_By Allan Cunningham._
This volume is the first of a series of Lives of Artists, and the fourth
number of Murray's _Family Library_. The author is a first-rate poet,
but it appears that he undertook this task with some diffidence. We
have, however, few artists of literary attainments, and they are more
profitably employed than in authorship. Little apology was necessary,
for of all literary men, poets are best calculated to write on the Fine
Arts: and the genius of Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music, is often
associated in one mind, in love of the subjects at least, if not in
practice.
Prefixed to the "Lives," is a delightful chapter on British Art before
the birth of Hogarth, from which we quote the following:--
"Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music, are the natural offspring of
the heart of man. They are found among the most barbarous nations; they
flourish among the most civilized; and springing from nature, and not
from necessity or accident, they can never be wholly lost in the most
disastrous changes. In this they differ from mere inventions; and,
compared with mechanical discoveries, are what a living tree is to a log
of wood. It may indeed be said that the tongue of poetry is occasionally
silent, and the hand of painting sometimes stayed; but this seems not to
affect the ever-living principle which I claim as their characteristic.
They are heard and seen again in their season, as the birds and flowers
are at the coming of spring; and assert their title to such immortality
as the things of earth may claim. It is true that the poetry of
barbarous nations is rude, and their attempts at painting uncouth; yet
even in these we may recognise the foreshadowings of future excellence,
and something of the peculiar character which, in happier days, the
genius of the same tribe is to stamp upon worthier productions. The
future Scott, or Lawrence, or Chantrey, may be indicated afar-off in the
barbarous ballads, drawings, or carvings, of an early nation. Coarse
nature and crude simplicity are the commencement, as elevated nature and
elegant simplicity are the consummation of art.
"When the Spaniards invaded the palaces of Chili and Peru, they found
them filled with works of art. Cook found considerable beauty of drawing
and skill of workmanship in the ornamented weapons and war-canoes of the
islanders of the South Sea; and in the interior recesses of India,
sculptures and paintings, of no common merit, are found in every
village. In like manner, when Caesar landed among the barbarians of
Britain, he found them acquainted with arts and arms; and his savage
successors, the Saxons, added to unextinguishable ferocity a love of
splendour and a rude sense of beauty, still visible in the churches
which they built, and the monuments which they erected to their princes
and leaders. All those works are of that kind called ornamental: the
graces of true art, the truth of action and the dignity of sentiment are
wanting; and they seem to have been produced by a sort of mechanical
process, similar to that which creates figures in arras. Art is, indeed,
of slow and gradual growth; like the oak, it is long of growing to
maturity and strength. Much knowledge of colour, much skill of hand,
much experience in human character, and a deep sense of light and shade,
have to be acquired, to enable the pencil to embody the conceptions of
genius. The artist has to seek for all this in the accumulated mass of
professional knowledge: which time has gathered for his instruction, and
with his best wisdom, and his happiest fortune, he can only add a little
more information to the common stock, for the benefit of his successors.
In no country has Painting risen suddenly into eminence. While Poetry
takes wing at once, free and unincumbered, she is retarded in her ascent
by the very mechanism to which she must at last owe at least half her
glory. In Britain, Painting was centuries in throwing off the fetters of
mere mechanical skill, and in rising into the region of genius. The
original spirit of England had appeared in many a noble poem, while the
two sister arts were still servilely employed in preserving incredible
legends, in taking the likeness of the last saint whom credulity had
added to the calendar, and in confounding the acts of the apostles in
the darkness of allegory."
Then follows an outline of early Art in England, in the embellishment of
cathedrals, &c.; among which is the following notice of one of the
earliest of our attempts at historical portraiture which can be
authenticated:--
"It is a Painting on Wood; the figures are less than life, and represent
Henry the Fifth and his relations. It measures four feet six inches
long, by four feet four inches high, and was in the days of Catholic
power the altarpiece of the church of Shene. An angel stands in the
centre, holding in his hands the expanding coverings of two tents, out
of which the king, with three princes, and the queen, with four
princesses, are proceeding to kneel at two altars, where crosses, and
sceptres, and books are lying. They wear long and flowing robes, with
loose hair, and have crowns on their heads. In the background, St.
George appears in the air, combating with the dragon, while Cleodelinda
kneels in prayer beside a lamb. It is not, indeed, quite certain that
this curious work was made during the reign of Henry the Fifth, but
there can be little doubt of its being painted as early as that of his
son."
In the next page we have the following character of an English artist of
about the same period:--
"He was at once architect, sculptor, carpenter, goldsmith, armourer,
jeweller, saddler, tailor, and painter. There is extant, in Dugdale, a
curious example of the character of the times, and a scale by which we
can measure the public admiration of art. It is a contract between the
Earl of Warwick and John Rag, citizen and tailor, London, in which the
latter undertakes to execute the emblazonry of the earl's pageant in his
situation of ambassador to France. In the tailor's bill, gilded griffins
mingle with Virgin Marys; painted streamers for battle or procession,
with the twelve apostles; and 'one coat for his grace's body, lute with
fine gold,' takes precedence of St. George and the Dragon."
We wish some of the criticism in this chapter had been milder, and a few
of the invectives not so highly charged; some of them even out-Herod the
fury of an article on Painting, in a recent number of the _Edinburgh
Review_. But we must pass on to pleasanter matters--as the following
poetical paragraphs:--
"The art of tapestry as well as the art of illuminating books, aided in
diffusing a love of painting over the island. It was carried to a high
degree of excellence. The earliest account of its appearance in England
is during the reign of Henry the Eighth, but there is no reason to doubt
that it was well known and in general esteem much earlier. The
traditional account, that we were instructed in it by the Saracens, has
probably some foundation. The ladies encouraged this manufacture by
working at it with their own hands; and the rich aided by purchasing it
in vast quantities whenever regular practitioners appeared in the
market. It found its way into church and palace--chamber and hall. It
served at once to cover and adorn cold and comfortless walls. It added
warmth, and, when snow was on the hill and ice in the stream, gave an
air of social snugness which has deserted some of our modern mansions.
"At first the figures and groups, which rendered this manufacture
popular, were copies of favourite paintings; but, as taste improved and
skill increased, they showed more of originality in their conceptions,
if not more of nature in their forms. They exhibited, in common with all
other works of art, the mixed taste of the times--a grotesque union of
classical and Hebrew history--of martial life and pastoral repose--of
Greek gods and Romish saints. Absurd as such combinations certainly
were, and destitute of those beauties of form and delicate gradations
and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings worthily so
called--still when the hall was lighted up, and living faces thronged
the floor, the silent inhabitants of the walls would seem, in the eyes
of our ancestors, something very splendid. As painting rose in fame,
tapestry sunk in estimation. The introduction of a lighter and less
massive mode of architecture abridged the space for its accommodation,
and by degrees the stiff and fanciful creations of the loom vanished
from our walls. The art is now neglected. I am sorry for this, because I
cannot think meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of the
ladies of England, and gave to the tapestried hall of elder days fame
little inferior to what now waits on a gallery of paintings."
Passing over Holbein, Sir Antonio Moore, Vandyke, Lely, Kneller, and
Thornhill, we come to the lives of Hogarth--Wilson--Reynolds and
Gainsborough--from which we select a few characteristic anecdotes and
sketches. In noticing Hogarth's early life, Mr. Cunningham has thrown
some discredit on a book, which on its publication, made not a little
chat among artists:--
"Of those early days I find this brief notice in Smith's Life of
Nollekens the sculptor. 'I have several times heard Mr. Nollekens
observe, that he had frequently seen Hogarth, when a young man, saunter
round Leicester Fields with his master's sickly child hanging its head
over his shoulder.' It is more amusing to read such a book than safe to
quote it. Hogarth had ceased to have a master for seventeen years, was
married to Jane Thornhill, kept his carriage, and was in the full blaze
of his reputation, when Nollekens was born."
Among Hogarth's early labours are his Illustrations of Hudibras,
published in 1726. These were seventeen plates; and we have lately seen
in the possession of Mr. Britton, the architect, eleven original
paintings illustrative of Butler's witty poem, and attributed to
Hogarth.