it would be in regard to invention; that young Students should not
presume to think themselves qualified to invent till they were
acquainted with those stores of invention the world already possesses,
and had by that means accumulated sufficient materials for the mind to
work with. It would certainly be no improper method of forming the
mind of a young artist, to begin with such exercises as the Italians
call a _Pasticcio_ composition of the different excellencies which are
dispersed in all other works of the same kind. It is not supposed that
he is to stop here, but that he is to acquire by this means the art of
selecting, first, what is truly excellent in Art, and then, what is
still more excellent in Nature; a task which, without this previous
study, he will be but ill qualified to perform.
The doctrine which is here advanced is acknowledged to be new, and to
many may appear strange. But I only demand for it the reception of a
stranger; a favourable and attentive consideration, without that entire
confidence which might be claimed under authoritative recommendation.
After you have taken a figure, or any idea of a figure, from any of
those great Painters, there is another operation still remaining,
which I hold to be indispensably necessary--that is, never to neglect
finishing from nature every part of the work. What is taken from a
model, though the first idea may have been suggested by another, you
have a just right to consider as your own property. And here I cannot
avoid mentioning a circumstance in placing the model, though to some
it may appear trifling. It is better to possess the model with the
attitude you require, than to place him with your own hands: by this
means it happens often that the model puts himself in an action
superior to your own imagination. It is a great matter to be in the
way of accident, and to be watchful and ready to take advantage of it:
besides, when you fix the position of a model, there is danger of
putting him in an attitude into which no man would naturally fall.
This extends even to drapery. We must be cautious in touching and
altering a fold of the stuff, which serves as a model, for fear of
giving it inadvertently a forced form; and it is perhaps better to
take the chance of another casual throw, than to alter the position in
which it was at first accidentally cast.
Rembrandt, in order to take the advantage of accident, appears often
to have used the pallet-knife to lay his colours on the canvas,
instead of the pencil. Whether it is the knife or any other
instrument, it suffices if it is something that does not follow
exactly the will. Accident in the hands of an artist who knows how to
take the advantage of its hints, will often produce bold and
capricious beauties of handling and facility, such as he would not
have thought of, or ventured, with his pencil, under the regular
restraint of his hand. However, this is fit only on occasions where no
correctness of form is required, such as clouds, stumps of trees,
rocks, or broken ground. Works produced in an accidental manner will
have the same free, unrestrained air as the works of nature, whose
particular combinations seem to depend upon accident.
I again repeat, you are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you
do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without
knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer. Whatever
trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye. Such
deviations as art necessarily requires, I hope in a future Discourse
to be able to explain. In the meantime, let me recommend to you, not
to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however
strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They
are for ever wearing out, and will be at last obliterated, unless they
are continually refreshed and repaired.
It is not uncommon to meet with artists who, from a long neglect of
cultivating this necessary intimacy with Nature, do not even know her
when they see her; she appearing a stranger to them, from their being
so long habituated to their own representation of her. I have heard
Painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no degradation of
themselves was intended, that they could do better without Nature than
with her; or, as they expressed it themselves, _that it only put them
out_. A painter with such ideas and such habits is indeed in a most
hopeless state. _The art of seeing Nature_, or, in other words, the
art of using Models, is in reality the great object, the point to
which all our studies are directed. As for the power of being able to
do tolerably well, from practice alone, let it be valued according to
its worth. But I do not see in what manner it can be sufficient for
the production of correct, excellent, and finished Pictures. Works
deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise,
from memory alone; and I will venture to say, that an artist who
brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general
principles of Art, and a taste formed upon the works of good
Artists--in short, who knows in what excellence consists, will, with
the assistance of Models, which we will likewise suppose he has learnt
the art of using, be an overmatch for the greatest painter that ever
lived who should be debarred such advantages.
Our neighbours, the French, are much in this practice of _extempore_
invention, and their dexterity is such as even to excite admiration,
if not envy; but how rarely can this praise be given to their finished
pictures!
The late Director of their Academy, _Boucher_, was eminent in this
way. When I visited him some years since in France, I found him at
work on a very large Picture, without drawings or models of any kind.
On my remarking this particular circumstance, he said, when he was
young, studying his art, he found it necessary to use models; but he
had left them off for many years.
Such Pictures as this was, and such as I fear always will be produced by
those who work solely from practice or memory, may be a convincing proof
of the necessity of the conduct which I have recommended. However, in
justice I cannot quit this Painter without adding, that in the former
part of his life, when he was in the habit of having recourse to nature,
he was not without a considerable degree of merit--enough to make half
the Painters of his country his imitators; he had often grace and
beauty, and good skill in composition; but I think all under the
influence of a bad taste: his imitators are indeed abominable.
Those Artists who have quitted the service of nature (whose service,
when well understood, is _perfect freedom_), and have put themselves
under the direction of I know not what capricious fantastical
mistress, who fascinates and overpowers their whole mind, and from
whose dominion there are no hopes of their being ever reclaimed (since
they appear perfectly satisfied, and not at all conscious of their
forlorn situation), like the transformed followers of Comus--
"Not once perceive their foul disfigurement;
But boast themselves more comely than before."
Methinks, such men, who have found out so short a path, have no reason
to complain of the shortness of life, and the extent of art; since
life is so much longer than is wanted for their improvement, or,
indeed, is necessary for the accomplishment of their idea of
perfection. On the contrary, he who recurs to nature, at every
recurrence renews his strength. The rules of art he is never likely to
forget; they are few and simple; but nature is refined, subtle, and
infinitely various, beyond the power and retention of memory; it is
necessary, therefore, to have continual recourse to her. In this
intercourse there is no end of his improvement; the longer he lives,
the nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of art.
FOOTNOTES:
14: In Ben Jonson's "Catiline" we find this aphorism, with a
slight variation:--
"A serpent, ere he comes to be a dragon,
Must eat a bat."
15: The addition of _accio_ denotes contempt, or some
deformity or imperfection attending the person to whom it is applied.
DISCOURSE XIII.
_Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 11, 1786._
ART NOT MERELY IMITATION, BUT UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE
IMAGINATION.--IN WHAT MANNER POETRY, PAINTING, ACTING, GARDENING,
AND ARCHITECTURE DEPART FROM NATURE.
To discover beauties, or to point out faults, in the works of
celebrated Masters, and to compare the conduct of one Artist with
another, is certainly no mean or inconsiderable part of criticism; but
this is still no more than to know the art through the Artist. This
test of investigation must have two capital defects; it must be
narrow, and it must be uncertain. To enlarge the boundaries of the Art
of Painting, as well as to fix its principles, it will be necessary
that _that_ art, and _those_ principles, should be considered in their
correspondence with the principles of the other arts, which, like
this, address themselves primarily and principally to the imagination.
When those connected and kindred principles are brought together to be
compared, another comparison will grow out of this; that is, the
comparison of them all with those of human nature, from whence arts
derive the materials upon which they are to produce their effects.
When this comparison of art with art, and of all arts with the nature
of man, is once made with success, our guiding lines are as well
ascertained and established as they can be in matters of this
description.
This, as it is the highest style of criticism, is at the same time the
soundest; for it refers to the eternal and immutable nature of things.
You are not to imagine that I mean to open to you at large, or to
recommend to your research, the whole of this vast field of science.
It is certainly much above my faculties to reach it; and though it may
not be above yours to comprehend it fully, if it were fully and
properly brought before you, yet perhaps the most perfect criticism
requires habits of speculation and abstraction, not very consistent
with the employment which ought to occupy, and the habits of mind
which ought to prevail, in a practical Artist. I only point out to you
these things, that when you do criticise (as all who work on a plan
will criticise more or less), your criticism may be built on the
foundation of true principles; and that though you may not always
travel a great way, the way that you do travel may be the right road.
I observe, as a fundamental ground, common to all the Arts with which we
have any concern in this discourse, that they address themselves only to
two faculties of the mind--its imagination and its sensibility.
All theories which attempt to direct or to control the Art, upon any
principles falsely called rational, which we form to ourselves upon a
supposition of what ought in reason to be the end or means of Art,
independent of the known first effect produced by objects on the
imagination, must be false and delusive. For though it may appear bold
to say it, the imagination is here the residence of truth. If the
imagination be affected, the conclusion is fairly drawn; if it be not
affected, the reasoning is erroneous, because the end is not obtained;
the effect itself being the test, and the only test, of the truth and
efficacy of the means.
There is in the commerce of life, as in Art, a sagacity which is far
from being contradictory to right reason, and is superior to any
occasional exercise of that faculty; which supersedes it; and does not
wait for the slow progress of deduction, but goes at once, by what
appears a kind of intuition, to the conclusion. A man endowed with this
faculty feels and acknowledges the truth, though it is not always in his
power, perhaps, to give a reason for it; because he cannot recollect and
bring before him all the materials that gave birth to his opinion; for
very many and very intricate considerations may unite to form the
principle, even of small and minute parts, involved in, or dependent on,
a great system of things: though these in process of time are forgotten,
the right impression still remains fixed in his mind.
This impression is the result of the accumulated experience of our whole
life, and has been collected, we do not always know how, or when. But
this mass of collective observation, however acquired, ought to prevail
over that reason, which, however powerfully exerted on any particular
occasion, will probably comprehend but a partial view of the subject;
and our conduct in life, as well as in the Arts, is, or ought to be,
generally governed by this habitual reason: it is our happiness that we
are enabled to draw on such funds. If we were obliged to enter into a
theoretical deliberation on every occasion, before we act, life would be
at a stand, and Art would be impracticable.
It appears to me, therefore, that our first thoughts, that is, the
effect which anything produces on our minds, on its first appearance,
is never to be forgotten; and it demands for that reason, because it
is the first, to be laid up with care. If this be not done, the Artist
may happen to impose on himself by partial reasoning; by a cold
consideration of those animated thoughts which proceed, not perhaps
from caprice or rashness (as he may afterwards conceit), but from the
fulness of his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the
various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever passed in his
mind. These ideas are infused into his design, without any conscious
effort; but if he be not on his guard, he may reconsider and correct
them, till the whole matter is reduced to a commonplace invention.
This is sometimes the effect of what I mean to caution you against;
that is to say, an unfounded distrust of the imagination and feeling,
in favour of narrow, partial, confined, argumentative theories; and of
principles that seem to apply to the design in hand; without
considering those general impressions on the fancy in which real
principles of _sound reason_, and of much more weight and importance,
are involved, and, as it were, lie hid under the appearance of a sort
of vulgar sentiment.
Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine everything; at this
minute it is required to inform us when that very reason is to give
way to feeling.
Though I have often spoken of that mean conception of our art which
confines it to mere imitation, I must add, that it may be narrowed to
such a mere matter of experiment, as to exclude from it the application
of science, which alone gives dignity and compass to any art. But to
find proper foundations for science is neither to narrow or to vulgarise
it; and this is sufficiently exemplified in the success of experimental
philosophy. It is the false system of reasoning, grounded on a partial
view of things, against which I would most earnestly guard you. And I do
it the rather, because those narrow theories, so coincident with the
poorest and most miserable practices, and which are adopted to give it
countenance, have not had their origin in the poorest minds, but in the
mistakes, or possibly in the mistaken interpretations, of great and
commanding authorities. We are not, therefore, in this case misled by
feeling, but by false speculation.
When such a man as Plato speaks of Painting as only an imitative art,
and that our pleasure proceeds from observing and acknowledging the
truth of the imitation, I think he misleads us by a partial theory. It
is in this poor, partial, and, so far, false view of the art, that
Cardinal Bembo has chosen to distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom
our enthusiasm honours with the name of Divine. The same sentiment is
adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller; and he turns
the panegyric solely on imitation, as it is a sort of deception.
I shall not think my time misemployed, if by any means I may
contribute to confirm your opinion of what ought to be the object of
your pursuit; because, though the best critics must always have
exploded this strange idea, yet I know that there is a disposition
towards a perpetual recurrence to it, on account of its simplicity and
superficial plausibility. For this reason I shall beg leave to lay
before you a few thoughts on this subject; to throw out some hints
that may lead your minds to an opinion (which I take to be the truth),
that Painting is not only to be considered as an imitation, operating
by deception, but that it is, and ought to be, in many points of view,
and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature. Perhaps
it ought to be as far removed from the vulgar idea of imitation as the
refined civilised state in which we live is removed from a gross state
of nature; and those who have not cultivated their imaginations, which
the majority of mankind certainly have not, may be said, in regard to
arts, to continue in this state of nature. Such men will always
prefer imitation to that excellence which is addressed to another
faculty that they do not possess; but these are not the persons to
whom a Painter is to look, any more than a judge of morals and manners
ought to refer controverted points upon those subjects to the opinions
of people taken from the banks of the Ohio, or from New Holland.
It is the lowest style only of arts, whether of Painting, Poetry, or
Music, that may be said, in the vulgar sense, to be naturally
pleasing. The higher efforts of those arts, we know by experience, do
not affect minds wholly uncultivated. This refined taste is the
consequence of education and habit: we are born only with a capacity
of entertaining this refinement, as we are born with a disposition to
receive and obey all the rules and regulations of society; and so far
it may be said to be natural to us, and no further.
What has been said may show the Artist how necessary it is, when he
looks about him for the advice and criticism of his friends, to make
some distinction of the character, taste, experience, and observation
in this Art, of those from whom it is received. An ignorant,
uneducated man may, like Apelles's critic, be a competent judge of the
truth of the representation of a sandal; or, to go somewhat higher,
like Molière's old woman, may decide upon what is nature, in regard to
comic humour; but a critic in the higher style of art ought to possess
the same refined taste which directed the Artist in his work.
To illustrate this principle by a comparison with other Arts, I shall
now produce some instances to show that they, as well as our own Art,
renounce the narrow idea of nature, and the narrow theories derived
from that mistaken principle, and apply to that reason only which
informs us not what imitation is--a natural representation of a given
object--but what it is natural for the imagination to be delighted
with. And perhaps there is no better way of acquiring this knowledge
than by this kind of analogy: each art will corroborate and mutually
reflect the truth on the other. Such a kind of juxtaposition may
likewise have this use, that whilst the Artist is amusing himself in
the contemplation of other Arts, he may habitually transfer the
principles of those Arts to that which he professes: which ought to be
always present to his mind, and to which everything is to be referred.
So far is Art from being derived from, or having any immediate
intercourse with particular nature as its model, that there are many
Arts that set out with a professed deviation from it.
This is certainly not so exactly true in regard to Painting and
Sculpture. Our elements are laid in gross common nature--an exact
imitation of what is before us; but when we advance to the higher
state, we consider this power of imitation, though first in the order
of acquisition, as by no means the highest in the scale of perfection.
Poetry addresses itself to the same faculties and the same
dispositions as Painting, though by different means. The object of
both is to accommodate itself to all the natural propensities and
inclinations of the mind. The very existence of Poetry depends on the
license it assumes of deviating from actual nature, in order to
gratify natural propensities by other means, which are found by
experience full as capable of affording such gratification. It sets
out with a language in the highest degree artificial, a construction
of measured words, such as never is, nor ever was, used by man. Let
this measure be what it may, whether hexameter or any other metre used
in Latin or Greek--or Rhyme, or Blank Verse varied with pauses and
accents, in modern languages--they are all equally removed from
nature, and equally a violation of common speech. When this artificial
mode has been established as the vehicle of sentiment, there is
another principle in the human mind to which the work must be
referred, which still renders it more artificial, carries it still
further from common nature, and deviates only to render it more
perfect. That principle is the sense of congruity, coherence, and
consistency, which is a real existing principle in man; and it must be
gratified. Therefore, having once adopted a style and a measure not
found in common discourse, it is required that the sentiments also
should be in the same proportion elevated above common nature, from
the necessity of there being an agreement of the parts among
themselves, that one uniform whole may be produced.
To correspond, therefore, with this general system of deviation from
nature, the manner in which poetry is offered to the ear, the tone in
which it is recited, should be as far removed from the tone of
conversation as the words of which that Poetry is composed. This
naturally suggests the idea of modulating the voice by art, which, I
suppose, may be considered as accomplished to the highest degree of
excellence in the recitative of the Italian Opera; as we may
conjecture it was in the Chorus that attended the ancient drama. And
though the most violent passions, the highest distress, even death
itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I would not admit as
sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions on account of
their being unnatural.
If it is natural for our senses, and our imaginations, to be delighted
with singing, with instrumental music, with poetry, and with graceful
action, taken separately (none of them being in the vulgar sense
natural, even in that separate state); it is conformable to
experience, and therefore agreeable to reason as connected and
referred to experience, that we should also be delighted with this
union of music, poetry, and graceful action, joined to every
circumstance of pomp and magnificence calculated to strike the senses
of the spectator. Shall reason stand in the way, and tell us that we
ought not to like what we know we do like, and prevent us from feeling
the full effect of this complicated exertion of art? This is what I
would understand by poets and painters being allowed to dare
everything; for what can be more daring than accomplishing the purpose
and end of art, by a complication of means, none of which have their
archetypes in actual nature?
So far, therefore, is servile imitation from being necessary, that
whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear
every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art,
either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as
Shakespeare expresses it, _beyond the ignorant present_, to ages past.
Another and a higher order of beings is supposed; and to those beings
everything which is introduced into the work must correspond. Of this
conduct, under these circumstances, the Roman and Florentine schools
afford sufficient examples. Their style by this means is raised and
elevated above all others; and by the same means the compass of art
itself is enlarged.
We often see grave and great subjects attempted by artists of another
school; who, though excellent in the lower class of art, proceeding on
the principles which regulate that class, and not recollecting, or not
knowing, that they were to address themselves to another faculty of
the mind, have become perfectly ridiculous.