NOTWITHSTANDING the very considerable attainments already exhibited,
to the perfection of Sculpture, there yet wanted greater ease and
grace of execution, more perfect and elevated expression, more refined
selection of form and composition,--more, in short, of that heightening
charm which fancy lends to reality--of that which constitutes the
poetry, not the fiction, of art. The first blush of the times, too, at
the commencement of the sixteenth century, seemed to promise a most
propitious era for the accomplishment of these remaining improvements.
In Italy, yet the only fixed and native seat of art, a spirit of
refinement and love of elegance, a high and general respect for art,
pervaded all ranks. Universal activity, also, and energy of character,
growing out of the conscious dignity of independence, animated the
republican cities. Each vied with its neighbour in the splendour of
public buildings, and in munificence of patronage. Florence, indeed,
from her peculiar advantages and superior opulence, sooner distanced
rivalry; but her schools were open to all, and her Medici, the most
enlightened of patrons, were as yet but merchants and simple citizens.
In those states, too, where free and popular government was not
established, kings and princes affected to love and encourage the
arts. Literature, in most of the countries of Europe, had spread its
lights around; the ancient models of eloquence were known, at least
in their precepts, to all who laboured in the fields of genius; and
even in sculpture, some of the most breathing fragments had been,
or in the course of the century, were restored to day. The stir of
spirit had penetrated even the recesses of papal domination and
priestly ease. Means of empire were now to be essayed more congenial
to the complexion of the times, and to the minds of men, than
spiritual weapons, unhallowed in every church, because unscriptural,
or than--more unjustifiable still, when wielded by ministers of
peace--secular arms. Rome was to be rendered the home and habitation
of art, as of religion. She was to contain a temple vainly hoped to
become the Zion of the Christian world. All these causes, favorable as
they were to general developement of talent, tended with a peculiar
energy to the advancement of sculpture, in which, with the exception
of poetry, the greatest progress had yet been accomplished since the
revival of intelligence. The path, too, which had here been pursued,
led directly to excellence. Nothing was to be unlearned. The era bore a
striking resemblance in its leading features to that of Pericles; there
was wanting only a Phidias to realize its expectancy; and in Michael
Angelo, the genius of Greece seemed to be supplied.
For three fourths of the sixteenth century, this extraordinary man
presided in the schools, and by his style influenced much longer the
principles of modern art. To him, therefore, during the most brilliant
period in the annals which we are now feebly endeavoring to trace,
is the attention chiefly directed. Nor only in one point of view, is
his genius to be contemplated. He has extended the grasp of a mighty
though irregular spirit over our whole subject. Sculptor of the Moses,
painter of the Last Judgment, architect of the Cupola--we behold in
him the greatest of the works of art. It is this, more than any other
circumstance, which has invested the character of his genius with a
species of awful supremacy not to be inquired into; discrimination is
lost in general admiration; and to him who thus seems to bear away the
palm of universal talent, we are inclined to concede the foremost
rank in each separate pursuit. His productions, thus dominating among
the labours of man, bewilder the judgment both by their real and their
apparent magnitude. Thus some giant cliff, rising far above minor
elevations, while it serves as a landmark to the traveller, misleads
his conceptions of its own distance and immediate relations of site.
Here it appears the proper, or at least simplest method, to present
such gradual unfolding of the subject as each branch separately may
seem to require, reserving a general view for such place as shall
give the reader full command of the joint influences, bearings, and
consequences of these details.
In sculpture, the works of Michael Angelo are divided between Rome and
Florence. They are not numerous, and few are even finished. Impatience
of slowly progressive labour, united with indomitable activity and
unwearied industry--fastidiousness of fancy, and exalted perceptions
of excellence, joined with a reckless daring in execution, form
singular distinctions of intellectual temperament. Hence have sprung
the characteristic beauties and the besetting errors of his style in
sculpture--a style discovering much that is derived from liberal and
enlightened study of the sublime and graceful in nature, but still
more of those qualities which arise from the peculiarities of an
individual and erratic, though rich and powerful, imagination. Rarely
do his statues exhibit that simplicity and repose essential to beauty
in an art--grave, dignified, or even austere, and possessing means
comparatively limited and uniform. Forced and constrained attitude,
proportions exaggerated, expression awful, gloomy, and unearthly, forms
of unnatural, of superhuman energy--these constitute the ideal of his
composition. In giving visible existence to these ideas, his execution
is most wonderful. A force, a fire, an enthusiasm, elsewhere unfelt,
unknown, give to every limb and lineament, a vitality, a movement,
resembling more the sudden mandate of inspiration, than a laborious
and retarded effort. The first impressions created by these works are
thus irresistibly powerful; but they startle, surprise, astonish--do
not soothe, delight, and satisfy the mind. An influence originating
solely in the imagination, and in which the sensibilities of the heart
have little interest, cannot long retain its power; the ordinary tone
of feeling returns, and amid the unquiet and aspiring composition seeks
for nature and repose.
If the productions and style of Michael Angelo be compared with the
great standards of excellence and of truth in sculpture--nature, and
the remains of ancient art, he will be found to have deviated widely
from both, or rather, perhaps, he has rendered both subservient to
his own particular views of each. He has created to himself modes of
imitation, which should in themselves claim a paramount importance,
independent of all archetypes; while these latter are connected with
the originals of reality, only as an intermediate step to the realms
of fancy. Hence, round a false, though gorgeous and imposing art,
his genius has swept a magic circle, within whose perilous bound no
inferior spirit has dared with impunity to tread. Unfortunately,
however, such was the fascination produced in his own age, when the
forcible and imaginative were admired above the simple and the true,
that his works became a standard by which the past was to be tried,
and the future directed. As a necessary consequence, a prodigious
and irreparable lapse was prepared for the art. The imitation of a
natural style will ever be productive of good; it will ultimately
lead to no imitation, by conducting to the primeval source. The very
reverse is the effect of following a guide such as Buonarotti, who
has departed from nature farther, we will venture to say, than any
great name on record, whether in literature or in art. Irregularities
and imperfections in almost every other instance of lofty genius, are
forgotten amid the deep-thrilling pathos, or soothing loveliness,
of natural expression; but amid the awe-inspiring, the commanding,
the overpowering representations of the Tuscan, the soul languishes
for nature. His creations are not of this world, nor does feeling
voluntarily respond to the mysterious and uncontrollable mastery
which they exert over it. The cause and progress of this dereliction
of nature can also be traced. He had marked the perplexities and
constraint under which his predecessors had laboured, in their
endeavors to unite the forms and expressions of living nature with
images of ideal beauty, overlooking the productions of classic
sculpture, in which this union is so happily accomplished: because to
his vigorous, rather than refined perceptions, its simplicity appeared
poverty, he fearlessly struck into a line of art, where all was to be
new--vehement--wonderful.
From the antique, besides simplicity, Michael Angelo has deviated in
another important, and, indeed, vital respect; a deviation, indeed,
which changes completely the very aspect of art. Of the two elements
of sculptural design--form and expression--the ancients selected
form as the principal object of their representation: the modern has
preferred expression, to which he may be said almost to have sacrificed
form; or rather, he has so contorted his figures, by the violence of
their emotions, that all is expression, and that of the most vehement
kind. Here, however, it may be asked, how far has prescription the
power to determine this matter? To this it may be replied, that not
only the associations springing from the most perfect of human works
were opposed to this choice, but also the internal proprieties of
the art favour the selection of the ancients. In sculpture all is
staid, enduring, actual; movement alone is the only passing object
of imitation. Expression, therefore, at least strong and individual
expression, as a primary characteristic--as destructive of symmetry,
and as implying an effort ungraceful, when connected with unyielding
materials, seems not a legitimate beauty of higher art. Indeed,
passion is inconsistent with the beautiful in form, or the dignified
in sentiment. A sweetly pleasing, a gently agitating excitement, or
a nobly repressed feeling, visible only in the resolve of soul, and
mastering of sorrow, is the true and the only proper expression in
sculpture. Grief alone seems to be admissible in its deepest pathos.
Considered in connexion with the impetuous style of his composition,
nothing can be finer than the execution of Michael Angelo. It
participates in, it harmonizes with, his ardent temperament of mind;
rapid, impatient, fervid, it seems to animate and create, rather than
form, the breathing conceptions. But taken alone, it discovers many
technical peculiarities and imperfections. From having sometimes merely
sketched, or, at most, modelled the subject in small, nay, in some
instances, with no other suggestion or guide, save the accidental shape
of the block, he struck into the marble. It was impossible, under these
circumstances, to avoid error. While the hand, the eye, the mind, were
thus in instant exertion; while propriety of expression and beauty of
outline, mechanical detail, and general effect, grandeur of the whole,
and propriety of parts, were at once to be studied, and that, too,
where each stroke removes what never can be again united--imperfection
was almost a necessary consequence. Hence the want of proportion so
conspicuous in many of his best works--in the Moses even; hence so
few finished; hence, too, his statues, like paintings, seldom present
more than one point of view. As regards more individual details; in
the salient lines of the contours, the circles have rarely their just
value, and the surfaces want their proper fulness. Partly to compensate
this deficiency in the advancing curves, partly as a characteristic
distinction, which consists in strongly pronouncing the muscles, the
retiring lines, or muscular depressions, are expressed in exaggerated
depth. Trusting to mechanical dexterity, also, and to a profound
science, he was frequently reduced to work without model, or reference
to the living form. This produces a rigidity, a want of feeling, and
a mannerism, in his best performances even, the commencement of those
conventional modes which finally superseded all diligent study of
nature, and led to the abandonment of every genuine grace of sculpture.
The style and character of composition now described is evidently
one of study and acquisition; we might therefore expect a gradation
to be apparent in the works from which we have deduced our remarks.
Accordingly, the earlier performances of the artist retain much of the
simplicity and truth of the fifteenth century, exhibiting, at the same
time, much of the better part of the qualities now described as the
peculiar characteristics of the school. These we are inclined, upon
the whole, to regard, if not the most splendid, as the most correct
examples of Michael Angelo's powers. His later and more important
labours present, in their full maturity, the peculiar modes of thought
and execution which constitute the principles of this era. A regular
gradation, however, is scarcely to be traced, since, in his very old
age, he perceived and lamented the brilliant but fatal errors of his
style; and, in the few works then finished, a degree of sobriety
and chasteness is observed. He saw and lamented, too late, the fall
prepared for sculpture.
Of the works of this master at Florence, the Bacchus, notwithstanding
the undignified expression of inebriety, is the most correct in its
forms, and the least mannered in composition. The tombs of the Medici
show much of whatever is most splendid, and what is most reprehensible
in the genius of their author. They might indeed be selected as special
illustrations of the general views just given. Every figure--there are
six--bears the strong impress of a spirit delighting in the great and
the wonderful--an imagination eager in the pursuit of untried modes
of existence, and a consciousness of power to execute the most daring
conceptions. Intelligence in science, breadth of touch, boldness of
manner, fearlessness of difficulty, unite to give life and movement
to attitudes the most remote from such as nature would voluntarily
assume, or graceful design select. Rome contains the most perfect and
the most wonderful of Michael Angelo's statues. The Pietà, or Virgin
and Dead Saviour, in St Peter's, finished in his twentyfourth year,
is not only at the head of the first division of his works, but, on
the whole, is the least exaggerated, and the most natural of all.
The Moses, on the tomb of Julius II., amid the creations of genius,
rises a solitary and matchless monument. Without model among the
productions of antiquity, it has remained inimitable and unimitated in
modern times. Neither in nature do we find its prototype: it is the
extraordinary conception of an extraordinary mind. Thus isolated by its
own peculiar sublimity of character, this statue exhibits a striking
resemblance of the imagination whence it derived existence. We behold
a being who awes, who subdues, yet who fails to interest--for with
such humanity entertains no communion of feeling. Here the sublime
is too exclusively sought in the vehement and the marvellous; every
effort is forced, every trait exaggerated, and the whole shows a daring
originality verging on the extravagant and the false. The solemn
majesty--the dignified repose--the commanding simplicity, admired in
ancient sculpture--those milder beauties which sentiment alone can
appreciate--those exalted and touching graces which arise from elegance
or nobleness of form--from refined and subdued expression--from
elevated yet genuine nature, in the Moses are looked for in vain.
Than Michael Angelo, no artist has ever exerted a more extensive
influence, or more deeply impressed his peculiar views, upon art.
Indeed, so much is this the case, that, during the sixteenth century,
not a single sculptor appears who is not to be ranked either as a
disciple or imitator. Even to this our own time, the influence in some
respect continues. In sculpture more than in painting or architecture,
though for the first he did less than for the second art, was his
genius paramount. Of contemporaries, then, and successors, from his
death in 1564, to the end of the century, the only distinction is
between those who imitated and those who studied under this great
leader. Among the most eminent of the former was Baccio Bandinelli,
a rival, who contended with less generous weapons than those of
talent: yet he must receive justice,--as a sculptor he is second only,
sometimes hardly inferior, to Buonarotti. Baccio di Monte Lupo was
an original artist of considerable power. Andrea Contucci founded
the school of Loretto. Francisco Rustici, an excellent founder, more
eminent still as the master of Leonardo da Vinci, carried the manner of
this school into France, dying at Paris in 1550. Giacomo Tatti, better
known as Sansovino, presided over the Venetian works of sculpture and
architecture with much reputation, having studied along with Michael
Angelo at Rome, whence he fled in 1527, on the sack of that capital
by Bourbon. He survived the great Florentine, and became founder of a
numerous and respectable school, where Cattaneo and Vittoria supported
the credit of their instructor: the latter perfected working in stucco.
In Milan, Agostino Busti, and Guglielmo della Porta, were highly
distinguished, especially the latter; as were also, in Naples, Marliano
Nola, and Garolamo St Croce. In these schools, however, we trace the
most rapid decay of the art, in simplicity and correct design, from the
splendour of the courts demanding employment of the arts on objects
of temporary interest, when rapidity was preferred to excellence of
execution.
Among the real disciples of the Florentine, the following were the
chief:--Raphael di Monte Lupo, a favorite pupil, who assisted his
master in the tomb of Julius, the greatest undertaking in modern
sculpture, if completed; Nicolo di Tribulo, an excellent founder, by
whom are the bronze doors of the cathedral at Bologna; Giovanni del
Opera, whose name is significant of his industry; Danti, the closest
imitator of his instructer. Ammanati subsequently transferred his
attention to architecture. Giovanni di Bologna, a Frenchman by birth,
an Italian as a sculptor, was the most eminent of all the scholars of
Michael Angelo; and, on the death of the latter, continued to be the
leading master in Europe till the end of the century.
Beyond the confines of Italy, the art had yet made few advances
worthy of notice; and what little had been accomplished was upon the
principles of the Tuscan school. Thus, at the close of the sixteenth
century, the genius and principles of Michael Angelo extended their
influence over the whole of Europe. During the last thirty years of
this era, however, the art had been on the decline. These principles
could be maintained only by that genius by which they had been
invented and matured; and by it alone could the errors of the system be
consecrated or concealed.