiline cast of features by which his own portraits are obviously distinguished. We have seen a print of this picture, in which it is said to be done for Ignatius Loyola. The portrait of a lady with green and white purfled sleeves (like the leaves and flower of the water-lily, and as clear!) is admirable. It was in the Pall-Mall exhibition of the Old Masters a short time ago; and is by Sebastian del Piombo.—The care of the painting, the natural ease of the attitude, and the steady, sensible, conversable look of the countenance, place this in a class of pictures, which one feels a wish to have always by one’s side, whenever there is a want of thought, or a flaw in the temper, that requires filling up or setting to rights by some agreeable and at the same time not over-exciting object. There are several soi-disant Parmegianos; one or two good Bassans; a Battle-Piece set down to Julio Romano; a coloured drawing (in one corner of a room) of a Nymph and Satyr is very fine; and some of Polemberg’s little disagreeable pictures of the same subject, in which the Satyrs look like paltry bits of painted wood, and the Nymphs like glazed China-ware. We have a prejudice against Polemberg, which is a rare thing with us!