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 each 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, endeavoured to make for
themselves a place between both. This they have effected by forming an
union of the different orders. But as the grave and majestic style
would suffer by an 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 superadded
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 to 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 Michel 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,
As 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 may be
considered as rivals; and he who solicits the one must expect to be
discountenanced by the other.
DISCOURSE V.
_Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution
of the Prizes, December 10, 1772._
CIRCUMSPECTION REQUIRED IN ENDEAVOURING TO UNITE CONTRARY
EXCELLENCIES.--THE EXPRESSION OF A MIXED PASSION NOT TO BE
ATTEMPTED.--EXAMPLES OF THOSE WHO EXCELLED IN THE GREAT
STYLE.--RAFFAELLE, MICHEL ANGELO, THOSE TWO EXTRAORDINARY MEN
COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER.--THE CHARACTERISTICAL STYLE.--SALVATOR
ROSA MENTIONED AS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT STYLE; AND OPPOSED TO CARLO
MARATTI.--SKETCH OF THE CHARACTERS OF POUSSIN AND RUBENS.--THESE
TWO PAINTERS ENTIRELY DISSIMILAR, BUT CONSISTENT WITH
THEMSELVES.--THIS CONSISTENCY REQUIRED IN ALL PARTS OF THE ART.
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 excellencies 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 excellencies. 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 artist 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 objects; 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 excellencies bear to be united, and are improved by union; others
are of a discordant nature; and the attempt to join them only produces a
harsh jarring of incongruent principles. The attempt to unite contrary
excellencies (of form, for instance) in a single figure can never escape
degenerating into the monstrous, but by sinking into the insipid; by
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, all of which produce
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 from 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 require great expression; yet his
Judith and Holofernes, the daughter of Herodias with the Baptist's
head, the Andromeda, and some even of 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 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 excellencies 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 imaginations; 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 at 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 Euphranor, 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, in 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 excellencies of art; but suggest to them, that, beside the
difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there is a peculiar
difficulty in the choice of the excellencies which ought to be united.
I wish 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 that each of you may
become the first in his way. If any man shall be master of such a
transcendent, 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 excellencies, I will next say
something of the subordination in which various excellencies 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 even of those who aim 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 it attempt to stand forward with any
pretensions of its own to positive and original excellence. It was
thus Ludovico 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 positions
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 depends.
Such are the pictures of Michel 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 effort of our
art which the world can boast. To these, therefore, we should
principally direct our attention for higher excellencies. 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; his works in _Fresco_, therefore, 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 performances more and more with the
addition of those lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of
some painters, 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 the 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 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. Ludovico 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,
Michel Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess so many
excellencies as Raffaelle, but those which 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 Michel 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, however, 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
excellencies 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 deprivation and
decay. It is to Michel 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 shine,
might, like fire in combustible matter, forever have lain dormant, if
it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michel Angelo; and
though it never burst out with _his_ extraordinary heat and vehemence,
yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and chaste
flame. Though our judgment must, upon the whole, decide in favour of
Raffaelle, yet he never takes such a firm hold and entire possession
of the mind as to make us desire nothing else, and to feel nothing
wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michel Angelo perfectly
corresponds to what Bouchardon said he felt from reading Homer; his
whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which
surrounded him, diminished to atoms.
If we put these great artists in a light of comparison with each
other, Raffaelle had more Taste and Fancy, Michel Angelo more Genius
and Imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy.
Michel Angelo has more of the poetical Inspiration; his ideas are vast
and sublime; his people are a superior order of beings; there is
nothing about them, nothing in the air of their actions, or their
attitudes, or the style and cast of their limbs or features, that
reminds us of their belonging to our own species. Raffaelle's
imagination is not so elevated; his figures are not so much disjoined
from our own diminutive race of beings, though his ideas are chaste,
noble, and of great conformity to their subjects. Michel Angelo's
works have a strong, peculiar, and marked character; they seem to
proceed from his own mind entirely, and that mind so rich and
abundant, that he never needed, or seemed to disdain, to look abroad
for foreign help. Raffaelle's materials are generally borrowed, though
the noble structure is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary
man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his characters, the
judicious contrivance of his Composition, his correctness of Drawing,
purity of Taste, and skilful accommodation of other men's conception's
to his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which
he united to his own observations on Nature the energy of Michel
Angelo and the Beauty and Simplicity of the Antique. To the question,
therefore, which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michel
Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given to him who
possessed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the art
than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the first. But
if, as Longinus thinks, the sublime, being the highest excellence
that human composition can attain to, abundantly compensates the
absence of every other beauty, and atones for all other deficiencies,
then Michel Angelo demands the preference.
These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher excellencies of
the art to a greater degree of perfection than probably they ever
arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, nor equalled
since. Many of their successors were induced to leave this great road
as a beaten path, endeavouring to surprise and please by something
uncommon or new. When this desire of novelty has proceeded from mere
idleness or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of criticism; but
when it has been the result of a busy mind of a peculiar complexion,
it is always striking and interesting, never insipid.
Such is the great style, as it appears in those who possessed it at
its height; in this, search after novelty, in conception or in
treating the subject, has no place.
But there is another style, which, though inferior to the former, has
still great merit, because it shows that those who cultivated it were
men of lively and vigorous imagination. This, which may be called the
original or characteristical style, being less referred to any true
archetype existing either in general or particular nature, must be
supported by the painter's consistency in the principles which he has
assumed, and in the union and harmony of his whole design. The
excellency of every style, but of the subordinate styles more
especially, will very much depend on preserving that union and harmony
between all the component parts, that they may appear to hang well
together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is in the works
of art as in the characters of men. The faults or defects of some men
seem to become them when they appear to be the natural growth, and of
a piece with the rest of their character. A faithful picture of a
mind, though it be not of the most elevated kind, though it be
irregular, wild, and incorrect, yet if it be marked with that spirit
and firmness which characterise works of genius, will claim attention,
and be more striking than a combination of excellencies that do not
seem to unite well together; or we may say, than a work that possesses
even all excellencies, but those in a moderate degree.
One of the strongest-marked characters of this kind, which must be
allowed to be subordinate to the great style, is that of Salvator Rosa.
He gives us a peculiar cast of nature, which, though void of all grace,
elegance, and simplicity, though it has nothing of that elevation and
dignity which belongs to the grand style, yet has that sort of dignity
which belongs to savage and uncultivated nature: but what is most to be
admired in him is the perfect correspondence which he observed between
the subjects which he chose and his manner of treating them. Everything
is of a piece: his Rocks, Trees, Sky, even to his handling, have the
same rude and wild character which animates his figures.