CLAUDE AND POUSSIN.
§ 1. It was stated in the last chapter that Salvator was the last
painter of Italy on whom any fading trace of the old faithful spirit
rested. Carrying some of its passion far into the seventeenth century,
he deserved to be remembered together with the painters whom the
questioning of the Reformation had exercised, eighty years before. Not
so his contemporaries. The whole body of painters around him, but
chiefly those of landscape, had cast aside all regard for the faith of
their fathers, or for any other; and founded a school of art properly
called "classical,"[1] of which the following are the chief
characteristics.
§ 2. The belief in a supreme benevolent Being having ceased, and the
sense of spiritual destitution fastening on the mind, together with the
hopeless perception of ruin and decay in the existing world, the
imagination sought to quit itself from the oppression of these ideas by
realizing a perfect worldly felicity, in which the inevitable ruin
should at least be lovely, and the necessarily short life entirely happy
and refined. Labor must be banished, since it was to be unrewarded.
Humiliation and degradation of body must be prevented since there could
be no compensation for them by preparation of the soul for another
world. Let us eat and drink (refinedly), for to-morrow we die, and
attain the highest possible dignity as men in this world, since we shall
have none as spirits in the next.
§ 3. Observe, this is neither the Greek nor the Roman spirit. Neither
Claude, nor Poussin, nor any other painter or writer, properly termed
"classical," ever could enter into the Greek or Roman heart, which was
as full, in many cases fuller, of the hope of immortality than our own.
On the absence of belief in a good supreme Being, follows, necessarily,
the habit of looking to ourselves for supreme judgment in all matters,
and for supreme government. Hence, first, the irreverent habit of
judgment instead of admiration. It is generally expressed under the
justly degrading term "good taste."
§ 4. Hence, in the second place, the habit of restraint or
self-government (instead of impulsive and limitless obedience), based
upon pride, and involving, for the most part, scorn of the helpless and
weak, and respect only for the orders of men who have been trained to
this habit of self-government. Whence the title classical, from the
Latin _classicus_.
§ 5. The school is, therefore, generally to be characterized as that of
taste and restraint. As the school of taste, everything is, in its
estimation, beneath it, so as to be tasted or tested; not above it, to
be thankfully received. Nothing was to be fed upon as bread; but only
palated as a dainty. This spirit has destroyed art since the close of
the sixteenth century, and nearly destroyed French literature, our
English literature being at the same time severely depressed, and our
education (except in bodily strength) rendered nearly nugatory by it, so
far as it affects common-place minds. It is not possible that the
classical spirit should ever take possession of a mind of the highest
order. Pope is, as far as I know, the greatest man who ever fell
strongly under its influence; and though it spoiled half his work, he
broke through it continually into true enthusiasm and tender thought.[2]
Again, as the school of reserve, it refuses to allow itself in any
violent or "spasmodic" passion; the schools of literature which have
been in modern times called "spasmodic," being reactionary against it.
The word, though an ugly one, is quite accurate, the most spasmodic
books in the world being Solomon's Song, Job, and Isaiah.
§ 6. The classical landscape, properly so called, is therefore the
representative of perfectly trained and civilized human life, associated
with perfect natural scenery and with decorative spiritual powers.
I will expand this definition a little.
1. Perfectly civilized human life; that is, life freed from the
necessity of humiliating labor, from passions inducing bodily disease,
and from abusing misfortune. The personages of the classical landscape,
therefore, must be virtuous and amiable; if employed in labor, endowed
with strength such as may make it not oppressive. (Considered as a
practicable ideal, the classical life necessarily implies slavery, and
the command, therefore, of a higher order of men over a lower, occupied
in servile work.) Pastoral occupation is allowable as a contrast with
city life. War, if undertaken by classical persons, must be a contest
for honor, more than for life, not at all for wealth,[3] and free from
all fearful or debasing passion. Classical persons must be trained in
all the polite arts, and, because their health is to be perfect, chiefly
in the open air. Hence, the architecture around them must be of the most
finished kind, the rough country and ground being subdued by frequent
and happy humanity.
§ 7. 2. Such personages and buildings must be associated with natural
scenery, uninjured by storms or inclemency of climate (such injury
implying interruption of the open air life); and it must be scenery
conducing to pleasure, not to material service; all cornfields,
orchards, olive-yards, and such like, being under the management of
slaves,[4] and the superior beings having nothing to do with them; but
passing their lives under avenues of scented and otherwise delightful
trees--under picturesque rocks, and by clear fountains.
§ 8. 3. The spiritual powers in classical scenery must be decorative;
ornamental gods, not governing gods; otherwise they could not be
subjected to the principles of taste, but would demand reverence. In
order, therefore, as far as possible, without taking away their
supernatural power, to destroy their dignity, they are made more
criminal and capricious than men, and, for the most part, those only are
introduced who are the lords of lascivious pleasures. For the appearance
of any great god would at once destroy the whole theory of the classical
life; therefore, Pan, Bacchus, and the Satyrs, with Venus and the
Nymphs, are the principal spiritual powers of the classical landscape.
Apollo with the Muses appear as the patrons of the liberal arts. Minerva
rarely presents herself (except to be insulted by judgment of Paris);
Juno seldom, except for some purpose of tyranny; Jupiter seldom, but for
purpose of amour.
§ 9. Such being the general ideal of the classical landscape, it can
hardly be necessary to show the reader how such charm as it possesses
must in general be strong only over weak or second-rate orders of mind.
It has, however, been often experimentally or playfully aimed at by
great men; but I shall only take note of its two leading masters.
§ 10. I. Claude. As I shall have no farther occasion to refer to this
painter, I will resume, shortly, what has been said of him throughout
the work. He had a fine feeling for beauty of form and considerable
tenderness of perception. Vol. I., p. 76; vol. III., p. 318. His aërial
effects are unequalled. Vol. III., p. 318. Their character appears to me
to arise rather from a delicacy of bodily constitution in Claude, than
from any mental sensibility; such as they are, they give a kind of
feminine charm to his work, which partly accounts for its wide
influence. To whatever the character may be traced, it reads him
incapable of enjoying or painting anything energetic or terrible. Hence
the weakness of his conceptions of rough sea. Vol. I., p. 77.
II. He had sincerity of purpose. Vol. III., p. 318. But in common with
other landscape painters of his day, neither earnestness, humility, nor
love, such as would ever cause him to forget himself. Vol. I., p. 77.
That is to say, so far as he felt the truth, he tried to be true; but he
never felt it enough to sacrifice supposed propriety, or habitual method
to it. Very few of his sketches, and none of his pictures, show evidence
of interest in other natural phenomena than the quiet afternoon sunshine
which would fall methodically into a composition. One would suppose he
had never seen scarlet in a morning cloud, nor a storm burst on the
Apennines. But he enjoys a quiet misty afternoon in a ruminant sort of
way (Vol. III., p. 322), yet truly; and strives for the likeness of it,
therein differing from Salvator, who never attempts to be truthful, but
only to be impressive.
§ 11. III. His seas are the most beautiful in old art. Vol. I., p. 345.
For he studied tame waves, as he did tame skies, with great sincerity,
and some affection; and modelled them with more care not only than any
other landscape painter of his day, but even than any of the greater
men; for they, seeing the perfect painting of sea to be impossible, gave
up the attempt, and treated it conventionally. But Claude took so much
pains about this, feeling it was one of his _fortes_, that I suppose no
one can model a small wave better than he.
IV. He first set the pictorial sun in the pictorial heaven. Vol. III.,
p. 318. We will give him the credit of this, with no drawbacks.
V. He had hardly any knowledge of physical science (Vol. I., p. 76), and
shows a peculiar incapacity of understanding the main point of a matter.
Vol. III., p. 321. Connected with which incapacity is his want of
harmony in expression. Vol. II., p. 151. (Compare, for illustration of
this, the account of the picture of the Mill in the preface to Vol. I.)
§ 12. Such were the principal qualities of the leading painter of
classical landscape, his effeminate softness carrying him to dislike all
evidences of toil, or distress, or terror, and to delight in the calm
formalities which mark the school.
Although he often introduces romantic incidents and mediæval as well as
Greek or Roman personages, his landscape is always in the true sense
classic--everything being "elegantly" (selectingly or tastefully), not
passionately, treated. The absence of indications of rural labor, of
hedges, ditches, haystacks, ploughed fields, and the like; the frequent
occurrence of ruins of temples, or masses of unruined palaces; and the
graceful wildness of growth in his trees, are the principal sources of
the "elevated" character which so many persons feel in his scenery.
There is no other sentiment traceable in his work than this weak dislike
to entertain the conception of toil or suffering. Ideas of relation, in
the true sense, he has none; nor ever makes an effort to conceive an
event in its probable circumstances, but fills his foregrounds with
decorative figures, using commonest conventionalism to indicate the
subject he intends. We may take two examples, merely to show the general
character of such designs of his.
§ 13. 1. St. George and the Dragon.
The scene is a beautiful opening in woods by a river side, a pleasant
fountain springs on the right, and the usual rich vegetation covers the
foreground. The dragon is about the size of ten bramble leaves, and is
being killed by the remains of a lance, barely the thickness of a
walking-stick, in his throat, curling his tail in a highly offensive and
threatening manner. St. George, notwithstanding, on a prancing horse,
brandishes his sword, at about thirty yards' distance from the offensive
animal.
A semicircular shelf of rocks encircles the foreground, by which the
theatre of action is divided into pit and boxes. Some women and children
having descended unadvisedly into the pit, are helping each other out of
it again, with marked precipitation. A prudent person of rank has taken
a front seat in the boxes,--crosses his legs, leans his head on his
hand, and contemplates the proceedings with the air of a connoisseur.
Two attendants stand in graceful attitudes behind him, and two more walk
away under the trees, conversing on general subjects.
§ 14. 2. Worship of the Golden Calf.
The scene is nearly the same as that of the St. George; but, in order
better to express the desert of Sinai, the river is much larger, and the
trees and vegetation softer. Two people, uninterested in the idolatrous
ceremonies, are rowing in a pleasure boat on the river. The calf is
about sixteen inches long (perhaps, we ought to give Claude credit for
remembering that it was made of ear-rings, though he might as well have
inquired how large Egyptian ear-rings were). Aaron has put it on a
handsome pillar, under which five people are dancing, and twenty-eight,
with several children, worshipping. Refreshments for the dancers are
provided in four large vases under a tree on the left, presided over by
a dignified person holding a dog in a leash. Under the distant group of
trees appears Moses, conducted by some younger personage (Nadab or
Abihu). This younger personage holds up his hands, and Moses, in the
way usually expected of him, breaks the tables of the law, which are as
large as an ordinary octavo volume.
§ 15. I need not proceed farther, for any reader of sense or ordinary
powers of thought can thus examine the subjects of Claude, one by one,
for himself. We may quit him with these few final statements concerning
him.
The admiration of his works was legitimate, so far as it regarded their
sunlight effects and their graceful details. It was base, in so far as
it involved irreverence both for the deeper powers of nature, and
carelessness as to conception of subject. Large admiration of Claude is
wholly impossible in any period of national vigor in art. He may by such
tenderness as he possesses, and by the very fact of his banishing
painfulness, exercise considerable influence over certain classes of
minds; but this influence is almost exclusively hurtful to them.
§ 16. Nevertheless, on account of such small sterling qualities as they
possess, and of their general pleasantness, as well as their importance
in the history of art, genuine Claudes must always possess a
considerable value, either as drawing-room ornaments or museum relics.
They may be ranked with fine pieces of China manufacture, and other
agreeable curiosities, of which the price depends on the rarity rather
than the merit, yet always on a merit of a certain low kind.
§ 17. The other characteristic master of classical landscape is Nicolo
Poussin.
I named Claude first, because the forms of scenery he has represented
are richer and more general than Poussin's; but Poussin has a far
greater power, and his landscapes, though more limited in material, are
incomparably nobler than Claude's. It would take considerable time to
enter into accurate analysis of Poussin's strong but degraded mind; and
bring us no reward, because whatever he has done has been done better by
Titian. His peculiarities are, without exception, weaknesses, induced in
a highly intellectual and inventive mind by being fed on medals, books,
and bassi-relievi instead of nature, and by the want of any deep
sensibility. His best works are his Bacchanalian revels, always brightly
wanton and wild, full of frisk and fire; but they are coarser than
Titian's, and infinitely less beautiful. In all minglings of the human
and brutal character he leans on the bestial, yet with a sternly Greek
severity of treatment. This restraint, peculiarly classical, is much too
manifest in him; for, owing to his habit of never letting himself be
free, he does nothing as well as it ought to be done, rarely even as
well as he can himself do it; and his best beauty is poor, incomplete,
and characterless, though refined. The Nymph pressing the honey in the
"Nursing of Jupiter," and the Muse leaning against the tree, in the
"Inspiration of Poet" (both in the Dulwich Gallery), appear to me
examples of about his highest reach in this sphere.
§ 18. His want of sensibility permits him to paint frightful subjects,
without feeling any true horror: his pictures of the Plague, the Death
of Polydectes, &c., are thus ghastly in incident, sometimes disgusting,
but never impressive. The prominence of the bleeding head in the Triumph
of David marks the same temper. His battle pieces are cold and feeble;
his religious subjects wholly nugatory, they do not excite him enough to
develop even his ordinary powers of invention. Neither does he put much
power into his landscape when it becomes principal; the best pieces of
it occur in fragments behind his figures. Beautiful vegetation, more or
less ornamental in character, occurs in nearly all his mythological
subjects, but his pure landscape is notable only for its dignified
reserve; the great squareness and horizontality of its masses, with
lowness of tone, giving it a deeply meditative character. His Deluge
might be much depreciated, under this head of ideas of relation, but it
is so uncharacteristic of him that I pass it by. Whatever power this
lowness of tone, light in the distance, &c., give to his landscape, or
to Gaspar's (compare Vol. II., Chapter on Infinity, § 12), is in both
conventional and artificial.
I have nothing, therefore, to add farther, here, to what was said of him
in Vol. I. (p. 89); and, as no other older masters of the classical
landscape are worth any special note, we will pass on at once to a
school of humbler but more vital power.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word "classical" is carelessly used in the preceding volumes,
to signify the characters of the Greek or Roman nations.
Henceforward, it is used in a limited and accurate sense, as defined
in the text.
[2] Cold-hearted, I have called him. He was so in writing the
Pastorals, of which I then spoke; but in after-life his errors were
those of his time, his wisdom was his own; it would be well if we
also made it ours.
[3] Because the pursuit of wealth is inconsistent at once with the
peace and dignity of perfect life.
[4] It is curious, as marking the peculiarity of the classical spirit
in its resolute degradation of the lower orders, that a
sailing-vessel is hardly admissible in a classical landscape, because
its management implies too much elevation of the inferior life. But a
galley, with oars, is admissible, because the rowers may be conceived
as absolute slaves.