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 these great qualities, yet we may
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, has acquired
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 great 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 be
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.
This laborious investigation, I am aware, must appear superfluous to
those who think everything is to be done by felicity and the powers of
native genius. Even the great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of
confining proportion to rules, or of producing beauty by selection. "A
man cannot tell," says he, "whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the
more trifler: whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical
proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces,
to make one excellent. . . The painter," he adds, "must do it by a
kind of felicity . . . and not by rule."[2]
It is not safe to question any opinion of so great a writer, and so
profound a thinker, as undoubtedly Bacon was. But he studies brevity to
excess; and therefore his meaning is sometimes doubtful. If he means
that beauty has nothing to do with rule, he is mistaken. There is a
rule, obtained out of general Nature, to contradict which is to fall
into deformity. Whenever anything is done beyond this rule, it is in
virtue of some other rule which is followed along with it, but which
does not contradict it. Everything which is wrought with certainty, it
is wrought upon some principle. If is not, it cannot be repeated. If by
felicity is meant anything of chance or hazard, or something born with a
man, and not earned, I cannot agree with this great philosopher. Every
object which pleases must give us pleasure upon some certain principles:
but as the objects of pleasure are almost infinite, so their principles
vary without end, and every man finds them out, not by felicity or
successful hazard, but by care and sagacity.
To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each
species of beings is an invariable 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
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 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 we know to
be 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, which have been practised to disguise nature among our
dancing-masters, hairdressers, and tailors, in their various schools
of deformity.[3]
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 challenging 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 which 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 æternitatem 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 found 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 task 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 forgotten 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 those 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 which I 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, which 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 nor heard
of any other manner, he, without doubt, considered his own 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 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 which 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 sonneteer, 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. Having begun 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 practice that which he esteems the
best, 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 undetermined manner of
painting. For, though the painter is to overlook the accidental
discriminations of nature, he is to exhibit 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 which
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. 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; bringing them
under one general head can alone give rest and satisfaction to an
inquisitive mind.
FOOTNOTES:
1: Lib. 2, in Timæum Platonis, as cited by Junius de Pictura
Veterum.--R.
2: _Essays_, p. 252, edit. 1625.
3: "Those," says Quintilian, "who are taken with the outward
show of things, think that there is more beauty in persons who are
trimmed, curled, and painted, than uncorrupt nature can give; as if
beauty were merely the effect of the corruption of manners."--R.
DISCOURSE IV.
_Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution
of the Prizes, December 10, 1771._
GENERAL IDEAS, THE PRESIDING PRINCIPLE WHICH REGULATES EVERY PART
OF ART; INVENTION, EXPRESSION, COLOURING, AND DRAPERY.--TWO
DISTINCT STYLES IN HISTORY-PAINTING; THE GRAND AND THE
ORNAMENTAL.--THE SCHOOLS IN WHICH EACH IS TO BE FOUND.--THE
COMPOSITE STYLE.--THE STYLE FORMED ON LOCAL CUSTOMS AND HABITS, OR
A PARTIAL VIEW OF NATURE.
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, beside 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 expression of the persons employed. The power of
representing this mental picture on 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 require 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 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 merely make a part of that whole which would be imperfect
without them. To every kind 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 exact similitude of
every feature.