and _shade_,--for all the high lights are equally white, whether of
flesh, or leaves, or goat's hair.
The third is complete in chiaroscuro, as far as engraving can be.
Now the dignity and virtue of the plates is in the exactly inverse ratio
of their fullness in chiaroscuro.
Bandini's is excellent work, and of the very highest school. Duerer's
entirely accomplished work, but of an inferior school. And Beaugrand's,
excellent work, but of a vulgar and non-classical school.
And these relations of the schools are to be determined by the quality
in the _lines_; we shall find that in proportion as the light and shade
is neglected, the lines are studied; that those of Bandini are perfect;
of Duerer perfect, only with a lower perfection; but of Beaugrand,
entirely faultful.
130. I have just explained to you that in modern engraving the lines are
cut in clean furrow, widened, it may be, by successive cuts; but,
whether it be fine or thick, retaining always, when printed, the aspect
of a continuous line drawn with the pen, and entirely black throughout
its whole course.
Now we may increase the delicacy of this line to any extent by simply
printing it in gray color instead of black. I obtained some very
beautiful results of this kind in the later volumes of 'Modern
Painters,' with Mr. Armytage's help, by using subdued purple tints; but,
in any case, the line thus engraved must be monotonous in its character,
and cannot be expressive of the finest qualities of form.
Accordingly, the old Florentine workmen constructed the line _itself_,
in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a
chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at
pleasure.[AC] If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face
of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series
of minute touches, susceptible of accentuation or change absolutely at
the engraver's pleasure; and, in result, corresponding to the finest
conditions of a pencil line drawing by a consummate master. In the fine
plates of this period, you have thus the united powers of the pen and
pencil, and both absolutely secure and multipliable.
131. I am a little proud of having independently discovered, and had the
patience to carry out, this Florentine method of execution for myself,
when I was a boy of thirteen. My good drawing-master had given me some
copies calculated to teach me freedom of hand; the touches were rapid
and vigorous,--many of them in mechanically regular zigzags, far beyond
any capacity of mine to imitate in the bold way in which they were done.
But I was resolved to have them, somehow; and actually facsimiled a
considerable portion of the drawing in the Florentine manner, with the
finest point I could cut to my pencil, taking a quarter of an hour to
forge out the likeness of one return in the zigzag which my master
carried down through twenty returns in two seconds; and so successfully,
that he did not detect my artifice till I showed it him,--on which he
forbade me ever to do the like again. And it was only thirty years
afterwards that I found I had been quite right after all, and working
like Baccio Bandini! But the patience which carried me through that
early effort, served me well through all the thirty years, and enabled
me to analyze, and in a measure imitate, the method of work employed by
every master; so that, whether you believe me or not at first, you will
find what I tell you of their superiority, or inferiority, to be true.
132. When lines are studied with this degree of care, you may be sure
the master will leave room enough for you to see them and enjoy them,
and not use any at random. All the finest engravers, therefore, leave
much white paper, and use their entire power on the outlines.
133. Next to them come the men of the Renaissance schools, headed by
Duerer, who, less careful of the beauty and refinement of the line,
delight in its vigor, accuracy, and complexity. And the essential
difference between these men and the moderns is that these central
masters cut their line for the most part with a single furrow, giving it
depth by force of hand or wrist, and retouching, _not in the furrow
itself, but with others beside it_.[AD] Such work can only be done well
on copper, and it can display all faculty of hand or wrist, precision of
eye, and accuracy of knowledge, which a human creature can possess. But
the dotted or hatched line is not used in this central style, and the
higher conditions of beauty never thought of.
In the Astrology of Bandini,--and remember that the Astrologia of the
Florentine meant what we mean by Astronomy, and much more,--he wishes
you first to look at the face: the lip half open, faltering in wonder;
the amazed, intense, dreaming gaze; the pure dignity of forehead,
undisturbed by terrestrial thought. None of these things could be so
much as attempted in Duerer's method; he can engrave flowing hair, skin
of animals, bark of trees, wreathings of metal-work, with the free hand;
also, with labored chiaroscuro, or with sturdy line, he can reach
expressions of sadness, or gloom, or pain, or soldierly strength,--but
pure beauty,--never.
134. Lastly, you have the Modern school, deepening its lines in
successive cuts. The instant consequence of the introduction of this
method is the restriction of curvature; you cannot follow a complex
curve again with precision through its furrow. If you are a dextrous
plowman, you can drive your plow any number of times along the simple
curve. But you cannot repeat again exactly the motions which cut a
variable one.[AE] You may retouch it, energize it, and deepen it in
parts, but you cannot cut it all through again equally. And the
retouching and energizing in parts is a living and intellectual process;
but the cutting all through, equally, a mechanical one. The difference
is exactly such as that between the dexterity of turning out two similar
moldings from a lathe, and carving them with the free hand, like a Pisan
sculptor. And although splendid intellect, and subtlest sensibility,
have been spent on the production of some modern plates, the mechanical
element introduced by their manner of execution always overpowers both;
nor _can any plate of consummate value ever be produced in the modern
method_.
135. Nevertheless, in landscape, there are two examples in your
Reference series, of insuperable skill and extreme beauty: Miller's
plate, before instanced, of the Grand Canal, Venice; and E. Goodall's of
the upper fall of the Tees. The men who engraved these plates might have
been exquisite artists; but their patience and enthusiasm were held
captive in the false system of lines, and we lost the painters; while
the engravings, wonderful as they are, are neither of them worth a
Turner etching, scratched in ten minutes with the point of an old fork;
and the common types of such elaborate engraving are none of them worth
a single frog, pig, or puppy, out of the corner of a Bewick vignette.
136. And now, I think, you cannot fail to understand clearly what you
are to look for in engraving, as a separate art from that of painting.
Turn back to the 'Astrologia' as a perfect type of the purest school.
She is gazing at stars, and crowned with them. But the stars are _black_
instead of shining! You cannot have a more decisive and absolute proof
that you must not look in engraving for chiaroscuro.
Nevertheless, her body is half in shade, and her left foot; and she
casts a shadow, and there is a bar of shade behind her.
All these are merely so much acceptance of shade as may relieve the
forms, and give value to the linear portions. The face, though turned
from the light, is shadowless.
Again. Every lock of the hair is designed and set in its place with the
subtlest care, but there is no luster attempted,--no texture,--no
mystery. The plumes of the wings are set studiously in their
places,--they, also, lusterless. That even their filaments are not
drawn, and that the broad curve embracing them ignores the anatomy of a
bird's wing, are conditions of design, not execution. Of these in a
future lecture.[AF]
[Illustration: IV.
"By the Springs of PARNASSUS."]
137. The 'Poesia,' Plate IV., opposite, is a still more severe, though
not so generic, an example; its decorative foreground reducing it almost
to the rank of goldsmith's ornamentation. I need scarcely point out to
you that the flowing water shows neither luster nor reflection; but
notice that the observer's attention is supposed to be so close to every
dark touch of the graver that he will see the minute dark spots which
indicate the sprinkled shower falling from the vase into the pool.
138. This habit of strict and calm attention, constant in the artist,
and expected in the observer, makes all the difference between the art
of Intellect, and of mere sensation. For every detail of this plate has
a meaning, if you care to understand it. This is Poetry, sitting by the
fountain of Castalia, which flows first out of a formal urn, to show
that it is not artless; but the rocks of Parnassus are behind, and on
the top of them--only one tree, like a mushroom with a thick stalk. You
at first are inclined to say, How very absurd, to put only one tree on
Parnassus! but this one tree is the Immortal Plane Tree, planted by
Agamemnon, and at once connects our Poesia with the Iliad. Then, this
is the hem of the robe of Poetry,--this is the divine vegetation which
springs up under her feet,--this is the heaven and earth united by her
power,--this is the fountain of Castalia flowing out afresh among the
grass,--and these are the drops with which, out of a pitcher, Poetry is
nourishing the fountain of Castalia.
All which you may find out if you happen to know anything about
Castalia, or about poetry; and pleasantly think more upon, for yourself.
But the poor dunces, Sandro and Baccio, feeling themselves but 'goffi
nell' arte,' have no hope of telling you all this, except suggestively.
They can't engrave grass of Parnassus, nor sweet springs so as to look
like water; but they can make a pretty damasked surface with ornamental
leaves, and flowing lines, and so leave you something to think of--if
you will.
139. 'But a great many people won't, and a great many more can't; and
surely the finished engravings are much more delightful, and the only
means we have of giving any idea of finished pictures, out of our
reach.'
Yes, all that is true; and when we examine the effects of line engraving
upon taste in recent art, we will discuss these matters; for the
present, let us be content with knowing what the best work is, and why
it is so. Although, however, I do not now press further my cavils at the
triumph of modern line engraving, I must assign to you, in few words,
the reason of its recent decline. Engravers complain that photography
and cheap wood-cutting have ended their finer craft. No complaint can be
less grounded. They themselves destroyed their own craft, by vulgarizing
it. Content in their beautiful mechanism, they ceased to learn, and to
feel, as artists; they put themselves under the order of publishers and
print-sellers; they worked indiscriminately from whatever was put into
their hands,--from Bartlett as willingly as from Turner, and from
Mulready as carefully as from Raphael. They filled the windows of
print-sellers, the pages of gift books, with elaborate rubbish, and
piteous abortions of delicate industry. They worked cheap, and
cheaper,--smoothly, and more smoothly,--they got armies of assistants,
and surrounded themselves with schools of mechanical tricksters,
learning their stale tricks with blundering avidity. They had
fallen--before the days of photography--into providers of frontispieces
for housekeepers' pocket-books. I do not know if photography itself,
their redoubted enemy, has even now ousted them from that last refuge.
140. Such the fault of the engraver,--very pardonable; scarcely
avoidable,--however fatal. Fault mainly of humility. But what has _your_
fault been, gentlemen? what the patrons' fault, who have permitted so
wide waste of admirable labor, so pathetic a uselessness of obedient
genius? It was yours to have directed, yours to have raised and rejoiced
in, the skill, the modesty, the patience of this entirely gentle and
industrious race;--copyists with their _heart_. The common
painter-copyists who encumber our European galleries with their easels
and pots, are, almost without exception, persons too stupid to be
painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists--the men who
can put their soul into another's work--are employed at home, in their
narrow rooms, striving to make their good work profitable to all men.
And in their submission to the public taste they are truly national
servants as much as Prime Ministers are. They fulfill the demand of the
nation; what, as a people, you wish to have for possession in art, these
men are ready to give you.
And what have you hitherto asked of them?--Ramsgate Sands, and Dolly
Vardens, and the Paddington Station,--these, I think, are typical of
your chief demands; the cartoons of Raphael--which you don't care to see
themselves; and, by way of a flight into the empyrean, the Madonna di
San Sisto. And literally, there are hundreds of cities and villages in
Italy in which roof and wall are blazoned with the noblest divinity and
philosophy ever imagined by men; and of all this treasure, I can, as far
as I know, give you not _one_ example, in line engraving, by an English
hand!
Well, you are in the main matter right in this. You want essentially
Ramsgate Sands and the Paddington Station, because there you can see
yourselves.
Make yourselves, then, worthy to be seen forever, and let English
engraving become noble as the record of English loveliness and honor.
FOOTNOTES:
[X] Miller's large plate of the Grand Canal, Venice, after Turner; and
Goodall's, of Tivoli, after Turner. The other examples referred to are
left in the University Galleries.
[Y] This paragraph was not read at the lecture, time not allowing:--it
is part of what I wrote on engraving some years ago, in the papers for
the Art Journal, called the Cestus of Aglaia. (Refer now to "On the Old
Road.")
[Z] An effort has lately been made in France, by Meissonier, Gerome, and
their school, to recover it, with marvelous collateral skill of
engravers. The etching of Gerome's Louis XIV. and Moliere is one of the
completest pieces of skillful mechanism ever put on metal.
[AA] I must again qualify the too sweeping statement of the text. I
think, as time passes, some of these nineteenth century line engravings
will become monumental. The first vignette of the garden, with the cut
hedges and fountain, for instance, in Rogers' poems, is so consummate in
its use of every possible artifice of delicate line, (note the look of
_tremulous_ atmosphere got by the undulatory etched lines on the
pavement, and the broken masses, worked with dots, of the fountain
foam,) that I think it cannot but, with some of its companions, survive
the refuse of its school, and become classic. I find in like manner,
even with all their faults and weaknesses, the vignettes to Heyne's
Virgil to be real art-possessions.
[AB] Plate XI., in the Appendix, taken from the engraving of the Virgin
sitting in the fenced garden, with two angels crowning her.
[AC] The method was first developed in engraving designs on
silver--numbers of lines being executed with dots by the punch, for
variety's sake. For niello, and printing, a transverse cut was
substituted for the blow. The entire style is connected with the later
Roman and Byzantine method of drawing lines with the drill hole, in
marble. See above, Lecture II., Section 70.
[AD] This most important and distinctive character was pointed out to me
by Mr. Burgess.
[AE] This point will be further examined and explained in the Appendix.
[AF] See Appendix, Article I.
LECTURE V.
DESIGN IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING.
141. By reference to the close of the preface to 'Eagle's Nest,' you
will see, gentlemen, that I meant these lectures, from the first, rather
to lead you to the study of the characters of two great men, than to
interest you in the processes of a secondary form of art. As I draw my
materials into the limited form necessary for the hour, I find my
divided purpose doubly failing; and would fain rather use my time to-day
in supplying the defects of my last lecture, than in opening the greater
subject, which I must treat with still more lamentable inadequacy.
Nevertheless, you must not think it is for want of time that I omit
reference to other celebrated engravers, and insist on the special power
of these two only. Many not inconsiderable reputations are founded
merely on the curiosity of collectors of prints, or on partial skill in
the management of processes; others, though resting on more secure
bases, are still of no importance to you in the general history of art;
whereas you will find the work of Holbein and Botticelli determining for
you, without need of any farther range, the principal questions of
moment in the relation of the Northern and Southern schools of design.
Nay, a wider method of inquiry would only render your comparison less
accurate in result. It is only in Holbein's majestic range of capacity,
and only in the particular phase of Teutonic life which his art adorned,
that the problem can be dealt with on fair terms. We Northerns can
advance no fairly comparable antagonist to the artists of the South,
except at that one moment, and in that one man. Rubens cannot for an
instant be matched with Tintoret, nor Memling with Lippi; while
Reynolds only rivals Titian in what he learned from him. But in Holbein
and Botticelli we have two men trained independently, equal in power of
intellect, similar in material and mode of work, contemporary in age,
correspondent in disposition. The relation between them is strictly
typical of the constant aspects to each other of the Northern and
Southern schools.
142. Their point of closest contact is in the art of engraving, and this
art is developed entirely as the servant of the great passions which
perturbed or polluted Europe in the fifteenth century. The impulses
which it obeys are all new; and it obeys them with its own nascent
plasticity of temper. Painting and sculpture are only modified by them;
but engraving is educated.
These passions are in the main three; namely,
1. The thirst for classical literature, and the forms of proud and false
taste which arose out of it, in the position it had assumed as the enemy
of Christianity.
2. The pride of science, enforcing (in the particular domain of Art)
accuracy of perspective, shade, and anatomy, never before dreamed of.
3. The sense of error and iniquity in the theological teaching of the
Christian Church, felt by the highest intellects of the time, and
necessarily rendering the formerly submissive religious art impossible.
To-day, then, our task is to examine the peculiar characters of the
Design of the Northern Schools of Engraving, as affected by these great
influences.
143. I have not often, however, used the word 'design,' and must clearly
define the sense in which I now use it. It is vaguely used in common
art-parlance; often as if it meant merely the drawing of a picture, as
distinct from its color; and in other still more inaccurate ways. The
accurate and proper sense, underlying all these, I must endeavor to make
clear to you.
'Design' properly signifies that power in any art-work which has a
purpose other than of imitation, and which is 'designed,' composed, or
separated to that end. It implies the rejection of some things, and the
insistence upon others, with a given object.[AG]
Let us take progressive instances. Here is a group of prettily dressed
peasant children, charmingly painted by a very able modern artist--not
absolutely without design, for he really wishes to show you how pretty
peasant children can be, (and, in so far, is wiser and kinder than
Murillo, who likes to show how ugly they can be); also, his group is
agreeably arranged, and its component children carefully chosen.
Nevertheless, any summer's day, near any country village, you may come
upon twenty groups in an hour as pretty as this; and may see--if you
have eyes--children in them twenty times prettier than these. A
photograph, if it could render them perfectly, and in color, would far
excel the charm of this painting; for in it, good and clever as it is,
there is nothing supernatural, and much that is subnatural.
144. Beside this group of, in every sense of the word, 'artless' little
country girls, I will now set one--in the best sense of the
word--'artful' little country girl,--a sketch by Gainsborough.
You never saw her like before. Never will again, now that Gainsborough
is dead. No photography,--no science,--no industry, will touch or reach
for an instant this _super_-naturalness. You will look vainly through
the summer fields for such a child. "Nor up the lawn, nor by the wood,"
is she. Whence do you think this marvelous charm has come? Alas! if we
knew, would not we all be Gainsboroughs? This only you may practically
ascertain, as surely as that a flower will die if you cut its root away,
that you cannot alter a single touch in Gainsborough's work without
injury to the whole. Half a dozen spots, more or less, in the printed
gowns of these other children whom I first showed you, will not make the
smallest difference to them; nor a lock or two more or less in their
hair, nor a dimple or two more or less in their cheeks. But if you alter
one wave of the hair of Gainsborough's girl, the child is gone. Yet the
art is so subtle, that I do not expect you to believe this. It looks so
instinctive, so easy, so 'chanceux,'--the French word is better than
ours. Yes, and in their more accurate sense, also, 'Il a de la chance.'
A stronger Designer than he was with him. He could not tell you himself
how the thing was done.
145. I proceed to take a more definite instance--this Greek head of the
Lacinian Juno. The design or appointing of the forms now entirely
prevails over the resemblance to Nature. No real hair could ever be
drifted into these wild lines, which mean the wrath of the Adriatic
winds round the Cape of Storms.
And yet, whether this be uglier or prettier than Gainsborough's
child--(and you know already what I think about it, that no Greek
goddess was ever half so pretty as an English girl, of pure clay and
temper,)--uglier or prettier, it is more dignified and impressive. It at
least belongs to the domain of a lordlier, more majestic, more guiding
and ordaining art.
146. I will go back another five hundred years, and place an Egyptian
beside the Greek divinity. The resemblance to Nature is now all but
lost, the ruling law has become all. The lines are reduced to an easily
counted number, and their arrangement is little more than a decorative
sequence of pleasant curves cut in porphyry,--in the upper part of
their contour following the outline of a woman's face in profile,
over-crested by that of a hawk, on a kind of pedestal. But that the
sign-engraver meant by his hawk, Immortality, and by her pedestal, the
House or Tavern of Truth, is of little importance now to the passing
traveler, not yet preparing to take the sarcophagus for his place of
rest.
147. How many questions are suggested to us by these transitions! Is
beauty contrary to law, and grace attainable only through license? What
we gain in language, shall we lose in thought? and in what we add of
labor, more and more forget its ends?
Not so.
Look at this piece of Sandro's work, the Libyan Sibyl.[AH]
It is as ordered and normal as the Egyptian's--as graceful and facile as
Gainsborough's. It retains the majesty of old religion; it is invested
with the joy of newly awakened childhood.
Mind, I do not expect you--do not wish you--to enjoy Botticelli's dark
engraving as much as Gainsborough's aerial sketch; for due comparison of
the men, painting should be put beside painting. But there is enough
even in this copy of the Florentine plate to show you the junction of
the two powers in it--of prophecy, and delight.