THE seventeenth century thus rose with few favorable presages for
sculpture. The Group of Hercules and the Centaur, set up in Florence
the last year of the former era, serves to show a considerable falling
off in the intellectual qualities, while it displays also many
improvements and facilities introduced into the technical principles
and modes of mechanical operation. These are the last beauties to
linger in the lapse of talent. External circumstances, also, both
moral and political, had become less favorable. The states of Italy
were either no longer alive to the same motives which had induced
a cultivation of sculpture, or, with the loss of liberty, had lost
also the desire of prosecuting the measures of public aggrandizement.
The ascendancy of painting, likewise, was hostile to the recovery of
a manly and accurate style of design in the sister art; while the
spirit of philosophical inquiry, which came abroad in the seventeenth
century, was inimical to the fine arts generally. It must, however,
be acknowledged, that the great sources of decline originated in the
state of the art itself. Indeed, when a high degree of excellence has
been attained in any art, a rapid and sudden retrogression will always
be found to indicate the operation of external influences; at the same
time, such falling off must always be preceded by, and is in part the
result of, internal corruption in the principles of composition or of
criticism.
A crowd of undistinguished names followed the dissolution of the great
Tuscan school. And when at length an artist of decided talent appeared,
instead of retracing the steps of his predecessors, he struck into a
new path, conducting still more pronely to error. Bernini, born at
Naples in 1598, though immeasurably inferior to the mighty master of
the last century in majesty and energy of mind, possessed most of
the requisites for becoming one of the greatest of modern sculptors.
Unfortunately, he neglected, or was ignorant of, the species of
invention which belongs to an imitative art; and choosing rather to be
the founder of a sept, than rank among the fathers of regular art, he
employed his endowments only to throw a meretricious splendour round
the caprices of a silly and affected manner. His powers of execution
were wonderful, his fertility of fancy exuberant, but they were under
control neither of regulated judgment nor of manly taste. To Bernini,
the conceptions of ancient simplicity seemed poverty and meagreness.
The compositions of Michael Angelo he deemed more forcible, but too
severe in character. His aim consequently was, to erect a third style,
which should possess distinctive qualities, displaying greater strength
and energy than, to his taste, the former presented, while it surpassed
the latter in suavity and grace. In pursuit of these imaginary
excellences, he deviated, and by his talents or patronage carried
art along with him, still farther from the simple, the true, and the
natural. To produce effect, by whatever means of startling attitude,
voluminous drapery, forced expression, became the sole object of
study--means the most improper for sculpture. The works of Bernini are
very numerous, for his opportunities as master of the works to several
successive Popes were extensive. All are composed in the same false and
flattering taste.
Contemporaries were generally imitators. Algard and Fiammingo, however,
preserved the dignity of independent, and, in a certain degree, merited
the praise of original minds. The former has produced the largest, but
not the best, relievo of modern art; the latter is most happy in the
representation of children, which, to use the words of Rubens, 'Nature,
rather than art, appears to have sculptured; the marble seems softened
into life.'
To Bernini, who died in 1680, Camilla Rusconi, a Milanese, succeeded in
the throne of sculpture during the remainder of the seventeenth, and
a considerable portion of the early part of the eighteenth century.
Following the same principles as his greater predecessor, but with
talents much inferior, in the hands of Rusconi deterioration of taste
became proportionably more rapid, while the influence of external
circumstances was also adverse. Italy was already filled with statues,
and no undertakings of magnitude presenting, the art continued to
languish during the greater part of the last century, suffering both
from defect of principle, and poverty of means.
During the time that has elapsed, Transalpine sculpture scarcely
demands our notice. In France, we first discover the art separately
and extensively practised: for in other countries it was associated
with ornamental architecture. The expeditions of Charles VIII. and
the personal predilections of Francis, had introduced among their
subjects some knowledge of Italian refinement; and so early as the
middle of the sixteenth century, French sculptors of considerable
eminence appear. Jean Gougon completed the celebrated Fountain of the
Innocents in 1550. The works of a contemporary, Jean Cousin, show
some grace and delicacy, but want strength and correctness. German
Pilon assimilates very closely to the style of the Tuscan masters
in energetic detail, but is destitute of simplicity and natural
expression. Jacques D'Angouleme had merit, but not enough to warrant
the statement of native historians, that he defeated Michael Angelo in
a trial of skill. Towards the conclusion of this century, Giovanni di
Bologna filled the whole of France with the principles of his former
master; and his own pupils continued to maintain similar, though
inferior, practice to the golden age of refinement in France--the
reign of Louis XIV. Of this school, two artists, Girardon and Puget,
claim to be the head. The former, though we cannot say with Voltaire,
'il a égalé tout ce que l'antiquité a de plus beau,' has yet great
merit. His manner of design, with a degree of hardness, is yet noble,
and though cold, is more correct than that of his contemporaries,
as appears from the tomb of Richelieu. Puget, in every respect the
opposite as to intellectual temperament, is the favorite of his
countrymen. _Sculpteur_, _Architecte_, _et Peintre_, as they, after
the historian of Louis XIV., are fond of representing him, for the
sake of comparison with Buonarotti, though what he painted, or what he
built, does not appear, is yet not dissimilar in the fiery energetic
character of his composition, and in his handling, bold and full of
movement; but his expression is studied, his science inaccurate, his
forms wanting in nobleness and grace. Sarasin was a most esteemed
contemporary, and, in the Caryatides of the Louvre, has equalled the
best sculpture of France. To the schools of the two first mentioned,
however, and especially of Puget, in style at least, are to be referred
the succeeding artists of France, as Les Gros, Theodon, Le Peintre,
Desjardins, Coysevaux Vaucleve, the two Coustous, all flourishing
at the close of the seventeenth, and during the early part of the
eighteenth century. The last of this list is Bouchardon, under Louis
XV.; for though his unfortunate successor inclined to patronise talent,
the excesses of the Revolution proved not less injurious to living art,
than destructive of ancient monuments. Among the latest works previous
to this horrid outbreaking, was the statue of Voltaire, by Pigal, now
in the library of the Institute, and upon which the following severe
epigram was composed:--
Pigal au naturel represente Voltaire--
Le squelette à la fois offre l'homme et l'auteur.
L'[oe]il qui le voit sans parure étrangère
Est effrayé de sa maigreur!
Bermudez, the historian of Spanish art, enumerates a splendid list of
native sculptors from the commencement of the sixteenth century. This,
however, is scarcely consistent with the fact, that not till 1558, in
consequence of a royal edict, was this esteemed a liberal profession,
or admitted to any privileges as such. It is easy to perceive indeed,
that national partiality, or that adventitious magnitude which every
subject is apt to acquire in the estimation of the writer, has led, in
this instance, to consider as artists, those who have with remarkable
success been employed in ornamenting the fine ecclesiastical edifices
in Spain, beyond which they are little known. Berruguete, a pupil of
Michael Angelo, appears to have founded the first regular school, of
which Paul de Cespides was the ornament, as he is of the national
sculpture.
Before the seventeenth century, Germany makes no appearance in a
general history of sculpture; and even now she is more celebrated for
her writers on the philosophy, than for her artists in the practice,
of the art. Still the genius of the nation we should be inclined to
estimate as highly favorable to its future advancement. In Vienna,
Rauchmüller; in Silesia, Leigebe; at Berlin, Schluter, Millich,
Barthel, and others, have proved this estimate not unfounded. While our
more immediate contemporaries, Ohnmacht, Sonnenschein, Nahl, the two
Shadofs, especially the younger, whose Spinning Girl is one of the most
exquisite imitations of simple nature which modern art can show, do not
discourage this hope; if indeed artists be not carried away by that
unnatural striving after marvellous effect, which has wrought so much
injury to common sense and right feeling in German literature.
On reviewing the history of modern sculpture during its rise and
perfection, to the decline immediately antecedent to the present
century, we find that, from the commencement of the fifteenth century,
when the art began to rank among national causes of exertion and
feeling, progress towards perfection, and in the most direct path, was
rapid. Hence it has been the singular distinction of the sculptors
of this period, to have left models in their own works, while their
previous discoveries enabled those who immediately followed also
to produce models. They have thus remained original in an age of
originality. During the sixteenth century, causes more remotely
connected with real patriotism--an ostentatious desire of splendour,
not an unaffected love of refinement--operated in the promotion of
the arts; and in Sculpture, in particular, the artificial excitement
imparted a portion of its spirit to its effects. From the age of
Michael Angelo inclusive, we find that the desire of novelty, a
continued endeavor to extend the boundaries of art, by the introduction
of imaginary perfections inconsistent with its real character and
excellence, were the rocks on which was made fatal shipwreck of truth,
of simplicity, and of beauty. These imagined improvements were directed
to the acquisition of two grand objects. A style of composition was
aimed at, more purely ideal, less connected with nature, than is to
be found in the remains of the ancient, or in the works of the early
modern masters. Genius hovered on the very confines of credibility
and of the impossible, deriving the elements of its creations from
imaginings awful and imposing, embodied in forms of gloomy sublimity
and power, overwhelming--not awakening--to the human sympathies.
As characteristics of this imaginative style, the proportions are
enlarged, the expressions forced, and action and energy are given,
destructive of grace and reality. Art is raised to regions where nature
is unknown, and where the very highest exertions of intellect and fancy
could hardly sustain interest. This was more especially the style of
the Tuscan school, and it fell with its great founder, who had placed
the art on this dangerous height. But, in the second place, sculpture
was sought to be assimilated to painting, and merit was estimated by
the extent to which imitation was carried--in difficulty and variety
of effect, in complicated detail, in volume of drapery, and, latterly,
even in facility of production. This taste first began decidedly in the
school of Bernini, and exclusively cherished the powers of mechanical
execution, in preference to the unobtrusive but essential beauties of
purity and correctness of design. Hence the rapid decline; for statues
soon became merely confused masses of drapery, without drawing, and
without science. Still the chisel was wielded with great mechanical
dexterity; but before the middle of the eighteenth century, every moral
beauty, sentiment, truth, feeling, had disappeared from the labours of
the sculptor.