REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. PART II.

Having shown that the standard of Taste is in the Truth of Nature, and

that this truth is in the mind, Sir Joshua, in the Eighth Discourse,

proceeds to a further development of the principles of art. These

principles, whether poetry or painting, have their foundation in the

mind; which by its sensitive faculties and intellectual requirements,

remodels all that it receives from the external world, vivifying and

characterizing all with itself, and thus bringing forth into light the

more beautiful but latent creations of nature. The "activity and

restlessness" of the mind seek satisfaction from curiosity, novelty,

variety, and contrast. Curiosity, "the anxiety for the future, the

keeping the event suspended," he considers to be exclusively the

province of poetry, and that "the painter's art is more confined, and

has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this

power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally

engaged. What is done by painting must be done at one blow; curiosity

has received at once all the satisfaction it can have." Novelty,

variety, and contrast, however, belong to the painter. That poetry has

this power, and operates by more extensively raising our curiosity,

cannot be denied; but we hesitate in altogether excluding this power

from painting. A momentary action may be so represented, as to elicit a

desire for, and even an intimation of its event. It is true _that_

curiosity cannot be satisfied, but it works and conjectures; and we

suspect there is something of it in most good pictures. Take such a

subject as the "Judgment of Solomon:" is not the "event suspended," and

a breathless anxiety portrayed in the characters, and freely

acknowledged by the sympathy of the spectator? Is there no mark of this

"curiosity" in the "Cartoon of Pisa?" The trumpet has sounded, the

soldiers are some half-dressed, some out of the water, others bathing;

one is anxiously looking for the rising of his companion, who has just

plunged in, and we see but his hands above the water; the very range of

rocks, behind which the danger is shown to come, tends to excite our

curiosity; we form conjectures of the enemy, their number, nearness of

approach, and from among the manly warriors before us form episodes of

heroism in the great intimated epic: and have we not seen pictures by

Rembrandt, where "curiosity" delights to search unsatisfied and

unsatiated into the mysteries of colour and chiaro-scuro, receding

further as we look into an atmosphere pregnant with all uncertain

things? We think we have not mistaken the President's meaning. Mr Burnet

appears to agree with us: though he makes no remark upon the power of

raising curiosity, yet it surely is raised in the very picture to which

we presume he alludes, Raffaelle's "Death of Ananias;" the event, in

Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the

painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses

that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most

effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only

those circumstances which precede it, _but its effects upon the_

personages introduced after the catastrophe."

There is, however, a natural indolence of our disposition, which seeks

pleasure in repose, and the resting in old habits, which must not be too

violently opposed by "variety," "reanimating the attention, which is apt

to languish under a continual sameness;" nor by "novelty," making "more

forcible impression on the mind than can be made by the representation

of what we have often seen before;" nor by "contrasts," that "rouse the

power of comparison by opposition."

The mind, then, though an active principle, having likewise a

disposition to indolence, (might we have said repose?) limits the

quantity of variety, novelty, and contrast which it will bear;--these

are, therefore, liable to excesses. Hence arise certain rules of art,

that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into

many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to

find the principal action. Nor must there be that "absolute unity,"

"which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as

defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents

to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires." Sir

Joshua instances Rembrandt and Poussin, the former as having the defect

of "absolute unity," the latter the defect of the dispersion and

scattering his figures without attention to their grouping. Hence there

must be "the same just moderation observed in regard to ornaments;" for

a certain repose must never be destroyed. Ornament in profusion, whether

of objects or colours, does destroy it; and, "on the other hand, a work

without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which it makes pretensions,

has rather the appearance of poverty." "We may be sure of this truth,

that the most ornamental style requires repose to set off even its

ornaments to advantage." He instances, in the dialogue between Duncan

and Banquo, Shakspeare's purpose of repose--the mention of the martlets'

nests, and that "where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is

delicate;" and the practice of Homer, "who, from the midst of battles

and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by

introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic

life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to

decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the

stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the

brilliant."[10]

[10] Could Sir Joshua now be permitted to visit his own

Academy, and our exhibitions in general, he would be startled

at the excess of ornament, in defiance of his rule of repose,

succeeding the slovenliness of his own day. Whatever be the

subject, history, landscape, or familiar life, it superabounds

both in objects and colour. In established academies, the

faults of genius are more readily adopted than their

excellences; they are more vulgarly perceptible, and more easy

of imitation. We have, therefore, less hesitation in referring

the more ambitious of our artists to this prohibition in Sir

Joshua's Discourse. The greater the authority the more

injurious the delinquency. We therefore adduce as examples,

works of our most inventive and able artist, his "Macbeth" and

his "Hamlet"--they are greatly overloaded with the faults of

superabundance of ornament, and want unity; yet are they works

of great power, and such as none but a painter of high genius

could conceive or execute. In a more fanciful subject, and

where ornament was more admissible, he has been more fortunate,

and even in the multiplicity of his figures and ornaments, by

their grouping and management, he has preserved a seeming

moderation, and has so ordered his composition that the

wholeness, the simplicity, of his subject is not destroyed. The

story is told, and admirably--as Sir Joshua says, "at one

blow." We speak of his "Sleeping Beauty." We see at once that

the prince and princess are the principal, and they are united

by that light and fainter fairy chain intimating, yet not too

prominently, the magic under whose working and whose light the

whole scene is; nothing can be better conceived than the

prince--there is a largeness in the manner, a breadth in the

execution of the figure that considerably dignifies the story,

and makes him, the principal, a proper index of it. The many

groups are all episodes, beautiful in themselves, and in no way

injure the simplicity. There is novelty, variety, and contrast

in not undue proportion, because that simplicity is preserved.

Even the colouring, (though there is too much white,) and

chiaro-scuro, with its gorgeousness, is in the stillness of

repose, and a sunny repose, too, befitting the "Sleeping

Beauty." Mr Maclise has succeeded best where his difficulty and

danger were greatest, and so it ever is with genius. It is not

in such subjects alone that our artists transgress Sir Joshua's

rule; we too often see portraits where the dress and

accessaries obtrude--there is too much lace and too little

expression--and our painters of views follow the fashion most

unaccountably--ornament is every where; we have not a town

where the houses are not "turned out of windows," and all the

furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to

show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist's

own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every

other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging

from the windows. We have even seen a "Rag Fair" in a turnpike

road.

Novelty, Variety, and Contrast are required in Art, because they are the

natural springs that move the mind to attention from its indolent

quiescence; but having moved, their duty is performed--the mind of

itself will do the rest; they must not act prominent parts. In every

work there must be a simplicity which binds the whole together, as a

whole; and whatever comes not within that girdle of the graces, is worse

than superfluous--it draws off and distracts the attention which should

be concentrated. Besides that simplicity which we have spoken of--and we

have used the word in its technical sense, as that which keeps together

and makes one thing of many parts--there is a simplicity which is best

known by its opposite, affectation; upon this Sir Joshua enlarges.

"Simplicity, being a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined."

But it is possible, even in avoiding affectation, to convert simplicity

into the very thing we strive to avoid. N. Poussin--whom, with regard to

this virtue, he contrasts with others of the French school--Sir Joshua

considers, in his abhorrence of the affectation of his countrymen,

somewhat to approach it, by "what in writing would be called pedantry."

Du Piles is justly censured for his recipe of grace and dignity. "If,"

says he, "you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to

be drawn in such an attitude that the portraits must seem to speak to

us of themselves, and as it were to say to us, 'Stop, take notice of

me--I am the invincible king, surrounded by majesty.' 'I am the valiant

commander who struck terror every where,' 'I am that great minister, who

knew all the springs of politics.' 'I am that magistrate of consummate

wisdom and probity.'" This is indeed affectation, and a very vulgar

notion of greatness. We are reminded of Partridge, and his admiration of

the overacting king. All the characters in thus seeming to say, would be

little indeed. Not so Raffaelle and Titian understood grace and dignity.

Simplicity he holds to be "our barrier against that great enemy to truth

and nature, affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, and ready

to drop and poison every thing it touches." Yet that, "when so very

inartificial as to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very

suspicious virtue." Sir Joshua dwells much upon this, because he thinks

there is a perpetual tendency in young artists to run into affectation,

and that from the very terms of the precepts offered them. "When a young

artist is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be

contrasted; that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the

body, in order to produce grace and animation; that his outline must be

undulating and swelling, to give grandeur; and that the eye must be

gratified with a variety of colours; when he is told this with certain

animating words of spirit, dignity, energy, greatness of style, and

brilliancy of tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired

knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules too far. It is then

that the aid of simplicity ought to be called in to correct the

exuberance of youthful ardour." We may add that hereby, too, is shown

the danger of particular and practical rules; very few of the kind are

to be found in the "Discourses." Indeed the President points out, by

examples from Raffaelle, the good effect of setting aside these

academical rules. We suspect that they are never less wanted than when

they give direction to attitudes and forms of action. He admits that, in

order "to excite attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified

manner," he had perhaps left "an impression too contemptuous of the

ornamental parts of our art." He had, to use his own expression, bent

the bow the contrary way to make it straight. "For this purpose, then,

and to correct excess or neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it

is not enough that a work be learned--it must be pleasing." Pretty much

as Horace had said of poetry,

"Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, _dulcia_ sunto."

To which maxim the Latin poet has unconsciously given the grace of

rhyme--

"Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto."

He again shows the danger of particular practical rules.--"It is given

as a rule by Fresnoy, that '_the principal figure of a subject must

appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to

distinguish it from the rest._' A painter who should think himself

obliged strictly to follow this rule, would encumber himself with

needless difficulties; he would be confined to great uniformity of

composition, and be deprived of many beauties which are incompatible

with its observance. The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to

extend, no further than this: that the principal figure should be

immediately distinguished at the first glance of the eye; but there is

no necessity that the principal light should fall on the principal

figure, or that the principal figure should be in the middle of the

picture." He might have added that it is the very place where generally

it ought not to be. Many examples are given; we could have wished he had

given a plate from any one in preference to that from Le Brun. Felebein,

in praising this picture, according to preconceived recipe, gives

Alexander, who is in shade, the principal light. "Another instance

occurs to me where equal liberty may be taken in regard to the

management of light. Though the general practice is to make a large mass

about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be

practised, and _the spirit of the rule be preserved_." We have marked in

italics the latter part of the sentence, because it shows that the rule

itself must be ill-defined or too particular. Indeed, we receive with

caution all such rules as belong to the practical and mechanical of the

art. He instances Paul Veronese. "In the great composition of Paul

Veronese, the 'Marriage of Cana,' the figures are for the most part in

half shadow. The great light is in the sky; and indeed the general

effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we

often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts:

but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large

scale, to a space containing near a hundred figures as large as life,

and conducted, to all appearance, with as much facility, and with

attention as steadily fixed upon _the whole together_, as if it were a

small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our

admiration, the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged."

We suspect that _the rule_, when it attempts to direct beyond the words

Sir Joshua has marked in italics, refutes itself, and shackles the

student. Infinite must be the modes of composition, and as infinite the

modes of treating them in light and shadow and colour. "Whatever mode of

composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable." All

that is absolutely necessary is, that there be no confusion or

distraction, no conflicting masses--in fact, that the picture tell its

tale at once and effectually. A very good plate is given by Mr Burnet of

the "Marriage of Cana," by Paul Veronese. Sir Joshua avoids entering

upon rules that belong to "the detail of the art." He meets with

combatants, as might have been expected, where he is thus particular. We

will extract the passage which has been controverted, and to oppose the

doctrine of which, Gainsborough painted his celebrated "Blue Boy."

"Though it is not my _business_ to enter into the detail of our art, yet

I must take this opportunity of mentioning one of the means of producing

that great effect which we observe in the works of the Venetian

painters, as I think it is not generally known or observed, that the

masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow

red or yellowish white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green

colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to

support and set off these warm colours; and for this purpose a small

proportion of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be

reversed; let the light be cold, and the surrounding colours warm, as we

often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will

be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to

make a picture splendid and harmonious." Le Brun and Carlo Maratti are

censured as being "deficient in this management of colours." The

"Bacchus and Ariadne," now in our National Gallery, has ever been

celebrated for its harmony of colour. Sir Joshua supports his theory or

rule by the example of this picture: the red of Ariadne's scarf, which,

according to critics, was purposely given to relieve the figure from the

sea, has a better object. "The figure of Ariadne is separated from the

great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the

sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary

for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is

composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as

the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one

half cold and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the

mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and

a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly Titian gave Ariadne

a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchantes a little blue drapery." As

there is no picture more splendid, it is well to weigh and consider

again and again remarks upon the cause of the brilliancy, given by such

an authority as Sir Joshua Reynolds. With regard to his rule, even among

artists, "adhuc sub judice lis est." He combats the common notion of

relief, as belonging only to the infancy of the art, and shows the

advance made by Coreggio and Rembrandt; though the first manner of

Coreggio, as well as of Leonardo da Vinci and Georgione, was dry and

hard. "But these three were among the first who began to correct

themselves in dryness of style, by no longer considering relief as a

principal object. As these two qualities, relief and fulness of effect,

can hardly exist together, it is not very difficult to determine to

which we ought to give the preference." "Those painters who have best

understood the art of producing a good effect, have adopted one

principle that seems perfectly conformable to reason--that a part may be

sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, whether the masses consist

of light or shadow, it is necessary that they should be compact, and of

a pleasing shape; to this end some parts may be made darker and some

lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would warrant." He

instances a "Moonlight" by Rubens, now, we believe, in the possession of

Mr Rogers, in which Rubens had given more light and more glowing colours

than we recognize in nature,--"it might easily be mistaken, if he had

not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun." We stop not to

enquire if that harmony so praised, might not have been preserved had

the resemblance to nature been closer. Brilliancy is produced. The fact

is, the _practice_ of art is a system of compensation. We cannot exactly

in all cases represent nature,--we have not the means, but our means

will achieve what, though _particularly_ unlike, may, by itself or in

opposition, produce similar effects. Nature does not present a varnished

polished surface, nor that very transparency that our colours can give;

but it is found that this transparency, in all its degrees, in

conjunction and in opposition to opaque body of colour, represents the

force of light and shade of nature, which is the principal object to

attain. _The_ richness of nature is not the exact richness of the

palette. The painter's success is in the means of compensation.

This Discourse concludes with observations on the Prize pictures. The

subject seems to have been the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. All had copied

the invention of Timanthes, in hiding the face of Agamemnon. Sir Joshua

seems to agree with Mr Falconet, in a note in his translation of Pliny,

who would condemn the painter, but that he copied the idea from the

authority of Euripides; Sir Joshua considers it at best a trick, that

can only with success be practised once. Mr Fuseli criticises the

passage, and assumes that the painter had better reason than that given

by Mr Falconet. Mr Burnet has added but two or three notes to this

Discourse--they are unimportant, with the exception of the last, wherein

he combats Sir Joshua's theory of the cold and warm colours. He candidly

prints an extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence, who differs with

him. It is so elegantly written that we quote the passage. Sir Thomas

says,--"Agreeing with you in so many points, I will venture to differ

from you in your question with Sir Joshua. Infinitely various as nature

is, there are still two or three truths that limit her variety, or,

rather, that limit art in the imitation of her. I should instance for

one the ascendency of white objects, which can never be departed from

with impunity, and again, the union of colour with light. Masterly as

the execution of that picture is (viz. the Boy in a blue dress,) I

always feel a never-changing impression on my eye, that the "Blue Boy"

of Gainsborough is a difficulty boldly combated, not conquered. The

light blue drapery of the Virgin in the centre of the "Notte" is

another instance; a check to the harmony of the celestial radiance round

it." "Opposed to Sir Thomas's opinion," says Mr Burnet, "I might quote

that of Sir David Wilkie, often expressed, and carried out in his

picture of the 'Chelsea Pensioners' and other works." It strikes us,

from our recollection of the "Chelsea Pensioners," that it is not at all

a case in point; the blue there not being light but dark, and serving as

dark, forcibly contrasting with warmer light in sky and other objects;

the _colour_ of blue is scarcely given, and is too dark to be allowed to

enter into the question. He adds, "A very simple method may be adopted

to enable the student to perceive where the warm and red colours are

placed by the great colourists, by his making a sketch of light and

shade of the picture, and then touching in the warm colours with red

chalk; or by looking on his palette at twilight, he will see what

colours absorb the light, and those that give it out, and thus select

for his shadows, colours that have the property of giving depth and

richness." Unless the pictures are intended to be seen at twilight, we

do not see how this can bear upon the question; if it does, we would

notice what we have often observed, that at twilight blue almost

entirely disappears, to such a degree that in a landscape where the blue

has even been deep, and the sky by no means the lightest part of the

picture, at twilight the whole landscape comes out too hard upon the

sky, which with its colour has lost its tone, and become, with relation

to the rest, by far too light. It is said that of all the pictures in

the National Gallery, when seen at twilight, the Coreggios retire

last--we speak of the two, the "Ecce Homo" and the "Venus, Mercury, and

Cupid." In these there is no blue but in the drapery of the fainting

mother, and that is so dark as to serve for black or mere shadow; the

lighter blue close upon the neck is too small to affect the power of the

picture. It certainly is a fact, that blue fades more than any colour at

twilight, and, relatively speaking, leaves the image that contains it

lighter. We should almost be inclined to ask the question, though with

great deference to authority, is blue, when very light, necessarily

cold; and if so, has it not an activity which, being the great quality

of light, assimilates it with light, and thus takes in to itself the

surrounding "radiance?" A very little positive warm colour, as it were

set in blue, from whatever cause, gives it a surprising glow. We desire

to see the theory of colours treated, not with regard to their

corresponding harmony in their power one upon the other, nor in their

light and shadow, but, if we may so express it, in their

sentimentality--the effect they are capable of in moving the passions.

We alluded to this in our last paper, and the more we consider the

subject, the more we convinced that it is worth deeper investigation.

* * * * *

The NINTH DISCOURSE is short, and general in its character; it was

delivered at the opening of the Royal Academy in Somerset Place, October

16, 1780. It is an elegant address; raises the aim of the artist; and

gives a summary of the origin of arts and their use. "Let us for a

moment take a short survey of the progress of the mind towards what is,

or ought to be, its true object of attention. Man in his lowest state

has no pleasures but those of sense, and no wants but those of appetite;

afterwards, when society is divided into different ranks, and some are

appointed to labour for the support of others, those whom their

superiority sets free from labour begin to look for intellectual

entertainments. Thus, while the shepherds were attending their flocks,

their masters made the first astronomical observations; so music is said

to have had its origin from a man at leisure listening to the strokes of

a hammer. As the senses in the lowest state of nature are necessary to

direct us to our support, when that support is once secure, there is

danger in following them further; to him who has no rule of action but

the gratification of the senses, plenty is always dangerous. It is

therefore necessary to the happiness of individuals, and still more

necessary to the security of society, that the mind should be elevated

to the idea of general beauty, and the contemplation of general truth;

by this pursuit the mind is always carried forward in search of

something more excellent than it finds, and obtains its proper

superiority over the common sense of life, by learning to feel itself

capable of higher aims and nobler enjoyments." This is well said.

Again.--"Our art, like all arts which address the imagination, is

applied to a somewhat lower faculty of the mind, which approaches nearer

to sensuality, but through sense and fancy it must make its way to

reason. For such is the progress of thought, that we perceive by sense,

we combine by fancy, and distinguish by reason; and without carrying our

art out of its natural and true character, the more we purify it from

every thing that is gross in sense, in that proportion we advance its

use and dignity, and in proportion as we lower it to mere sensuality, we

pervert its nature, and degrade it from the rank of a liberal art; and

this is what every artist ought well to remember. Let him remember,

also, that he deserves just so much encouragement in the state as he

makes himself a member of it virtuously useful, and contributes in his

sphere to the general purpose and perfection of society." Sir Joshua has

been blamed by those who have taken lower views of art, in that he has

exclusively treated of the Great Style, which neither he nor the

academicians of his day practised; but he would have been unworthy the

presidential chair had he taken any other line. His was a noble effort,

to assume for art the highest position, to dignify it in its aim, and

thus to honour and improve first his country, then all human kind. We

rise from such passages as these elevated above all that is little.

Those only can feel depressed who would find excuses for the lowness of

their pursuits.

* * * * *

The TENTH DISCOURSE.--Sir Joshua here treats of Sculpture, a less

extensive field than Painting. The leading principles of both are the

same; he considers wherein they agree, and wherein they differ.

Sculpture cannot, "with propriety and best effect, be applied to many

subjects." Its object is "form and character." It has "one style

only,"--that one style has relation only to one style of painting, the

Great Style, but that so close as to differ only as operating upon

different materials. He blames the sculptors of the last age, who

thought they were improving by borrowing from the ornamental,

incompatible with its essential character. Contrasts, and the

littlenesses of picturesque effects, are injurious to the formality its

austere character requires. As in painting, so more particularly in

sculpture, that imitation of nature which we call illusion, is in no

respect its excellence, nor indeed its aim. Were it so, the Venus di

Medici would be improved by colour. It contemplates a higher, a more

perfect beauty, more an intellectual than sensual enjoyment. The

boundaries of the art have been long fixed. To convey "sentiment and

character, as exhibited by attitude, and expression of the passions," is

not within its province. Beauty of form alone, the object of sculpture,

"makes of itself a great work." In proof of which are the designs of

Michael Angelo in both arts. As a stronger instance:--"What artist,"

says he, "ever looked at the Torso without feeling a warmth of

enthusiasm as from the highest efforts of poetry? From whence does this

proceed? What is there in this fragment that produces this effect, but

the perfection of this science of abstract form?" Mr Burnet has given a

plate of the Torso. The expectation of deception, of which few divest

themselves, is an impediment to the judgment, consequently to the

enjoyment of sculpture. "Its essence is correctness." It fully

accomplishes its purpose when it adds the "ornament of grace, dignity of

character, and appropriated expression, as in the Apollo, the Venus, the

Laocoon, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many others." Sir Joshua uses

expression as will be afterwards seen, in a very limited sense. It is

necessary to lay down perfect correctness as its essential character;

because, as in the case of the Apollo, many have asserted the beauty to

arise from a certain incorrectness in anatomy and proportion. He denies

that there is this incorrectness, and asserts that there never ought to

be; and that even in painting these are not the beauties, but defects,

in the works of Coreggio and Parmegiano. "A supposition of such a

monster as Grace begot by Deformity, is poison to the mind of a young

artist." The Apollo and the Discobolus are engaged in the same

purpose--the one watching the effect of his arrow, the other of his

discus. "The graceful, negligent, though animated air of the one, and

the vulgar eagerness of the other, furnish a signal instance of the

skill of the ancient sculptors in their nice discrimination of

character. They are both equally true to nature, and equally admirable."

Grace, character, and expression, are rather in form and attitude than

in features; the general figure more presents itself; "it is there we

must principally look for expression or character; _patuit in corpore

vultus_." The expression in the countenances of the Laocoon and his two

sons, though greater than in any other antique statues, is of pain only;

and that is more expressed "by the writhing and contortion of the body

than by the features." The ancient sculptors paid but little regard to

features for their expression, their object being solely beauty of form.

"Take away from Apollo his lyre, from Bacchus his thyrsus and

vine-leaves, and from Meleager the boar's head, and there will remain

little or no difference in their characters." John di Bologna, he tells

us, after he had finished a group, called his friends together to tell

him what name to give it: they called it the "Rape of the Sabines." A

similar anecdote is told of Sir Joshua himself, that he had painted the

head of the old man who attended him in his studio. Some one observed

that it would make a Ugolino. The sons were added, and it became the

well-known historical picture from Dante. He comments upon the

ineffectual attempts of modern sculptors to detach drapery from the

figure, to give it the appearance of flying in the air; to make

different plans on the same bas-relievos; to represent the effects of

perspective; to clothe in a modern dress. For the first attempt he

reprehends Bernini, who, from want of a right conception of the province

of sculpture, never fulfilled the promise given in his early work of

Apollo and Daphne. He was ever attempting to make drapery flutter in the

air, which the very massiveness of the material, stone, should seem to

forbid. Sir Joshua does not notice the very high authority for such an

attempt--though it must be confessed the material was not stone, still

it was sculpture, and multitudinous are the graces of ornament, and most

minutely described--the shield of Hercules, by Hesiod; even the noise of

the furies' wings is affected. The drapery of the Apollo he considers to

have been intended more for support than ornament; but the mantle from

the arm he thinks "answers a much higher purpose, by preventing that

dryness of effect which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended

almost at full length; to which we may add, the disagreeable effect

which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle." He

conjectures that Carlo Maratti, in his love for drapery, must have

influenced the sculptors of the Apostles in the church of St John

Lateran. "The weight and solidity of stone was not to be overcome."

To place figures on different plans is absurd, because they must still

appear all equally near the eye; the sculptor has not adequate means of

throwing them back; and, besides, the thus cutting up into minute parts,

destroys grandeur. "Perhaps the only circumstance in which the modern

have excelled the ancient sculptors, is the management of a single group

in basso-relievo." This, he thinks, may have been suggested by the

practice of modern painters. The attempt at perspective must, for the

same reason, be absurd; the sculptor has not the means for this "humble

ambition." The ancients represented only the elevation of whatever

architecture they introduced into their bas-reliefs, "which is composed

of little more than horizontal and perpendicular lines." Upon the

attempt at modern dress in sculpture, he is severe in his censure.

"Working in stone is a very serious business, and it seems to be scarce

worth while to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a

fashion, of which the longest existence scarcely exceeds a year;" and

which, he might have added, the succeeding year makes ridiculous. We not

only change our dresses, but laugh at the sight of those we have

discarded. The gravity of sculpture should not be subject to contempt.

"The uniformity and simplicity of the materials on which the sculptor

labours, (which are only white marble,) prescribe bounds to his art, and

teach him to confine himself to proportionable simplicity of design." Mr

Burnet has not given a better note than that upon Sir Joshua's remark,

that sculpture has but one style. He shows how strongly the ancient

sculptors marked those points wherein the human figure differs from that

of other animals. "Let us take, for example, the human foot; on

examining, in the first instance, those of many animals, we perceive the

toes either very long or very short in proportion; of an equal size

nearly, and the claws often long and hooked inwards: now, in rude

sculpture, and even in some of the best of the Egyptians, we find little

attempt at giving a character of decided variation; but, on the

contrary, we see the foot split up with toes of an equal length and

thickness; while, in Greek sculpture, these points characteristic of man

are increased, that the affinity to animals may be diminished. In the

Greek marbles, the great toe is large and apart from the others, where

the strap of the sandal came; while the others gradually diminish and

sweep round to the outside of the foot, with the greatest regularity of

curve; the nails are short, and the toes broad at the points, indicative

of pressure on the ground." Rigidity he considers to have been the

character of the first epochs, changing ultimately as in the Elgin

marbles, "from the hard characteristics of stone to the vivified

character of flesh." He thinks Reynolds "would have acknowledged the

supremacy of beautiful nature, uncontrolled by the severe line of

mathematical exactness," had he lived to see the Elgin marbles. "The

outline of life, which changes under every respiration, seems to have

undulated under the plastic mould of Phidias." This is well expressed.

He justly animadverts upon the silly fashion of the day, in lauding the

vulgar imitation of the worsted stockings by Thom. The subjects chosen

were most unfit for sculpture,--their only immortality must be in Burns.

We do not understand his extreme admiration of Wilkie; in a note on

parallel perspective in sculpture, he adduces Raffaelle as an example of

the practice, and closes by comparing him with Sir David Wilkie,--"known

by the appellation of the Raffaelle of familiar life,"--men perfect

antipodes to each other! There is a proper eulogy on Chantrey,

particularly for his busts, in which he commonly represented the eye. We

are most anxious for the arrival of the ancient sculpture from Lycia,

collected and packed for Government by the indefatigable and able

traveller, Mr Fellowes.

* * * * *

The ELEVENTH DISCOURSE is upon Genius, the particular genius of the

painter in his power of seizing and representing nature, or his subject

as a whole. He calls it the "genius of mechanical performance." This,

with little difference, is enforcing what has been laid down in former

Discourses. Indeed, as far as precepts may be required, Sir Joshua had

already performed his task; hence, there is necessary repetition. Yet

all is said well, and conviction perpetuates the impressions previously

made. Character is something independent of minute detail; genius alone

knows what constitutes this character, and practically to represent it,

is to be a painter of genius. Though it be true that he "who does not at

all express particulars expresses nothing; yet it is certain that a nice

discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of

them, whatever excellence it may have, (and I do not mean to detract

from it,) never did confer on the artist the character of genius." The

impression left upon the mind is not of particulars, when it would seem

to be so; such particulars are taken out of the subject, and are each a

whole of themselves. Practically speaking, as we before observed, genius

will be exerted in ascertaining how to paint the "_nothing_" in every

picture, to satisfy with regard to detail, that neither its absence nor

its presence shall be noticeable.

Our pleasure is not in minute imitation; for, in fact, that is not true

imitation, for it forces upon our notice that which naturally we do not

see. We are not pleased with wax-work, which may be nearer reality; "we

are pleased, on the contrary, by seeing ends accomplished by seemingly

inadequate means." If this be sound, we ought to be sensible of the

inadequacy of the means, which sets aside at once the common notion that

art is illusion. "The properties of all objects, as far as the painter

is concerned with them, are outline or drawing, the colour, and the

light and shade. The drawing gives the form, the colour its visible

quality, and the light and shade its solidity:" in every one of these

the habit of seeing as a whole must be acquired. From this habit arises

the power of imitating by "dexterous methods." He proceeds to show that

the fame of the greatest painters does not rest upon their high finish.

Raffaelle and Titian, one in drawing the other in colour, by no means

finished highly; but acquired by their genius an expressive execution.

Most of his subsequent remarks are upon practice in execution and

colour, in contradistinction to elaborate finish. Vasari calls Titian,

"giudicioso, bello, e stupendo," with regard to this power. He

generalized by colour, and by execution. "In his colouring, he was large

and general." By these epithets, we think Sir Joshua has admitted that

the great style comprehends colouring. "Whether it is the human figure,

an animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however

unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey

sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius." He

condemns that high finish which softens off. "This extreme softening,

instead of producing the effect of softness, gives the appearance of

ivory, or some other hard substance, highly polished. The value set upon

drawings, such as of Coreggio and Parmegiano, which are but slight, show

how much satisfaction can be given without high finishing, or minute

attention to particulars. "I wish you to bear in mind, that when I speak

of a whole, I do not mean simply _a whole_ as belonging to composition,

but _a whole_ with respect to the general style of colouring; _a whole_

with regard to light and shade; and _a whole_ of every thing which may

separately become the main object of a painter. He speaks of a landscape

painter in Rome, who endeavoured to represent every individual leaf upon

a tree; a few happy touches would have given a more true resemblance.

There is always a largeness and a freedom in happy execution, that

finish can never attain. Sir Joshua says above, that even "unpromising"

subjects may be thus treated. There is a painter commonly thought to

have finished highly, by those who do not look into his manner, whose

dexterous, happy execution was perhaps never surpassed; the consequence

is, that there is "a largeness," in all his pictures. We mean Teniers.

The effect of the elaborate work that has been added to his class of

subjects, is to make them heavy and fatiguing to the eye. He praises

Titian for the same large manner which he had given to his history and

portraits, applied to his landscapes, and instances the back-ground to

the "Peter Martyr." He recommends the same practice in portrait

painting--the first thing to be attained, is largeness and general

effect. The following puts the truth clearly. "Perhaps nothing that we

can say will so clearly show the advantage and excellence of this

faculty, as that it confers the character of genius on works that

pretend to no other merit, in which is neither expression, character,

nor dignity, and where none are interested in the subject. We cannot

refuse the character of genius to the 'Marriage' of Paolo Veronese,

without opposing the general sense of mankind, (great authorities have

called it the triumph of painting,) or to the Altar of St Augustine at

Antwerp, by Rubens, which equally deserves that title, and for the same

reason. Neither of these pictures have any interesting story to support

them. That of Paolo Veronese is only a representation of a great

concourse of people at a dinner; and the subject of Rubens, if it may be

called a subject where nothing is doing, is an assembly of various

saints that lived in different ages. The whole excellence of those

pictures consists in mechanical dexterity, working, however, under the

influence of that comprehensive faculty which I have so often

mentioned."

The power of _a whole_ is exemplified by the anecdote of a child going

through a gallery of old portraits. She paid very little attention to

the finishing, or naturalness of drapery, but put herself at once to

mimic the awkward attitudes. "The censure of nature uninformed, fastened

upon the greatest fault that could be in a picture, because it related

to the character and management of the whole." What he would condemn is

that substitute for deep and proper study, which is to enable the

painter to conceive and execute every subject as a whole, and a finish

which Cowley calls "laborious effects of idleness." He concludes this

Discourse with some hints on method of study. Many go to Italy to copy

pictures, and derive little advantage. "The great business of study is,

to form a mind adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions, to

which all nature is then laid open, and which may be said to possess the

key of her inexhaustible riches."

Mr Burnet has supplied a plate of the Monk flying from the scene of

murder, in Titian's "Peter Martyr," showing how that great painter could

occasionally adopt the style of Michael Angelo in his forms. In the same

note he observes, that Sir Joshua had forgotten the detail of this

picture, which detail is noticed and praised by Algarotti, for its

minute discrimination of leaves and plants, "even to excite the

admiration of a botanist."--Sir Joshua said they were not there. Mr

Burnet examined the picture at Paris, and found, indeed, the detail, but

adds, that "they are made out with the same hue as the general tint of

the ground, which is a dull brown," an exemplification of the rule, "Ars

est celare artem." Mr Burnet remarks, that there is the same minute

detail in Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne."--He is right--we have noticed

it, and suspected that it had lost the glazing which had subdued it. As

it is, however, it is not important. Mr Burnet is fearful lest the

authority of Sir Joshua should induce a habit of generalizing too much.

He expresses this fear in another note. He says, "the great eagerness to

acquire what the poet calls

'That voluntary style,

Which careless plays, and seems to mock at toil,'

and which Reynolds describes as so captivating, has led many a student

to commence his career at the wrong end. They ought to remember, that

even Rubens founded this excellence upon years of laborious and careful

study. His picture of himself and his first wife, though the size of

life, exhibits all the detail and finish of Holbein." Sir Joshua nowhere

recommends _careless_ style; on the contrary, he every where urges the

student to laborious toil, in order that he may acquire that facility

which Sir Joshua so justly calls captivating, and which afterwards

Rubens himself did acquire, by studying it in the works of Titian and

Paul Veronese; and singularly, in contradiction to his fears and all he

would imply, Mr Burnet terminates his passage thus:--"Nor did he

(Rubens) quit the dry manner of Otho Venius, till a contemplation of the

works of Titian and Paul Veronese enabled him to display with rapidity

those materials which industry had collected." It is strange to argue

upon the abuse of a precept, by taking it at the wrong end.

* * * * *

The TWELFTH DISCOURSE recurs likewise to much that had been before laid

down. It treats of methods of study, upon which he had been consulted by

artists about to visit Italy. Particular methods of study he considers

of little consequence; study must not be shackled by too much method. If

the painter loves his art, he will not require prescribed tasks;--to go

about which sluggishly, which he will do if he have another impulse, can

be of little advantage. Hence would follow, as he admirably expresses

it, "a reluctant understanding," and a "servile hand." He supposes,

however, the student to be somewhat advanced. The boy, like other

school-boys, must be under restraint, and learn the "Grammar and

Rudiments" laboriously. It is not such who travel for knowledge. The

student, he thinks, may be pretty much left to himself; if he undertake

things above his strength, it is better he should run the risk of

discouragement thereby, than acquire "a slow proficiency" by "too easy

tasks." He has little confidence in the efficacy of method, "in

acquiring excellence in any art whatever." Methodical studies, with all

their apparatus, enquiry, and mechanical labour, tend too often but "to

evade and shuffle off real labour--the real labour of thinking." He has

ever avoided giving particular directions. He has found students who

have imagined they could make "prodigious progress under some particular

eminent master." Such would lean on any but themselves. "After the

Rudiments are past, very little of our art can be taught by others." A

student ought to have a just and manly confidence in himself, "or rather

in the persevering industry which he is resolved to possess." Raffaelle

had done nothing, and was quite young, when fixed upon to adorn the

Vatican with his works; he had even to direct the best artists of his

age. He had a meek and gentle disposition, but it was not inconsistent

with that manly confidence that insured him success--a confidence in

himself arising from a consciousness of power, and a determination to

exert it. The result is "in perpetuum."--There are, however, artists who

have too much self-confidence, that is ill-founded confidence, founded

rather upon a certain dexterity than upon a habit of thought; they are

like the improvisatori in poetry; and most commonly, as Metastasio

acknowledged of himself, had much to unlearn, to acquire a habit of

thinking with selection. To be able to draw and to design with rapidity,

is, indeed, to be master of the grammar of art; but in the completion,

and in the final settlement of the design, the portfolio must again and

again have been turned over, and the nicest judgment exercised. This

judgment is the result of deep study and intenseness of thought--thought

not only upon the artist's own inventions, but those of others. Luca

Giordano and La Fage are brought as examples of great dexterity and

readiness of invention--but of little selection; for they borrowed very

little from others: and still less will any artist, that can distinguish

between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. Raffaelle, who

had no lack of invention, took the greatest pains to select; and when

designing "his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons," he had

before him studies he had made from Masaccio. He borrowed from him "two

noble figures of St Paul." The only alteration he made was in the

showing both hands, which he thought in a principal figure should never

be omitted. Masaccio's work was well known; Raffaelle was not ashamed to

have borrowed. "Such men, surely, need not be ashamed of that friendly

intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the

dead, and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn.

The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the

great works of his predecessors. 'Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non

fit draco.'" The fact is, the most self-sufficient of men are greater

borrowers than they will admit, or perhaps know; their very novelties,

if they have any, commence upon the thoughts of others, which are laid

down as a foundation in their own minds. The common sense, which is

called "common property," is that stock which all that have gone before

us have left behind them; and we are but admitted to the heirship of

what they have acquired. Masaccio Sir Joshua considers to have been "one

of the great fathers of modern art." He was the first who gave

largeness, and "discovered the path that leads to every excellence to

which the art afterwards arrived." It is enough to say of him, that

Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle,

Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga, formed

their taste by studying his works. "An artist-like mind" is best formed

by studying the works of great artists. It is a good practice to

consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take

in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his "Sergius Paulus," from Masaccio.

Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing,

which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this

his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if

Raffaelle could have improved; but "he had the address to change in some

measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character." For a

serene composed dignity, he has given animation suited to their

employment. "In the same manner, he has given more animation to the

figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is introduced in the picture

of Paul preaching, of which little more than hints are given by

Masaccio, which Raffaelle has finished. The closing the eyes of this

figure, which in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not

in the least ambiguous in the Cartoon. His eyes, indeed are closed, but

they are closed with such vehemence, that the agitation of a mind

_perplexed in the extreme_ is seen at the first glance; but what is most

extraordinary, and I think particularly to be admired, is, that the same

idea is continued through the whole figure, even to the drapery, which

is so closely muffled about him, that even his hands are not seen: By

this happy correspondence between the expression of the countenance and

the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think from head to

foot. Men of superior talents alone are capable of thus using and

adapting other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able to make

out and finish what was only in the original a hint or imperfect

conception. A readiness in taking such hints, which escape the dull and

ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable part of that faculty

of mind which is called genius." He urges the student not even to think

himself qualified to invent, till he is well acquainted with the stores

of invention the world possesses; and insists that, without such study,

he will not have learned to select from nature. He has more than once

enforced this doctrine, because it is new. He recommends, even in

borrowing, however, an immediate recurrence to the model, that every

thing may be finished from nature. Hence he proceeds to give some

directions for placing the model and the drapery--first to impress upon

the model the purpose of the attitude required--next, to be careful not

to alter drapery with the hand, rather trusting, if defective, to a new

cast. There is much in being in the way of accident. To obtain the

freedom of accident Rembrandt put on his colours with his palette-knife;

a very common practice at the present day. "Works produced in an

accidental manner will have the same free unrestrained air as the works

of nature, whose particular combinations seem to depend upon accident."

He concludes this Discourse by more strenuously insisting upon the

necessity of ever having nature in view--and warns students by the

example of Boucher, Director of the French Academy, whom he saw working

upon a large picture, "without drawings or models of any kind." He had

left off the use of models many years. Though a man of ability, his

pictures showed the mischief of his practice. Mr Burnet's notes to this

Discourse add little to the material of criticism; they do but reiterate

in substance what Sir Joshua had himself sufficiently repeated. His

object seems rather to seize an opportunity of expressing his admiration

of Wilkie, whom he adduces as a parallel example with Raffaelle of

successful borrowing. It appears from the account given of Wilkie's

process, that he carried the practice much beyond Raffaelle. We cannot

conceive any thing _very_ good coming from so very methodical a manner

of setting to work. Would not the fire of genius be extinguished by the

coolness of the process? "When he had fixed upon his subject, he thought

upon _all_ pictures of that class already in existence." The after

process was most elaborate. Now, this we should think a practice quite

contrary to Raffaelle's, who more probably trusted to his own conception

for the character of his picture as a whole, and whose borrowing was

more of single figures; but, if of the whole manner of treating his

subject, it is not likely that he would have thought of more than one

work for his imitation. The fact is, Sir David Wilkie's pictures show

that he did carry this practice too far--for there is scarcely a picture

of his that does not show patches of imitations, that are not always

congruous with each other; there is too often in one piece, a bit of

Rembrandt, a bit of Velasquez, a bit of Ostade, or others. The most

perfect, as a whole, is his "Chelsea Pensioners." We do not quite

understand the brew of study fermenting an accumulation of knowledge,

and imagination exalting it. "An accumulation of knowledge impregnated

his mind, fermented by study, and exalted by imagination;" this is very

ambitious, but not very intelligible. He speaks of Wilkie attracting the

attention of admirers and detractors. It is very absurd to consider

criticism that is not always favourable, detraction. The following

passage is well put. "We constantly hear the ignorant advising a student

to study the great book of nature, without being biassed by what has

been done by other painters; it is as absurd as if they would recommend

a youth to learn astronomy by lying in the fields, and looking on the

stars, without reference to the works of Kepler, Tycho Brahe, or of

Newton." There is indeed a world of cant in the present day, that a man

must do all to his own unprejudiced reason, contemning all that has been

done before him. We have just now been looking at a pamphlet on

Materialism (a pamphlet of most ambitious verbiage,) in which, with

reference to all former education, we are "the slaves of prejudice;" yet

the author modestly requires that minds--we beg his pardon, we have _no

minds_--intellects must be _trained_ to his mode of thinking, ere they

can arrive at the truth and the perfection of human nature. If this

training is prejudice in one set of teachers, may it not be in another?

We continually hear artists recommend nature without "a prejudice in

favour of old masters." Such artists are not likely to eclipse the fame

of those great men, the study of whose works has so long _prejudiced_

the world.

* * * * *

The THIRTEENTH DISCOURSE shows that art is not imitation, but is under

the influence and direction of the imagination, and in what manner

poetry, painting, acting, gardening, and architecture, depart from

nature. However good it is to study the beauties of artists, this is

only to know art through them. The principles of painting remain to be

compared with those of other arts, all of them with human nature. All

arts address themselves only to two faculties of the mind, its

imagination and its sensibility. We have feeling, and an instantaneous

judgment, the result of the experience of life, and reasonings which we

cannot trace. It is safer to trust to this feeling and judgment, than

endeavour to control and direct art upon a supposition of what ought in

reason to be the end or means. We should, therefore, most carefully

store first impressions. They are true, though we know not the process

by which the first conviction is formed. Partial and after reasoning

often serves to destroy that character, the truth of which came upon us

as with an instinctive knowledge. We often reason ourselves into narrow

and partial theories, not aware that "_real_ principles of _sound

reason_, and of so much more weight and importance, are involved, and

as it were lie hid, under the appearance of a sort of vulgar sentiment.

Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this

minute it is required to inform us when that very reason is to give way

to feeling." Sir Joshua again refers to the mistaken views of art, and

taken too by not the poorest minds, "that it entirely or mainly depends

on imitation." Plato, even in this respect, misleads by a partial

theory. It is with "such a false view that Cardinal Bembo has chosen to

distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the

name divine. The same sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir

Godfrey Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation as it is

a sort of deception." It is, undoubtedly, most important that the world

should be taught to honour art for its highest qualities; until this is

done, the profession will be a degradation. So far from painting being

imitation, he proceeds to show that "it is, and ought to be, in many

points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external

nature." Civilization is not the gross state of nature; imagination is

the result of cultivation, of civilization; it is to this state of

nature art must be more closely allied. We must not appeal for judgment

upon art to those who have not acquired the faculty to admire. The

lowest style of all arts please the uncultivated. But, to speak of the

unnaturalness of art--let it be illustrated by poetry, which speaks in

language highly artificial, and "a construction of measured words, such

as never is nor ever was used by man." Now, as there is in the human

mind "a sense of congruity, coherence, and consistency," which must be

gratified; so, having once assumed a language and style not adopted in

common discourse, "it is required that the sentiments also should be in

the same proportion raised above common nature." There must be an

agreement of all the parts with the whole. He recognizes the chorus of

the ancient drama, and the recitative of the Italian opera as natural,

under this view. "And though the most violent passions, the highest

distress, even death itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I

would not admit as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions

on account of their being unnatural." "Shall reason stand in the way,

and tell us that we ought not to like what we know we do like, and

prevent us from feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of

art? It appears to us that imagination is that gift to man, to be

attained by cultivation, that enables him to rise above and out of his

apparent nature; it is the source of every thing good and great, we had

almost said of every virtue. The parent of all arts, it is of a higher

devotion; it builds and adorns temples more worthy of the great Maker of

all, and praises Him in sounds too noble for the common intercourse and

business of life, which demand of the most cultivated that they put

themselves upon a lower level than they are capable of assuming. So

far, therefore, is a servile imitation from being necessary, that

whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear

every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art,

either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as

Shakspeare expresses it, _beyond the ignorant present_, to ages past.

Another and a higher order of beings is supposed, and to those beings

every thing which is introduced into the work must correspond." He

speaks of a picture by Jan Steen, the "Sacrifice of Iphigenia," wherein

the common nature, with the silks and velvets, would make one think the

painter had intended to burlesque his subject. "Ill taught reason" would

lead us to prefer a portrait by Denner to one by Titian or Vandyke.

There is an eloquent passage, showing that landscape painting should in

like manner appeal to the imagination; we are only surprised that the

author of this description should have omitted, throughout these

Discourses, the greatest of all landscape painters, whose excellence he

should seem to refer to by his language. "Like the poet, he makes the

elements sympathize with his subject, whether the clouds roll in

volumes, like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa--or, like those of

Claude, are gilded with the setting sun; whether the mountains have

hidden and bold projections, or are gently sloped; whether the branches

of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their trunks, or

follow each other with only a gentle inclination. All these

circumstances contribute to the general character of the work, whether

it be of the elegant or of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the

powerful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the artist has

complete dominion, to vary and dispose them as he pleases--to diminish

or increase them, as will best suit his purpose, and correspond to the

general idea of his work; a landscape, thus conducted, under the

influence of a poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the

more ordinary and common views, as Milton's "Allegro" and "Penseroso"

have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a picture

would make a more forcible impression on the mind than the real scenes,

were they presented before us." We have quoted the above passage,

because it is wanted--we are making great mistakes in that delightful,

and (may we not say?) that high branch of art. He pursues the same

argument with regard to acting, and condemns the _ignorant_ praise

bestowed by Fielding on Garrick. Not an idea of deception enters the

mind of actor or author. On the stage, even the expression of strong

passion must be without the natural distortion and screaming voice.

Transfer, he observes, acting to a private room, and it would be

ridiculous. "Quid enim deformius, quum scenam in vitam transferre?" Yet

he gives here a caution, "that no art can be grafted with success on

another art." "If a painter should endeavour to copy the theatrical pomp

and parade of dress and attitude, instead of that simplicity which is

not a greater beauty in life than it is in painting, we should condemn

such pictures, as painted in the meanest style." What will our

academician, Mr Maclise, say of this remark? He then adduces gardening

in support of his theory,--"nature to advantage dressed," "beautiful and

commodious for the recreation of man." We cannot, however, go with Sir

Joshua, who adds, that "so dressed, it is no longer a subject for the

pencil of a landscape painter, as all landscape painters know." It is

certainly unlike the great landscape he has described, but not very

unlike Claude's, nor out of the way of his pencil. We have in our mind's

eye a garden scene by Vander Heyden, most delightful, most elegant. It

is some royal garden, with its proper architecture, the arch, the steps,

and balustrades, and marble walks. The queen of the artificial paradise

is entering, and in the shade with her attendants, but she will soon

place her foot upon the prepared sunshine. Courtiers are here and there

walking about, or leaning over the balustrades. All is elegance--a scene

prepared for the recreation of pure and cultivated beings. We cannot

say the picture is not landscape. We are sure it gave us ten times more

pleasure than ever we felt from any of our landscape views, with which

modern landscape painting has covered the walls of our exhibitions, and

brought into disrepute our "annuals." He proceeds to architecture, and

praises Vanburgh for his poetical imagination; though he, with Perrault,

was a mark for the wits of the day.[11] Sir Joshua points to the façade

of the Louvre, Blenheim, and Castle Howard, as "the fairest ornaments."

He finishes this admirable discourse with the following eloquent

passage:--"It is allowed on all hands, that facts and events, however

they may bind the historian, have no dominion over the poet or the

painter. With us history is made to bend and conform to this great idea

of art. And why? Because these arts, in their highest province, are not

addressed to the gross senses; but to the desires of the mind, to that

spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed

and pent up by the world which is about us. Just so much as our art has

of this, just so much of dignity, I had almost said of divinity, it

exhibits; and those of our artists who possessed this mark of

distinction in the highest degree, acquired from thence the glorious

appellation of divine.

[11] The reader will remember the supposed epitaph,

"Lie heavy on him, earth, for he

Laid many a heavy load on thee."

Mr Burnet's notes to this Discourse are not important to art. There is

an amusing one on acting, that discusses the question of naturalness on

the stage, and with some pleasant anecdotes.

* * * * *

The FOURTEENTH DISCOURSE is chiefly occupied with the character of

Gainsborough, and landscape painting. It has brought about him, and his

name, a hornet's nest of critics, in consequence of some remarks upon a

picture of Wilson's. Gainsborough and Sir Joshua, and perhaps in some

degree Wilson, had been rivals. It has been said that Wilson and

Gainsborough never liked each other. It is a well-known anecdote that

Sir Joshua, at a dinner, gave the health of Gainsborough, adding "the

greatest landscape painter of the age," to which Wilson, at whom the

words were supposed to be aimed, dryly added, "and the greatest portrait

painter too." We can, especially under circumstances, for there had been

a coolness between the President and Gainsborough, pardon the too

favourable view taken of Gainsborough's landscape pictures. He was

unquestionably much greater as a portrait painter. The following account

of the interview with Gainsborough upon his death-bed, is touching, and

speaks well of both:--"A few days before he died he wrote me a letter,

to express his acknowledgments for the good opinion I entertained of his

abilities, and the manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke

of him; and desired that he might see me once before he died. I am aware

how flattering it is to myself to be thus connected with the dying

testimony which this excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot

prevail upon myself to suppress that I was not connected with him by any

habits of familiarity. If any little jealousies had subsisted between

us, they were forgotten in these moments of sincerity; and he turned

towards me as one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who

deserved his good opinion by being sensible of his excellence. Without

entering into a detail of what passed at this last interview, the

impression of it upon my mind was, that his regret at losing life was

principally the regret of leaving his art; and more especially as he now

began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were; which, he said, he

flattered himself in his last works were in some measure supplied." When

the Discourse was delivered, Raffaelle Mengs and Pompeo Batoni were

great names. Sir Joshua foretells their fall from that high estimation.

Andrea Sacchi, and "_perhaps_" Carlo Maratti, he considers the "ultimi

Romanorum." He prefers "the humble attempts of Gainsborough to the works

of those regular graduates in the great historical style." He gives some

account of the "customs and habits of this extraordinary man."

Gainsborough's love for his art was remarkable. He was ever remarking to

those about him any peculiarity of countenance, accidental combination

of figures, effects of light and shade, in skies, in streets, and in

company. If he met a character he liked, he would send him home to his

house. He brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, &c. He

even formed models of landscapes on his table, composed of broken

stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which, magnified,

became rocks, trees, and water. Most of this is the common routine of

every artist's life; the modelling his landscapes in the manner

mentioned, Sir Joshua himself seems to speak doubtingly about. It in

fact shows, that in Gainsborough there was a poverty of invention; his

scenes are of the commonest kind, such as few would stop to admire in

nature; and, when we consider the wonderful variety that nature did

present to him, it is strange that his sketches and compositions should

have been so devoid of beauty. He was in the habit of painting by night,

a practice which Reynolds recommends, and thought it must have been the

practice of Titian and Coreggio. He might have mentioned the portrait of

Michael Angelo with the candle in his cap and a mallet in his hand.

Gainsborough was ambitious of attaining excellence, regardless of

riches. The style chosen by Gainsborough did not require that he should

go out of his own country. No argument is to be drawn from thence, that

travelling is not desirable for those who choose other walks of

art--knowing that "the language of the art must be learned somewhere,"

he applied himself to the Flemish school, and certainly with advantage,

and occasionally made copies from Rubens, Teniers, and Vandyke. Granting

him as a painter great merit, Sir Joshua doubts whether he excelled most

in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures. Few now will doubt upon the

subject--next to Sir Joshua, he was the greatest portrait painter we

have had, so as to be justly entitled to the fame of being one of the

founders of the English School. He did not attempt historical painting;

and here Sir Joshua contrasts him with Hogarth; who did so

injudiciously. It is strange that Sir Joshua should have characterised

Hogarth as having given his attention to "the Ridicule of Life." We

could never see any thing ridiculous in his deep tragedies. Gainsborough

is praised in that he never introduced "mythological learning" into his

pictures. "Our late ingenious academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been

guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods and

goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no means prepared to

receive such personages. His landscapes were in reality too near common

nature to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this mistake, in

a very admirable picture of a storm, which I have seen of his hand, many

figures are introduced in the foreground, some in apparent distress, and

some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by lightning:

had not the painter injudiciously, (as I think,) rather chosen that

their death should be imputed to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky

with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the

children of Niobe." This is the passage that gave so much offence;

foolish admirers will fly into flame at the slightest spark--the

question should have been, is the criticism just, not whether Sir Joshua

had been guilty of the same error--but we like critics, the only true

critics, who give their reason: and so did Sir Joshua. "To manage a

subject of this kind a peculiar style of art is required; and it can

only be done without impropriety, or even without ridicule, when we

adopt the character of the landscape, and that too in all its parts, to

the historical or poetical representation. This is a very difficult

adventure, and requires a mind thrown back two thousand years, like that

of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In the picture alluded to, the first

idea that presents itself is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so

uncommon a situation as that in which Apollo is placed: for the clouds

on which he kneels have not the appearance of being able to support

him--they have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle

of a human figure, and they do not possess, in any respect, that

romantic character which is appropriated to such an object, and which

alone can harmonize with poetical stories." We presume Reynolds alludes

to the best of the two Niobes by Wilson--that in the National Gallery.

The other is villanously faulty as a composition, where loaf is piled

upon loaf for rock and castle, and the tree is common and hedge-grown,

for the purpose of making gates; but the other would have been a fine

picture, not of the historical class--the parts are all common, the

little blown about underwood is totally deficient in all form and

character--rocks and trees, and they do not, as in a former

discourse--Reynolds had laid down that they should--sympathize with the

subject; then, as to the substance of the cloud, he is right--it is not

voluminous, it is mere vapour. In the received adoption of clouds as

supporting figures, they are, at least, pillowy, capacious, and

round--here it is quite otherwise; and Sir Joshua might well call it a

little Apollo, with that immense cloud above him, which is in fact too

much a portrait of a cloud, too peculiar, too edgy, for any subject

where the sky is not to be all in all. We do not say it is not fine and

grand, and what you please; but it is not subordinate, it casts its

lightning as from its own natural power, there was no need of a god's

assistance.

"Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus;"

and the action does not take place in a "prepared" landscape. There is

nothing to take us back to a fabled age. Reynolds is not unjust to

Wilson's merits, for he calls it, notwithstanding this defect, "a very

admirable picture;" which picture will, we suspect, in a few years lose

its principal charm, if it has not lost it; the colour is sadly

changing, there is now little aerial in the sky. It is said of Wilson,

that he ridiculed the experiments of Sir Joshua, and spoke of using

nothing but "honest linseed"--to which, however, he added varnishes and

wax, as will easily be seen in those pictures of his which have so

cracked--and now lose their colour. "Honest" linseed appears to have

played him a sad trick, or he to have played a trick upon honest

linseed. Sir Joshua, however, to his just criticism, adds the best

precept, example--and instances two pictures, historical landscape,

"Jacob's Dream"--which was exhibited a year or two ago in the

Institution, Pall-Mall--by Salvator Rosa, and the picture by Sebastian

Bourdon, "The Return of the Ark from Captivity," now in the National

Gallery. The latter picture, as a composition, is not perhaps good--it

is cut up into too many parts, and those parts are not sufficiently

poetical; in its hue, it may be appropriate. The other, "Jacob's Dream"

is one of the finest by the master--there is an extraordinary boldness

in the clouds, an uncommon grandeur, strongly marked, sentient of

angelic visitants. This picture has been recently wretchedly engraved in

mezzotinto; all that is in the picture firm and hard, is in the print

soft, fuzzy, and disagreeable. Sir Joshua treats very tenderly the

mistaken manner of Gainsborough in his late pictures, the "odd scratches

and marks." "This chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a

kind of magic at a certain distance, assumes form, and all their parts

seem to drop into their places, so that we can hardly refuse

acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of

chance and heavy negligence." The _heavy_ negligence happily describes

the fault of the manner. It is horribly manifest in that magnitude of

vulgarity for landscape, the "Market Cart" in our National Gallery, and

purchased at we know not what vast sum, and presented by the governors

of the institution to the nation. We have a very high opinion of the

genius of Gainsborough; but we do not see it in his landscapes, with

very few exceptions. His portraits have an air of truth never exceeded,

and that set off with great power and artistical skill; and his rustic

children are admirable. He stands alone, and never has had a successful

imitator. The mock sentimentality, the affected refinement, which has

been added to his simple style by other artists, is disgusting in the

extreme. Gainsborough certainly studied colour with great success. He is

both praised and blamed for a lightness of manner and effect possessed

"to an unexampled degree of excellence;" but "the sacrifice which he

made, to this ornament of our art, was too great." We confess we do not

understand Sir Joshua, nor can we reconcile "the _heavy_ negligence"

with this "lightness of manner." Mr Burnet, in one of his notes,

compares Wilson with Gainsborough; he appears to give the preference to

Wilson--why does he not compare Gainsborough with Sir Joshua himself?

the rivalry should have been in portrait. There is a long note upon Sir

Joshua's remarks upon Wilson's "Niobe." We are not surprised at

Cunningham's "Castigation." He did not like Sir Joshua, and could not

understand nor value his character. This is evident in his Life of the

President. Cunningham must have had but an ill-educated classic eye when

he asserted so grandiloquently,--"He rose at once from the tame

insipidity of common scenery into natural grandeur and magnificence; his

streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the

muses, and his temples worthy of gods,"--a passage, we think, most

worthy the monosyllable commonly used upon such occasions by the manly

and simple-minded Mr Burchell. That Sir Joshua occasionally transgressed

in his wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was

it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in

his "Holy Family" in the National Gallery. But we doubt if the critique

upon his "Mrs Siddons" is quite fair. The chair and the footstool may

not be on the cloud, a tragic and mysterious vapour reconciling the

bodily presence of the muse with the demon and fatal ministers of the

drama that attend her. Though Sir Joshua's words are here brought

against him, it is without attention to their application in his

critique, which condemned their form and character as not historical nor

voluminous--faults that do not attach to the clouds, if clouds they must

be in the picture (the finest of Sir Joshua's works) of Mrs Siddons as

the Tragic Muse. It is not our business to enter upon the supposed fact,

that Sir Joshua was jealous of Wilson; the one was a polished, the other

perhaps a somewhat coarse man. We have only to see if the criticism be

just. In this Discourse Sir Joshua has the candour to admit, that there

were at one time jealousies between him and Gainsborough; there may have

been between him and Wilson, but, at all events, we cannot take a just

criticism as a proof of it, or we must convict him, and all others too,

of being jealous of artists and writers whose works they in any manner

censure.

* * * * *

The FIFTEENTH DISCOURSE.--We come now to Sir Joshua's last Discourse, in

which the President takes leave of the Academy, reviews his

"Discourses," and concludes with recommending the study of Michael

Angelo.

Having gone along with the President of the Academy in the pursuit of

the principles of the art in these Discourses, and felt a portion of the

enthusiasm which he felt, and knew so well how to impart to others, we

come to this last Discourse, with a melancholy knowledge that it was the

last; and reflect with pain upon that cloud which so soon interposed

between Reynolds and at least the practical enjoyment of his art. He

takes leave of the Academy affectionately, and, like a truth-loving man

to the last, acknowledges the little contentions (in so softening a

manner does he speak of the "rough hostility of Barry," and "oppositions

of Gainsborough") which "ought certainly," says he, "to be lost among

ourselves in mutual esteem for talents and acquirements: every

controversy ought to be--I am persuaded will be--sunk in our zeal for

the perfection of our common art." "My age, and my infirmities still

more than my age, make it probable that this will be the last time I

shall have the honour of addressing you from this place." This last

visit seemed to be threatened with a tragical end;--the circumstance

showed the calm mind of the President; it was characteristic of the man

who would die with dignity, and gracefully. A large assembly were

present, of rank and importance, besides the students. The pressure was

great--a beam in the floor gave way with a loud crash; a general rush

was made to the door, all indiscriminately falling one over the other,

except the President, who kept his seat "silent and unmoved." The floor

only sunk a little, was soon supported, and Sir Joshua recommenced his

Discourse.

"Justum et tenacem propositi

Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

He compliments the Academy upon the ability of the professors, speaks

with diffidence of his power as a writer, (the world has in this respect

done him justice;) but that he had come not unprepared upon the subject

of art, having reflected much upon his own and the opinions of others.

He found in the art many precepts and rules, not reconcilable with each

other. "To clear away those difficulties and reconcile those contrary

opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the greater truth, as it

may be called, from the lesser truth; the larger and more liberal idea

of nature from the more narrow and confined: that which addresses itself

to the imagination, from that which is solely addressed to the eye. In

consequence of this discrimination, the different branches of our art to

which those different truths were referred, were perceived to make so

wide a separation, and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed

scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. The different

rules and regulations which presided over each department of art,

followed of course; every mode of excellence, from the grand style of

the Roman and Florentine schools down to the lowest rank of still life,

had its due weight and value--fitted to some class or other; and nothing

was thrown away. By this disposition of our art into classes, that

perplexity and confusion, which I apprehend every artist has at some

time experienced from the variety of styles, and the variety of

excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should hope, in some

measure removed, and the student better enabled to judge for himself

what peculiarly belongs to his own particular pursuit." Besides the

practice of art, the student must think, and speculate, and consider

"upon what ground the fabric of our art is built." An artist suffers

throughout his whole life, from uncertain, confused, and erroneous

opinions. We are persuaded there would be fewer fatal errors were these

Discourses more in the hands of our present artists--"Nocturnâ versate

manu, versate diurnâ."--An example is given of the mischief of erroneous

opinions. "I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my life, with

a student of the French Academy, who appeared to me to possess all the

qualities requisite to make a great artist, if he had suffered his taste

and feelings, and I may add even his prejudices, to have fair play. He

saw and felt the excellences of the great works of art with which we

were surrounded, but lamented that there was not to be found that nature

which is so admirable in the inferior schools,--and he supposed with

Felebien, Du Piles, and other theorists, that such an union of different

excellences would be the perfection of art. He was not aware that the

narrow idea of nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works of

those great artists, would have destroyed the grandeur of the general

ideas which he admired, and which was indeed the cause of his

admiration. My opinions being then confused and unsettled, I was in

danger of being borne down by this plausible reasoning, though I

remember I then had a dawning suspicion that it was not sound doctrine;

and at the same time I was unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to

what I was unable to confute." False and low views of art are now so

commonly taken both in and out of the profession, that we have not

hesitated to quote the above passage; the danger Sir Joshua confesses he

was in, is common, and demands the warning. To make it more direct we

should add, "Read his Discourses." Again, without intending to fetter

the student's mind to a particular method of study, he urges the

necessity and wisdom of previously obtaining the appropriated

instruments of art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly

colouring, before any thing more is attempted. He does not think it,

however, of very great importance whether or not the student aim first

at grace and grandeur before he has learned correctness, and adduces the

example of Parmegiano, whose first public work was done when a boy, the

"St Eustachius" in the Church of St Petronius, in Bologna--one of his

last is the "Moses breaking the Tables," in Parma. The former has

grandeur and incorrectness, but "discovers the dawnings of future

greatness." In mature age he had corrected his defects, and the drawing

of his Moses was equally admirable with the grandeur of the

conception--an excellent plate is given of this figure by Mr Burnet. The

fact is, the impulse of the mind is not to be too much restrained--it is

better to give it its due and first play, than check it until it has

acquired correctness--good sense first or last, and a love of the art,

will generally insure correctness in the end; the impulses often

checked, come with weakened power, and ultimately refuse to come at all;

and each time that they depart unsatisfied, unemployed, take away with

them as they retire a portion of the fire of genius. Parmegiano formed

himself upon Michael Angelo: Michael Angelo brought the art to a

"sudden maturity," as Homer and Shakspeare did theirs. "Subordinate

parts of our art, and perhaps of other arts, expand themselves by a slow

and progressive growth; but those which depend on a native vigour of

imagination, generally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty."

Correctness of drawing and imagination, the one of mechanical genius the

other of poetic, undoubtedly work together for perfection--"a confidence

in the mechanic produces a boldness in the poetic." He expresses his

surprise that the race of painters, before Michael Angelo, never thought

of transferring to painting the grandeur they admired in ancient

sculpture. "Raffaelle himself seemed to be going on very contentedly in

the dry manner of Pietro Perugino; and if Michael Angelo had never

appeared, the art might still have continued in the same style." "On

this foundation the Caracci built the truly great academical Bolognian

school; of which the first stone was laid by Pellegrino Tibaldi." The

Caracci called him "nostro Michael Angelo riformato." His figure of

Polyphemus, which had been attributed to Michael Angelo in Bishop's

"Ancient Statues," is given in a plate by Mr Burnet. The Caracci he

considers sufficiently succeeded in the mechanical, not in "the divine

part which addresses itself to the imagination," as did Tibaldi and

Michael Angelo. They formed, however, a school that was "most

respectable," and "calculated to please a greater number." The Venetian

school advanced "the dignity of their style, by adding to their

fascinating powers of colouring something of the strength of Michael

Angelo." Here Sir Joshua seems to contradict his former assertion; but

as he is here abridging, as it were, his whole Discourses, he cannot

avoid his own observations. It was a point, however, upon which he was

still doubtful; for he immediately adds--"At the same time it may still

be a doubt, how far their ornamental elegance would be an advantageous

addition to his grandeur. But if there is any manner of painting, which

may be said to unite kindly with his (Michael Angelo's) style, it is

that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his colours are left

on the canvass, appears to proceed (as far as that goes) from congenial

mind, equally disdainful of vulgar criticism. He is reminded of a remark

of Johnson's, that Pope's Homer, had it not been clothed with graces and

elegances not in Homer, would have had fewer readers, thus justifying by

example and authority of Johnson, the graces of the Venetian school.

Some Flemish painters at "the great era of our art" took to their

country "as much of this grandeur as they could carry." It did not

thrive, but "perhaps they contributed to prepare the way for that free,

unconstrained, and liberal outline, which was afterwards introduced by

Rubens, through the medium of the Venetian painters." The grandeur of

style first discovered by Michael Angelo passed through Europe, and

totally "changed the whole character and style of design. His works

excite the same sensation as the Epic of Homer. The Sybils, the statue

of Moses, "come nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demigods,

and heroes; those Sybils and prophets being a kind of intermediate

beings between men and angels. Though instances may be produced in the

works of other painters, which may justly stand in competition with

those I have mentioned, such as the 'Isaiah,' and 'Vision of Ezekiel,'

by Raffaelle, the 'St Mark' of Frate Bartolomeo, and many others; yet

these, it must be allowed, are inventions so much in Michael Angelo's

manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered as so many rays

which discover manifestly the centre from whence they emanated." The

style of Michael Angelo is so highly artificial that the mind must be

cultivated to receive it; having once received it, the mind is improved

by it, and cannot go very far back. Hence the hold this great style has

had upon all who are most learned in art, and upon nearly all painters

in the best time of art. As art multiplies, false tastes will arise, the

early painters had not so much to unlearn as modern artists. Where

Michael Angelo is not felt, there is a lost taste to recover. Sir Joshua

recommends young artists to follow Michael Angelo as he did the ancient

sculptors. "He began, when a child, a copy of a mutilated Satyr's head,

and finished in his model what was wanting in the original." So would he

recommend the student to take his figures from Michael Angelo, and to

change, and alter, and add other figures till he has caught the manner.

Change the purpose, and retain the attitude, as did Titian. By habit of

seeing with this eye of grandeur, he will select from nature all that

corresponds with this taste. Sir Joshua is aware that he is laying

himself open to sarcasm by his advice, but asserts the courage becoming

a teacher addressing students: "they both must equally dare, and bid

defiance to narrow criticism and vulgar opinion." It is the conceited

who think that art is nothing but inspiration; and such appropriate it

in their own estimation; but it is to be learned,--if so, the right

direction to it is of vast importance; and once in the right direction,

labour and study will accomplish the better aspirations of the artist.

Michael Angelo said of Raffaelle, that he possessed not his art by

nature but by long study. "Che Raffaelle non ebbe quest' arte da natura,

ma per longo studio." Raffaelle and Michael Angelo were rivals, but ever

spoke of each other with the respect and veneration they felt, and the

true meaning of the passage was to the praise of Raffaelle; those were

not the days when men were ashamed of being laborious,--and Raffaelle

himself "thanked God that he was born in the same age with that

painter."--"I feel a self-congratulation," adds Sir Joshua, "in knowing

myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect,

not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my

admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last

words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place,

might be the name of Michael Angelo." They were his last words from the

academical chair. He died about fourteen months after the delivery of

this Discourse. Mr Burnet has given five excellent plates to this

Discourse--one from Parmegiano, one from Tibaldi, one from Titian, one

from Raffaelle, and one from Michael Angelo. Mr Burnet's first note

repeats what we have again and again elsewhere urged, the advantage of

establishing at our universities, Oxford and Cambridge, Professorships

of Painting--infinite would be the advantage to art, and to the public.

We do not despair. Mr Burnet seems to fear incorrect drawing will arise

from some passages, which he supposes encourages it, in these

Discourses; and fearing it, very properly endeavours to correct the

error in a note. We had intended to conclude this paper with some few

remarks upon Sir Joshua, his style, and influence upon art, but we have

not space. Perhaps we may fulfil this part of our intention in another

number of Maga.

* * * * *