The late Mr. West’s pictures were admirable for the composition and grouping. In these respects they could not be better: as we see in the print of the death of General Wolfe: but for the rest, he might as well have set up a parcel of figures in wood, and painted them over with a sign-post brush, and then copied what he saw, and it would have been just as good. His skill in drawing was confined to a knowledge of mechanical proportions and measurements, and was not guided in the line of beauty, or employed to give force to expression. He, however, laboured long and diligently to advance the interests of art in this his adopted country; and if he did not do more, it was the fault of the coldness and formality of his genius, not of the man.—Barry was another instance of those who scorn nature, and are scorned by her. He could not make a likeness of any one object in the universe: when he attempted it, he was like a drunken man on horseback; his eye reeled, his hand refused its office,—and accordingly he set up for an example of the great style in art, which, like charity, covers all other defects. It would be unfair at the same time to deny, that some of the figures and groupes in his pictures of the Olympic Games in the Adelphi, are beautiful designs after the antique, as far as outline is concerned. In colour and expression they are like wild Indians. The other pictures of his there, are not worthy of notice; except as warnings to the misguided student who would scale the high and abstracted steep of art, without following the path of nature. Yet Barry was a man of genius, and an enthusiastic lover of his art. But he unfortunately mistook his ardent aspiration after excellence for the power to achieve it; assumed the capacity to execute the greatest works instead of acquiring it; supposed that ‘the bodiless creations of his brain’ were to start out from the walls of the Adelphi like a dream or a fairy tale;—and the result has been, that all the splendid illusions of his undigested ambition have, ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision, left not a wreck behind.’ His name is not a light or beacon, but a by-word and an ill omen in art. What he has left behind him in writing on the subject, contains much real feeling and interesting thought.—Mr. Fuseli is another distinguished artist who complains that nature puts him out. But his distortions and vagaries are German, and not English: they lie like a night-mare on the breast of our native art. They are too recondite, obscure, and extravagant for us: we only want to get over the ground with large, clumsy strides, as fast as we can; and do not go out of our way in search of absurdity. We cannot consider his genius as naturalized among us, after the lapse of more than half a century: and if in saying this we do not pay him a compliment, we certainly do not intend it as a very severe censure. Mr. Fuseli has wit and words at will; and, though he had never touched a pencil, would be a man of extraordinary pretensions and talents.
Mr. Haydon is a young artist of great promise, and much ardour and energy; and has lately painted a picture which has carried away universal admiration. Without wishing to detract from that tribute of deserved applause, we may be allowed to suggest (and with no unfriendly voice) that he has there, in our judgment, laid in the groundwork, and raised the scaffolding, of a noble picture; but no more. There is spirit, conception, force, and effect: but all this is done by the first going over of the canvas. It is the foundation, not the superstructure of a first-rate work of art. It is a rude outline, a striking and masterly sketch.
Milton has given us a description of the growth of a plant—
——‘So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk; from thence the leaves
More airy; last the bright consummate flower.’
And we think this image might be transferred to the slow and perfect growth of works of imagination. We have in the present instance the rough materials, the solid substance and the glowing spirit of art; and only want the last finishing and patient working up. Does Mr. Haydon think this too much to bestow on works designed to breathe the air of immortality, and to shed the fragrance of thought on a distant age? Does he regard it as beneath him to do what Raphael has done? We repeat it, here are bold contrasts, distinct grouping, a vigorous hand and striking conceptions. What remains then, but that he should add to bold contrasts fine gradations,—to masculine drawing nice inflections,—to vigorous pencilling those softened and trembling hues which hover like air on the canvas,—to massy and prominent grouping the exquisite finishing of every face and figure, nerve and artery, so as to have each part instinct with life and thought and sentiment, and to produce an impression in the spectator not only that he can touch the actual substance, but that it would shrink from the touch? In a word, Mr. Haydon has strength: we would wish him to add to it refinement. Till he does this, he will not remove the common stigma on British art. Nor do we ask impossibilities of him: we only ask him to make that a leading principle in his pictures, which he has followed so happily in parts. Let him take his own Penitent Girl as a model,—paint up to this standard through all the rest of the figures, and we shall be satisfied. His Christ in the present picture we do not like, though in this we have no less an authority against us than Mrs. Siddons. Mr. Haydon has gone at much length into a description of his idea of this figure in the Catalogue, which is a practice we disapprove: for it deceives the artist himself, and may mislead the public. In the idea he conveys to us from the canvas, there can be no deception. Mr. Haydon is a devoted admirer of the Elgin marbles; and he has taken advantage of their breadth and size and masses. We would urge him to follow them also into their details, their involved graces, the texture of the skin, the indication of a vein or muscle, the waving line of beauty, their calm and motionless expression; into all, in which they follow nature. But to do this, he must go to nature and study her more and more, in the greatest and the smallest things. In short, we wish to see this artist paint a picture (he has now every motive to exertion and improvement) which shall not only have a striking and imposing effect in the aggregate, but where the impression of the whole shall be the joint and irresistible effect of the value of every part. This is our notion of fine art, which we offer to him, not by way of disparagement or discouragement, but to do our best to promote the cause of truth and the emulation of the highest excellence.
We had quite forgotten the chief object of Mr. Farington’s book, Sir Joshua’s dispute with the Academy about Mr. Bonomi’s election; and it is too late to return to it now. We think, however, that Sir Joshua was in the right, and the Academy in the wrong; but we must refer those who require our reasons to Mr. Farington’s account; who, though he differs from us in his conclusion, has given the facts too fairly to justify any other opinion. He has also some excellent observations on the increasing respectability of artists in society, from which, and from various other passages of his work, we are inclined to infer that, on subjects not relating to the Academy, he would be a sensible, ingenious, and liberal writer.
THE PERIODICAL PRESS
Vol. xxxviii.] [May 1823.