THE history of Painting in England embraces only a very recent period
in the annals of the art. But though chronologically, as well as from
the peculiar interest of the subject, it is to be treated last, this
arrangement is not adopted from the same motive as actuates foreign
critics, namely, the alleged inferiority of British painting. It has
been shown, we trust satisfactorily, that in the real condition of
taste, in the modes of practice and in the principles of theory, our
school of Sculpture, though not equal in specimens yet produced, is
superior to every other, not only now, but formerly, in Europe. In
favor of our painters, we go further--and yet not so far. Pictures,
and in more than one branch, painted in this country, and by native
living artists, can be produced superior to any contemporary examples
in any part of the Continent; but, in its theoretic principles, and
in the practice introduced in consequence of these, the English
school has sadly departed from the perfect labours and just science
of the old masters. This has arisen from following a course in some
respects opposite to that which has been adopted in sculpture, as
shall hereafter be the endeavor to point out. Again, if we review our
early history, it appears, that in the ages immediately subsequent to
the revival of art, native artists in this country, in the ingenious
processes then known, were not inferior to contemporary names in Italy,
France, or Germany. It is sufficient here merely to refer to Walpole's
interesting work; in which it is shown, that before the middle of the
thirteenth century, two hundred years prior to Van Eyck, evidences are
found of oil-painting in England; and that in the fourteenth, painting
on glass, heraldic emblazonment, the illumination of manuscripts, with
all the similar approaches to elegance then practised, were cultivated
among our ancestors, and by natives whose names are preserved, with
equal success as elsewhere.
Causes, therefore, originating in the moral and political condition
of the people, can alone explain the striking inferiority of English
art during the period of greatest splendor in its modern history. The
opinions, indeed, promulgated by the French and Italian writers, not
excepting Winklemann, and so complacently entertained even now on the
Continent, respecting the deleterious influence of climate upon English
genius, are, in their philosophy, too contemptible to merit serious
investigation. Nor are similar theories of our own and other authors
exempted from this censure, which ascribe excellence, as for instance
in ancient Greece, to the propitious effects of the same physical
cause. The mighty and the immortal energies of the human mind are
independent of all other external causes; they will bear up against all
other external pressure--save moral and political degradation.
In fact, art in England was crushed almost in its cradle by the civil
wars of York and Lancaster. Warfare between different nations, where
the struggle is from rivalry of interests or empire, rather favors the
developement of national talent; the activity of martial achievement
conveys, through all the relations of citizenship, and to every
field of honorable exertion, a corresponding vigor and elasticity
of mind--an ardent love of glory and of country--raising high the
spirit of emulation, yet binding closer the ties of fellowship. In the
unhallowed commotion of civil contest, all these effects are reversed;
while in England, the desecration of country consequent on such feuds
was deeper than perhaps in any other instance of modern times, from
religion, which in other states, under like unhappy circumstances, had
afforded an asylum to arts and to peace, here taking part with the
combatants. These political divisions healed, religious dissensions
broke in upon the national quiet, at a time, too, when a taste for
the fine arts was gaining ground in the different states of Europe.
When at length every animosity and partial feeling had subsided in
the generous consciousness of being Englishmen, an eager thirst for
nautical enterprise engaged the minds of the subjects of Elizabeth and
James. The wealth, security, and information which flowed from these
exertions, were beginning to create taste, and to provide means highly
favorable to the future progress of painting. The predilections of
Charles, likewise, as also his knowledge, were calculated to improve
and to direct in the best manner these advantages. The collection of
pictures which he formed was the most valuable then in Europe, and
composed of pieces especially adapted to a national gallery, and to
the design of creating a native school. The most eminent artists of
the age, invited to his court, found their labors at once skilfully
appreciated and munificently rewarded. This unfortunate monarch had
the satisfaction to perceive the refinement beginning to spread among
his subjects, even in the remotest and least opulent portion of his
dominions. In Scotland, Jamieson, born at Aberdeen, in 1586, and pupil
of Rubens, has left, in the universities of his native place and
elsewhere, fruits of his genius which by no means show him unworthy
of the appellation of the Scottish Vandyke. To this painter Charles
sat, and further distinguished him by peculiar marks of royal favor.
In England, painting was naturally still more flourishing in prospect;
the nobles imitated, and some shared in, the taste of their sovereign,
while a love of elegant acquirement was generally diffused. This
period, also, was highly favorable to a new and aspiring epoch in
English art, from the great and original acquirements previously made
in poetry and elegant literature, which both prepared the public mind
to relish similar displays of talent in a cognate branch; while they
evinced and cherished that creative spirit which may render available
the introduction of improved modes, without degenerating into imitation
in its own efforts. The progress of successful art in Greece, and in
republican Italy, with the absence of nationality in that of ancient
Rome and of modern France, exhibits the justice of the remark, and the
importance of the acquisition. The reign of Charles, I., thus appears
to have been one of the most favorable periods in our history for the
foundation of a British school of art; indeed, we perceive that every
essential towards this had been accomplished. The fearful concussions
which closed in blood the career of that unhappy monarch, while they
shook the entire realm from its propriety, proved more pernicious to
the cultivation of the arts of elegance, than has usually been the case
even in civil commotion. The lowest and most illiterate, now armed with
some degree of power, destroyed, because they knew not how to value;
while the coarse hypocrisy and more dangerous cunning, or the stern
bigotry, of their leaders, viewed with the malignity of ignorance, or
the hatred of party, all evidence of superior refinement.
In thus rapidly reviewing the leading causes which have concurred to
retard the progress of early art in this country, the Reformation has
been merely alluded to as turning aside attention to other pursuits.
The commonly received opinion which makes this event a primary and
permanent source of our inferiority, seems to rest on a very imperfect
knowledge of facts. When the glorious doctrines of the Reformation
obtained footing in England, no advance had yet been effected in
the formation of a native school; the national refinement was in no
degree prepared for the successful cultivation of painting; nor do
any circumstances particularly favorable induce the belief, that had
the Catholic continued to be the established faith, the arts would
have improved. On the contrary, though the number of pictures would
doubtless have multiplied, these, as in France at the same period, and
under circumstances incomparably more felicitous, must have been the
works of foreign artists; consequently, by introducing an artificial
manner before any national character of art had been formed, the
exoteric taste would, in all probability, have for ever bound up in
conventional trammels, the freshness of original conception, and the
vigor of national genius. Such we have seen to be the invariable
effects of introducing, instead of rearing, art, among every people
where the experiment has been attempted. The Reformation, by restoring
to the human mind the uncontrolled exercise of its own faculties, by
unlocking the barriers by which the will and the powers of free inquiry
had been imprisoned, has stamped upon every British institution, as
upon every effort of British talent, the worth and the manliness of
independent character. Our Fine Arts, though the last to feel, do at
length experience this happy influence.
The particular views entertained, or rather taken up without
examination, have led, on this subject, to erroneous conceptions,
both of the existing condition of art, and of the state of royal
patronage. Henry VIII. certainly endeavored by every means to induce
the most esteemed painters of the age to visit his court; while the
encouragement which he offered was not only continued, but increased
with more ample means, after the Reformation had commenced; as far as
his influence went, there was a change for the better. But his was
neither a cultivated nor a natural taste. The sentiment was merely one
of rivalry, stirred up by imitation of his contemporaries, Francis I.
and Charles V. His subjects and courtiers, not even animated by such
factitious impulse, were, generally speaking, still less qualified
to assist in rearing national art. Neither did there exist, in any
other form, a previous standard of characteristic originality; a most
important consideration, as already shown--for, with the exception of
Surrey, no poet of genius capable of giving to taste an abiding tone
of nationality had yet appeared. Under these circumstances, had the
importation of foreign art--and it is clear none other could have been
encouraged--taken place to any extent; even had Raphael and Titian
accepted the invitation of the English monarch, beyond bare possession,
their works would have been valueless to the nation; or worse--they
would have depressed, by an unapproachable model, the aspirings of
native talent, fixing for ever our arts in the mediocrity of imitation.
The opposition, also, which the Reformers are accused of having bent
against the practice of painting has been altogether misrepresented.
Not only were they not opposed to such acquirements in their proper
place, but the assurance is, that they viewed such accomplishments with
favor. Among the earliest Reformers, the movers of that emancipation
which regenerated a portion, and made despotism more tolerable in the
rest, of Europe, were to be found the most accomplished minds and the
most elegant scholarship of which the age could boast. Indeed, their
superior enlightenment was the human means of that liberty, in which
through Christ they had become free. For such men to be the enemies
of intelligence, of whatever description, if under proper guidance,
and in due subserviency to higher knowledge, was to place obstacles
to the spread of their own principles. Hence in Germany and in the
Low Countries, the fine arts were admired and patronised by the
leading Reformers. Holbein came to England most warmly recommended by
Luther, who has already been named as the friend of other contemporary
artists. In one respect, the Reformers certainly may be said to have
been hostile to art. They proscribed the introduction of pictures into
their churches. To this prohibition only, extended the penal statutes
of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, about which so much outcry has been
raised. No proscription, no interdict against religious paintings
merely as such, was agitated, till the period already alluded to as the
most truly disastrous to national refinement, when, in 1643, a bigoted
parliament ordered, 'that all pictures which had the representation of
the Saviour or the Virgin Mary in them should be burned.' The brutal
fanaticism, and still more disgusting hypocrisy, of the adherents
of Oliver Cromwell, have in this and in similar instances been most
unjustly mixed up with the pure spirit and unsullied zeal of the
genuine followers of Martin Luther. It is not intended, however, indeed
it cannot be denied, that to the mere practice of painting, and to
the multiplication of its labours, the exclusion of pictures from the
churches is injurious. But extension is not improvement.
So far, then, the Reformation has proved permanently hostile to the
art. But highly as we honor the talent of artisanship, and intimately
connected as is the glory of the land with the reputation of its arts,
we cannot for one moment entertain the proposal now so generally, it
had almost been said unblushingly, brought forward, of converting
our churches 'into spacious repositories' for the productions of the
pencil. Here we have explicitly to state an opinion, though opposed
by almost every writer on the arts; first, that neither is the house
of God a proper receptacle for pictures; nor, secondly, if every
Protestant place of worship were open to such ornaments, is it clear
that art would be materially advantaged. Let our sacred edifices be as
nobly simple, as massively grand, as may be; let them exhibit every
beauty of architecture, if needful; the effect will elevate, without
distracting, the mind; or let the solemn representations of sculpture
invite remembrance to dwell upon the departed, who sleep around the
living worshipper. Such thoughts prepare the mind for its duties.
But pictures do not seem so immediately associated, either with the
place or with our meditations; with us, the only association is that
of mere ornament. We might, however, be accused of treating here the
subject too seriously, were an attempt made to show the sinfulness
of abducing even one thought from heaven, to fix it on a merely
ornamental appendage. We shall therefore suppose, that in our country,
people do not go to church to see pictures, and that, as elsewhere,
pictures are here painted to be seen. Now, the time of divine service
with us is short, and that space is passed, without intermission, in
sacred duties, in prayer, in praise, and in exhortation. Either these
momentous engagements or the pictures must be neglected. In the Romish
church the service is long, composed of many ceremonies in which the
audience take no share, and during which, the mind may be employed in
contemplating a religious painting, with at least equal profit as the
dressings and undressings, the crossings, genuflexions, perambulations,
and incensings, which are being enacted by the officials. In a
Protestant assembly, every one is seated in his place; a picture can
be viewed properly from a very few points, perhaps only one; granting,
then, all the advantages 'of pictures in unison with the feelings of
the mind, exemplifying in the most striking manner the objects of its
highest admiration and respect,' how limited is the number that could
enjoy these? The Catholic church, again, knows not the impediment of
pews, and the individuals of the congregation may move and change
positions at pleasure. Protestant churches are open only on Sundays,
or a few fast days, while we have no useless train of idle retainers
to show the curiosities of the place; the Catholic church is open from
sunrise to sunset throughout the year, each with its sacristans,
vergers, macemen, &c. in constant attendance. In the Romish ritual,
external emblems are certainly permitted as stimulants to inward
devotion; of these, pictures are among the most favored. In our faith,
the symbols are simple as its practice, and too sacred even to be
named here. We have no wish, then, to decry the use or advantage of
paintings to the Catholic; but it seems sufficiently obvious, that to
the Protestant they can at best be useless in a place of public worship.
In reference to the second consideration, namely, the profit thus
accruing to the arts of the country, it has been stated above, that
only to the multiplication of paintings has the exclusion in question
proved hurtful, and not to the improvement or perfection of the art.
In this respect the merits of the Reformation have not only been
overlooked, but denied, while the claims of Catholicism, as favorable
to elegance, have been too highly exalted. True, a great proportion of
the patronage by which the arts have been supported in Italy has been
extended by churchmen; this has all been put down to the account of
the system. But it is to be remembered, that this protection has been
granted more frequently in the character of lay noblemen and princes,
than of ecclesiastics. The most splendid works of the pencil are in
the private palaces of the popes and cardinals, and other members of
the hierarchy; laymen with the same means would have acted similarly.
During the infancy of the arts, their feebleness was stayed, and their
vigorous manhood nourished, by the free corporations of the republican
cities. The Catholic Church only received the arts as orphans, after
her temporal, and therefore improper ambition, had destroyed their
true and natural parent--Liberty. At this moment, too, very few fine
pictures are in churches; they are in public galleries, in private
collections, in the cabinets of the curious, and in palaces. Where,
then, is the vaunted superiority in the Catholic profession, or where
the ancient and permanent disabilities under which Protestantism has
been represented as labouring, in regard to the arts of elegance? And
why should we incur even the possibility of contaminating the purity
and the spirituality of our faith, or of even offending the mind of the
humblest believer, by filling our churches with pictures, when there
remains to us the amplest field yet unoccupied? We have, in fact, all
that is yet in possession of high art; in our royal palaces, in the
almost regal seats of our nobility, in our national galleries, in the
halls of our universities and institutions, and in our public buildings
of every description. Has not the pencil 'ample verge' and 'room'
appropriate?
If these advantages have hitherto remained without fruit, let it be
remembered, that the defective returns have not been occasioned by
imbecility or idleness--the labourers have been otherwise engaged.
During only three centuries of poor and struggling Protestantism,
tenfold more extensive and valuable accessions to true knowledge have
been realized than were accomplished in the space of a thousand years
of the prosperous and uncontrolled empire of Catholicism. That this
uprousing of the human spirit has become not less refined than it has
been vigorous, is evident from the fact which connects these remarks
with our subject, namely, that now, in Protestant Britain, is to be
found the only original, and the most flourishing school of painting in
Europe.
In pursuing the history of English art posterior to the Restoration,
little of importance occurs till the late and present reigns. Charles
II. had wit, but no great share of taste, and that little, like his
morals, was equally flimsy and meretricious. He trifled with Verrio
and Gennaro in decorating ceilings and covering walls; while Lely,
whose light and graceful, but feeble pencil, had in succession traced
the melancholy countenance of the Martyr, and the bluff face of the
Protector,[C] was employed as state portrait-painter on the sleepy and
luxurious beauties of the court. During the succeeding reigns, to the
accession of George I., lived Kneller, a native of Lubec, an artist of
considerable talent, but who painted too expeditiously to paint well,
and who was too intent upon sharing the wealth of his own age to leave
many drafts that would be honored by posterity, though he painted in
his life seven English and three foreign sovereigns. His head of Sir
Isaac Newton is worth them all. During the same period we find many
native artists of obscure fame and merits; as Dobson, who died in 1646,
and was brought into notice through the generosity of Vandyke. Riley,
(John), born in the same year, possessed, according to Walpole, more
talent than any of his countrymen. It was to this artist that Charles
II. said, 'Od's fish, man, if your picture of me be a likeness, I am
an ugly fellow.' Hoskins and Cooper, uncle and nephew, were celebrated
miniature-painters, especially the latter, who was married to a sister
of Pope's mother. Henry, who was employed by King William in the
reparation of Raphael's cartoons. Highmore painted the only portrait
known of the poet Young. Greenhill and Buckshorn were pupils of Lely.
Jervas, who, in spite of art, contrived to make a fortune and to set
up a carriage; upon which Kneller remarked, in his broken English,
'Ah, mine Cot! if de horses do not draw better dan he, de journey will
never have an end.' The praises lavished by Pope on this his master
evince the wretched condition of general taste, when we consider
these praises as merely the echo of the public voice. Richardson is
best known as a writer on art; though a very inferior artist, he stood
at the head of the profession on the death of Kneller. His scholar
and son-in-law, Hudson, succeeded in the dignity of metropolitan
portrait-painter, though opposed for some time by Liotard, a Genevese,
and Vanloo, a Frenchman. Hudson was the master of Reynolds, with
whom the British school first assumes the dignity of higher art, the
elevation commencing with the portraits painted by Sir Joshua on his
return from the Continent in 1752-3. Previously, however, had appeared
Hogarth, the most original of all painters; but his pictures, from
their subjects, were not calculated, in proportion to their merit, to
refine the national taste. So early, too, as 1739, the establishment
of the old academy in St Martin's Lane had been silently preparing
some melioration in a better manner of designing; and the introduction
of costume, though poorly executed, was an advance towards truth from
the absurd robes of Lely and Kneller. The association just mentioned
was afterwards incorporated by his late Majesty; but the members
disagreeing, the Royal Academy was founded. Here have presided the
three greatest names in the art since the time of Rubens and Vandyke,
perhaps since the Caracci--Reynolds, West, and Lawrence.
Walpole has with justice remarked, that 'in the commencement of the
reign of George I., in 1714, the arts of England were sunk almost to
their lowest ebb.' The preceding sketch verifies the observation; and
from the singular anomaly of a nation, during the most flourishing
period of its literature, possessing a taste absolutely contemptible
in the fine arts, evinces the truth of the principles advocated
throughout these pages. From the Restoration to the accession of
George III., the arts had never once been regarded as adding to
national respectability, nor as connected with national feeling. The
people crowded to have their portraits taken, without inquiring or
conceiving that there was anything to know beyond the mere mechanical
art. The sovereign, instead of regarding the progress of elegant taste
as an important object of legislation, looked out for a limner merely
as a necessary appurtenance of a court. As our monarchs of this period,
not even excepting Anne, through the predilections of her husband,
were, as regards painting, better acquainted with Continental art, and
some more attached to everything foreign, British genius, of course
overlooked, was never once called forth. Some stray Italian, Dutchman,
or German, was caught hold of, patronised by royalty, supported by the
nobility, and never thought of by the nation beyond face-painting in
the metropolis. From the middle of the seventeenth to the first forty
years of the eighteenth century, when national talent at length began
to break forth in its own strength, such was the state of patronage,
and the artists who enjoyed its benefits were but little qualified
to create a national interest; for their mannerism and foreign modes
served only the more decidedly to exclude a characteristic style,
and, as must ever be the case in similar instances, prevented any
developement of native originality. Another great cause of our wretched
taste in the arts, and which perhaps in part grew out of these more
general causes, was, that the real genius of the land was bent upon
the pursuits of literature and science; while the nation had not
attained that degree of refinement, security, and opulence, which
enable a people to enjoy and to reward the exertions of mind, as at the
present day, in all its separate and diversified departments of action.
Between literary eminence and excellence in art there seems a natural
connexion, as depending upon principles of taste and modes of exercise
nearly similar. Letters and the Fine Arts, then, have generally been
carried to the highest perfection among the same people; they have
flourished in conjunction, and they have fallen together. It is to be
remarked, however, that the former have always preceded; the noblest
effusions of poetry have long been the delight of his country before
the painter or the sculptor have reached an equal merit. Nor is this
casual precedence. The labours of the poet are a necessary, in fact a
creative preparation; by their rapid and wide circulation, they soften
the sensibilities, arouse the imagination, give to taste an existence
and a feeling of its object, and awake the mind to a consciousness of
its intellectual wants. They constitute, also, a common chronicle,
whether of fiction or of reality, whose events are clear to, and
quickly recognisable by all. Fancy thus obtains a lore of its own,
whose legends delight by repetition, and whose imagery animates the
canvass or the marble with forms loved of old. Poetry, then, must
precede art. All this advantage of preparation and expectancy was
denied to the infancy of English painting. Milton's verse, not inferior
to any precursor of Phidias or of Raphael, instead of being, as Homer's
or Dante's, for centuries the manual of his countrymen, was barely
known. Dryden, Addison, Pope, were yet but forming the public mind.
In many respects, too, even had there not existed artists capable
of constituting an epoch, the writings of these distinguished men
are not favorable to vigorous originality of thought in art. Their
own immediate productions are impressed with the genuine stamp of
nationality, but their abstract system of criticism is often timid,
almost always conventional; while in every remark on that subject,
they show inexperience of the true object and philosophy of art. Even
Addison here writes as a mere antiquarian, and Dryden with all the
enthusiasm of poetry indeed, but with little of the sober judgment
which must guide the more laborious hand and less undefined shapes of
the painter. Again, the intellectual temperament and state of society
favorable to the arts is directly opposed to those which promote
scientific knowledge. Indeed, between the spirit of analytical inquiry,
of minute research, which belongs to the investigations of science,
and the creative fancy which tends to the successful exercise of the
poet's or painter's art, the dissimilarity appears so great, that among
the same people and at the same period, high eminence in both has
never yet been attained. The amazing demonstrations of Newton, then,
and the profound speculations of Locke, were by no means favorable to
painting, while so entirely in infancy. They spread abroad a different
taste--they engaged in the pursuit every ardent and aspiring mind. The
sublime mysteries unveiled by the genius of Newton gave an especial
bias to men's minds, and caused his own age to view with indifference,
as light and valueless, pursuits which seemed but to minister to the
amenities of life, or to hang only as graceful ornaments upon society.
Having thus faintly traced the rise and progress of painting in
connexion with the history of the country, we now proceed briefly to
examine the principles and the practice of the British school, under
the general heads of Portrait, Historical, and Landscape Painting.