Present State of British Art.—It is owing either to a mistaken theory of elevated art, or to the want of models in nature, that the English are hitherto without any painter of serious historical subjects, who can be placed in the first rank of genius. Many of the pictures of modern artists have shown a capacity for correct and happy delineation of actual objects and domestic incidents, only inferior to the masterpieces of the Dutch School. We might here mention the names of Wilkie, Collins, Heaphy, and many others. We have portrait-painters, who have attained to a very high degree of excellence in all the branches of their art. In landscape, Turner has shown a knowledge of the effects of air, and of powerful relief in objects, which was never surpassed. But in the highest walk of art—in giving the movements of the finer or loftier passions of the mind, this country has not produced a single painter, who has made even a faint approach to the excellence of the great Italian painters. We have, indeed, a good number of specimens of the clay-figure, the anatomical mechanism, the regular proportions measured by a two-foot rule;—large canvasses, covered with stiff figures, arranged in deliberate order, with the characters and story correctly expressed by uplifted eyes or hands, according to old receipt-books for the passions;—and with all the hardness and inflexibility of figures carved in wood, and painted over in good strong body colours, that look ‘as if some of nature’s journeymen had made them, and not made them well.’ But we still want a Prometheus to give life to the cumbrous mass, to throw an intellectual light over the opaque image,—to embody the inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye,—to lay bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of little comparative value which can be completely translated into another language,—of which the description in a common catalogue conveys all that is expressed by the picture itself; for it is the excellence of every art to give what can be given by no other, in the same degree. Much less is that picture to be esteemed, which only injures and defaces the idea already existing in the mind’s eye,—which does not come up to the conception which the imagination forms of the subject, and substitutes a dull reality for high sentiment; for the art is in this case an incumbrance, not an assistance, and interferes with, instead of adding to, the stock of our pleasurable sensations. But we should be at a loss to point out (we will not say any English picture, but certainly) any English painter, who, in heroic and classical composition, has risen to the height of his subject, and answered the expectation of the well-informed spectator, or excited the same impression by visible means, as had been excited by words, or by reflection.[[59]] That this inferiority in English art is not owing to a deficiency of genius, imagination, or passion, is proved sufficiently by the works of our poets and dramatic writers, which, in loftiness and force, are not surpassed by those of any other nation. But whatever may be the depth of internal thought and feeling in the English character, it seems to be more internal; and (whether this is owing to habit, or physical constitution) to have, comparatively, a less immediate and powerful communication with the organic expression of passion,—which exhibits the thoughts and feelings in the countenance, and furnishes matter for the historic muse of painting. The English artist is instantly sensible that the flutter, grimace, and extravagance of the French physiognomy, are incompatible with high history; and we are at no loss to explain in this way, that is, from the defect of living models, how it is that the productions of the French school are marked with all the affectation of national caricature, or sink into tame and lifeless imitations of the antique. May we not account satisfactorily for the general defects of our own historic productions, in a similar way,—from a certain inertness and constitutional phlegm, which does not habitually impress the workings of the mind in correspondent traces on the countenance, and which may also render us less sensible of these outward and visible signs of passion, even when they are so impressed there? The irregularity of proportion, and want of symmetry, in the structure of the national features, though it certainly enhances the difficulty of infusing natural grace and grandeur into the works of art, rather accounts for our not having been able to attain the exquisite refinements of Grecian sculpture, than for our not having rivalled the Italian painters in expression.
Mr. West does not form an exception to, but a confirmation of, these general observations. His pictures have all that can be required in what relates to the composition of the subject; to the regular arrangement of the groups; the anatomical proportions of the human body; and the technical knowledge of expression,—as far as expression is reducible to abstract rules, and is merely a vehicle for the telling of a story; so that anger, wonder, sorrow, pity, &c. have each their appropriate and well-known designations. These, however, are but the instrumental parts of the art, the means, not the end; but beyond these, Mr. West’s pictures do not go. They never ‘snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’ They exhibit the mask, not the soul of expression. We doubt, whether, in the entire range of Mr. West’s productions, meritorious and admirable as the design and composition often are, there is to be found one truly fine head. They display a total want of gusto. In Raphael, the same divine spirit breathes through every part; it either agitates the inmost frame, or plays in gentle undulations on the trembling surface. Whether we see his figures bending with all the blandishments of maternal love, or standing in the motionless silence of thought, or hurried into the tumult of action, the whole is under the impulse of deep passion. But Mr. West sees hardly any thing in the human face but bones and cartilages; or, if he avails himself of the more flexible machinery of nerves and muscles, it is only by rule and method. The effect is not that which the soul of passion impresses on the countenance, and which the soul of genius alone can seize; but such as might, in a good measure, be given to wooden puppets or pasteboard figures, pulled by wires, and taught to open the mouth, or knit the forehead, or raise the eyes in a very scientific manner. In fact, there is no want of art or learning in his pictures, but of nature and feeling.
Means of Promoting the Fine Arts.—It is not long ago that an opinion was very general, that all that was wanting to the highest splendour and perfection of the arts in this country might be supplied by Academies and public institutions. We believe the most sanguine promoters of this scheme have at present relaxed in their zeal. There are three ways in which Academies and public institutions may be supposed to promote the fine arts; either by furnishing the best models to the student; or by holding out immediate emolument and patronage; or by improving the public taste. We shall bestow a short consideration on the influence of each.
First, a constant reference to the best models of art necessarily tends to enervate the mind, to intercept our view of nature, and to distract the attention by a variety of unattainable excellence. An intimate acquaintance with the works of the celebrated masters may indeed add to the indolent refinements of taste, but will never produce one work of original genius, one great artist. In proof of the general truth of this observation, we might cite the history of the progress and decay of art in all countries where it has flourished. It is a little extraordinary, that if the real sources of perfection are to be sought in Schools, in Models, and Public Institutions, that whereever schools, models, and public institutions have existed, there the arts should regularly disappear,—that the effect should never follow from the cause.
The Greek statues remain to this day unrivalled,—the undisputed standard of the most perfect symmetry of form. In Italy the art of painting has had the same fate. After its long and painful struggles in the time of the earlier artists, Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Massacio, and others, it burst out with a light almost too dazzling to behold, in the works of Titian, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Correggio; which was reflected, with diminished lustre, in the productions of their immediate disciples; lingered for a while with the school of the Carraccis, and expired with Guido Reni. From that period, painting sunk to so low a state in Italy as to excite only pity or contempt. There is not a single name to redeem its faded glory from utter oblivion. Yet this has not been owing to any want of Dilettanti and Della Cruscan societies,—of academies of Florence, of Bologna, of Parma, and Pisa,—of honorary members and Foreign Correspondents—of pupils and teachers, professors and patrons, and the whole busy tribe of critics and connoisseurs.
What is become of the successors of Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vandyke? What have the French Academicians done for the arts; or what will they ever do, but add intolerable affectation and grimace to centos of heads from the antique, and caricature Greek forms by putting them into opera attitudes? Nicholas Poussin is the only example on record in favour of the contrary theory, and we have already sufficiently noticed his defects. What extraordinary advances have we made in our own country in consequence of the establishment of the Royal Academy? What greater names has the English school to boast than those of Hogarth, Reynolds, and Wilson, who created it? Even the venerable President of the Royal Academy was one of its founders.
Again, we might cite, in support of our assertion, the works of Carlo Maratti, of Raphael Mengs, or of any of the effeminate school of critics and copyists, who have attempted to blend the borrowed beauties of others in a perfect whole. What do they contain, but a negation of every excellence which they pretend to combine? The assiduous imitator, in his attempts to grasp all, loses his hold of that which was placed within his reach, and, from aspiring at universal excellence, sinks into uniform mediocrity. The student who has models of every kind of excellence constantly before him, is not only diverted from that particular walk of art, in which, by patient exertion, he might have obtained ultimate success, but, from having his imagination habitually raised to an overstrained standard of refinement, by the sight of the most exquisite examples in art, he becomes impatient and dissatisfied with his own attempts, determines to reach the same perfection all at once, or throws down his pencil in despair. Thus the young enthusiast, whose genius and energy were to rival the great Masters of antiquity, or create a new æra in the art itself, baffled in his first sanguine expectations, reposes in indolence on what others have done; wonders how such perfection could have been achieved,—grows familiar with the minutest peculiarities of the different schools,—flutters between the splendour of Rubens, and the grace of Raphael, and ends in nothing. Such was not Correggio. He saw and felt for himself; he was of no school, but had his own world of art to create. That image of truth and beauty, which existed in his mind, he was forced to construct for himself, without rules or models. As it had arisen in his mind from the contemplation of nature, so he could only hope to embody it to others, by the imitation of nature. We can conceive the work growing under his hands by slow and patient touches, approaching nearer to perfection, softened into finer grace, gaining strength from delicacy, and at last reflecting the pure image of nature on the canvass. Such is always the true progress of art; such are the necessary means by which the greatest works of every kind have been produced. They have been the effect of power gathering strength from exercise, and warmth from its own impulse—stimulated to fresh efforts by conscious success, and by the surprise and strangeness of a new world of beauty, opening to the delighted imagination. The triumphs of art were victories over the difficulties of art; the prodigies of genius, the result of that strength which had grappled with nature. Titian copied even a plant or a piece of common drapery from the objects themselves; and Raphael is known to have made elaborate studies of the principal heads in his pictures. All the great painters of this period were thoroughly grounded in the first principles of their art; had learned to copy a face, a hand, or an eye, and had acquired patience to finish a single figure, before they undertook to paint extensive compositions. They knew that though Fame is represented with her head above the clouds, her feet rest upon the earth. Genius can only have its full scope, where, though much may have been done, more remains to do; where models exist chiefly to show the deficiencies of art, and where the perfect idea is left to be filled up in the painter’s imagination. When once the stimulus of novelty and of original exertion is wanting, generations repose on what has been done for them by their predecessors, as individuals, after a certain period, rest satisfied with the knowledge they have already acquired.
With regard to the pecuniary advantages arising from the public patronage of the arts;—the plan unfortunately defeats itself; for it multiplies its objects faster than it can satisfy their claims; and raises up a swarm of competitors for the prize of genius from the dregs of idleness and dulness. The real patron is anxious to reward merit, not to encourage gratuitous pretensions to it; to see that the man of genius takes no detriment, that another Wilson is not left to perish for want;—not to propagate the breed of embryo candidates for fame. Offers of public and promiscuous patronage can in general be little better than a species of intellectual seduction, administering provocatives to vanity and avarice, and leading astray the youth of the nation by fallacious hopes, which can scarcely ever be realized. At the same time, the good that might be done by private taste and benevolence, is in a great measure defeated. The moment that a few individuals of discernment and liberal spirit become members of a public body, they are no longer anything more than parts of a machine, which is usually wielded at will by some officious, overweening pretender; their good-sense and good-nature are lost in a mass of ignorance and presumption; their names only serve to reflect credit on proceedings in which they have no share, and which are determined on by a majority of persons who have no interest in the arts but what arises from the importance attached to them by regular organization, and no opinions but what are dictated to them by some self-constituted judge. As far as we have had an opportunity of observing the conduct of such bodies of men, instead of taking the lead of public opinion, of giving a firm, manly, and independent tone to that opinion, they make it their business to watch all its caprices, and follow it in every casual turning. They dare not give their sanction to sterling merit, struggling with difficulties, but take advantage of its success, to reflect credit on their own reputation for sagacity. Their taste is a servile dependant on their vanity, and their patronage has an air of pauperism about it. Perhaps the only public patronage which was ever really useful to the arts, or worthy of them, was that which they received first in Greece, and afterwards in Italy, from the religious institutions of the country; when the artist felt himself, as it were, a servant at the altar; when his hand gave a visible form to Gods or Heroes, Angels or Apostles; and when the enthusiasm of genius was exalted by mingling with the flame of national devotion. The artist was not here degraded, by being made the dependant on the caprice of wealth or fashion, but felt himself at once the servant and the benefactor of the public. He had to embody, by the highest efforts of his art, subjects which were sacred to the imagination and feelings of the spectators; there was a common link, a mutual sympathy between them in their common faith. Every other mode of patronage, but that which arises, either from the general institutions and manners of a people, or from the real unaffected taste of individuals, must, we conceive, be illegitimate, corrupted in its source, and either ineffectual or injurious to its professed object.
Lastly, Academies and Institutions may be supposed to assist the progress of the fine arts, by promoting a wider taste for them.