The great painters, it is agreed, painted beyond nature—but how? Why, if I may venture to say it, by drawing and colouring extravagantly. But were they right or wrong in doing so? This depends upon circumstances. I remember seeing at a Painter’s a head taken from nature, another copied from Hans Holbein, and a third from Giulio Romano—upon which the artist made a dissertation.—He first produced the portrait from nature, and asked me how I liked it? I told him that there appeared to me great simplicity and elegance in it, and an excellence which I thought essential to a good picture—a proper ballance between the light and shade of every part. (I meant that the shade of the white was lighter than that of blue—of blue fainter than of black, &c. so that each colour was as perceivable in the shadows as lights.) Ay, says he, that is true, but I will shew you a style preferable to it—Upon which he produced the copy from Holbein.—I agreed, that it was stronger, and such as nature might appear in many instances.——But here, says he, is something beyond nature; this I call the sublime style of painting, and this I will try to bring my heads to.—Then he discovered the copy from Giulio—there is strength, says he—see how faint the others are.—Now, acknowledge that the picture I painted from nature is nothing to it. It must be confessed, I replied, that the extravagance of the last picture does for a moment dazzle our eyes—yours seems weak by the comparison, it is like looking upon white paper after staring at the sun.—On the contrary, if I pass from yours to this, I am hurt at seeing every thing so extravagant, and so far beyond the modesty of nature!—“It is not intended to be strictly natural, it is the fine ideal, it is something above, beyond nature!” “I must own that I have no idea of any beauty beyond what may be found in nature—indeed, whence is the idea to be taken? But do not think I rate Giulio or any of the sublime painters lightly; I am so sensible of their merit, that, contrary perhaps to your expectation, I am about to defend their practice. They generally painted for churches, where the picture is seen in a bad light, or at a distance; so that it could not be seen at all if the manner was not violent: both the drawing and colouring must be extravagant to strike—for which reason, they overcharged their attitudes, blackened their shadows, reddened their carnations, and whitened their lights; and all this with the greatest propriety. But if you apply this practice to closet or portrait painting, what is an excellence in them, becomes a defect in you. This picture which you have copied with so much success, I dare say has an admirable effect where it hangs; but near the eye or in a strong light, it is hard and over-done. On the other hand, if your portrait was to be hung at a great distance, or in an obscure place, the delicate touches I now admire would escape the sight. The style proper for the church is improper for the closet, and the contrary. The great painters were in the right then, in painting beyond nature; but let us not imagine that such figures and characters are therefore the most beautiful. No painter can invent a figure surpassing the finest of nature: for character and form, nature is the just and only standard. He shews his genius more by properly associating natural objects, and expressing natural characters, than by exaggerating them or by inventing new ones.”
When I receive the picture you have promised me, I will criticise it with as much sincerity as
I am your Friend, &c.
LETTER VI.
YOU have turned my thoughts much towards painting of late—I have been trying to solve this question.
What is the reason that those objects which displease us, or at best, that pass unnoticed, in nature, please us most in painting?
A deep road, a puddle of water, a bank covered with docks and briars, and an old tree or two, are all the circumstances in many a fine landscape. As clowns and half starved cattle are the figures a landscape-painter chuses for his pictures; so, rough-looking fellows wrapt up in sheets and blankets, are chosen by the history-painter, to express the greatest personages, and in the most dignified actions of their lives.
Let the following observations have what weight they may—tho’ they do not clearly answer, they seem to throw some light on this difficult question.
1. While we are uncultivated, like the Irish Oscar, if we are to be awakened, it must be by having a great stone thrown against our heads. The man of the utmost elegance and refinement may remember the time when, in reading, nothing moved him but the marvellous, and in painting, nothing pleased him but the glaring. While he was in this state, he delighted in books of chivalry and Chinese pictures—these gave place to less extravagant representations of life; and at last by much converse with men of taste, reading purer authors, and seeing better pictures, he is taught how to feel, and finds a perfect revolution even in his sensations. Those objects which once delighted him, he now despises—these, on the contrary, he formerly took no notice of, he now sees with rapture; and even goes so far as to admire the objects in nature, he has learnt to like in representation.—Now, it is this improved, tho’ artificial state of the mind that constitutes the judge of painting—and it is the judge the painter is sollicitous to please.—He is to attain this end then, by departing as much as possible from what is our natural barbarous taste, and by conforming to that we have acquired.