ancients, to attempt to insinuate that this labour and study, to which
we are inclined to attribute so much, was universal. No; for in Greece
then, as with ourselves now, there were among the artists (what in the
modern phrase we call) _fine gentlemen_: persons of too sublime a genius
to condescend to study, and of too delicate a frame to submit to labour.
The character of the species has been preserved, though the names of its
individuals have long, long since been forgotten. But they never
promoted the progress, never advanced the improvement of any art: but,
like their _amiable_ successors, followed a trade for support, and did
not cultivate a profession with dignity. But the persons of whom we
speak, as distinguished by these qualities, were those worthy citizens
who addicted themselves to no art without adorning and improving it;
whose names ennobled the age in which they lived; who then were never
mentioned without reverence, nor yet, at this far distant period, are
ever thought on without respect. By their studies and their labours,
vigorously and undeviatingly exerted, was the progress of the arts
promoted, their improvement accelerated, and their near approximation
to perfection effected: they thus experimentally proving the energetic
power of these valuable qualities, and leaving examples to fire the
emulation of the spirited and the active in each future age.
In addition to the circumstances already mentioned, whose power and
efficiency on the progress of the arts we have endeavoured to point out,
there must be called to mind the great national encouragement which they
received in Greece, and the extraordinary influence which it must have
had on the warm imaginations of its gay and high-spirited inhabitants.
The desire of distinction and honour is a principle interwoven in the
constitution of our nature; and though, like most others we possess, it
is liable to perversion, is in itself not only blameless but laudable;
inciting the best exertions of talents where they are, and often
supplying their place where it finds them not. There are no countries,
however adverse the regent of the day may have yoked his horses from
them, where its operation is not more or less felt: and in exact
proportion to the civilization and mental improvement of each country,
its ascendency has ever been found to be high, its dominion to be great.
This is strictly true even with regard to the estimation of private
individuals: but the applause of a whole people has invariably been
deemed the most just meed of the most exceeding merit, ever since
nations have assumed a fixed and stable form. Now this applause formed
an important part of the great national rewards by which Greece fostered
the arts; and it was a part that peculiarly came home both to the
business and bosoms of each worthy citizen, and caused every pulse of a
Grecian heart to vibrate to its impression. Their characteristic
fondness of fame is known and acknowledged; but this applause, though by
them in itself extravagantly valued, was not a mere empty, flattering
sound: for, from the constitutions prevailing in nearly every state of
Greece, it was the sure conductor to domestic dignity, to political
power, and to commanding sway in the public deliberations. The first
offices of the state, and the prime trusts of the government, were open
to that distinguished artist whose admired performances had secured the
universal suffrage. They were often without seeking offered by popular
gratitude to his acceptance; nay, sometimes with honest violence forced
on his unwilling reception. Thus the principles of interest, ambition,
popularity, confessedly some of the most powerful that guide the conduct
of mankind, were called forth in aid of that natural bent or disposition
which had induced the man to cultivate any particular art: and the
consequence was such as might be expected from the efficiency of such
operative motives, surpassing merit and supreme excellence.
Another species of national encouragement, nearly connected with this,
was the certainty which the eminent artist enjoyed that, whenever the
occasion offered, his talents would be employed to erect, or to decorate
with the labours of his pencil or his chissel, the temples, the
theatres, the porticoes, the places of public assembling of the cities
of Greece; where his works, contributing amply to his fortune from their
munificent reward, would contribute more to his fame when exposed to the
scrutinizing view of that intelligent people. He had no cause to fear
that his abilities would be overlooked or buried in obscurity by
prepossession, partiality, or prejudice: he had no apprehensions to
dread from the effects of interested relationship, of commanding
influence, of narrow local attachment, or of proud and presuming
ignorance. If his merit was acknowledged his employment was sure; and he
was even courted by the general voice to exert his talents for the
public credit, not depressed in their exertion by mean and base
affections. He was not obliged to solicit for employment with
humiliating applications, and, when employed, to labour under the
multiplied disadvantages of deficient or stinted means, of complying
with vitiated judgments, of submitting to the senseless whims of folly
and caprice. Full scope was given to the fertility of his imagination,
to the extent of his genius, to the vigour of his fancy: whilst all the
powers of his mind and all the vigour of his body, all the ingenuity of
his head and all the dexterity of his hands, were impelled to their best
performances by the consciousness that all deficiencies would be
imputable solely to himself, the public being free from the slightest
suspicion of having either curbed or confined his abilities. As no
elevation of genius made him giddy, hence grace and beauty, strength and
vigour, expression and passion, respectively marked his performances;
and his fame became connected with the edifices, the statues, the
paintings, that ornamented the country, which struck every eye, and
which none beheld without recollecting with respect the able artist
whose workmanship had produced them.
The effect of this kind of encouragement on the arts was great, is
manifest, and need be but slightly mentioned: yet, perhaps, may appear
the more striking from contrasting it with some practices of more modern
times. In them the first city in the world has disgraced itself with
all who have eyesight, by employing to erect its most expensive
building[n] an architect _because the man was a citizen_: and, in more
countries of Europe than one, statues and paintings are exhibited as
commemorative of illustrious public deeds, where contorsion and
extravagance, where flutter and glare, form the predominant characters;
but they dishonour those countries, on account of the artists engaged to
execute them being employed because they were the favourites of despots,
the flatterers of titled harlots, or the relations of directors; whilst
men of the first talents and merit in their profession were pining in
indigence and obscurity, unnoticed and unfriended. The consequences of
this latter conduct none will say that we have reason to boast of from
the superlative excellence of modern art; but what has been felt from it
may readily induce us to believe how essentially its direct opposite
must have promoted the progress of the arts in Greece.
[Footnote n: The Mansion House of London.]
The vast sums expended by the Grecian states on their public monuments
and their public works (vast, indeed, when the comparative value of
money then and now is considered), tended much to assist the progress of
the arts, and to aid their high improvement. For, though we have
unquestionable reason to believe that the sordid motive of private
profit was not the first principle in the minds of those great artists
who have immortalized their names by their works, yet without a certain
liberality of expence their ideas could not have been realized, their
works could not have been executed; and that liberality they found
limited commonly by nothing but the public means, and often not even by
them. We know from the gravest and clearest authorities with what lavish
expenditure scenic representations were exhibited at Athens, with what
unbounded magnificence her temples, her tribunals, her porticoes were
decorated: we equally well know the splendor of Corinth, a near
neighbouring city; the incalculable price of its paintings, the
inestimable value of its statues, and that from the coalesced mass of
its molten metals there arose, at its destruction, a compound more
highly prized by the Romans than gold. The other principal cities were
alike studious of embellishment, alike emulous of ornament, and in
various proportions enjoyed them according to the circumstances of time
and situation: but Delphi and Olympia, the grand seats of the national
religion and the national games, concentered in themselves each choicest
production of genius, each happiest effort of art, each transcendent
display of excellence; amassed with a judgment that delighted, with a
profusion that surprized, and with an expence that astonished.
This generous spirit in carrying on and completing public works which,
though it may sometimes be pushed to an excess (as, perhaps, was the
case in Greece), is so truly honourable to any people, had, and
obviously must have had, the most decided influence in advancing and
improving the arts, and in giving them that degree of perfection which
has never yet been exceeded, nor even equalled. It excited exertion, by
the security that its efforts would not be suffered to remain
undisplayed, but would be invited to add loveliness to the beautiful,
and splendor to the magnificent; it roused the full force of emulation,
by the certainty that superior merit would receive superior rewards, and
neither be permitted to languish in privacy nor to pine in poverty; and
it invigorated the boldest flights of genius, by the firm assurance that
there was a prevalent spirit ready to countenance, prepared to adopt,
and anxious to encourage them. It would be no small absurdity to affirm
that fortune, as well as fame, had not attractions for a Grecian artist;
for it must ever be absurd to affirm generally the absence of the
operation of general principles: and therefore the great pecuniary
recompences which their talents procured had, doubtless, a proportionate
influence on all their labours to improve their art; though, it may be,
less in that region than in many other countries. And from the combined
efficacy of these several kinds of national encouragement, which, like
different branches of the same tree, spring all from the same root, the
progress of the arts was furthered so essentially, was advanced so
highly, as we have heard of with wonder, and have seen with amazement.
So complex having been the causes, so slow and progressively gradual the
progress of the Fine Arts, highly grateful must it be to every truly
British breast to consider the rapid advances they have made in this
favoured Isle within the last fifty years: advances certainly unmatched
in their former history, as in that period they have arisen from the
utmost imbecility of infantine weakness (indeed almost from
_non-entity_) to a vigorous maturity that leaves far behind them the
emasculate efforts and puny productions of all other contemporary
European nations. The causes of this unequalled improvement have
notoriously been the countenance and fostering protection of his present
Majesty, an admirer and intelligent judge of their merit, and the
ardent spirit of emulation excited among the artists themselves by such
exalted and distinguishing notice. These co-operating have produced an
exertion of talents, a display of abilities, and emanations of genius
that always wore in existence, but which required concurring
circumstances to bring them into full action, and to cause them to
expand their latent energies. And had the general patronage been
correspondent to these fortunate incidents, had not the fashionable
jargon of presumptuous, self-created, arbiters of taste, affecting to
despise National art, vitiated the public mind, or rather strengthened
an ancient prejudice there floating, it is not easy to conceive how much
greater still would have been their progress. It is at least certain
that our ingenious young artists would have been amply encouraged to
exert themselves, and not suffered, after the most promising exhibitions
of dawning talents, to pine in indigence and wretchedness, to sink into
obscurity and oblivion, or (like the illfated, but most meritorious
Proctor[o]) to hasten, in the very opening of life, the termination of
mortal existence from the excruciating pressure of continued penury and
misery.
[Footnote o: The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly
recorded. Born of humble parentage in one of the more distant counties,
he had early manifested an admiration of the Arts, and, being admitted a
student of the Royal Academy, eminently distinguished himself there by
his abilities and his industry. Applying peculiarly to Sculpture, soon
after the termination of his studies in the Academy he exhibited, at its
annual Exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivalled
excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed
in competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian
art, and which at the time met with their well-earned applause. But,
alas! applause was his only reward: no wealthy patron took him by the
hand, no affluent lover of the Arts enquired into, or assisted, his
circumstances; and his means being very confined, misery was his
portion. He had however the soul of an Artist, and for a length of time
bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy
President of the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid
of the Council obtained for him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a
year, to enable him to go to Italy, and improve himself there: but the
unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some trifling debts, which he
was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too delicately alive
to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country
without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits,
and on a frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy
dissolution, to the irreparable injury of the Arts. After his death it
was discovered that, for the last two years of his life, he had resided
in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare market, which he
had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for that
time had been _only two dry biscuits with a draft of water from the
market pump_.]
Thus having attempted to investigate the progress of the arts, and to
what was owing that supreme excellence which they formerly attained, we
seem to have reasonable grounds to conclude that it flowed from such
natural and moral causes as, at all times and in all cases, are known
powerfully to affect the feelings and to actuate the conduct of man. No
whimsical refinements, no marvellous mysteries, no imaginary and
fantastic theories have been had recourse to: but lighted on our way by
the irradiating torch of authentic history, and unseduced by the false
glare of lying legends, we have not dared so much to affirm what, in
certain situations, our fellow-creatures MUST do, as to detail with some
care what in fact they DID do. If what we have here advanced has not
the attraction of novelty to allure, it is hoped that it is not
deficient in the recommendation of truth to convince. It has not been
thought necessary formally to refute the sentiments of those profound
Philosophers, who have sagaciously discovered the causes of the
inferiority of the arts in some countries and of their superiority in
others, and consequently the perfection to which they arrived in Greece,
in the power of the solar beams in certain latitudes, in the influences
of the atmosphere, and in those of terrestrial and celestial vapours:
for if the causes here assigned appear fully adequate to the end
produced, as we conceive they do, it must be idle to shew the inutility
of others, gratuitously brought forth from the inexhaustible storehouse
of fancy, and supported by any thing rather than solid reasoning. It
must be allowed that they very roundly assert, but as fallaciously
argue, whenever they deign to argue on this subject: for mere
assertions, positive, pompous, presuming, but assertions still, are the
commonest weapons of their warfare. And, possibly, it would neither be
reputable to contest the specious subtilty of the sophisms of even such
sages, nor honourable to conquer the powerless imbecility of their
assertions.
It is but fair to avow that this enquiry into the progress of the arts
has not been entered on for the sole purpose of ascertaining, as far as
we were able, the causes of the surpassing excellence to which they were
carried in Greece, without at the same time intimating, with due
deference to superior judgments and to superior authority, the efficacy
of the same causes, at all times and in all countries, in improving and
exalting them. As human nature is the same at all periods, though
diversified in its exterior shew by the various customs, modes, and
manners, that variously prevail, it cannot be seriously doubted but that
those principles, which have been found by experience in one country to
powerfully sway its conduct, and to incite its efforts in the Arts to
their noblest productions, would be equally efficient and equally
successful elsewhere, were they fairly applied, and as vigorously
exerted. We have no satisfactory reason for believing that either the
mental or corporeal powers of man have degenerated in the succession of
ages: and we well know that, by the benefits of experience and
invention, considerable aids have been added to both, to methodize their
motions and to facilitate their operations. Our profounder and
better-studied knowledge of Metaphysics, our improved skill in Natural
Philosophy and Mechanics, and our more accurate acquaintance with the
principles of colours, with their combinations and their shades, all
confessedly tend to these points. Should then the same liberal public
encouragement be displayed, by those possessed of the power of
displaying it, as dignified the best days of Greece; should the same
labour, the same pains, the same study, the same industry, be used by
modern artists as distinguished their truly illustrious predecessors; we
might not vainly hope to see the arts carried to still greater
perfection than they have ever yet attained; we might expect to behold
their deficiencies supplied, their utilities increased, their energies
enlarged, and their beauties augmented.
On national encouragement it becomes not the mediocrity of our talents
and station to presume to decide; yet, possibly, it will not be judged
too vauntingly confident to say that it should in all cases be spirited,
generous, impartial, and should not be subjected to the caprices of
power, to the varying humours of the transient depositaries of the
public confidence, nor to the inconstant and ever-mutable gusts of
popular phrenzy. What effect such encouragement would have on the
artists themselves can, indeed, be only conjectured; for such
encouragement has never yet been exhibited in the modern world: but that
conjecture is neither vague nor random, as it is guided by permanent
principles, and directed by the known influence of steady affections on
the human heart. It may be affirmed then, with some assurance, that it
would inspirit their labours, that it would multiply their pains, that
it would invigorate their studies, that it would augment their industry:
for such were heretofore its experienced consequences in similar cases,
and therefore they are reasonably to be expected again. They would not
waste their youth in the riot of lawless pleasure, and so treasure up
sickness and sorrow for the days of their prime: they would not spend
their hours in the ceaseless pursuit of the intoxicating amusements of
some great capital: they would not lay out their whole attention on the
low and subordinate, but gainful, branches of their _trade_, in contempt
of the superior features of their ART, and of its possible improvement:
but concentring all their powers, all their abilities, all their
faculties, in the advancement of their peculiar pursuit, would rapidly
raise themselves from the drudgery of mechanical workmanship to the
proud elevation of professional exertion. Thus the arts, advanced by so
conspicuous a change of manners in their cultivators, and by an
encouragement differing so widely from the paltry private patronage
pretending to that name, would attain that state of perfection to which
their admirers fondly wish to see them carried; but which they must wish
in vain till something like the changes here etched out shall have taken
place. And that what depends on the artists has not been too sanguinely
supposed, nor too strongly pictured, will surely not be asserted: for it
has only been supposed that they are men of common sense and natural
feelings; that they are not insensible to the allurements of each
dignified distinction in life; that they have hearts that can be warmed
and minds that can be roused.
That much higher ideas might justly be formed of some artists we can
positively affirm from personal knowledge; as we know some who have
really the souls of Artists; who, even in present circumstances, instead
of grovelling all their lives in mean and sordid occupations,
adventurously dare to soar into the immense void of possible
excellence; and whose characters it would be highly grateful to portray,
were not the desire restrained by the consciousness of inability to do
justice to their merits. Such men, indeed, by the vigour of their
genius, counteract the disadvantages to which they may be exposed, and,
bursting the barriers of opposing obstacles with spirit all their own,
impart to the arts whatever of addition or improvement they receive;
elucidating their obscurities, polishing their asperities, and lopping
their luxuriancies: and their number might be increased to any given
amount. But until that halcyon period shall arrive, if it ever shall
arrive, when the arts shall be considered as real national objects, and
receive _real_ national encouragement (without which, it must be
confessed, all extraordinary progress in them is not _generally_ to be
expected), their beauty, their grace, their grandeur, depend on these
men alone. And conscious of the high ground whereon they stand, as the
champions of truth and nature against fashion and futility, and caprice
and extravagance, and of the possible benefits resulting from their
labours in giving passion to the mute canvas, expression to the
inanimate block, and magnificence to utility in each public edifice;
they will not suffer themselves to be discouraged by temporary neglect,
nor to be disheartened by temporary preferences of the incapable and
undeserving. They will strengthen their minds to encounter the provoking
criticisms of pert and petulant presumption; they will scorn the
contempts of self-conceited and ignorant folly, however highly seated;
and they will meet with firm dignity the misjudging decisions of
purse-proud affluence. And conscious worth shall crown them with a
wreath of honour, greener than ever bloomed on the brow of an Olympic
conqueror; their own hearts shall applaud them; their works shall form a
lasting monument to the immortality of their names; and their fame shall
float down the current of future ages with daily increasing strength,
with daily augmented splendor.