LUCIEN BUONAPARTE’S COLLECTION, ETC.
| The Champion.] | [January 22, 1815. |
We have been able to obtain access to the almost inaccessible collection of the Prince of Canino. The liberality with which the collections of foreign princes are thrown open to strangers and the public is often boasted of; but this liberality, we suppose, ceases when the same collections are exposed in this country for sale. The pictures of Lucien Buonaparte, which are valued at £40,000, are kept in most ‘vile durance’; and even the ticket of admission, which we presented to a person who seems placed at the door to keep persons out, and not to let them in, was inspected and objected to with the same scrupulous jealousy as if it had been a bank-note presented in payment of the purchase-money of the collection. A cursory glance round the room was sufficient to explain the source of so much mystery and caution. The pictures are in general mere trash. Nor is the general dearth of attraction relieved by even a few examples of first-rate excellence. The only exception to these remarks which struck us was an exquisite female head by Leonardo da Vinci. It is one of the finest specimens we have seen of that great master, both for expression, drawing, the spirit and delicacy of the execution, and the preservation of the tone of colouring. There is in Leonardo’s female heads a grace and charm of expression, which is peculiar to himself—a character of natural sweetness and playful tenderness, mixed up with the pride of conscious intellect, and with the graceful reserve of personal dignity. He blends purity with voluptuousness; and the expression of his women is equally characteristic of ‘the mistress or the saint!’ His pictures are always worked up to the utmost height of the idea he had conceived, with an elaborate felicity. No painter made more a religion of his art! His fault is, that his style of execution is too mathematical; that is, his pencil does not follow the graceful variety of nature, but substitutes certain refined gradations both of form and colour, producing equal changes in equal distances, with a mechanical uniformity. Leonardo was a man of profound learning as well as genius; and perhaps transferred too much of the formality of science to his favourite art. In making this objection, we have had in our eye two of the most celebrated pictures, the Jocunda in the Louvre, and the St. John in the possession of Mr. Hope. The picture in the present collection has more flexibility and variety; as well as greater heightening of colour; and perhaps the latter effect may be the cause of the former. It is not impossible that a certain degree of monotony may have been sometimes produced by the rubbing off of the higher tints and finishing touches of the pencil, so as to leave little more of the picture than the general ground-work.
To return to the collection before us. The only remaining pictures which can excite any interest are, some curious specimens of the early masters, Ghirlandaio, Bellino, and others;—some small sketches of Titian; a finely coloured Holy Family by the same master; a portrait by Sebastian del Piombo; a sketch of Diana and Acteon, by A. Caracci; a landscape by Ruysdael; and a transfiguration, said to be by Vasari. Besides these, there is a Frenchified Salvator Rosa, coloured pink and blue, a copy of Domenichino’s head of St. Jerome, one or two pretended Claudes, and some amatory pictures of the modern French school. To these shall we add the picture of Lucien Buonaparte himself? Nothing certainly can go beyond it in its way. It is the very priggism of portrait-painting.
We have already said something of the French style of portraits, and we shall here add a few remarks in explanation, though we are aware that any hints of a want of refinement will be thrown away on a nation so entirely spirituel as the French, and we are also afraid that some of our own artists may take credit to themselves for as many excellences, as we may charge their neighbours with defects.
The French systematically paint all objects as they would paint still life; and hence they in general never paint any thing but still life. It is not possible to paint that which has life and motion by the same mechanical process by which that which has neither life nor motion may be represented. Thus it is not possible to imitate the human countenance, which is moveable and animated, as you would imitate a piece of drapery, or a chair, or a table, in which the physical appearance is every thing, and that appearance always remains the same. The industry of the eye and hand will go a great way in giving the effect of a number of parts of any external object, arranged in the same order; but to give truth of effect to that which is always varying, and always expressive of more than strikes the senses, imagination and feeling are absolutely required. Whenever there is life and motion, life and motion become the principal things; and any attempt to give these, without a distinct operation or feeling of the mind as to what constitutes their essence, by a mere attention to the physical form, or particular details, must necessarily destroy all appearance both of one and the other. To instance in expression only. This can only be given by being felt. Take for instance the outline of part of a face, and let it be so placed as to form part of the outline of a rock, or any other inanimate object. A copy of this, done with tolerable care, will seem to be the same thing: but let it be known that this is really a part of a human countenance, and then it will probably be found to be quite different from the difference of expression. We distinguish all objects more or less by habitual knowledge; and this knowledge is always acute in proportion to the interest excited, that is, to the intensity of the feeling or passion which is combined with the immediate impression on the senses. Expression is therefore only caught by sympathy; and it has been received as a maxim, that no painter can succeed in giving an expression which is totally foreign to his own character. There are some painters who cannot paint a wise man, and others who cannot paint a fool: some who cannot give strength, and others softness to their works. It is the want of character, of flexibility, and transient expression, which is the great defect of French portraits. Without the indications of the mind breathed into the countenance and moulding the features, the whole must appear stiff, hard, mean, unconnected, and lifeless—like the mask of a face, not like the face itself—forced, affected, and unnatural. Another consequence of this mode of copying the letter and leaving out the spirit of all objects, is that the face in general looks the least finished part of the picture, for while the other parts remain the same, this necessarily varies, and the only way to make up for the want of literal exactness, must be by seizing the force and animation of the expression. A head that does not look like life, cannot look like any thing else.—The portrait of Lucien Buonaparte is a striking confirmation of these remarks. We do not know how to describe it otherwise than by saying that it looks as if the artist had first modelled the face in wax, oiled it over, painted the lips purple, stuck on a pair of artificial eyebrows, and inserted a pair of dark blue glass eyes, and then set to work to copy every part of this perverse misrepresentation, with tedious and disgusting accuracy. In a portrait of the author of Charlemagne, one has a right to expect some refinement of intellect and feeling, if not the marks of elevated genius. No such thing. The picture has just the appearance of a spruce holiday mechanic, with all the hardness, littleness, and vulgarity of expression which is to be found in nature, where the countenance has not been expanded by thought and sentiment, and in art, where this expression has been entirely overlooked. The French artists themselves, both men and women, seem to be aware of the dilemma to which they are reduced, and prefer copying from plaster casts, or lay figures, to painting from the life; which baffles the mechanical minuteness and ‘laborious foolery’ of their style of art. They set about painting a face as they would about engraving a picture. This cannot possibly answer. From the general idea of the liveliness and volatility of the French character one would be apt to suppose, that instead of the method here described, their artists would have adopted the happier mode proposed by Pope in describing his characters of women:
‘Come, then, the colours and the ground prepare,
Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air,
Chuse a firm cloud, before it falls, and in it
Catch, ere the change, the Cynthia of a minute!’