to mean, that nature is to be neglected: I take this study in aid, and
not in exclusion, of the other. Nature is, and must be the fountain
which alone is inexhaustible; and from which all excellences must
originally flow.
The great use of studying our predecessors is, to open the mind, to
shorten our labour, and to give us the result of the selection made by
those great minds of what is grand or beautiful in nature: her rich
stores are all spread out before us; but it is an art, and no easy art,
to know how or what to choose, and how to attain and secure the object
of our choice. Thus the highest beauty of form must be taken from
nature; but it is an art of long deduction, and great experience, to
know how to find it. We must not content ourselves with merely admiring
and relishing; we must enter into the principles on which the work is
wrought: these do not swim on the superficies, and consequently are not
open to superficial observers.
Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid, and works its
effect, itself unseen. It is the proper study and labour of an artist to
uncover and find out the latent cause of conspicuous beauties, and from
thence form principles of his own conduct: such an examination is a
continual exertion of the mind; as great, perhaps, as that of the artist
whose works he is thus studying.
The sagacious imitator does not content himself with merely remarking
what distinguishes the different manner or genius of each master; he
enters into the contrivance in the composition how the masses of lights
are disposed, the means by which the effect is produced, how artfully
some parts are lost in the ground, others boldly relieved, and how all
these are mutually altered and interchanged according to the reason and
scheme of the work. He admires not the harmony of colouring alone, but
examines by what artifice one colour is a foil to its neighbour. He
looks close into the tints, examines of what colours they are composed,
till he has formed clear and distinct ideas, and has learned to see in
what harmony and good colouring consists. What is learned in this manner
from the works of others, becomes really our own, sinks deep, and is
never forgotten; nay, it is by seizing on this clue that we proceed
forward, and get further and further in enlarging the principles and
improving the practice of our art.
There can be no doubt, but the art is better learnt from the works
themselves, than from the precepts which are formed upon those works;
but if it is difficult to choose proper models for imitation, it
requires no less circumspection to separate and distinguish what in
those models we ought to imitate.
I cannot avoid mentioning here, though it is not my intention at present
to enter into the art and method of study, an error which students are
too apt to fall into. He that is forming himself, must look with great
caution and wariness on those peculiarities, or prominent parts, which
at first force themselves upon view; and are the marks, or what is
commonly called the manner, by which that individual artist is
distinguished.
Peculiar marks, I hold to be, generally, if not always, defects; however
difficult it may be wholly to escape them.
Peculiarities in the works of art are like those in the human figure: it
is by them that we are cognisable and distinguished one from another,
but they are always so many blemishes; which, however, both in real life
and in painting, cease to appear deformities, to those who have them
continually before their eyes. In the works of art, even the most
enlightened mind, when warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by
degrees find a repugnance within him to acknowledge any defects; nay,
his enthusiasm will carry him so far, as to transform them into
beauties, and objects of imitation.
It must be acknowledged, that a peculiarity of style, either from its
novelty, or by seeming to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often
escapes blame; on the contrary, it is sometimes striking and pleasing:
but this it is a vain labour to endeavour to imitate; because novelty
and peculiarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new, it
ceases to have value.
A manner therefore being a defect, and every painter, however excellent,
having a manner, it seems to follow, that all kinds of faults, as well
as beauties, may be learned under the sanction of the greatest
authorities. Even the great name of Michael Angelo may be used, to keep
in countenance a deficiency or rather neglect of colouring, and every
other ornamental part of the art. If the young student is dry and hard,
Poussin is the same. If his work has a careless and unfinished air, he
has most of the Venetian school to support him. If he makes no selection
of objects, but takes individual nature just as he finds it, he is like
Rembrandt. If he is incorrect in the proportions of his figures,
Correggio was likewise incorrect. If his colours are not blended and
united, Rubens was equally crude. In short, there is no defect that may
not be excused, if it is a sufficient excuse that it can be imputed to
considerable artists; but it must be remembered, that it was not by
these defects they acquired their reputation; they have a right to our
pardon, but not to our admiration.
However, to imitate peculiarities or mistake defects for beauties, that
man will be most liable, who confines his imitation to one favourite
master; and even though he chooses the best, and is capable of
distinguishing the real excellences of his model, it is not by such
narrow practice, that a genius or mastery in the art is acquired. A man
is as little likely to form a true idea of the perfection of the art,
by studying a single artist, as he would be to produce a perfectly
beautiful figure, by an exact imitation of any individual living model.
And as the painter, by bringing together in one piece, those beauties
which are dispersed among a great variety of individuals, produces a
figure more beautiful than can be found in nature, so that artist who
can unite in himself the excellences of the various great painters, will
approach nearer to perfection than any one of his masters. He, who
confines himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never proposes
to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of his imitation.
He professes only to follow; and he that follows must necessarily be
behind.
We should imitate the conduct of the great artists in the course of
their studies, as well as the works which they produced, when they were
perfectly formed. Raffaelle began by imitating implicitly the manner of
Pietro Perugino, under whom he studied; hence his first works are scarce
to be distinguished from his master’s; but soon forming higher and more
extensive views, he imitated the grand outline of Michael Angelo; he
learned the manner of using colours from the works of Leonardo da Vinci,
and Fratre Bartolomeo: to all this he added the contemplation of all the
remains of antiquity that were within his reach; and employed others to
draw for him what was in Greece and distant places. And it is from his
having taken so many models, that he became himself a model for all
succeeding painters; always imitating, and always original.
If your ambition, therefore, be to equal Raffaelle, you must do as
Raffaelle did; take many models, and not even _him_ for your guide
alone, to the exclusion of others.[8] And yet the number is infinite of
those who seem, if one may judge by their style, to have seen no other
works but those of their master, or of some favourite, whose _manner_ is
their first wish, and their last.
I will mention a few that occur to me of this narrow, confined,
illiberal, unscientific, and servile kind of imitators. Guido was thus
meanly copied by Elizabetta, Sirani, and Simone Cantarina; Poussin, by
Verdier and Cheron; Parmeggiano, by Jeronimo Mazzuoli. Paolo Veronese
and Iacomo Bassan had for their imitators their brothers and sons.
Pietro da Cortona was followed by Ciro Ferri and Romanelli; Rubens, by
Jacques Jordaens and Diepenbeke; Guercino, by his own family, the
Gennari. Carlo Maratti was imitated by Giuseppe Chiari and Pietro da
Pietri; and Rembrandt, by Bramer, Eeckhout, and Flink. All these, to
whom may be added a much longer list of painters, whose works among the
ignorant pass for those of their masters, are justly to be censured for
barrenness and servility.
To oppose to this list a few that have adopted a more liberal style of
imitation;--Pellegrino Tibaldi, Rosso, and Primaticcio, did not coldly
imitate, but caught something of the fire that animates the works of
Michael Angelo. The Caraccis formed their style from Pellegrino Tibaldi,
Correggio, and the Venetian school. Domenichino, Guido, Lanfranco,
Albano, Guercino, Cavidone, Schidone, Tiarini, though it is sufficiently
apparent that they came from the school of the Caraccis, have yet the
appearance of men who extended their views beyond the model that lay
before them, and have shown that they had opinions of their own, and
thought for themselves, after they had made themselves masters of the
general principles of their schools.
Le Sueur’s first manner resembles very much that of his master Voüet:
but as he soon excelled him, so he differed from him in every part of
the art. Carlo Maratti succeeded better than those I have first named,
and I think owes his superiority to the extension of his views; beside
his master Andrea Sacchi, he imitated Raffaelle, Guido, and the
Caraccis. It is true, there is nothing very captivating in Carlo
Maratti; but this proceeded from a want which cannot be completely
supplied; that is, want of strength of parts. In this certainly men are
not equal; and a man can bring home wares only in proportion to the
capital with which he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the most
of what he had; but there was undoubtedly a heaviness about him, which
extended itself, uniformly, to his invention, expression, his drawing,
colouring, and the general effect of his pictures. The truth is, he
never equalled any of his patterns in any one thing, and he added little
of his own.
But we must not rest contented even in this general study of the
moderns; we must trace back the art to its fountain-head; to that source
from whence they drew their principal excellences, the monuments of pure
antiquity. All the inventions and thoughts of the ancients, whether
conveyed to us in statues, bas-reliefs, intaglios, cameos, or coins, are
to be sought after and carefully studied; the genius that hovers over
these venerable relics, may be called the father of modern art.
From the remains of the works of the ancients the modern arts were
revived, and it is by their means that they must be restored a second
time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them
our masters; and we may venture to prophesy, that when they shall cease
to be studied, arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapse
into barbarism.
The fire of the artist’s own genius operating upon these materials which
have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new
combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the
possession of the art: as in the mixture of the variety of metals, which
are said to have been melted and run together at the burning of Corinth,
a new and till then unknown metal was produced, equal in value to any of
those that had contributed to its composition. And though a curious
refiner should come with his crucibles, analyse and separate its various
component parts, yet Corinthian brass would still hold its rank amongst
the most beautiful and valuable of metals.
We have hitherto considered the advantages of imitation as it tends to
form the taste, and as a practice by which a spark of that genius may be
caught, which illumines those noble works that ought always to be
present to our thoughts.
We come now to speak of another kind of imitation; the borrowing a
particular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and transplanting it
into your own work; this will either come under the charge of
plagiarism, or be warrantable, and deserve commendation, according to
the address with which it is performed. There is some difference
likewise, whether it is upon the ancients or moderns that these
depredations are made. It is generally allowed, that no man need be
ashamed of copying the ancients: their works are considered as a
magazine of common property, always open to the public, whence every man
has a right to take what materials he pleases; and if he has the art of
using them, they are supposed to become to all intents and purposes his
own property. The collection of the thoughts of the ancients, which
Raffaelle made with so much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this
subject. Such collections may be made with much more ease, by means of
an art scarce known in his time; I mean that of engraving; by which, at
an easy rate, every man may now avail himself of the inventions of
antiquity.
It must be acknowledged that the works of the moderns are more the
property of their authors. He, who borrows an idea from an ancient, or
even from a modern artist not his contemporary, and so accommodates it
to his own work, that it makes a part of it, with no seam or joining
appearing, can hardly be charged with plagiarism: poets practise this
kind of borrowing, without reserve. But an artist should not be
contented with this only; he should enter into a competition with his
original, and endeavour to improve what he is appropriating to his own
work. Such imitation is so far from having anything in it of the
servility of plagiarism, that it is a perpetual exercise of the mind, a
continual invention. Borrowing or stealing with such art and caution
will have a right to the same lenity as was used by the Lacedemonians;
who did not punish theft, but the want of artifice to conceal it.
In order to encourage you to imitation, to the utmost extent, let me
add, that very finished artists in the inferior branches of the art will
contribute to furnish the mind and give hints, of which a skilful
painter, who is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being
infected by the contact of vicious models, will know how to avail
himself. He will pick up from dung-hills what by a nice chemistry,
passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and
under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational,
and even sublime inventions.
The works of Albert Dürer, Lucas Van Leyden, the numerous inventions of
Tobias Stimmer and Jost Ammon, afford a rich mass of genuine materials,
which wrought up and polished to elegance, will add copiousness to what,
perhaps, without such aid, could have aspired only to justness and
propriety.
In the luxuriant style of Paul Veronese, in the capricious compositions
of Tintoret, he will find something that will assist his invention, and
give points, from which his own imagination shall rise and take flight,
when the subject which he treats will with propriety admit of splendid
effects.
In every school, whether Venetian, French, or Dutch, he will find,
either ingenious compositions, extraordinary effects, some peculiar
expressions, or some mechanical excellence, well worthy of his
attention, and, in some measure, of his imitation. Even in the lower
class of the French painters great beauties are often found, united with
great defects. Though Coypel wanted a simplicity of taste, and mistook a
presumptuous and assuming air for what is grand and majestic; yet he
frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner of telling his
stories, great skill in his compositions, and is not without a
considerable power of expressing the passions. The modern affectation of
grace in his works, as well as in those of Bosch and Watteau, may be
said to be separated, by a very thin partition, from the more simple and
pure grace of Correggio and Parmegiano.
Among the Dutch painters, the correct, firm, and determined pencil,
which was employed by Bamboccio and Jean Miel, on vulgar and mean
subjects, might, without any change, be employed on the highest; to
which, indeed, it seems more properly to belong. The greatest style, if
that style is confined to small figures, such as Poussin generally
painted, would receive an additional grace by the elegance and precision
of pencil so admirable in the works of Teniers; and though the school to
which he belonged more particularly excelled in the mechanism of
painting; yet it produced many, who have shown great abilities in
expressing what must be ranked above mechanical excellences. In the
works of Frans Hals, the portrait-painter may observe the composition of
a face, the features well put together, as the painters express it; from
whence proceeds that strong-marked character of individual nature, which
is so remarkable in his portraits, and is not found in an equal degree
in any other painter. If he had joined to this most difficult part of
the art, a patience in finishing what he had so correctly planned, he
might justly have claimed the place which Vandyck, all things
considered, so justly holds as the first of portrait-painters.
Others of the same school have shown great power in expressing the
character and passions of those vulgar people, which were the subjects
of their study and attention. Among those Jan Steen seems to be one of
the most diligent and accurate observers of what passed in those scenes
which he frequented, and which were to him an academy. I can easily
imagine, that if this extraordinary man had had the good fortune to have
been born in Italy instead of Holland, had he lived in Rome instead of
Leyden, and been blessed with Michael Angelo and Raffaelle for his
masters instead of Brouwer and Van Goyen; the same sagacity and
penetration which distinguished so accurately the different characters
and expression in his vulgar figures, would, when exerted in the
selection and imitation of what was great and elevated in nature, have
been equally successful; and he now would have ranged with the great
pillars and supporters of our art.
Men who, although thus bound down by the almost invincible powers of
early habits, have still exerted extraordinary abilities within their
narrow and confined circle; and have, from the natural vigour of their
mind, given a very interesting expression and great force and energy to
their works; though they cannot be recommended to be exactly imitated,
may yet invite an artist to endeavour to transfer, by a kind of parody,
their excellences to his own performances. Whoever has acquired the
power of making this use of the Flemish, Venetian, and French schools,
is a real genius, and has sources of knowledge open to him which were
wanting to the great artists who lived in the great age of painting.
To find excellences, however dispersed; to discover beauties, however
concealed by the multitude of defects with which they are surrounded,
can be the work only of him who, having a mind always alive to his art,
has extended his views to all ages and to all schools; and has acquired
from that comprehensive mass which he has thus gathered to himself, a
well-digested and perfect idea of his art, to which everything is
referred. Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of
that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from
every school; selects both from what is great, and what is little;
brings home knowledge from the East and from the West; making the
universe tributary towards furnishing his mind and enriching his works
with originality and variety of inventions.
Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true
and only method by which an artist makes himself master of his
profession; which I hold ought to be one continued course of imitation,
that is not to cease but with his life.
Those, who either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or
from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out
of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reaches, have
from that time, not only ceased to advance, and improve in their
performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who
have lived upon their principal, till they are reduced to beggary, and
left without resources.
I can recommend nothing better, therefore, than that you endeavour to
infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the
works of others. To recommend this has the appearance of needless and
superfluous advice; but it has fallen within my own knowledge, that
artists, though they were not wanting in a sincere love for their art,
though they had great pleasure in seeing good pictures, and were well
skilled to distinguish what was excellent or defective in them, yet have
gone on in their own manner, without any endeavour to give a little of
those beauties, which they admired in others, to their own works. It is
difficult to conceive how the present Italian painters, who live in the
midst of the treasures of art, should be contented with their own style.
They proceed in their commonplace inventions, and never think it worth
while to visit the works of those great artists with which they are
surrounded.
I remember, several years ago, to have conversed at Rome with an artist
of great fame throughout Europe; he was not without a considerable
degree of abilities, but those abilities were by no means equal to his
own opinion of them. From the reputation he had acquired, he too fondly
concluded that he stood in the same rank, when compared with his
predecessors, as he held with regard to his miserable contemporary
rivals. In conversation about some particulars of the works of
Raffaelle, he seemed to have, or to affect to have, a very obscure
memory of them. He told me that he had not set his foot in the Vatican
for fifteen years together; that he had been in treaty to copy a capital
picture of Raffaelle, but that the business had gone off; however, if
the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly exceeded the
original. The merit of this artist, however great we may suppose it, I
am sure would have been far greater, and his presumption would have
been far less, if he had visited the Vatican, as in reason he ought to
have done, at least once every month of his life.
I address myself, gentlemen, to you who have made some progress in the
art, and are to be, for the future, under the guidance of your own
judgment and discretion. I consider you as arrived at that period, when
you have a right to think for yourselves, and to presume that every man
is fallible; to study the masters with a suspicion, that great men are
not always exempt from great faults; to criticise, compare, and rank
their works in your own estimation, as they approach to, or recede from,
that standard of perfection which you have formed in your own minds, but
which those masters themselves, it must be remembered, have taught you
to make; and which you will cease to make with correctness, when you
cease to study them. It is their excellences which have taught you their
defects.
I would wish you to forget where you are, and who it is that speaks to
you; I only direct you to higher models and better advisers. We can
teach you here but very little; you are henceforth to be your own
teachers. Do this justice, however, to the English Academy; to bear in
mind, that in this place you contracted no narrow habits, no false
ideas, nothing that could lead you to the imitation of any living
master, who may be the fashionable darling of the day. As you have not
been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter yourselves. We have
endeavoured to lead you to the admiration of nothing but what is truly
admirable. If you choose inferior patterns, or if you make your own
_former_ works your patterns for your _latter_, it is your own fault.
The purport of this discourse, and, indeed, of most of my other
discourses, is, to caution you against that false opinion, but too
prevalent among artists, of the imaginary powers of native genius, and
its sufficiency in great works. This opinion, according to the temper of
mind it meets with, almost always produces, either a vain confidence, or
a sluggish despair, both equally fatal to all proficiency.