artist of great fame throughout Europe; he was not without a
considerable degree of abilities, but those abilities were by no
means equal to his own opinion of them. From the reputation he had
acquired, he too fondly concluded that he stood in the same rank when
compared with his predecessors, as he held with regard to his
miserable contemporary rivals. In conversation about some particulars
of the works of Raffaelle, he seemed to have, or to affect to have, a
very obscure memory of them. He told me that he had not set his foot
in the Vatican for fifteen years together; that he had been in treaty
to copy a capital picture of Raffaelle, but that the business had gone
off; however, if the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly
exceeded the original. The merit of this artist, however great we may
suppose it, I am sure would have been far greater, and his presumption
would have been far less, if he had visited the Vatican, as in reason
he ought to have done, at least once every month of his life.
I address myself, Gentlemen, to you who have made some progress in the
art, and are to be, for the future, under the guidance of your own
judgment and discretion. I consider you as arrived to that period when
you have a right to think for yourselves, and to presume that every
man is fallible; to study the masters with a suspicion, that great men
are not always exempt from great faults; to criticise, compare, and
rank their works in your own estimation, as they approach to, or
recede from, that standard of perfection which you have formed in your
own minds, but which those masters themselves, it must be remembered,
have taught you to make, and which you will cease to make with
correctness, when you cease to study them. It is their excellencies
which have taught you their defects.
I would wish you to forget where you are, and who it is that speaks
to you. I only direct you to higher models and better advisers. We can
teach you here but very little; you are henceforth to be your own
teachers. Do this justice, however, to the English Academy; to bear in
mind, that in this place you contracted no narrow habits, no false
ideas, nothing that could lead you to the imitation of any living
master, who may be the fashionable darling of the day. As you have not
been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter yourselves. We have
endeavoured to lead you to the admiration of nothing but what is truly
admirable. If you choose inferior patterns, or if you make your own
_former_ works your patterns for your _latter_, it is your own fault.
The purport of this discourse, and, indeed, of most of my other
discourses, is, to caution you against that false opinion, but too
prevalent among artists, of the imaginary powers of native genius, and
its sufficiency in great works. This opinion, according to the temper of
mind it meets with, almost always produces, either a vain confidence, or
a sluggish despair--both equally fatal to all proficiency.
Study, therefore, the great works of the great masters forever. Study,
as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, and on the
principles, on which they studied. Study nature attentively, but
always with those masters in your company; consider them as models
which you are to imitate, and at the same time as rivals with whom you
are to contend.
FOOTNOTES:
4: Sed non qui maxime imitandus, etiam solus imitandus est
Quintilian.
DISCOURSE VII.
_Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 10, 1776._
THE REALITY OF A STANDARD OF TASTE, AS WELL AS OF CORPORAL
BEAUTY.--BESIDE THIS IMMEDIATE TRUTH, THERE ARE SECONDARY TRUTHS,
WHICH ARE VARIABLE; BOTH REQUIRING THE ATTENTION OF THE ARTIST, IN
PROPORTION TO THEIR STABILITY OR THEIR INFLUENCE.
It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first addressed you from
this place, to impress you strongly with one ruling idea. I wished you
to be persuaded that success in your art depends almost entirely on
your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommended is
not the industry of the _hands_, but of the _mind_.
As our art is not a divine _gift_, so neither is it a mechanical
_trade_. Its foundations are laid in solid science; and practice,
though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it
aims, unless it works under the direction of principle.
Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and suppose that such a
body of universal and profound learning is requisite, that the very
enumeration of its kinds is enough to frighten a beginner. Vitruvius,
after going through the many accomplishments of nature, and the many
acquirements of learning, necessary to an architect, proceeds with great
gravity to assert that he ought to be well skilled in the civil law,
that he may not be cheated in the title of the ground he builds on. But
without such exaggeration, we may go so far as to assert, that a painter
stands in need of more knowledge than is to be picked off his pallet, or
collected by looking on his model, whether it be in life or in picture.
He can never be a great artist who is grossly illiterate.
Every man whose business is description ought to be tolerably
conversant with the poets, in some language or other; that he may
imbibe a poetical spirit, and enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought to
acquire an habit of comparing and digesting his notions. He ought not
to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy which gives an
insight into human nature, and relates to the manners, characters,
passions, and affections. He ought to know _something_ concerning the
mind, as well as _a great deal_ concerning the body of man. For this
purpose it is not necessary that he should go into such a compass of
reading as must, by distracting his attention, disqualify him for the
practical part of his profession, and make him sink the performer in
the critic. Reading, if it can be made the favourite recreation of his
leisure hours, will improve and enlarge his mind, without retarding
his actual industry. What such partial and desultory reading cannot
afford, may be supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious
men, which is the best of all substitutes for those who have not the
means or opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in this
age; and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to
artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated
with that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into
such society, young artists, if they make it the point of their
ambition, will, by degrees, be admitted. There, without formal
teaching, they will insensibly come to feel and reason like those
they live with, and find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly
formed in their minds, which they will know how to reduce to a
standard by applying general truth to their own purposes, better,
perhaps, than those to whom they owned the original sentiment.
Of these studies, and this conversation, the desire and legitimate
offspring, is a power of distinguishing right from wrong; which power,
applied to works of art, is denominated TASTE. Let me, then, without
further introduction, enter upon an examination, whether taste be so
far beyond our reach as to be unattainable by care; or be so very
vague and capricious, that no care ought to be employed about it.
It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in mysterious and
incomprehensible language, as if it was thought necessary that even
the terms should correspond to the idea entertained of the instability
and uncertainty of the rules which they expressed.
To speak of genius and taste, as in any way connected with reason or
common-sense, would be, in the opinion of some towering talkers, to
speak like a man who possessed neither; who had never felt that
enthusiasm, or, to use their own inflated language, was never warmed by
that Promethean fire, which animates the canvas and vivifies the marble.
If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by bringing
her down from the visionary situation in the clouds, it is only to
give her a more solid mansion upon the earth. It is necessary that at
some time or other we should see things as they really are, and not
impose on ourselves by that false magnitude with which objects appear
when viewed indistinctly as through a mist.
We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when his meaning is not
well known to himself, with a certain degree of obscurity, as it is
one sort of the sublime. But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of
courting the Muse in shady bowers; waiting the call and inspiration of
Genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked
with the greatest success; of attending to times and seasons when the
imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer
solstice or the vernal equinox; sagaciously observing how much the
wild freedom and liberty of imagination is cramped by attention to
established rules; and how this same imagination begins to grow dim in
advanced age, smothered and deadened by too much judgment; when we
talk such language, or entertain such sentiments as these, we
generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions
not only groundless but pernicious.
If all this means, what it is very possible was originally intended
only to be meant, that in order to cultivate an art a man secludes
himself from the commerce of the world, and retires into the country
at particular seasons: or that at one time of the year his body is in
better health, and, consequently, his mind fitter for the business of
hard thinking than at another time; or that the mind may be fatigued
and grow confused by long and unremitted application; this I can
understand. I can likewise believe that a man, eminent when young for
possessing poetical imagination, may, from having taken another road,
so neglect its cultivation as to show less of its powers in his latter
life. But I am persuaded that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer
down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and
continued practising his profession to the very last, whose latter
works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as those which
were produced in his more youthful days.
To understand literally these metaphors, or ideas expressed in
poetical language, seems to be equally absurd as to conclude, that
because painters sometimes represent poets writing from the dictates
of a little winged boy or genius, that this same genius did really
inform him in a whisper what he was to write; and that he is himself
but a mere machine, unconscious of the operations of his own mind.
Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true or
false, we naturally adopt and make our own: they may be considered as a
kind of inheritance to which we succeed and are tenants for life, and
which we leave to our posterity very nearly in the condition in which we
received it, it not being much in any one man's power either to impair
or improve it. The greatest part of these opinions, like current coin in
its circulation, we are used to take without weighing or examining; but
by this inevitable inattention many adulterated pieces are received,
which, when we seriously estimate our wealth, we must throw away. So the
collector of popular opinions, when he embodies his knowledge, and forms
a system, must separate those which are true from those which are only
plausible. But it becomes more peculiarly a duty to the professors of
art not to let any opinions relating to _that_ art pass unexamined. The
caution and circumspection required in such examination we shall
presently have an opportunity of explaining.
Genius and taste, in their common acceptation, appear to be very
nearly related; the difference lies only in this, that genius has
superadded to it a habit or power of execution; or we may say, that
taste, when this power is added, changes its name, and is called
genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pretend to an entire
exemption from the restraint of rules. It is supposed that their
powers are intuitive; that under the name of genius great works are
produced, and under the name of taste an exact judgment is given,
without our knowing why, and without our being under the least
obligation to reason, precept, or experience.
One can scarce state these opinions without exposing their absurdity;
yet they are constantly in the mouths of men, and particularly of
artists. They who have thought seriously on this subject do not carry
the point so far; yet I am persuaded, that even among those few who
may be called thinkers, the prevalent opinion allows less than it
ought to the powers of reason; and considers the principles of taste,
which give all their authority to the rules of art, as more
fluctuating, and as having less solid foundations, than we shall find,
upon examination, they really have.
The common saying, that _tastes are not to be disputed_, owes its
influence, and its general reception, to the same error which leads us
to imagine this faculty of too high an original to submit to the
authority of an earthly tribunal. It likewise corresponds with the
notions of those who consider it as a mere phantom of the imagination,
so devoid of substance as to elude all criticism.
We often appear to differ in sentiments from each other, merely from the
inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to speak always with critical
exactness. Something of this too may arise from want of words in the
language in which we speak to express the more nice discrimination which
a deep investigation discovers. A great deal, however, of this
difference vanishes when each opinion is tolerably explained and
understood by constancy and precision in the use of terms.
We apply the term TASTE to that act of the mind by which we like or
dislike, whatever be the subject. Our judgment upon an airy nothing, a
fancy which has no foundation, is called by the same name which we
give to our determination concerning those truths which refer to the
most general and most unalterable principles of human nature; to the
works which are only to be produced by the greatest effort of the
human understanding. However inconvenient this may be, we are obliged
to take words as we find them; all we can do is to distinguish the
THINGS to which they are applied.
We may let pass those things which are at once subjects of taste and
sense, and which, having as much certainty as the senses themselves,
give no occasion to inquiry or dispute. The natural appetite or taste
of the human mind is for TRUTH; whether that truth results from the
real agreement or equality of original ideas among themselves; from
the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing
represented; or from the correspondence of the several parts of any
arrangement with each other. It is the very same taste which relishes
a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resemblance of a
picture to an original and touched with the harmony of music.
All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are
therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some
with more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same way.
A picture that is unlike is false. Disproportionate ordonnance of
parts is not right; because it cannot be true, until it ceases to be a
contradiction to assert, that the parts have no relation to the whole.
Colouring is true, when it is naturally adapted to the eye, from
brightness, from softness, from harmony, from resemblance; because
these agree with their object, NATURE, and therefore are true; as
true as mathematical demonstration; but known to be true only to those
who study these things.
But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or
prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste
which conforms to it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the
second sort of truth, which may be called truth upon sufferance, or
truth by courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst
these opinions and prejudices, on which it is founded, continue, they
operate as truth; and the art, whose office it is to please the mind,
as well as instruct it, must direct itself according to opinion, or it
will not attain its end.
In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally diffused,
or long received, the taste which conforms to them approaches nearer
to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to real science, even where
opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. And since they
deserve, on account of their duration and extent, to be considered as
really true, they become capable of no small degree of stability and
determination, by their permanent and uniform nature.
As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more transitory,
this secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from
real science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed by
practice: though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it
does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most
respectable opinions received amongst mankind.
Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed with less method,
because less will serve to explain and apply them.
We will take it for granted, that reason is something invariable, and
fixed in the nature of things; and without endeavouring to go back to
an account of first principles, which for ever will elude our search,
we will conclude that whatever goes under the name of taste, which we
can fairly bring under the dominion of reason, must be considered as
equally exempt from change. If, therefore, in the course of this
inquiry, we can show that there are rules for the conduct of the
artist which are fixed and invariable, it follows, of course, that the
art of the connoisseur, or, in other words, taste, has likewise
invariable principles.
Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the preference
that we give to one class of art over another, if a reason be
demanded, the question is perhaps evaded by answering, I judge from my
taste; but it does not follow that a better answer cannot be given,
though, for common gazers, this may be sufficient. Every man is not
obliged to investigate the cause of his approbation or dislike.
The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those who
are to judge of their excellencies had no settled principles by which
they are to regulate their decisions, and the merit or defect of
performances were to be determined by unguided fancy. And indeed we may
venture to assert, that whatever speculative knowledge is necessary to
the artist, is equally and indispensably necessary to the connoisseur.
The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what is fixed in
art, or in taste, is that presiding principle of which I have so
frequently spoken in former discourses,--the general idea of nature.
The beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that is valuable
in taste, is comprised in the knowledge of what is truly nature; for
whatever notions are not conformable to those of nature, or universal
opinion, must be considered as more or less capricious.
My notion of nature comprehends not only the forms which nature
produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation, as
I may call it, of the human mind and imagination. The terms beauty, or
nature, which are general ideas, are but different modes of expressing
the same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or
pictures. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from
her accustomed practice. This general idea, therefore, ought to be
called Nature; and nothing else, correctly speaking, has a right to
that name. But we are sure so far from speaking, in common
conversation, with any such accuracy, that, on the contrary, when we
criticise Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced into
their historical pictures exact representations of individual objects
with all their imperfections, we say--Though it is not in a good
taste, yet it is nature.
This misapplication of terms must be very often perplexing to the
young student. Is not art, he may say, an imitation of nature? Must he
not, therefore, who imitates her with the greatest fidelity be the
best artist? By this mode of reasoning Rembrandt has a higher place
than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will serve to show us
that these particularities cannot be nature; for how can that be the
nature of man, in which no two individuals are the same?
It plainly appears, that as a work is conducted under the influence of
general ideas, or partial, it is principally to be considered as the
effect of a good or a bad taste.
As beauty, therefore, does not consist in taking what lies immediately
before you, so neither, in our pursuit of taste, are those opinions
which we first received and adopted the best choice, or the most
natural to the mind and imagination. In the infancy of our knowledge
we seize with greediness the good that is within our reach; it is by
after-consideration, and in consequence of discipline, that we refuse
the present for a greater good at a distance. The nobility or
elevation of all arts, like the excellency of virtue itself, consists
in adopting this enlarged and comprehensive idea; and all criticism
built upon the more confined view of what is natural may properly be
called _shallow_ criticism, rather than false: its defect is, that the
truth is not sufficiently extensive.
It has sometimes happened that some of the greatest men in our art
have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reasoning.
Poussin, who upon the whole may be produced as an artist strictly
attentive to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from not
having settled principles on this point, has, in one instance at
least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. He is said to have
vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano for his inattention to the
masses of light and shade, or grouping the figures in THE BATTLE OF
CONSTANTINE, as if designedly neglected, the better to correspond with
the hurry and confusion of a battle. Poussin's own conduct in many of
his pictures makes us more easily give credit to this report. That it
was too much his own practice, THE SACRIFICE TO SILENUS, and THE
TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS AND ARIADNE, may be produced as instances; but this
principle is still more apparent, and may be said to be even more
ostentatiously displayed in his PERSEUS and MEDUSA'S HEAD.
This is undoubtedly a subject of great bustle and tumult, and that the
first effect of the picture may correspond to the subject, every
principle of composition is violated; there is no principal figure,
no principal light, no groups; everything is dispersed, and in such a
state of confusion, that the eye finds no repose anywhere. In
consequence of the forbidding appearance, I remember turning from it
with disgust, and should not have looked a second time, if I had not
been called back to a closer inspection. I then indeed found, what we
may expect always to find in the works of Poussin, correct drawing,
forcible expression, and just character; in short, all the
excellencies which so much distinguish the works of this learned
painter.
This conduct of Poussin I hold to be entirely improper to imitate. A
picture should please at first sight, and appear to invite the
spectator's attention: if, on the contrary, the general effect offends
the eye, a second view is not always sought, whatever more substantial
and intrinsic merit it may possess.