A DISCOURSE
Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2nd, 1769, by the
President.
Gentlemen,--An academy in which the polite arts may be regularly
cultivated is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This must
appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the
artists, but to the whole nation.
It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why an Empire like that
of Britain should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable to its
greatness than that slow progression of things which naturally makes
elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence and power.
An institution like this has often been recommended upon considerations
merely mercantile. But an academy founded upon such principles can never
effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, no
taste can ever be formed in it which can be useful even in manufactures;
but if the higher arts of design flourish, these inferior ends will be
answered of course.
We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of such an
institution, according to its true dignity, and promotes the arts, as the
head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation; and I can
now congratulate you, gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and
ardent wishes.
The numberless and ineffectual consultations that I have had with many in
this assembly, to form plans and concert schemes for an academy, afford a
sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the influence
of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been times when even the influence
of Majesty would have been ineffectual, and it is pleasing to reflect
that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to concur from
which honour and prosperity can probably arise.
There are at this time a greater number of excellent artists than were
ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general desire
among our nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the arts;
there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the
professors; and, above all, we are patronised by a monarch, who, knowing
the value of science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his
notice that tends to soften and humanise the mind.
After so much has been done by his Majesty, it will be wholly our fault
if our progress is not in some degree correspondent to the wisdom and,
generosity of the institution; let us show our gratitude in our
diligence, that, though our merit may not answer his expectations, yet,
at least, our industry may deserve his protection.
But whatever may be our proportion of success, of this we may be sure,
that the present institution will at least contribute to advance our
knowledge of the arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence which
it is the lot of genius always to contemplate and never to attain.
The principal advantage of an academy is, that, besides furnishing able
men to direct the student, it will be a repository for the great examples
of the art. These are the materials on which genius is to work, and
without which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously
employed. By studying these authentic models, that idea of excellence
which is the result of the accumulated experience of past ages may be at
once acquired, and the tardy and obstructed progress of our predecessors
may teach us a shorter and easier way. The student receives at one
glance the principles which many artists have spent their whole lives in
ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful
investigation by which they come to be known and fixed. How many men of
great natural abilities have been lost to this nation for want of these
advantages? They never had an opportunity of seeing those masterly
efforts of genius which at once kindle the whole soul, and force it into
sudden and irresistible approbation.
Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an academy;
but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him
an academy. On the site of the Capel la Sistina he immediately from a
dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute
accidental discriminations of particular and individual objects, assumed
that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by
the general and invariable ideas of nature.
Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an
atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe somewhat
congenial to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, has
always something more popular and useful than that which is forced upon
the mind by private precepts or solitary meditation. Besides, it is
generally found that a youth more easily receives instruction from the
companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level with his
own, than from those who are much his superiors; and it is from his
equals only that he catches the fire of emulation.
One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our academy,
which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To
this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as
they have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius
will henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as
it has been in other schools, where he that travelled fastest only
wandered farthest from the right way.
Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my
associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any
of them. But as these institutions have so often failed in other
nations, and as it is natural to think with regret how much might have
been done, and how little has been done, I must take leave to offer a few
hints, by which those errors may be rectified, and those defects
supplied. These the professors and visitors may reject or adopt as they
shall think proper.
I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the rules of art,
as established by the great masters, should be exacted from the _young_
students. That those models, which have passed through the approbation
of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible guides as
subjects for their imitation, not their criticism.
I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a
progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find
life finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be
laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense
has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every
opportunity, therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and
vulgar opinion that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters
only to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong becomes
an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load,
and cripples the body which it was made to protect.
How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as the
poet expresses it,
"To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,"
may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters themselves.
It is then, when their genius has received its utmost improvement, that
rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not destroy the
scaffold until we have raised the building.
The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those
students who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of
study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste
depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with
what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid
negligence to painful and humiliating exactness.
A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly handling
the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating qualities to
young minds, and become of course the objects of their ambition. They
endeavour to imitate those dazzling excellences, which they will find no
great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous
pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too
late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour
after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious
mastery.
By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing in
real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost
perfection; they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make that
mechanical facility the chief excellence of the art, which is only an
ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are
judges.
This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of corruption;
and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may possibly
happen, but which has actually infected all foreign academies. The
directors were probably pleased with this premature dexterity in their
pupils, and praised their despatch at the expense of their correctness.
But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought
masterly inciting them on one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting
them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of
the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is
distrusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from
mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to
find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of
eminence by other means than those which the indispensable rules of art
have prescribed. They must, therefore, be told again and again that
labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their force of
genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter.
When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, every page informs
us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. Even an increase
of fame served only to augment their industry. To be convinced with what
persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, we need only reflect on
their method of proceeding in their most celebrated works. When they
conceived a subject, they first made a variety of sketches; then a
finished drawing of the whole; after that a more correct drawing of every
separate part, heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then
painted the picture, and after all re-touched it from the life. The
pictures, thus wrought with such pain, now appear like the effect of
enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them off at a blow.
But, whilst diligence is thus recommended to the students, the visitors
will take care that their diligence be effectual; that it be well
directed and employed on the proper object. A student is not always
advancing because he is employed; he must apply his strength to that part
of the art where the real difficulties lie; to that part which
distinguishes it as a liberal art, and not by mistaken industry lose his
time in that which is merely ornamental. The students, instead of vying
with each other which shall have the readiest band, should be taught to
contend who shall have the purest and most correct outline, instead of
striving which shall produce the brightest tint, or, curiously trifling
endeavour to give the gloss of stuffs so as to appear real, let their
ambition be directed to contend which shall dispose his drapery in the
most graceful folds, which shall give the most grace and dignity to the
human figure.
I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the consideration of the
visitors, which appears to me a matter of very great consequence, and the
omission of which I think a principal defect in the method of education
pursued in all the academies I have ever visited. The error I mean is,
that the students never draw exactly from the living models which they
have before them. It is not indeed their intention, nor are they
directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model only in the
attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain
ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure
ought to be than of what it appears. I have thought this the obstacle
that has stopped the progress of many young men of real genius; and I
very much doubt whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will not
give a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we imagine. He who
endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him not only acquires a habit
of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge
of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make
a slower progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without
running into capricious wildness) that grace and beauty which is
necessary to be given to his more finished works, and which cannot be got
by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an
attentive and well-compared study of the human form.
What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the
practice (as may be seen by their drawings) of the great masters in the
art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, "The Dispute of the
Sacrament," the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It
appears that he made his sketch from one model; and the habit he had of
drawing exactly from the form before him appears by his making all the
figures with the same cap, such as his model then happened to wear; so
servile a copyist was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed
to be at his highest pitch of excellence.
I have seen also academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often
sufficiently licentious in his finished works, drawn with all the
peculiarities of an individual model.
This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the practice of the
academies, that it is not without great deference that I beg leave to
recommend it to the consideration of the visitors, and submit it to them,
whether the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons why students
so often disappoint expectation, and being more than boys at sixteen,
become less than men at thirty.
In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when there are
but few living forms to copy; for then students, by always drawing from
one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake
deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger, since the council
has determined to supply the academy with a variety of subjects; and
indeed those laws which they have drawn up, and which the secretary will
presently read for your confirmation, have in some measure precluded me
from saying more upon this occasion. Instead, therefore, of offering my
advice, permit me to indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this
institution may answer the expectations of its royal founder; that the
present age may vie in arts with that of Leo X. and that "the dignity of
the dying art" (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived
under the reign of George III.
A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 11, 1769, by the President.
Gentlemen,--I congratulate you on the honour which you have just
received. I have the highest opinion of your merits, and could wish to
show my sense of them in something which possibly may be more useful to
you than barren praise. I could wish to lead you into such a course of
study as may render your future progress answerable to your past
improvement; and, whilst I applaud you for what has been done, remind you
of how much yet remains to attain perfection.
I flatter myself, that from the long experience I have had, and the
unceasing assiduity with which I have pursued those studies, in which,
like you, I have been engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering
some hints to your consideration. They are indeed in a great degree
founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit. But the history of
errors properly managed often shortens the road to truth. And although
no method of study that I can offer will of itself conduct to excellence,
yet it may preserve industry from being misapplied.
In speaking to you of the theory of the art, I shall only consider it as
it has a relation to the method of your studies.
Dividing the study of painting into three distinct periods, I shall
address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined
to the rudiments, including a facility of drawing any object that
presents itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, and
an acquaintance with the most simple and obvious rules of composition.
This first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in
literature, a general preparation to whatever species of the art the
student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The
power of drawing, modelling, and using colours is very properly called
the language of the art; and in this language, the honours you have just
received prove you to have made no inconsiderable progress.
When the artist is once enabled to express himself with some degree of
correctness, he must then endeavour to collect subjects for expression;
to amass a stock of ideas, to be combined and varied as occasion may
require. He is now in the second period of study, in which his business
is to learn all that has hitherto been known and done. Having hitherto
received instructions from a particular master, he is now to consider the
art itself as his master. He must extend his capacity to more sublime
and general instructions. Those perfections which lie scattered among
various masters are now united in one general idea, which is henceforth
to regulate his taste and enlarge his imagination. With a variety of
models thus before him, he will avoid that narrowness and poverty of
conception which attends a bigoted admiration of a single master, and
will cease to follow any favourite where he ceases to excel. This period
is, however, still a time of subjection and discipline. Though the
student will not resign himself blindly to any single authority when he
may have the advantage of consulting many, he must still be afraid of
trusting his own judgment, and of deviating into any track where he
cannot find the footsteps of some former master.
The third and last period emancipates the student from subjection to any
authority but what he shall himself judge to be supported by reason.
Confiding now in his own judgment, he will consider and separate those
different principles to which different modes of beauty owe their
original. In the former period he sought only to know and combine
excellence, wherever it was to be found, into one idea of perfection; in
this he learns, what requires the most attentive survey and the subtle
disquisition, to discriminate perfections that are incompatible with each
other.
He is from this time to regard himself as holding the same rank with
those masters whom he before obeyed as teachers, and as exercising a sort
of sovereignty over those rules which have hitherto restrained him.
Comparing now no longer the performances of art with each other, but
examining the art itself by the standard of nature, he corrects what is
erroneous, supplies what is scanty, and adds by his own observation what
the industry of his predecessors may have yet left wanting to perfection.
Having well established his judgment, and stored his memory, he may now
without fear try the power of his imagination. The mind that has been
thus disciplined may be indulged in the warmest enthusiasm, and venture
to play on the borders of the wildest extravagance. The habitual
dignity, which long converse with the greatest minds has imparted to him,
will display itself in all his attempts, and he will stand among his
instructors, not as an imitator, but a rival.
These are the different stages of the art. But as I now address myself
particularly to those students who have been this day rewarded for their
happy passage through the first period, I can with no propriety suppose
they want any help in the initiatory studies. My present design is to
direct your view to distant excellence, and to show you the readiest path
that leads to it. Of this I shall speak with such latitude as may leave
the province of the professor uninvaded, and shall not anticipate those
precepts which it is his business to give and your duty to understand.
It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man's life must be
employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention,
strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images
which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory. Nothing
can come of nothing. He who has laid up no materials can produce no
combinations.
A student unacquainted with the attempts of former adventurers is always
apt to overrate his own abilities, to mistake the most trifling
excursions for discoveries of moment, and every coast new to him for a
new-found country. If by chance he passes beyond his usual limits, he
congratulates his own arrival at those regions which they who have
steered a better course have long left behind them.
The productions of such minds are seldom distinguished by an air of
originality: they are anticipated in their happiest efforts; and if they
are found to differ in anything from their predecessors, it is only in
irregular sallies and trifling conceits. The more extensive therefore
your acquaintance is with the works of those who have excelled the more
extensive will be your powers of invention; and what may appear still
more like a paradox, the more original will be your conceptions. But the
difficulty on this occasion is to determine who ought to be proposed as
models of excellence, and who ought to be considered as the properest
guides.
To a young man just arrived in Italy, many of the present painters of
that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer
their own performances as examples of that perfection which they affect
to recommend. The modern, however, who recommends _himself_ as a
standard, may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, and
unacquainted with the proper object of the art which he professes. To
follow such a guide will not only retard the student, but mislead him.
On whom, then, can he rely, or who shall show him the path that leads to
excellence? The answer is obvious: Those great masters who have
travelled the same road with success are the most likely to conduct
others. The works of those who have stood the test of ages have a claim
to that respect and veneration to which no modern can pretend. The
duration and stability of their fame is sufficient to evince that it has
not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but
bound to the human heart by every tie of sympathetic approbation.
There is no danger of studying too much the works of those great men, but
how they may be studied to advantage is an inquiry of great importance.
Some who have never raised their minds to the consideration of the real
dignity of the art, and who rate the works of an artist in proportion as
they excel, or are defective in the mechanical parts, look on theory as
something that may enable them to talk but not to paint better, and
confining themselves entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously
toil on in the drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress
while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite picture.
This appears to me a very tedious, and I think a very erroneous, method
of proceeding. Of every large composition, even of those which are most
admired, a great part may be truly said to be common-place. This, though
it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improvement. I
consider general copying as a delusive kind of industry; the student
satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something; he falls into
the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring
without any determinate object; as it requires no effort of the mind, he
sleeps over his work; and those powers of invention and composition which
ought particularly to be called out and put in action lie torpid, and
lose their energy for want of exercise.
It is an observation that all must have made, how incapable those are of
producing anything of their own who have spent much of their time in
making finished copies.
To suppose that the complication of powers, and variety of ideas
necessary to that mind which aspires to the first honours ill the art of
painting, can be obtained by the frigid contemplation of a few single
models, is no less absurd than it would be in him who wishes to be a poet
to imagine that by translating a tragedy he can acquire to himself
sufficient knowledge of the appearances of nature, the operations of the
passions, and the incidents of life.
The great use in copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in
learning to colour; yet even colouring will never be perfectly attained
by servilely copying the mould before you. An eye critically nice can
only be formed by observing well-coloured pictures with attention: and by
close inspection, and minute examination you will discover, at last, the
manner of handling, the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other
expedients, by which good colourists have raised the value of their
tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.
I must inform you, however, that old pictures deservedly celebrated for
their colouring are often so changed by dirt and varnish, that we ought
not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation in the eyes
of unexperienced painters, or young students. An artist whose judgment
is matured by long observation, considers rather what the picture once
was, than what it is at present. He has acquired a power by habit of
seeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by which it is obscured.
An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures, is likely to fill the
student's mind with false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of
his own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature and from art,
from the genuine practice of the masters and the real appearances of
things.
Following these rules, and using these precautions, when you have clearly
and distinctly learned in what good colouring consists, you cannot do
better than have recourse to nature herself, who is always at hand, and
in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured pictures are but
faint and feeble.
However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, since
the mechanical practice of painting is learned in some measure by it, let
those choice parts only be selected which have recommended the work to
notice. If its excellence consists in its general effect, it would be
proper to make slight sketches of the machinery and general management of
the picture. Those sketches should be kept always by you for the
regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches of those great
masters, copy only their conceptions. Instead of treading in their
footsteps, endeavour only to keep the same road. Labour to invent on
their general principles and way of thinking. Possess yourself with
their spirit. Consider with yourself how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle
would have treated this subject: and work yourself into a belief that
your picture is to be seen and criticised by them when completed. Even
an attempt of this kind will rouse your powers.
But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little way, let me recommend
a practice that may be equivalent, and will perhaps more efficaciously
contribute to your advancement, than even the verbal corrections of those
masters themselves, could they be obtained. What I would propose is,
that you should enter into a kind of competition, by painting a similar
subject, and making a companion to any picture that you consider as a
model. After you have finished your work, place it near the model, and
compare them carefully together. You will then not only see, but feel
your own deficiencies more sensibly than by precepts, or any other means
of instruction. The true principles of painting will mingle with your
thoughts. Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects, will be certain and
definitive; and sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just,
but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only: which
will, always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined.
This method of comparing your own efforts with those of some great
master, is indeed a severe and mortifying task, to which none will
submit, but such as have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego
the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. When the student
has succeeded in some measure to his own satisfaction, and has
felicitated himself on his success, to go voluntarily to a tribunal where
he knows his vanity must be humbled, and all self-approbation must
vanish, requires not only great resolution, but great humility. To him,
however, who has the Ambition to be a real master, the solid satisfaction
which proceeds from a consciousness of his advancement (of which seeing
his own faults is the first step) will very abundantly compensate for the
mortification of present disappointment. There is, besides, this
alleviating circumstance. Every discovery he makes, every acquisition of
knowledge he attains, seems to proceed from his own sagacity; and thus he
acquires a confidence in himself sufficient to keep up the resolution of
perseverance.
We all must have experienced how lazily, and consequently how
ineffectually, instruction is received when forced upon the mind by
others. Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own
teachers. We prefer those instructions which we have given ourselves,
from our affection to the instructor; and they are more effectual, from
being received into the mind at the very time when it is most open and
eager to receive them.
With respect to the pictures that you are to choose for your models, I
could wish that you would take the world's opinion rather than your own.
In other words, I would have you choose those of established reputation
rather than follow your own fancy. If you should not admire them at
first, you will, by endeavouring to imitate them, find that the world has
not been mistaken.
It is not an easy task to point out those various excellences for your
imitation which he distributed amongst the various schools. An endeavour
to do this may perhaps be the subject of some future discourse. I will,
therefore, at present only recommend a model for style in painting, which
is a branch of the art more immediately necessary to the young student.
Style in painting is the same as in writing, a power over materials,
whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are
conveyed. And in this Lodovico Carrache (I mean in his best works)
appears to me to approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected
breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of colouring, which holding
its proper rank, does not draw aside the least part of the attention from
the subject, and the solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused
over his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave and dignified
subjects, better than the more artificial brilliancy of sunshine which
enlightens the pictures of Titian. Though Tintoret thought that Titian's
colouring was the model of perfection, and would correspond even with the
sublime of Michael Angelo; and that if Angelo had coloured like Titian,
or Titian designed like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect
painter.
It is our misfortune, however, that those works of Carrache which I would
recommend to the student are not often found out of Bologna. The "St.
Francis in the midst of his Friars," "The Transfiguration," "The Birth of
St. John the Baptist," "The Calling of St. Matthew," the "St. Jerome,"
the fresco paintings in the Zampieri Palace, are all worthy the attention
of the student. And I think those who travel would do well to allot a
much greater portion of their time to that city than it has been hitherto
the custom to bestow.
In this art, as in others, there are many teachers who profess to show
the nearest way to excellence, and many expedients have been invented by
which the toil of study might be saved. But let no man be seduced to
idleness by specious promises. Excellence is never granted to man but as
the reward of labour. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to
persevere in habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those
advances; which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly
approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape
observation. A facility of drawing, like that of playing upon a musical
instrument, cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need
not, therefore, enforce by many words the necessity of continual
application; nor tell you that the port-crayon ought to be for ever in
your hands. Various methods will occur to you by which this power may be
acquired. I would particularly recommend that after your return from the
academy (where I suppose your attendance to be constant) you would
endeavour to draw the figure by memory. I will even venture to add, that
by perseverance in this custom, you will become able to draw the human
figure tolerably correct, with as little effort of the mind as to trace
with a pen the letters of the alphabet.
That this facility is not unattainable, some members in this academy give
a sufficient proof. And, be assured, that if this power is not acquired
whilst you are young, there will be no time for it afterwards: at least,
the attempt will be attended with as much difficulty as those experience
who learn to read or write after they have arrived to the age of
maturity.
But while I mention the port-crayon as the student's constant companion,
he must still remember that the pencil is the instrument by which he must
hope to obtain eminence. What, therefore, I wish to impress upon you is,
that whenever an opportunity offers, you paint your studies instead of
drawing them. This will give you such a facility in using colours, that
in time they will arrange themselves under the pencil, even without the
attention of the hand that conducts it. If one act excluded the other,
this advice could not with any propriety be given. But if painting
comprises both drawing and colouring and if by a short struggle of
resolute industry the same expedition is attainable in painting as in
drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly be made to the
practice; or why that should be done by parts, which may be done
altogether.
If we turn our eyes to the several schools of painting, and consider
their respective excellences, we shall find that those who excel most in
colouring pursued this method. The Venetian and Flemish schools, which
owe much of their fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the
collectors of drawings with very few examples. Those of Titian, Paul
Veronese, Tintoret, and the Bassans, are in general slight and
undetermined. Their sketches on paper are as rude as their pictures are
excellent in regard to harmony of colouring. Correggio and Barocci have
left few, if any, finished drawings behind them. And in the Flemish
school, Rubens and Vandyke made their designs for the most part either in
colours or in chiaroscuro. It is as common to find studies of the
Venetian and Flemish painters on canvas, as of the schools of Rome and
Florence on paper. Not but that many finished drawings are sold under
the names of those masters. Those, however, are undoubtedly the
productions either of engravers or of their scholars who copied their
works.
These instructions I have ventured to offer from my own experience; but
as they deviate widely from received opinions, I offer them with
diffidence; and when better are suggested, shall retract them without
regret.
There is one precept, however, in which I shall only be opposed by the
vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I shall repeat it
too often. You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have
great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate
abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to
well-directed labour: nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter
into metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of genius, I will
venture to assert, that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a
disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will produce
effects similar to those which some call the result of natural powers.
Though a man cannot at all times, and in all places, paint or draw, yet
the mind can prepare itself by laying in proper materials, at all times,
and in all places. Both Livy and Plutarch, in describing Philopoemen,
one of the ablest generals of antiquity, have given us a striking picture
of a mind always intent on its profession, and by assiduity obtaining
those excellences which some all their lives vainly expect from Nature. I
shall quote the passage in Livy at length, as it runs parallel with the
practice I would recommend to the painter, sculptor, or architect.
"Philopoemen was a man eminent for his sagacity and experience in
choosing ground, and in leading armies; to which he formed his mind by
perpetual meditation, in times of peace as well as war. When, in any
occasional journey, he came to a straight difficult passage, if he was
alone, he considered with himself, and if he was in company he asked his
friends what it would be best to do if in this place they had found an
enemy, either in the front, or in the rear, on the one side, or on the
other. 'It might happen,' says he, 'that the enemy to be opposed might
come on drawn up in regular lines, or in a tumultuous body, formed only
by the nature of the place.' He then considered a little what ground he
should take; what number of soldiers he should use, and what arms he
should give them; where he should lodge his carriages, his baggage, and
the defenceless followers of his camp; how many guards, and of what kind,
he should send to defend them; and whether it would be better to press
forward along the pass, or recover by retreat his former station: he
would consider likewise where his camp could most commodiously be formed;
how much ground he should enclose within his trenches; where he should
have the convenience of water; and where he might find plenty of wood and
forage; and when he should break up his camp on the following day,
through what road he could most safely pass, and in what form he should
dispose his troops. With such thoughts and disquisitions he had from his
early years so exercised his mind, that on these occasions nothing could
happen which he had not been already accustomed to consider."
I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young painter, equally
vigilant, whether at home, or abroad in the streets, or in the fields.
Every object that presents itself is to him a lesson. He regards all
nature with a view to his profession; and combines her beauties, or
corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of men under the
influence of passion; and often catches the most pleasing hints from
subjects of turbulence or deformity. Even bad pictures themselves supply
him with useful documents; and, as Leonardo da Vinci has observed, he
improves upon the fanciful images that are sometimes seen in the fire, or
are accidentally sketched upon a discoloured wall.
The artist who has his mind thus filled with ideas, and his hand made
expert by practice, works with ease and readiness; whilst he who would
have you believe that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in
reality at a loss how to beam, and is at last delivered of his monsters
with difficulty and pain.
The well-grounded painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to consider
his subject, and all the mechanical parts of his art follow without his
exertion, Conscious of the difficulty of obtaining what he possesses he
makes no pretensions to secrets, except those of closer application.
Without conceiving the smallest jealousy against others, he is contented
that all shall be as great as himself who are willing to undergo the same
fatigue: and as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free
from the painful suspicions of a juggler, who lives in perpetual fear
lest his trick should be discovered.
A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the
Prizes, December, 14, 1770, by the President.
Gentlemen,--It is not easy to speak with propriety to so many students of
different ages and different degrees of advancement. The mind requires
nourishment adapted to its growth; and what may have promoted our earlier
efforts, might, retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection.
The first endeavours of a young painter, as I have remarked in a former
discourse, must be employed in the attainment of mechanical dexterity,
and confined to the mere imitation of the object before him. Those who
have advanced beyond the rudiments, may, perhaps, find advantage in
reflecting on the advice which I have likewise given them, when I
recommended the diligent study of the works of our great predecessors;
but I at the same time endeavoured to guard them against an implicit
submission to the authority of any one master, however excellent; or by a
strict imitation of his manner, to preclude ourselves from the abundance
and variety of nature. I will now add that nature herself is not to be
too closely copied. There are excellences in the art of painting, beyond
what is commonly called the imitation of nature: and these excellences I
wish to point out. The students who, having passed through the
initiatory exercises, are more advanced in the art, and who, sure of
their hand, have leisure to exert their understanding, must now be told
that a mere copier of nature can never produce anything great; can never
raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.
The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of
endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations,
he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead
of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator,
he must strive for fame, by captivating the imagination.
The principle now laid down, that the perfection of this art does not
consist in mere imitation, is far from being new or singular. It is,
indeed, supported by the general opinion of the enlightened part of
mankind. The poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity, are
continually enforcing this position, that all the arts receive their
perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to what is to be found in
individual nature. They are ever referring to the practice of the
painters and sculptors of their times, particularly Phidias (the
favourite artist of antiquity), to illustrate their assertions. As if
they could not sufficiently express their admiration of his genius by
what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm. They call it
inspiration; a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended
the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of
beauty. "He," says Proclus, "who takes for his model such forms as
nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will
never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are
full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of
beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any
object ever presents to his sight; but contemplated only that image which
he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description." And thus Cicero,
speaking of the same Phidias: "Neither did this artist," says he, "when
he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva, set before him any one human
figure as a pattern, which he was to copy; but having a more perfect idea
of beauty fixed in his mind, this he steadily contemplated, and to the
imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed."
The moderns are not less convinced than the ancients of this superior
power existing in the art; nor less conscious of its effects. Every
language has adopted terms expressive of this excellence. The _Gusto
grande_ of the Italians; the _Beau ideal_ of the French and the _great
style_, _genius_, and _taste_ among the English, are but different
appellations of the same thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they
say, that ennobles the painter's art; that lays the line between him and
the mere mechanic; and produces those great effects in an instant, which
eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to
attain.
Such is the warmth with which both the ancients and moderns speak of this
divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed,
enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by
such praise may have his attention roused, and a desire excited, of
running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said
to excite, may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and
perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which he is told
so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to
gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other
qualifications than what mere common observation and a plain
understanding can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour of
figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to pursue an object which
he supposes out of the reach of human industry.
But on this, as upon many other occasions, we ought to distinguish how
much is to be given to enthusiasm, and how much to reason. We ought to
allow for, and we ought to commend, that strength of vivid expression
which is necessary to convey, in its full force, the highest sense of the
most complete effect of art; taking care at the same time not to lose in
terms of vague admiration that solidity and truth of principle upon which
alone we can reason, and may be enabled to practise.
It is not easy to define in what this great style consists; nor to
describe, by words, the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the
student should be at all capable of such an acquisition. Could we teach
taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. But
though there neither are, nor can be, any precise invariable rules for
the exercise or the acquisition of those great qualities, yet we may as
truly say that they always operate in proportion to our attention in
observing the works of nature, to our skill in selecting, and to our care
in digesting, methodising, and comparing our observations. There are
many beauties in our art, that seem, at first, to lie without the reach
of precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical principles.
Experience is all in all; but it is not every one who profits by
experience; and most people err, not so much from want of capacity to
find their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great
ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon
the earth. They are about us, and upon every side of us. But the power
of discovering what is deformed in nature, or in other words, what is
particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by experience; and the
whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being
able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and
details of every kind.
All the objects which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close
examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects. The most
beautiful forms have something about them like weakness, minuteness, or
imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It
must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these
forms; and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of
the same kind have in common, that alone can acquire the power of
discerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious comparison
should be the first study of the painter who aims at the greatest style.
By this means, he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects
nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye
being enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences,
and deformities of things from their general figures, he makes out an
abstract idea of their forms more perfect than any one original; and what
may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures
unlike to any one object. This idea of the perfect state of nature,
which the artist calls the ideal beauty, is the great leading principle
by which works of genius are conducted. By this Phidias acquired his
fame. He wrought upon a sober principle what has so much excited the
enthusiasm of the world; and by this method you, who have courage to
tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation.
This is the idea which has acquired, and which seems to have a right to
the epithet of Divine; as it may be said to preside, like a supreme
judge, over all the productions of nature; appearing to be possessed of
the will and intention of the Creator, as far as they regard the external
form of living beings.
When a man once possesses this idea in its perfection, there is no danger
but that he will he sufficiently warmed by it himself, and be able to
warm and ravish every one else.
Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the
objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that
central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is
deformity. But the investigation of this form I grant is painful, and I
know but of one method of shortening the road; this is, by a careful
study of the works of the ancient sculptors; who, being indefatigable in
the school of nature, have left models of that perfect form behind them,
which an artist would prefer as supremely beautiful, who had spent his
whole life in that single contemplation. But if industry carried them
thus far, may not you also hope for the same reward from the same labour?
We have the same school opened to us that was opened to them; for nature
denies her instructions to none who desire to become her pupils.
To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each
species of beings is invariably one, it may be objected that in every
particular species there are various central forms, which are separate
and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful; that in
the human figure, for instance, the beauty of the Hercules is one, of the
gladiator another, of the Apollo another, which makes so many different
ideas of beauty.
It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in their kind,
though of different characters and proportions; but still none of them is
the representation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is one
general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at large,
so in each of these classes there is one common idea and central form,
which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to that
class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly,
there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in age,--which is
the more perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiarities. But I
must add further, that though the most perfect forms of each of the
general divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any
individual form of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human
figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules,
nor in the gladiator, nor in the Apollo; but in that form which is taken
from them all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the
gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of
the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must combine all the
characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any
one to the exclusion of the rest: no one, therefore, must be predominant,
that no one may be deficient.
The knowledge of these different characters, and the power of separating
and distinguishing them, is undoubtedly necessary to the painter, who is
to vary his compositions with figures of various forms and proportions,
though he is never to lose sight of the general idea of perfection in
each kind.
There is, likewise, a kind of symmetry or proportion, which may properly
be said to belong to deformity. A figure lean or corpulent, tall or
short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain union of
the various parts, which may contribute to make them, on the whole, not
unpleasing. When the artist has by diligent attention acquired a clear
and distinct idea of beauty and symmetry; when he has reduced the variety
of nature to the abstract idea; his next task will be to become
acquainted with the genuine habits of nature, as distinguished from those
of fashion. For in the same manner, and on the same principles, as he
has acquired the knowledge of the real forms of nature, distinct from
accidental deformity, he must endeavour to separate simple chaste nature
from those adventitious, those affected and forced airs or actions, with
which she is loaded by modern education.
Perhaps I cannot better explain what I mean than by reminding you of what
was taught us by the Professor of Anatomy, in respect to the natural
position and movement of the feet. He observed that the fashion of
turning, them outwards was contrary to the intent of nature, as might be
seen from the structure of the bones, and from the weakness that
proceeded from that manner of standing. To this we may add the erect
position of the head, the projection of the chest, the walking with
straight knees, and many such actions, which are merely the result of
fashion, and what nature never warranted, as we are sure that we have
been taught them when children.
I have mentioned but a few of those instances, in which vanity or caprice
have contrived to distort and disfigure the human form; your own
recollection will add to these a thousand more of ill-understood methods,
that have been practised to disguise nature, among our dancing-masters,
hair-dressers, and tailors, in their various schools of deformity.
However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to fashion, she
must be entirely excluded from the art of painting; the painter must
never mistake this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of
nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or
country; he must disregard all local and temporary ornaments, and look
only on those general habits that are everywhere and always the same. He
addresses his works to the people of every country and every age; he
calls upon posterity to be his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, _In
aeternitatem pingo_.
The neglect of separating modern fashions from the habits of nature,
leads to that ridiculous style which has been practised by some painters
who have given to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the
court of Louis XIV.; an absurdity almost as great as it would have been
to have dressed them after the fashion of that court.
To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true simplicity of
nature, is a task more difficult than at first sight it may appear. The
prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used
to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often
difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the
result of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour
of the artificial mode; and almost every one is apt to be guided by those
local prejudices who has not chastised his mind, and regulated the
instability of his affections, by the eternal invariable idea of nature.
Here, then, as before, we must have recourse to the ancients as
instructors. It is from a careful study of their works that you will be
enabled to attain to the real simplicity of nature; they will suggest
many observations, which would probably escape you, if your study were
confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot help suspecting, that in
this instance the ancients had an easier task than the moderns. They
had, probably, little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were nearly
approaching to this desirable simplicity; while the modern artist, before
he can see the truth of things, is obliged to remove a veil, with which
the fashion of the times has thought proper to cover her.
Having gone thus far in our investigation of the great style in painting;
if we now should suppose that the artist has formed the true idea of
beauty, which enables him to give his works a correct and perfect design;
if we should suppose also that he has acquired a knowledge of the
unadulterated habits of nature, which gives him simplicity; the rest of
his talk is, perhaps, less than is generally imagined. Beauty and
simplicity have so great a share in the composition of a great style,
that he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It must not,
indeed, be forgot that there is a nobleness of conception, which goes
beyond anything in the mere exhibition, even of perfect form; there is an
art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur,
of impressing the appearance of philosophic wisdom or heroic virtue. This
can only be acquired by him that enlarges the sphere of his understanding
by a variety of knowledge, and warms his imagination with the best
productions of ancient and modern poetry.
A hand thus exercised, and a mind thus instructed, will bring the art to
a higher degree of excellence than, perhaps, it has hitherto attained in
this country. Such a student will disdain the humbler walks of painting,
which, however profitable, can never assure him a permanent reputation.
He will leave the meaner artist servilely to suppose that those are the
best pictures which are most likely to deceive the spectator. He will
permit the lower painter, like the florist or collector of shells, to
exhibit the minute discriminations which distinguish one object of the
same species from another; while he, like the philosopher, will consider
nature in the abstract, and represent in every one of his figures the
character of its species.
If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no
doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed: but
it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to
address; nor will he waste a moment upon these smaller objects, which
only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract
his great design of speaking to the heart.
This is the ambition I could wish to excite in your minds; and the object
I have had in my view, throughout this discourse, is that one great idea
which gives to painting its true dignity, that entitles it to the name of
a Liberal Art, and ranks it as a sister of poetry.
It may possibly have happened to many young students whose application
was sufficient to overcome all difficulties, and whose minds were capable
of embracing the most extensive views, that they have, by a wrong
direction originally given, spent their lives in the meaner walks of
painting, without ever knowing there was a nobler to pursue. "Albert
Durer," as Vasari has justly remarked, "would probably have been one of
the first painters of his age (and he lived in an era of great artists)
had he been initiated into those great principles of the art which were
so well understood and practised by his contemporaries in Italy. But
unluckily, having never seen or heard of any other manner, he considered
his own, without doubt, as perfect."
As for the various departments of painting, which do not presume to make
such high pretensions, they are many. None of them are without their
merit, though none enter into competition with this great universal
presiding idea of the art. The painters who have applied themselves more
particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who express with precision
the various shades of passion, as they are exhibited by vulgar minds
(such as we see in the works of Hogarth) deserve great praise; but as
their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the praise
that we give must be as limited as its object. The merrymaking or
quarrelling of the Boors of Teniers; the same sort of productions of
Brouwer, or Ostade, are excellent in their kind; and the excellence and
its praise will be in proportion, as, in those limited subjects and
peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the expression of those
passions, as they appear in general and more enlarged nature. This
principle may be applied to the battle pieces of Bourgognone, the French
gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life, to
the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, and the sea-views of Vandervelde. All
these painters have, in general, the same right, in different degrees, to
the name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, a sonnetteer,
a writer of pastorals, or descriptive poetry, has to that of a poet.
In the same rank, and, perhaps, of not so great merit, is the cold
painter of portraits. But his correct and just imitation of his object
has its merit. Even the painter of still life, whose highest ambition is
to give a minute representation of every part of those low objects, which
he sets before him, deserves praise in proportion to his attainment;
because no part of this excellent art, so much the ornament of polished
life, is destitute of value and use. These, however, are by no means the
views to which the mind of the student ought to be _primarily_ directed.
By aiming at better things, if from particular inclination, or from the
taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from
failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower; he will
bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and
character that will raise and ennoble his works far above their natural
rank.
A man is not weak, though he may not be able to wield the club of
Hercules; nor does a man always practise that which he esteems the beat;
but does that which he can best do. In moderate attempts, there are many
walks open to the artist. But as the idea of beauty is of necessity but
one, so there can be but one great mode of painting; the leading
principle of which I have endeavoured to explain.
I should be sorry if what is here recommended should be at all understood
to countenance a careless or indetermined manner of painting. For though
the painter is to overlook the accidental discriminations of nature, he
is to pronounce distinctly, and with precision, the general forms of
things. A firm and determined outline is one of the characteristics of
the great style in painting; and, let me add, that he who possesses the
knowledge of the exact form, that every part of nature ought to have,
will be fond of expressing that knowledge with correctness and precision
in all his works.
To conclude: I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general
principles. And I had the pleasure to observe that the professor of
painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the
artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. And I am
convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing
the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but
perplex and puzzle the student when he compares them, or misguide him if
he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one
general head can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind.
A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the
Prizes, December 10, 1771, by the President.
Gentlemen,--The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the
mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As
this principle is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a
liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the
highest pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties, In
those of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the
painter has but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with
elegance.
This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance that truly ennobles
our art, makes the great distinction between the Roman and Venetian
schools. I have formerly observed that perfect form is produced by
leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas. I shall
now endeavour to show that this principle, which I have proved to be
metaphysically just, extends itself to every part of the art; that it
gives what is called the grand style to invention, to composition, to
expression, and even to colouring and drapery.
Invention in painting does not imply the invention of the subject, for
that is commonly supplied by the poet or historian. With respect to the
choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It
ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or heroic
suffering. There must be something either in the action or in the object
in which men are universally concerned, and which powerfully strikes upon
the public sympathy.
Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of universal, hardly can it
be of general concern: but there are events and characters so popularly
known in those countries where our art is in request, that they may be
considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the
great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early education
and the usual course of reading have made familiar and interesting to all
Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of ordinary life in any
country. Such, too, are the capital subjects of Scripture history,
which, besides their general notoriety, become venerable by their
connection with our religion.
As it is required that the subject selected should be a general one, it
is no less necessary that it should be kept unembarrassed with whatever
may any way serve to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever a
story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action and
the expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this
mental picture in canvas is what we call invention in a painter. And as
in the conception of this ideal picture the mind does not enter into the
minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action, so when
the painter comes to represent it he contrives those little necessary
concomitant circumstances in such a manner that they shall strike the
spectator no more than they did himself in his first conception of the
story.
I am very ready to allow that some circumstances of minuteness and
particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to
interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances,
therefore, cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be anything in the art
which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of
these minute circumstantial parts which, according to the judgment
employed in the choice, become so useful to truth or so injurious to
grandeur.
However, the usual and most dangerous error is on the side of minuteness,
and, therefore, I think caution most necessary where most have failed.
The general idea constitutes real excellence. All smaller things,
however perfect in their way, are to be sacrificed without mercy to the
greater. The painter will not inquire what things may be admitted
without much censure. He will not think it enough to show that they may
be there; he will show that they must be there, that their absence would
render his picture maimed and defective.
Thus, though to the principal group a second or third be added, and a
second and third mass of light, care must be yet taken that these
subordinate actions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all
together, come into any degree of competition with the principal; they
should make a part of that whole which would be imperfect without them.
To every part of painting this rule may be applied. Even in portraits,
the grace and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in taking the
general air than in observing the effect similitude of every feature.
Thus figures must have a ground whereon to stand; they must be clothed,
there must be a background, there must be light and shadow; but none of
these ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artist's
attention. They should be so managed as not even to catch that of the
spectator. We know well enough, when we analyse a piece, the difficulty
and the subtlety with which an artist adjusts the background, drapery,
and masses of light; we know that a considerable part of the grace and
effect of his picture depends upon them; but this art is so much
concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remains of any of these
subordinate parts occur to memory when the picture is not present.
The great end of the art is to strike the imagination. The painter is,
therefore, to make no ostentation of the means by which this is done; the
spectator is only to feel the result in his bosom. An inferior artist is
unwilling that any part of his industry should be lost upon the
spectator. He takes as much pains to discover, as the greater artist
does to conceal, the marks of his subordinate assiduity. In works of the
lower kind everything appears studied and encumbered; it is all boastful
art and open affectation. The ignorant often part from such pictures
with wonder in their mouths, and indifference in their hearts.
But it is not enough in invention that the artist should restrain and
keep under all the inferior parts of his subject; he must sometimes
deviate from vulgar and strict historical truth in pursuing the grandeur
of his design.
How much the great style exacts from its professors to conceive and
represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere
matter of fact, may be seen in the cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the
pictures in which the painter has represented the apostles, he has drawn
them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the human
figure is capable of receiving yet we are expressly told in Scripture
they had no such respectable appearance; and of St. Paul in particular,
we are told by himself, that his bodily presence was mean. Alexander is
said to have been of a low stature: a painter ought not so to represent
him. Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance. None of these
defects ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero. In
conformity to custom, I call this part of the art history painting; it
ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is.
All this is not falsifying any fact; it is taking an allowed poetical
licence. A painter of portraits retains the individual likeness; a
painter of history shows the man by showing his actions. A painter must
compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence
to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or
historian, expatiate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the
character of the hero or saint he represents, though he lets us know at
the same time that the saint was deformed, or the hero lame. The painter
has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind, but by
that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though
not always, impress on the countenance, and by that correspondence of
figure to sentiment and situation which all men wish, but cannot command.
The painter, who may in this one particular attain with ease what others
desire in vain, ought to give all that he possibly can, since there are
so many circumstances of true greatness that he cannot give at all. He
cannot make his hero talk like a great man; he must make him look like
one. For which reason he ought to be well studied in the analysis of
those circumstances which constitute dignity of appearance in real life.
As in invention, so likewise in, expression, care must be taken not to
run into particularities, Those expressions alone should be given to the
figures which their respective situations generally produce. Nor is this
enough; each person should also have that expression which men of his
rank generally exhibit. The joy or the grief of a character of dignity
is not to be expressed in the same manner as a similar passion in a
vulgar face. Upon this principle Bernini, perhaps, may be subject to
censure. This sculptor, in many respects admirable, has given a very
mean expression to his statue of David, who is represented as just going
to throw the stone from the sling; and in order to give it the expression
of energy he has made him biting his under-lip. This expression is far
from being general, and still farther from being dignified. He might
have seen it in an instance or two, and he mistook accident for
universality.
With respect to colouring, though it may appear at first a part of
painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those
grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and
the little in the study of a painter. By this, the first effect of the
picture is produced; and as this is performed the spectator, as he walks
the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur
at first view, all trifling or artful play of little lights or an
attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and
simplicity must reign over the whole work; to which a breadth of uniform
and simple colour will very much contribute. Grandeur of effect is
produced by two different ways, which seem entirely opposed to each
other. One is, by reducing the colours to little more than chiaroscuro,
which was often the practice of the Bolognian schools; and the other, by
making the colours very distinct and forcible, such as we see in those of
Rome and Florence; but still, the presiding principle of both those
manners is simplicity. Certainly, nothing can be more simple than
monotony, and the distinct blue, red, and yellow colours which are seen
in the draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools, though they have
not that kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and
transparent colours, have that effect of grandeur that was intended.
Perhaps these distinct colours strike the mind more forcibly, from there
not being any great union between them; as martial music, which is
intended to rouse the noble passions, has its effect from the sudden and
strongly marked transitions from one note to another, which that style of
music requires; whilst in that which is intended to move the softer
passions the notes imperceptibly melt into one another.
In the same manner as the historical painter never enters into the detail
of colours, so neither does he debase his conceptions with minute
attention to the discriminations of drapery. It is the inferior style
that marks the variety of stuffs. With him, the clothing is neither
woollen, nor linen, nor silk, satin, or velvet: it is drapery; it is
nothing more. The art of disposing the foldings of the drapery make a
very considerable part of the painter's study. To make it merely natural
is a mechanical operation, to which neither genius or taste are required;
whereas, it requires the nicest judgment to dispose the drapery, so that
the folds have an easy communication, and gracefully follow each other,
with such natural negligence as to look like the effect of chance, and at
the same time show the figure under it to the utmost advantage.
Carlo Maratti was of opinion that the disposition of drapery was a more
difficult art than even that of drawing the human figure; that a student
might be more easily taught the latter than the former; as the rules of
drapery, he said, could not be so well ascertained as those for
delineating a correct form, This, perhaps, is a proof how willingly we
favour our own peculiar excellence. Carlo Maratti is said to have valued
himself particularly upon his skill in this part of the art yet in him
the disposition appears so artificial, that he is inferior to Raffaelle,
even in that which gave him his best claim to reputation.
Such is the great principle by which we must be directed in the nobler
branches of our art. Upon this principle the Roman, the Florentine, the
Bolognese schools, have formed their practice; and by this they have
deservedly obtained the highest praise. These are the three great
schools of the world in the epic style. The best of the French school,
Poussin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have formed themselves upon these models,
and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to be a colony from the
Roman school. Next to these, but in a very different style of
excellence, we may rank the Venetian, together with the Flemish and the
Dutch schools, all professing to depart from the great purposes of
painting, and catching at applause by inferior qualities.
I am not ignorant that some will censure me for placing the Venetians in
this inferior class, and many of the warmest admirers of painting will
think them unjustly degraded; but I wish not to be misunderstood. Though
I can by no means allow them to hold any rank with the nobler schools of
painting, they accomplished perfectly the thing they attempted. But as
mere elegance is their principal object, as they seem more willing to
dazzle than to affect, it can be no injury to them to suppose that their
practice is useful only to its proper end. But what may heighten the
elegant may degrade the sublime. There is a simplicity, and I may add,
severity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, almost incompatible
with this comparatively sensual style.
Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian schools, seem to have
painted with no other purpose than to be admired for their skill and
expertness in the mechanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art
which, as I before observed, the higher style requires its followers to
conceal.
In a conference of the French Academy, at which were present Le Brun,
Sebastian Bourdon, and all the eminent artists of that age, one of the
academicians desired to have their opinion on the conduct of Paul
Veronese, who, though a painter of great consideration, had, contrary to
the strict rules of art, in his picture of Perseus and Andromeda,
represented the principal figure in shade. To this question no
satisfactory answer was then given. But I will venture to say, that if
they had considered the class of the artist, and ranked him as an
ornamental painter, there would have been no difficulty in answering: "It
was unreasonable to expect what was never intended. His intention was
solely to produce an effect of light and Shadow; everything was to be
sacrificed to that intent, and the capricious composition of that picture
suited very well with the style he professed."
Young minds are indeed too apt to be captivated by this splendour of
style, and that of the Venetians will be particularly pleasing; for by
them all those parts of the art that give pleasure to the eye or sense
have been cultivated with care, and carried to the degree nearest to
perfection. The powers exerted in the mechanical part of the art have
been called the language of painters; but we must say, that it is but
poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk. Words should
be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument,
conviction is the work.
The language of painting must indeed be allowed these masters; but even
in that they have shown more copiousness than choice, and more luxuriancy
than judgment. If we consider the uninteresting subjects of their
invention, or at least the uninteresting manner in which they are
treated; if we attend to their capricious composition, their violent and
affected contrasts, whether of figures, or of light and shadow, the
richness of their drapery, and, at the same time, the mean effect which
the discrimination of stuffs gives to their pictures; if to these we add
their total inattention to expression, and then reflect on the
conceptions and the learning of Michael Angelo, or the simplicity of
Raffaelle, we can no longer dwell on the comparison. Even in colouring,
if we compare the quietness and chastity of the Bolognese pencil to the
bustle and tumult that fills every part of, a Venetian picture, without
the least attempt to interest the passions, their boasted art will appear
a mere struggle without effect; an empty tale told by an idiot, full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Such as suppose that the great style might happily be blended with the
ornamental, that the simple, grave, and majestic dignity of Raffaelle
could unite with the glow and bustle of a Paulo or Tintoret, are totally
mistaken. The principles by which each are attained are so contrary to
each other, that they seem, in my opinion, incompatible, and as
impossible to exist together, as to unite in the mind at the same time
the most sublime ideas and the lowest sensuality.
The subjects of the Venetian painters are mostly such as give them an
opportunity of introducing a great number of figures, such as feasts,
marriages, and processions, public martyrdoms, or miracles. I can easily
conceive that Paul Veronese, if he were asked, would say that no subject
was proper for an historical picture but such as admitted at least forty
figures; for in a less number, he would assert, there could be no
opportunity of the painter's showing his art in composition, his
dexterity of managing and disposing the masses of light, and groups of
figures, and of introducing a variety of Eastern dresses and characters
in their rich stuffs.
But the thing is very different with a pupil of the greater schools.
Annibale Caracci thought twelve figures sufficient for any story: he
conceived that more would contribute to no end but to fill space; that
they would, be but cold spectators of the general action, or, to use his
own expression, that they would be figures to be let. Besides, it is
impossible for a picture composed of so many parts to have that effect,
so indispensably necessary to grandeur, of one complete whole. However
contradictory it may be in geometry, it is true in taste, that many
little things will not make a great one. The sublime impresses the mind
at once with one great idea; it is a single blow: the elegant indeed may
be produced by a repetition, by an accumulation of many minute
circumstances.
However great the difference is between the composition of the Venetian
and the rest of the Italian schools, there is full as great a disparity
in the effect of their pictures as produced by colours. And though in
this respect the Venetians must be allowed extraordinary skill, yet even
that skill, as they have employed it, will but ill correspond with the
great style. Their colouring is not only too brilliant, but, I will
venture to say, too harmonious to produce that solidity, steadiness, and
simplicity of effect which heroic subjects require, and which simple or
grave colours only can give to a work. That they are to be cautiously
studied by those who are ambitious of treading the great walk of history
is confirmed, if it wants confirmation, by the greatest of all
authorities, Michael Angelo. This wonderful man, after having seen a
picture by Titian, told Vasari, who accompanied him, "that he liked much
his colouring and manner; but then he added, that it was a pity the
Venetian painters did not learn to draw correctly in their early youth,
and adopt a better manner of study."
By this it appears that the principal attention of the Venetian painters,
in the opinion of Michael Angelo, seemed to be engrossed by the study of
colours, to the neglect of the ideal beauty of form, or propriety of
expression. But if general censure was given to that school from the
sight of a picture of Titian, how much more heavily, and more justly,
would the censure fall on Paulo Veronese, or more especially on Tintoret?
And here I cannot avoid citing Vasari's opinion of the style and manner
of Tintoret. "Of all the extraordinary geniuses," says he, "that have
ever practised the art of painting, for wild, capricious, extravagant,
and fantastical inventions, for furious impetuosity and boldness in the
execution of his work, there is none like Tintoret; his strange whims are
even beyond extravagance; and his works seem to be produced rather by
chance than in consequence of any previous design, as if he wanted to
convince the world that, the art was a trifle, and of the most easy
attainment."
For my own part, when I speak of the Venetian painters, I wish to be
understood to mean Paulo Veronese and Tintoret, to the exclusion of
Titian; for though his style is not so pure as that of many other of the
Italian schools, yet there is a sort of senatorial dignity about him,
which, however awkward in his imitators, seems to become him exceedingly.
His portraits alone, from the nobleness and simplicity of character which
he always gave them, will entitle him to the greatest respect, as he
undoubtedly stands in the first rank in this branch of the art.
It is not with Titian, but with the seducing qualities of the two former,
that I could wish to caution you, against being too much captivated.
These are the persons who may be said to have exhausted all the powers of
florid eloquence, to debauch the young and unexperienced, and have,
without doubt, been the cause of turning off the attention of the
connoisseur and of the patron of art, as well as that of the painter,
from those higher excellences of which the art is capable, and which
ought to be required in every considerable production. By them, and
their imitators, a style merely ornamental has been disseminated
throughout all Europe. Rubens carried it to Flanders, Voet to France,
and Luca Giordano to Spain and Naples.
The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the schools of elegance; and
it is not without reason that the best performances in this lower school
are valued higher than the second-rate performances of those above them;
for every picture has value when it has a decided character, and is
excellent in its kind. But the student must take care not to be so much
dazzled with this splendour as to be tempted to imitate what must
ultimately lead from perfection. Poussin, whose eye was always steadily
fixed on the sublime, has been often heard to say, "That a particular
attention to colouring was an obstacle to the student in his progress to
the great end and design of the art; and that he who attaches himself to
this principal end will acquire by practice a reasonably good method of
colouring."
Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of
tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present to the
eye what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be
remembered that painting is not merely a gratification of the sight. Such
excellence, though properly cultivated where nothing higher than elegance
is intended, is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work aspires to
grandeur and sublimity.
The same reasons that have been urged why a mixture of the Venetian style
cannot improve the great style will hold good in regard to the Flemish
and Dutch schools. Indeed, the Flemish school, of which Rubens is the
head, was formed upon that of the Venetian; like them, he took his
figures too much from the people before him. But it must be allowed in
favour of the Venetians that he was more gross than they, and carried all
their mistaken methods to a far greater excess. In the Venetian school
itself, where they all err from the same cause, there is a difference in
the effect. The difference between Paulo and Bassano seems to be only
that one introduced Venetian gentlemen into his pictures, and the other
the boors of the district of Bassano, and called them patriarchs and
prophets.
The painters of the Dutch school have still more locality. With them, a
history piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe
the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged
in their own peculiar occupations, working or drinking, playing or
fighting. The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind are
so far from giving a general view of human life that they exhibit all the
minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the
rest of mankind. Yet, let them have their share of more humble praise.
The painters of this school are excellent in their own way; they are only
ridiculous when they attempt general history on their own narrow
principles, and debase great events by the meanness of their characters.
Some inferior dexterity, some extraordinary mechanical power, is
apparently that from which they seek distinction. Thus, we see, that
school alone has the custom of representing candle-light, not as it
really appears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate objects to
a spectator by day. Such tricks, however pardonable in the little style,
where petty effects are the sole end, are inexcusable in the greater,
where the attention should never be drawn aside by trifles, but should be
entirely occupied by the subject itself.
The same local principles which characterise the Dutch school extend even
to their landscape painters; and Rubens himself, who has painted many
landscapes, has sometimes transgressed in this particular. Their pieces
in this way are, I think, always a representation of an individual spot,
and each in its kind a very faithful but very confined portrait.
Claude Lorraine, on the contrary, was convinced that taking nature as he
found it seldom produced beauty. His pictures are a composition of the
various draughts which he has previously made from various beautiful
scenes and prospects. However, Rubens in some measure has made amends
for the deficiency with which he is charged; he has contrived to raise
and animate his otherwise uninteresting views, by introducing a rainbow,
storm, or some particular accidental effect of light. That the practice
of Claude Lorraine, in respect to his choice, is to be adopted by
landscape painters, in opposition to that of the Flemish and Dutch
schools, there can be no doubt, as its truth is founded upon the same
principle as that by which the historical painter acquires perfect form.
But whether landscape painting has a right to aspire so far as to reject
what the painters call accidents of nature is not easy to determine. It
is certain Claude Lorraine seldom, if ever, availed himself of those
accidents; either he thought that such peculiarities were contrary to
that style of general nature which he professed, or that it would catch
the attention too strongly, and destroy that quietness and repose which
he thought necessary to that kind of painting.
A portrait painter likewise, when he attempts history, unless he is upon
his guard, is likely to enter too much into the detail. He too
frequently makes his historical heads look like portraits; and this was
once the custom amongst those old painters who revived the art before
general ideas were practised or understood. A history painter paints man
in general; a portrait painter, a particular man, and consequently a
defective model.
Thus an habitual practice in the lower exercises of the art will prevent
many from attaining the greater. But such of us who move in these
humbler walks of the profession are not ignorant that, as the natural
dignity of the subject is less, the more all the little ornamental helps
are necessary to its embellishment. It would be ridiculous for a painter
of domestic scenes, of portraits, landscapes, animals, or of still life,
to say that he despised those qualities which have made the subordinate
schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful management of
light and shadow, are essential requisites in his confined labours. If
we descend still lower, what is the painter of fruit and flowers without
the utmost art in colouring, and what the painters call handling; that
is, a lightness of pencil that implies great practice, and gives the
appearance of being done with ease? Some here, I believe, must remember
a flower-painter whose boast it was that he scorned to paint for the
million; no, he professed to paint in the true Italian taste; and
despising the crowd, called strenuously upon the few to admire him. His
idea of the Italian taste was to paint as black and dirty as he could,
and to leave all clearness and brilliancy of colouring to those who were
fonder of money than of immortality. The consequence was such as might
be expected. For these pretty excellences are here essential beauties;
and without this merit the artist's work will be more short-lived than
the objects of his imitation.
From what has been advanced, we must now be convinced that there are two
distinct styles in history painting: the grand, and the splendid or
ornamental.
The great style stands alone, and does not require, perhaps does not so
well admit, any addition from inferior beauties. The ornamental style
also possesses its own peculiar merit. However, though the union of the
two may make a sort of composite style, yet that style is likely to be
more imperfect than either of those which go to its composition. Both
kinds have merit, and may be excellent though in different ranks, if
uniformity be preserved, and the general and particular ideas of nature
be not mixed. Even the meanest of them is difficult enough to attain;
and the first place being already occupied by the great artists in either
department, some of those who followed thought there was less room for
them, and feeling the impulse of ambition and the desire of novelty, and
being at the same time perhaps willing to take the shortest way, they
endeavoured to make for themselves a place between both. This they have
effected by forming a union of the different orders. But as the grave
and majestic style would suffer by a union with the florid and gay, so
also has the Venetian ornament in some respect been injured by attempting
an alliance with simplicity.
It may be asserted that the great style is always more or less
contaminated by any meaner mixture. But it happens in a few instances
that the lower may be improved by borrowing from the grand. Thus, if a
portrait painter is desirous to raise and improve his subject, he has no
other means than by approaching it to a general idea. He leaves out all
the minute breaks and peculiarities in the face, and changes the dress
from a temporary fashion to one more permanent, which has annexed to it
no ideas of meanness from its being familiar to us. But if an exact
resemblance of an individual be considered as the sole object to be aimed
at, the portrait painter will be apt to lose more than he gains by the
acquired dignity taken from general nature. It is very difficult to
ennoble the character of a countenance but at the expense of the
likeness, which is what is most generally required by such as sit to the
painter.
Of those who have practised the composite style, and have succeeded in
this perilous attempt, perhaps the foremost is Correggio. His style is
founded upon modern grace and elegance, to which is super, added
something of the simplicity of the grand style. A breadth of light and
colour, the general ideas of the drapery, an uninterrupted flow of
outline, all conspire to this effect. Next him (perhaps equal to him)
Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern effeminacy by uniting
it with the simplicity of the ancients and the grandeur and severity of
Michael Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these two
extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmost degree of grace,
have sometimes, perhaps, exceeded its boundaries, and have fallen into
the most hateful of all hateful qualities, affectation. Indeed, it is
the peculiar characteristic of men of genius to be afraid of coldness and
insipidity, from which they think they never can be too far removed. It
particularly happens to these great masters of grace and elegance. They
often boldly drive on to the very verge of ridicule; the spectator is
alarmed, but at the same time admires their vigour and intrepidity.
Strange graces still, and stranger flights they had,
. . .
Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create
Ae when they touch'd the brink of all we hate.
The errors of genius, however, are pardonable, and none even of the more
exalted painters are wholly free from them; but they have taught us, by
the rectitude of their general practice, to correct their own affected or
accidental deviation. The very first have not been always upon their
guard, and perhaps there is not a fault but what may take shelter under
the most venerable authorities; yet that style only is perfect in which
the noblest principles are uniformly pursued; and those masters only are
entitled to the first rank in, our estimation who have enlarged the
boundaries of their art, and have raised it to its highest dignity, by
exhibiting the general ideas of nature.
On the whole, it seems to me that there is but one presiding principle
which regulates and gives stability to every art. The works, whether of
poets, painters, moralists, or historians, which are built upon general
nature, live for ever; while those which depend for their existence on
particular customs and habits, a partial view of nature, or the
fluctuation of fashion, can only be coeval with that which first raised
them from obscurity. Present time and future maybe considered as rivals,
and he who solicits the one must expect to be discountenanced by the
other.
A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution of the
Prizes, December 10, 1772, by the President.
Gentlemen,--I purpose to carry on in this discourse the subject which I
began in my last. It was my wish upon that occasion to incite you to
pursue the higher excellences of the art. But I fear that in this
particular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready to imagine, when
any of their favourite acquirements in the art are properly classed, that
they are utterly disgraced. This is a very great mistake: nothing has
its proper lustre but in its proper place. That which is most worthy of
esteem in its allotted sphere becomes an object, not of respect, but of
derision, when it is forced into a higher, to which it is not suited; and
there it becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a situation
which is not natural to it, and by putting down from the first place what
is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and proportion
that subordinate station, to which something of less value would be much
better suited.
My advice in a word is this: keep your principal attention fixed upon the
higher excellences. If you compass them and compass nothing more, you
are still in the first class. We may regret the innumerable beauties
which you may want: you may be very imperfect: but still, you are an
imperfect person of the highest order.
If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the
subordinate qualifications, it is my wish and advice that you should not
neglect them.
But this is as much a matter of circumspection and caution at least as of
eagerness and pursuit.
The mind is apt to be distracted by a multiplicity of pursuits; and that
scale of perfection, which I wish always to be preserved, is in the
greatest danger of being totally disordered, and even inverted.
Some excellences bear to be united, and are improved by union, others are
of a discordant nature; and the attempt to join them only produces a
harsher jarring of incongruent principles.
The attempt to unite contrary excellences (of form, for instance) in a
single figure, can never escape degenerating into the monstrous, but by
sinking into the insipid, taking away its marked character, and weakening
its expression.
This remark is true to a certain degree with regard to the passions. If
you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its most perfect state,
you cannot express the passions, which produce (all of them) distortion
and deformity, more or less, in the most beautiful faces.
Guido, from want of choice in adapting his subject to his ideas and his
powers, or in attempting to preserve beauty where it could not be
preserved has in this respect succeeded very ill. His figures are often
engaged in subjects that required great expression: yet his "Judith and
Holofernes," the "Daughter of Herodias with the Baptist's Head," the
"Andromeda," and even the "Mothers of the Innocents," have little more
expression than his "Venus attired by the Graces."
Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many writers on our art, who,
not being of the profession, and consequently not knowing what can or
what cannot be done, have been very liberal of absurd praises in their
descriptions of favourite works. They always find in them what they are
resolved to find. They praise excellences that can hardly exist
together, and above all things are fond of describing with great
exactness the expression of a mixed passion, which more particularly
appears to me out of the reach of our art.
Such are many disquisitions which I have read on some of the cartoons and
other pictures of Raffaelle, where the critics have described their own
imagination; or indeed where the excellent master himself may have
attempted this expression of passions above the powers of the art; and
has, therefore, by an indistinct and imperfect marking, left room for
every imagination, with equal probability to find a passion of his own.
What has been, and what can be done in the art, is sufficiently
difficult; we need not be mortified or discouraged for not being able to
execute the conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has its
boundaries, though imagination has none. We can easily, like the
ancients, suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those powers and
perfections which the subordinate Deities were endowed with separately.
Yet, when they employed their art to represent him, they confined his
character to majesty alone. Pliny, therefore, though we are under great
obligations to him for the information he has given us in relation to the
works of the ancient artists, is very frequently wrong when he speaks of
them, which he does very often in the style of many of our modern
connoisseurs. He observes that in a statue of Paris, by Fuphranor, you
might discover at the same time three different characters; the dignity
of a judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the conqueror of
Achilles. A statue in which you endeavour to unite stately dignity,
youthful elegance, and stern valour, must surely possess none of these to
any eminent degree.
From hence it appears that there is much difficulty as well as danger in
an endeavour to concentrate upon a single subject those various powers
which, rising from different points, naturally move in different
directions.
The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary qualities,
but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is found to counteract
the other. How hard this is to be attained in every art, those only know
who have made the greatest progress in their respective professions.
To conclude what I have to say on this part of the subject, which I think
of great importance, I wish you to understand that I do not discourage
the younger students from the noble attempt of uniting all the
excellences of art, but to make them aware that, besides the difficulties
which attend every arduous attempt, there is a peculiar difficulty in the
choice of the excellences which ought to be united; I wish you to attend
to this, that you may try yourselves, whenever you are capable of that
trial, what you can, and what you cannot do: and that, instead of
dissipating your natural faculties over the immense field of possible
excellence, you may choose some particular walk in which you may exercise
all your powers, in order each of you to be the first in his way. If any
man shall be master of such a transcendant, commanding, and ductile
genius, as to enable him to rise to the highest, and to stoop to the
lowest flights of art, and to sweep over all of them unobstructed and
secure, he is fitter to give example than to receive instruction.
Having said thus much on the union of excellences, I will next say
something of the subordination in which various excellences ought to be
kept.
I am of opinion that the ornamental style, which in my discourse of last
year I cautioned you against considering as principal, may not be wholly
unworthy the attention of those who aim even at the grand style; when it
is properly placed and properly reduced.
But this study will be used with far better effect, if its principles are
employed in softening the harshness and mitigating the rigour of the
great style, than if in attempt to stand forward with any pretensions of
its own to positive and original excellence.
It was thus Lodovico Caracci, whose example I formerly recommended to
you, employed it. He was acquainted with the works both of Correggio and
the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced
those pleasing effects which at the first glance prepossess us so much in
their favour; but he took only as much from each as would embellish, but
not overpower, that manly strength and energy of style, which is his
peculiar character.
Since I have already expatiated so largely in my former discourse, and in
my present, upon the styles and characters of painting, it will not be at
all unsuitable to my subject if I mention to you some particulars
relative to the leading principles, and capital works of those who
excelled in the great style, that I may bring you from abstraction nearer
to practice, and by exemplifying the propositions which I have laid down,
enable you to understand more clearly what I would enforce.
The principal works of modern art are in fresco, a mode of painting which
excludes attention to minute elegancies: yet these works in fresco are
the productions on which the fame of the greatest masters depend: such
are the pictures of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle in the Vatican, to which
we may add the cartoons, which, though not strictly to be called fresco,
yet may be put under that denomination; and such are the works of Giulio
Romano at Mantua. If these performances were destroyed, with them would
be lost the best part of the reputation of those illustrious painters,
for these are justly considered as the greatest efforts of our art which
the world can boast. To these, therefore, we should principally direct
our attention for higher excellences. As for the lower arts, as they
have been once discovered, they may be easily attained by those possessed
of the former.
Raffaelle, who stands in general foremost of the first painters, owes his
reputation, as I have observed, to his excellence in the higher parts of
the art. Therefore, his works in fresco ought to be the first object of
our study and attention. His easel-works stand in a lower degree of
estimation; for though he continually, to the day of his death,
embellished his works more and more with the addition of these lower
ornaments, which entirely make the merit of some, yet he never arrived at
such perfection as to make him an object of imitation. He never was able
to conquer perfectly that dryness, or even littleness of manner, which he
inherited from his master. He never acquired that nicety of taste in
colours, that breadth of light and shadow, that art and management of
uniting light, to light, and shadow to shadow, so as to make the object
rise out of the ground with that plenitude of effect so much admired in
the works of Correggio. When he painted in oil, his hand seemed to be so
cramped and confined that he not only lost that facility and spirit, but
I think even that correctness of form, which is so perfect and admirable
in his fresco works. I do not recollect any pictures of his of this
kind, except perhaps the "Transfiguration," in which there are not some
parts that appear to be even feebly drawn. That this is not a necessary
attendant on oil-painting, we have abundant instances in more modern
painters. Lodovico Caracci, for instance, preserved in his works in oil
the same spirit, vigour, and correctness, which he had in fresco. I have
no desire to degrade Raffaelle from the high rank which he deservedly
holds: but by comparing him with himself, he does not appear to me to be
the same man in oil as in fresco.
From those who have ambition to tread in this great walk of the art,
Michael Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess so many
excellences as Raffaelle, but those he had were of the highest kind. He
considered the art as consisting of little more than what may be attained
by sculpture, correctness of form, and energy of character. We ought not
to expect more than an artist intends in his work. He never attempted
those lesser elegancies and graces in the art. Vasari says, he never
painted but one picture in oil, and resolved never to paint another,
saying it was an employment only fit for women and children.
If any man had a right to look down upon the lower accomplishments as
beneath his attention, it was certainly Michael Angelo: nor can it be
thought strange that such a mind should have slighted or have been
withheld from paying due attention to all those graces and embellishments
of art which have diffused such lustre over the works of other painters.
It must be acknowledged likewise, that together with these, which we wish
he had more attended to, he has rejected all the false though specious
ornaments which disgrace the works even of the most esteemed artists; and
I will venture to say, that when those higher excellences are more known
and cultivated by the artists and the patrons of arts, his fame and
credit will increase with our increasing knowledge. His name will then
be held in the same veneration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo
the Tenth: and it is remarkable that the reputation of this truly great
man has been continually declining as the art itself has declined. For I
must remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and that
our only hope of its revival will consist in your being thoroughly
sensible of its depravation and decay. It is to Michael Angelo that we
owe even the existence of Raffaelle; it is to him Raffaelle owes the
grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and
to conceive his subjects with dignity. His genius, however, formed to
blaze and to shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have
lain dormant if it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michael
Angelo: and though it never burst out with that extraordinary heat and
vehemence, yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and
chaste flame. Though our judgment will upon the whole decide in favour
of Raffaelle: yet he never takes that firm hold and entire possession of
the mind in such a manner as to desire nothing else, and feel nothing
wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michael Angelo perfectly
correspond to what Bourchardon said he felt from reading Homer. His
whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which
surrounded him diminished to atoms.