the epithet of _divine_; as it may be said to preside, like a supreme
judge, over all the productions of nature; appearing to be possessed of
the will and intention of the Creator, as far as they regard the
external form of living beings. When a man once possesses this idea in
its perfection, there is no danger but that he will be sufficiently
warmed by it himself, and be able to warm and ravish everyone else.
Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the
objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that
central form, if I may so express it, from which every deviation is
deformity. But the investigation of this form, I grant, is painful, and
I know but of one method of shortening the road; this is, by a careful
study of the works of the ancient sculptors; who, being indefatigable in
the school of nature, have left models of that perfect form behind them,
which an artist would prefer as supremely beautiful, who had spent his
whole life in that single contemplation. But if industry carried them
thus far, may not you also hope for the same reward from the same
labour? We have the same school opened to us, that was opened to them:
for nature denies her instructions to none, who desire to become her
pupils.
This laborious investigation, I am aware, must appear superfluous to
those who think everything is to be done by felicity, and the powers of
native genius. Even the great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of
confining proportion to rules, or of producing beauty by selection. “A
man cannot tell” (says he) “whether Apelles or Albert Dürer were the
more trifler; whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical
proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to
make one excellent.... The painter” (he adds) “must do it by a kind of
felicity ... and not by rule.”[2]
It is not safe to question any opinion of so great a writer, and so
profound a thinker, as undoubtedly Bacon was. But he studies brevity to
excess; and therefore his meaning is sometimes doubtful. If he means
that beauty has nothing to do with rule, he is mistaken. There is a
rule, obtained out of general nature, to contradict which is to fall
into deformity. Whenever anything is done beyond this rule, it is in
virtue of some other rule which is followed along with it, but which
does not contradict it. Everything which is wrought with certainty is
wrought upon some principle. If it is not, it cannot be repeated. If by
felicity is meant anything of chance or hazard, or something born with a
man, and not earned, I cannot agree with this great philosopher. Every
object which pleases must give us pleasure upon some certain principles;
but as the objects of pleasure are almost infinite, so their principles
vary without end, and every man finds them out, not by felicity or
successful hazard, but by care and sagacity.
To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each
species of beings is an invariable one, it may be objected, that in
every particular species there are various central forms, which are
separate and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful;
that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of Hercules is one,
of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo another; which makes so many
different ideas of beauty.
It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in their kind,
though of different characters and proportions; but still none of them
is the representation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is
one general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human kind at
large, so in each of these classes there is one common idea and central
form, which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to
that class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and age differ
exceedingly, there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in
age, which is the more perfect, as it is more remote from all
peculiarities. But I must add further, that though the most perfect
forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal,
and superior to any individual form of that class; yet the highest
perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any one of them. It
is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo; but in
that form which is taken from all, and which partakes equally of the
activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the
muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species
must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It
cannot consist in any one to the exclusion of the rest; no one,
therefore, must be predominant, that no one may be deficient.
The knowledge of these different characters, and the power of separating
and distinguishing them, are undoubtedly necessary to the painter, who
is to vary his compositions with figures of various forms and
proportions, though he is never to lose sight of the general idea of
perfection in each kind.
There is, likewise, a kind of symmetry, or proportion, which may
properly be said to belong to deformity. A figure, lean or corpulent,
tall or short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain
union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them on the
whole not unpleasing.
When the artist has by diligent attention acquired a clear and distinct
idea of beauty and symmetry; when he has reduced the variety of nature
to the abstract idea; his next task will be to become acquainted with
the genuine habits of nature, as distinguished from those of fashion.
For in the same manner, and on the same principles, as he has acquired
the knowledge of the real forms of nature, distinct from accidental
deformity, he must endeavour to separate simple chaste nature, from
those adventitious, those affected and forced airs or actions, with
which she is loaded by modern education.
Perhaps I cannot better explain what I mean, than by reminding you of
what was taught us by the Professor of Anatomy, in respect to the
natural position and movement of the feet. He observed, that the fashion
of turning them outwards was contrary to the intent of nature, as might
be seen from the structure of the bones, and from the weakness that
proceeded from that manner of standing. To this we may add the erect
position of the head, the projection of the chest, the walking with
straight knees, and many such actions, which we know to be merely the
result of fashion, and what nature never warranted, as we are sure that
we have been taught them when children.
I have mentioned but a few of those instances, in which vanity or
caprice have contrived to distort and disfigure the human form: your own
recollection will add to these a thousand more of ill-understood
methods, which have been practised to disguise nature among our
dancing-masters, hairdressers, and tailors, in their various schools of
deformity.[3]
However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to fashion, she
must be entirely excluded from the art of painting; the painter must
never mistake this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of
nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or
country; he must disregard all local and temporary ornaments, and look
only on those general habits which are everywhere and always the same;
he addresses his works to the people of every country and every age, he
calls upon posterity to be his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, _in
æternitatem pingo_.
The neglect of separating modern fashions from the habits of nature
leads to that ridiculous style which has been practised by some
painters, who have given to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised
in the Court of Louis the Fourteenth; an absurdity almost as great as it
would have been to have dressed them after the fashion of that Court.
To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true simplicity of
nature, is a task more difficult than at first sight it may appear. The
prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used
to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often
difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the
result of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour
of the artificial mode; and almost everyone is apt to be guided by those
local prejudices, who has not chastised his mind and regulated the
instability of his affections by the eternal invariable idea of nature.
Here then, as before, we must have recourse to the ancients as
instructors. It is from a careful study of their works that you will be
enabled to attain to the real simplicity of nature; they will suggest
many observations, which would probably escape you, if your study were
confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot help suspecting, that in
this instance the ancients had an easier task than the moderns. They
had, probably, little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were
nearly approaching to this desirable simplicity; while the modern
artist, before he can see the truth of things, is obliged to remove a
veil, with which the fashion of the times has thought proper to cover
her.
Having gone thus far in our investigation of the great style in
painting; if we now should suppose that the artist has found the true
idea of beauty, which enables him to give his works a correct and
perfect design; if we should suppose also, that he has acquired a
knowledge of the unadulterated habits of nature, which gives him
simplicity; the rest of his task is, perhaps, less than is generally
imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so great a share in the composition
of a great style, that he who has acquired them has little else to
learn. It must not, indeed, be forgotten, that there is a nobleness of
conception, which goes beyond anything in the mere exhibition even of
perfect form; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures
with intellectual grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic
wisdom, or heroic virtue. This can only be acquired by him that enlarges
the sphere of his understanding by a variety of knowledge, and warms his
imagination with the best productions of ancient and modern poetry.
A hand thus exercised, and a mind thus instructed, will bring the art to
a higher degree of excellence than, perhaps, it has hitherto attained in
this country. Such a student will disdain the humbler walks of painting,
which, however profitable, can never assure him a permanent reputation.
He will leave the meaner artist servilely to suppose that those are the
best pictures, which are most likely to deceive the spectator. He will
permit the lower painter, like the florist or collector of shells, to
exhibit the minute discriminations, which distinguish one object of the
same species from another; while he, like the philosopher, will consider
nature in the abstract, and represent in every one of his figures the
character of its species.
If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no
doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but
it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires
to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which
only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to
counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.
This is the ambition which I wish to excite in your minds; and the
object I have had in my view, throughout this discourse, is that one
great idea, which gives to painting its true dignity, which entitles it
to the name of a liberal art, and ranks it as a sister of poetry.
It may possibly have happened to many young students, whose application
was sufficient to overcome all difficulties, and whose minds were
capable of embracing the most extensive views, that they have, by a
wrong direction originally given, spent their lives in the meaner walks
of painting, without ever knowing there was a nobler to pursue. Albert
Dürer, as Vasari has justly remarked, would, probably, have been one of
the first painters of his age (and he lived in an era of great artists)
had he been initiated into those great principles of the art, which were
so well understood and practised by his contemporaries in Italy. But
unluckily having never seen or heard of any other manner, he, without
doubt, considered his own as perfect.
As for the various departments of painting, which do not presume to make
such high pretensions, they are many. None of them are without their
merit, though none enter into competition with this universal presiding
idea of the art. The painters who have applied themselves more
particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who express with
precision the various shades of passion, as they are exhibited by vulgar
minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth), deserve great praise;
but as their genius has been employed on low and confined subjects, the
praise which we give must be as limited as its object. The merry-making,
or quarrelling of the boors of Teniers; the same sort of productions of
Brouwer, or Ostade, are excellent in their kind; and the excellence and
its praise will be in proportion, as, in those limited subjects, and
peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the expression of those
passions, as they appear in general and more enlarged nature. This
principle may be applied to the battle-pieces of Bourgognone the French
gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life,
to the landscapes of Claude Lorrain, and the sea views of Vandervelde.
All these painters have, in general, the same right, in different
degrees, to the name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, a
sonneteer, a writer of pastorals or descriptive poetry, has to that of a
poet.
In the same rank, and perhaps of not so great merit, is the cold painter
of portraits. But his correct and just imitation of his object has its
merit. Even the painter of still life, whose highest ambition is to give
a minute representation of every part of those low objects which he sets
before him, deserves praise in proportion to his attainment; because no
part of this excellent art, so much the ornament of polished life, is
destitute of value and use. These, however, are by no means the views to
which the mind of the student ought to be _primarily_ directed. Having
begun by aiming at better things, if from particular inclination, or
from the taste of the time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or
from failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend lower, he
will bring into the lower sphere of art a grandeur of composition and
character, that will raise and ennoble his works far above their natural
rank.
A man is not weak, though he may not be able to wield the club of
Hercules; nor does a man always practise that which he esteems the best;
but does that which he can best do. In moderate attempts, there are many
walks open to the artist. But as the idea of beauty is of necessity but
one, so there can be but one great mode of painting; the leading
principle of which I have endeavoured to explain.
I should be sorry, if what is here recommended, should be at all
understood to countenance a careless or indetermined manner of painting.
For though the painter is to overlook the accidental discriminations of
nature, he is to exhibit distinctly, and with precision, the general
forms of things. A firm and determined outline is one of the
characteristics of the great style in painting; and let me add, that he
who possesses the knowledge of the exact form which every part of nature
ought to have, will be fond of expressing that knowledge with
correctness and precision in all his works.
To conclude; I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general
principles: and I had the pleasure to observe that the Professor of
Painting proceeded in the same method, when he showed you that the
artifice of contrast was founded but on one principle. I am convinced
that this is the only means of advancing science; of clearing the mind
from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex
and puzzle the student, when he compares them, or misguide him if he
gives himself up to their authority: bringing them under one general
head can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind.
DISCOURSE IV
_Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 10, 1771._
General Ideas, the Presiding Principle which regulates every Part
of Art; Invention, Expression, Colouring, and Drapery.--Two
Distinct Styles in History-painting; the Grand, and the
Ornamental.--The Schools in which each is to be found.--The
Composite Style.--The Style formed on Local Customs and Habits, or
a Partial View of Nature.
GENTLEMEN,
The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labour
employed in it, or the mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle
is observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a liberal art,
or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the highest
pretensions, as it is addressed to the noblest faculties: in those of
another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament; and the painter has
but the humble province of furnishing our apartments with elegance.
This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance that truly
ennobles our art, makes the great distinction between the Roman and
Venetian schools. I have formerly observed that perfect form is produced
by leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas: I
shall now endeavour to show that this principle, which I have proved to
be metaphysically just, extends itself to every part of the art; that
it gives what is called the _grand style_ to invention, to composition,
to expression, and even to colouring and drapery.
Invention in painting does not imply the invention of the subject; for
that is commonly supplied by the poet or historian. With respect to the
choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It
ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action, or heroic
suffering. There must be something either in the action, or in the
object, in which men are universally concerned, and which powerfully
strikes upon the public sympathy.
Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of universal, hardly can it
be of general, concern; but there are events and characters so popularly
known in those countries where our art is in request, that they may be
considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. Such are the
great events of Greek and Roman fable and history, which early
education, and the usual course of reading, have made familiar and
interesting to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of
ordinary life in any country. Such too are the capital subjects of
Scripture history, which, besides their general notoriety, become
venerable by their connection with our religion.
As it is required that the subject selected should be a general one, it
is no less necessary that it should be kept unembarrassed with whatever
may in any way serve to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever
a story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind of the action
and expression of the persons employed. The power of representing this
mental picture on canvas is what we call invention in a painter. And as
in the conception of this ideal picture the mind does not enter into the
minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or scene of action; so
when the painter comes to represent it, he contrives those little
necessary concomitant circumstances in such a manner, that they shall
strike the spectator no more than they did himself in his first
conception of the story.
I am very ready to allow, that some circumstances of minuteness and
particularity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to
interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances
therefore cannot wholly be rejected: but if there be anything in the art
which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of
these minute circumstantial parts; which, according to the judgment
employed in the choice, become so useful to truth, or so injurious to
grandeur.
However, the usual and most dangerous error is on the side of
minuteness; and therefore I think caution most necessary where most have
failed. The general idea constitutes real excellence. All smaller
things, however perfect in their way, are to be sacrificed without mercy
to the greater. The painter will not inquire what things may be admitted
without much censure: he will not think it enough to show that they may
be there; he will show that they must be there; that their absence would
render his picture maimed and defective.
Thus, though to the principal group a second or third be added, and a
second and third mass of light, care must be yet taken that these
subordinate actions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all
together, come into any degree of competition with the principal; they
should merely make a part of that whole which would be imperfect without
them. To every kind of painting this rule may be applied. Even in
portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in
taking the general air, than in observing the exact similitude of every
feature.
Thus figures must have a ground whereon to stand; they must be clothed;
there must be a background; there must be light and shadow: but none of
these ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artist’s
attention. They should be so managed as not even to catch that of the
spectator. We know well enough, when we analyse a piece, the difficulty
and the subtilty with which an artist adjusts the background, drapery,
and masses of light; we know that a considerable part of the grace and
effect of his picture depends upon them; but this art is so much
concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remains of any of these
subordinate parts occur to the memory when the picture is not present.
The great end of the art is to strike the imagination. The painter
therefore is to make no ostentation of the means by which this is done;
the spectator is only to feel the result in his bosom. An inferior
artist is unwilling that any part of his industry should be lost upon
the spectator. He takes as much pains to discover, as the greater artist
does to conceal, the marks of his subordinate assiduity. In works of the
lower kind, everything appears studied, and encumbered; it is all
boastful art and open affectation. The ignorant often part from such
pictures with wonder in their mouths, and indifference in their hearts.
But it is not enough in invention that the artist should restrain and
keep under all the inferior parts of his subject; he must sometimes
deviate from vulgar and strict historical truth, in pursuing the
grandeur of his design.
How much the great style exacts from its professors to conceive and
represent their subjects in a poetical manner, not confined to mere
matter of fact, may be seen in the Cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the
pictures in which the painter has represented the Apostles, he has drawn
them with great nobleness; he has given them as much dignity as the
human figure is capable of receiving; yet we are expressly told in
Scripture they had no such respectable appearance; and of St. Paul in
particular, we are told by himself, that his _bodily_ presence was
_mean_. Alexander is said to have been of a low stature: a painter ought
not so to represent him. Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean
appearance: none of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which he
is the hero. In conformity to custom, I call this part of the art
history painting; it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is.