‘The public taste is, therefore, necessarily vitiated, in proportion as it is public; it is lowered with every infusion it receives of common opinion. The greater the number of judges, the less capable must they be of judging, for the addition to the number of good ones will always be small, while the multitude of bad ones is endless, and thus the decay of art may be said to be the necessary consequence of its progress.
‘Can there be a greater confirmation of these remarks than to look at the texture of that assemblage of select critics, who every year visit the exhibition at Somerset-house from all parts of the metropolis of this united kingdom? Is it at all wonderful that for such a succession of connoisseurs, such a collection of works of art should be provided; where the eye in vain seeks relief from the glitter of the frames in the glare of the pictures; where vermillion cheeks make vermillion lips look pale; where the merciless splendour of the painter’s pallet puts nature out of countenance; and where the unmeaning grimace of fashion and folly is almost the only variety in the wide dazzling waste of colour. Indeed, the great error of British art has hitherto been a desire to produce popular effect by the cheapest and most obvious means, and at the expence of every thing else;—to lose all the delicacy and variety of nature in one undistinguished bloom of florid health, and all precision, truth, and refinement of character in the same harmless mould of smiling, self-complacent insipidity,
“Pleased with itself, that all the world can please.”[[91]]
‘It is probable that in all that stream of idleness and curiosity which flows in, hour after hour, and day after day, to the richly hung apartments of Somerset-house, there are not fifty persons to be found who can really distinguish “a Guido from a Daub,” or who would recognise a work of the most refined genius from the most common and every-day performance. Come, then, ye banks of Wapping, and classic haunts of Ratcliffe-highway, and join thy fields, blithe Tothill—let the postchaises, gay with oaken boughs, be put in requisition for school-boys from Eton and Harrow, and school-girls from Hackney and Mile-end,—and let a jury be empannelled to decide on the merits of Raphael, and——. The verdict will be infallible. We remember having been formerly a good deal amused with seeing a smart, handsome-looking Quaker lad, standing before a picture of Christ as the saviour of the world, with a circle of young female friends around him, and a newspaper in his hand, out of which he read to his admiring auditors a criticism on the picture ascribing to it every perfection, human and divine.—Now, in truth, the colouring was any thing but solemn, the drawing any thing but grand, the expression any thing but sublime. The friendly critic had, however, bedaubed it so with praise, that it was not easy to gainsay its wondrous excellence. In fact, one of the worst consequences of the establishment of academies, &c. is, that the rank and station of the painter throw a lustre round his pictures, which imposes completely on the herd of spectators, and makes it a kind of treason against the art, for any one to speak his mind freely, or detect the imposture. If, indeed, the election to title and academic honours went by merit, this might form a kind of clue or standard for the public to decide justly upon:—but we have heard that genius and taste determine precedence there, almost as little as at court; and that modesty and talent stand very little chance indeed with interest, cabal, impudence, and cunning. The purity or liberality of professional decisions cannot, therefore, in such cases be expected to counteract the tendency which an appeal to the public has to lower the standard of taste. The artist, to succeed, must let himself down to the level of his judges, for he cannot raise them up to his own. The highest efforts of genius, in every walk of art, can never be properly understood by mankind in general: there are numberless beauties and truths which lie far beyond their comprehension. It is only as refinement or sublimity are blended with other qualities of a more obvious and common nature, that they pass current with the world. Common sense, which has been sometimes appealed to as the criterion of taste, is nothing but the common capacity, applied to common facts and feelings; but it neither is, nor pretends to be, the judge of any thing else.—To suppose that it can really appreciate the excellence of works of high art, is as absurd as to suppose that it could produce them.’ [The article in The Champion ends with the paragraph ‘Taste is the highest.... Falcon is forgotten,’ which forms the conclusion of The Round Table article also. See vol. I. p. 164. What follows is in the form of a Letter to the Editor of The Champion, October 2, 1814.]
‘Sir,—I beg to offer one or two explanations with respect to the article on the subject of public institutions for the promotion of the Fine Arts, which does not appear to me to have been exactly understood by “A Student of the Royal Academy.”[[92]] The whole drift of that article is to explode the visionary theory, that art may go on in an infinite series of imitation and improvement. This theory has not a single fact or argument to support it. All the highest efforts of art originate in the imitation of nature, and end there. No imitation of others can carry us beyond this point, or ever enable us to reach it. The imitation of the works of genius facilitates the acquisition of a certain degree of excellence, but weakens and distracts while it facilitates, and renders the acquisition of the highest degree of excellence impossible. Wherever the greatest individual genius has been exerted upon the finest models of nature, there the greatest works of art have been produced,—the Greek statues and the Italian pictures. There is no substitute in art for nature; in proportion as we remove from this original source, we dwindle into mediocrity and flimsiness, and whenever the artificial and systematic assistance afforded to genius becomes extreme, it overlays it altogether. We cannot make use of other men’s minds, any more than of their limbs.[[93]] Art is not science, nor is the progress made in the one ever like the progress made in the other. The one is retrograde for the very same reason that the other is progressive; because science is mechanical, and art is not, and in proportion as we rely on mechanical means, we lose the essence. Is there a single exception to this rule? The worst artists in the world are the modern Italians, who lived in the midst of the finest works of art:—the persons least like the Greek sculptors are the modern French painters, who copy nothing but the antique. Velasquez might be improved by a pilgrimage to the Vatican, but if it had been his morning’s lounge, it would have ruined him. Michael Angelo, the cartoons of Leonardi da Vinci, and the antique, your correspondent tells us, produced Raphael. Why have they produced no second Raphael? What produced Michael Angelo, Leonardi da Vinci, and the antique? Surely not Michael Angelo, Leonardi da Vinci, and the antique! If Sir Joshua Reynolds would never have observed a certain expression in nature, if he had not seen it in Correggio, it is tolerably certain that he would never execute it so well; and in fact, though Sir Joshua was largely indebted to Correggio, yet his imitations are not equal to the originals. The two little boys in Correggio’s Danae are worth all the children Sir Joshua ever painted: and the Hymen in the same picture, (with leave be it spoken,) is worth all his works put together.—But the student of the Royal Academy thinks that Carlo Maratti, and Raphael Mengs are only exceptions to the common rule of progressive improvement in the art. If these are the exceptions, where are the examples? If we are to credit him, and it would be uncivil not to do it, they are to be found in the present students of the Royal Academy, whom, he says, it would be unreasonable to confound with such minds as those of Carlo Maratti, and Raphael Mengs. Be it so. This is a point to be decided by time.
‘The whole question was at once decided by the person who said that “to imitate the Iliad, was not to imitate Homer.” After this has once been stated, it is quite in vain to argue the point farther. The idea of piling art on art, and heaping excellence on excellence, is a mere fable; and we may very safely say, that the frontispiece of all such pretended institutions and academies for the promotion of the fine arts, founded on this principle, and “pointing to the skies,” should be—
“Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.”[[94]]
‘Absurd as this theory is, it flatters our vanity and our indolence, and these are two great points gained. It is gratifying to suppose that art may have gone on from the beginning, reposing upon art, like the Indian elephant and the tortoise, that it has improved, and will still go on improving, without the trouble of going back to nature. By these theorists, nature is always kept in the back-ground, or does not even terminate the vista in their prospects. She is a mistress too importunate, and who requires too great sacrifices from the effeminacy of modern amateurs. They will only see her in company, or by proxy, and are as much afraid of being reduced to their shifts with her in private, as Tattle in Love for Love,[[95]] was afraid of being left alone with a pretty girl.
‘I can only recollect one other thing to reply to. Your correspondent objects to my having said, “All the great painters of this period were thoroughly grounded in the first principles of their art; had learned to copy a head, a hand, or an eye,” &c. All this knowledge of detail he attributes to academical instruction, and quotes Sir Joshua Reynolds, who says of himself—“Not having had the advantage of an early academical education, I never had that facility in drawing the naked figure, which an artist ought to have.” First, I might answer, that the drawing from casts can never assist the student in copying the face, the eye, or the extremities; and that it was only of service in the knowledge of the trunk, and the general proportions, which are comparatively lost in the style of English art, which is not naked, but clothed. Secondly, I would say, with respect to Sir Joshua, that his inability to draw the naked figure arose from his not having been accustomed to draw it; and that drawing from the antique would not have enabled either him or any one else to draw from the naked figure. The difficulty of copying from nature, or in other words of doing any thing that has not been done before, or that is worth doing, is that of combining many ideas at once, or of reconciling things in motion: whereas in copying from the antique, you have only to copy still life, and in proportion as you get a knack at the one, you disqualify yourself for the other.
‘As to what your correspondent adds of painting and poetry being the same thing, it is an old story which I do not believe. But who would ever think of setting up a school of poetry? Byshe’s[[96]] Art of Poetry and the Gradus ad Parnassum, are a jest. Royal Academies and British Institutions are to painting, what Byshe’s Art of Poetry and the Gradus ad Parnassum, are to the “sister art.” Poetry, as it becomes artificial, becomes bad, instead of good—the poetry of words, instead of things. Milton is the only poet who gave to borrowed materials the force of originality. I am, Sir, Your humble Servant,