Rome.
I beg you may not suspect me of affectation, or that I wish to assume
the character of a connoisseur, when I tell you, that I have very great
pleasure in contemplating the antique statues and busts, of which there
are such numbers in this city. It is a natural curiosity, and I have
had it all my life in a strong degree, to see celebrated men, those
whose talents and great qualities can alone render the present age an
interesting object to posterity, and prevent its being lost, like the
dark ages which succeeded the destruction of the Roman empire, in the
oblivious vortex of time, leaving scarcely a wreck behind. The durable
monuments raised to fame by the inspiring genius of _Pitt_, and the
invincible spirit of _Frederick_, will command the admiration of future
ages, outlive the power of the empires which _they_ aggrandized, and
forbid the period in which _they_ flourished, from ever passing away like
the baseless fabric of a vision. The busts and statues of those memorable
men will be viewed, by succeeding generations, with the same regard and
attention which we now bestow on those of Cicero and Cæsar. We expect to
find something peculiarly noble and expressive in features which were
animated, and which, we imagine, must have been in some degree modelled,
by the sentiments of those to whom they belonged. It is not rank, it is
character alone which interests posterity. We know that men may be seated
on thrones, who would have been placed more suitably to their talents on
the working-table of a taylor; we therefore give little attention to the
busts or coins of the vulgar emperors. In the countenance of Claudius,
we expect nothing more noble than the phlegmatic tranquillity of an
acquiescing cuckold; in Caligula or Nero, the unrelenting frown of a
negro-driver, or the insolent air of any unprincipled ruffian in power.
Even in the high-praised Augustus we look for nothing essentially great,
nothing superior to what we see in those minions of fortune, who are
exalted, by a concurrence of incidents, to a situation in life to which
their talents would never have raised them, and which their characters
never deserved. In the face of Julius we expect to find the traces of
deep reflection, magnanimity, and the anxiety natural to the man who
had overturned the liberties of his native country, and who must have
secretly dreaded the resentment of a spirited people; and in the face of
Marcus Brutus we look for independence, conscious integrity, and a mind
capable of the highest effort of virtue.
It is natural to regret, that, of the number of antique statues
which have come to us tolerably entire, so great a proportion are
representations of gods and goddesses. Had they been intended for real
persons, we might have had a perfect knowledge of the face and figure of
the greatest part of the most distinguished citizens of ancient Greece
and Rome. A man of unrelaxing wisdom would smile with contempt, and ask,
if our having perfect representations of all the heroes, poets, and
philosophers recorded in history, would make us either wiser or more
learned? to which I answer, That there are a great many things, which
neither can add to my small stock of learning nor wisdom, and yet give me
more pleasure and satisfaction than those which do; and, unfortunately
for mankind, the greatest part of them resemble me in this particular.
But though I would with pleasure have given up a great number of the
Jupiters and Apollos and Venuses, whose statues we have, in exchange for
an equal, or even a smaller, number of mere mortals whom I could name;
I by no means consider the statues of those deities as uninteresting.
Though they are imaginary beings, yet each of them has a distinct
character of his own of classical authority, which has long been
impressed on our memories; and we assume the right of deciding on the
artist’s skill, and applauding or blaming, as he has succeeded or failed
in expressing the established character of the god intended. From the
ancient artists having exercised their genius in forming the images of
an order of beings superior to mankind, another and a greater advantage
is supposed to have followed; it prompted the artists to attempt the
uniting in one form, the various beauties and excellencies which nature
had dispersed in many. This was not so easy a task as may by some be
imagined; for that which has a fine effect in one particular face or
person, may appear a deformity when combined with a different complexion,
different features, or a different shape. It therefore required great
judgment and taste to collect those various graces, and combine them with
elegance and truth; and repeated efforts of this kind are imagined to
have inspired some of the ancient sculptors with sublimer ideas of beauty
than nature herself ever exhibited, as appears in some of their works
which have reached our own times.
Though the works of no modern artist can stand a comparison with the
great master-pieces now alluded to, yet nothing can be more absurd than
the idea which some people entertain, that all antique statues are of
more excellent workmanship than the modern. We see, every day, numberless
specimens of every species of sculpture, from the largest statues
and bassos-relievos, to the smallest cameos and intaglios, that are
undoubtedly antique, and yet far inferior, not only to the works of the
best artists of Leo the Tenth’s time, but also to those of many artists
now alive in various parts of Europe. The passion for sculpture, which
the Romans caught from the Greeks, became almost universal. Statues were
not only the chief ornaments of their temples and palaces, but also of
the houses of the middle, and even the lowest, order of citizens. They
were prompted to adorn them with the figures of a few favourite deities,
by religion, as well as vanity: no man, but an atheist or a beggar,
could be without them. This being the case, we may easily conceive what
graceless divinities many of them must have been; for in this, no doubt,
as in every other manufactory, there must occasionally have been bungling
workmen employed, even in the most flourishing æra of the arts, and goods
finished in a very careless and hurried manner, to answer the constant
demand, and suit the dimensions of every purse. We must have a very high
idea of the number of statues of one kind or other, which were in old
Rome, when we consider, how many are still to be seen; how many have at
different periods been carried away, by the curious, to every country in
Europe; how many were mutilated and destroyed by the gothic brutality
of Barbarians, and the ill-directed zeal of the early Christians, who
thought it a duty to exterminate every image, without distinction of age
or sex, and without considering whether they were of God or man. This
obliged the wretched heathens to hide the statues of their gods and of
their ancestors in the bowels of the earth, where unquestionably great
numbers of them still remain. Had they not been thus barbarously hewed to
pieces, and buried, I had almost said, alive, we might have had several
equal to the great master-pieces in the Vatican; for it is natural to
imagine, that the rage of the zealots would be chiefly directed against
those statues which were in the highest estimation with the heathens; and
we must likewise imagine, that these would be the pieces which they, on
their part, would endeavour, by every possible means, to preserve from
their power, and bury in the earth. Of those which have been dug up, I
shall mention only a very few, beginning with the Farnesian Hercules,
which has been long admired as an exquisite model of masculine strength;
yet, admirable as it is, it does not please all the world. I am told that
the women in particular find something unsatisfactory, and even odious,
in this figure; which, however majestic, is deficient in the charms
most agreeable to them, and which might have been expected in the son
of Jupiter and the beauteous Alcmena. A lady whom I accompanied to the
Farnese palace, turned away from it in disgust. I could not imagine what
had shocked her. She told me, _after recollection_, that she could not
bear the stern severity of his countenance, his large brawny limbs, and
the club with which he was armed; which gave him more the appearance of
one of those giants that, according to the old romances, carried away
virgins and shut them up in gloomy castles, than the gallant Hercules,
the lover of Omphale. Finally, the lady declared, she was convinced this
statue could not be a just representation of Hercules; for it was not
in the nature of things, that a man so formed could ever have been a
reliever of distressed damsels.
Without such powerful support as that of the fair sex, I should not have
exposed myself to the resentment of connoisseurs, by any expression
which they might construe an attack upon this favourite statue; but,
with their support, I will venture to assert, that the Farnese Hercules
is faulty both in his form and attitude: the former is too unwieldy for
active exertion, and the latter exhibits vigour _exhausted_. A resting
attitude is surely not the most proper in which the all-conquering god
of strength could be represented. Rest implies fatigue, and fatigue
strength exhausted. A reposing Hercules is almost a contradiction.
Invincible activity, and inexhaustible strength, are his characteristics.
The ancient artist has erred, not only in giving him an attitude which
supposes his strength wants recruiting, but in the nature of the strength
itself, the character of which should not be passive, but active.
Near to Hercules, under the arcades of the same Palazzo Farnese, is a
most beautiful statue of Flora. The great advantage which ancient artists
had in attending the exercises of the gymnasia, has been repeatedly urged
as the reason of their superiority over the moderns in sculpture. We
are told, that besides the usual exercises of the gymnasia, all those
who proposed to contend at the Olympic games, were obliged, by the
regulations, to prepare themselves, by exercising publicly for a year at
Elis; and the statuaries and painters constantly attended on the Arena,
where they had opportunities of beholding the finest shaped, the most
graceful, and most vigorous of the Grecian youth employed in those manly
sports, in which the power of every muscle was exerted, and all their
various actions called forth, and where the human form appeared in an
infinite variety of different attitudes. By a constant attendance at
such a school, independent of any other circumstance, the artists are
supposed to have acquired a more animated, true, and graceful style,
than possibly can be caught from viewing the tame, mercenary models,
which are exhibited in our academies. On the other hand, I have heard
it asserted, that the artist, who formed the Farnesian Flora, could not
have improved his work, or derived any of its excellencies, from the
circumstances above enumerated; because the figure is in a standing
posture, and clothed. In the light, easy flow of the drapery, and in the
contour of the body being as distinctly pronounced through it, as if the
figure were naked, the chief merit of this statue is thought to consist.
But this reasoning does not seem just; for the daily opportunities
the ancient artists had of seeing naked figures, in every variety of
action and attitude, must have given them advantages over the moderns,
in forming even drapery figures. At Sparta, the women, upon particular
occasions, danced naked. In their own families; they were seen every day
clothed in light draperies; and so secondary was every consideration,
even that of decency, to art, that the prettiest virgins of Agrigentum,
it is recorded, were called upon by the legislature, without distinction,
to shew themselves naked to a painter, to enable him to paint a Venus.
Whilst the moderns, therefore, must acknowledge their inferiority to the
ancients in the art of sculpture, they may be allowed merit, on account
of the cause, to which it seems, in some measure at least, to be owing.
The finest specimens of antique sculpture are to be seen in the Vatican.
In these the Greek artists display an unquestionable superiority
over the most successful efforts of the moderns. For me to attempt a
description of these master-pieces, which have been described a thousand
times, and imitated as often, without once having had justice done
them, would be equally vain and superfluous. I confine myself to a very
few observations. The most insensible of mankind must be struck with
horror at sight of the Laocoon. On one of my visits to the Vatican, I
was accompanied by two persons, who had never been there before: one of
them is accused of being perfectly callous to every thing which does not
immediately touch his own person; the other is a worthy, good man: the
first, after staring for some time with marks of terror at the groupe,
at length recovered himself; exclaiming with a laugh,—“Egad, I was afraid
these d——d serpents would have left the fellows they are devouring, and
made a snap at me; but I am happy to recollect they are of marble.”—“I
thank you, Sir, most heartily,” said the other, “for putting me in mind
of that circumstance; till you mentioned it, I was in agony for those two
youths.”
Nothing can be conceived more admirably executed than this affecting
groupe; in all probability, it never would have entered into my own head
that it could have been in any respect improved. But when I first had the
happiness of becoming acquainted with Mr. Lock, a period of my life which
I shall always recollect with peculiar pleasure, I remember my conversing
with him upon this subject; and that Gentleman, after mentioning the
execution of this piece, in the highest terms of praise, observed that,
had the figure of Laocoon been _alone_, it would have been perfect. As a
man suffering the most excruciating bodily pain with becoming fortitude,
it admits of no improvement; his proportions, his form, his action, his
expression, are exquisite. But when his sons appear, he is no longer an
insulated, suffering individual, who, when he has met pain and death
with dignity, has done all that could be expected from man; he commences
_father_, and a much wider field is opened to the artist. We expect the
deepest pathos in the exhibition of the sublimest character that art
can offer to the contemplation of the human mind: A father forgetting
pain, and instant death, to save his children. This Sublime and Pathetic
the artist either did not see, or despaired of attaining. Laocoon’s
sufferings are merely corporal; he is deaf to the cries of his agonizing
children, who are calling on him for assistance. But had he been
throwing a look of anguish upon his sons, had he seemed to have forgotten
his own sufferings in theirs, he would have commanded the sympathy of the
spectator in a much higher degree. On the whole, Mr. Lock was of opinion,
that the execution of this groupe is perfect, but that the conception is
not equal to the execution. I shall leave it to others to decide whether
Mr. Lock, in these observations, spoke like a man of taste: I am sure he
spoke like a father. I have sensibility to feel the beauty and justness
of the remark, though I had not the ingenuity to make it.
It is disputed whether this groupe was formed from Virgil’s description
of the death of Laocoon and his sons, or the description made from the
groupe; it is evident, from their minute resemblance, that one or other
must have been the case. The Poet mentions a circumstance, which could
not be represented by the sculptor; he says that, although every other
person around sought safety by flight, the father was attacked by the
serpents, while he was advancing to the assistance of his sons—
—auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem.
This deficiency in the sculptor’s art would have been finely supplied by
the improvement which Mr. Lock proposed.
Reflecting on the dreadful condition of three persons entangled in
the horrid twinings of serpents, and after contemplating the varied
anguish so strongly expressed in their countenances, it is a relief to
turn the eye to the heavenly figure of the Apollo. To form an adequate
idea of the beauty of this statue, it is absolutely necessary to see
it. With all the advantages of colour and life, the human form never
appeared so beautiful; and we never can sufficiently admire the artist,
who has endowed marble with a finer expression of grace, dignity, and
understanding, than ever were seen in living features. In the forming of
this inimitable figure, the artist seems to have wrought after an ideal
form of beauty, superior to any in nature, and which existed only in his
own imagination.
The admired statue of Antinous is in the same Court. Nothing can be more
light, elegant, and easy; the proportions are exact, and the execution
perfect. It is an exquisite representation of the most beautiful youth
that ever lived.
The statue of Apollo represents something superior, and the emotions it
excites are all of the sublime cast.