--_Animum pictura pascit inani_.
VIRG., _AEn._ i. 464.
And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind.
When the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without-doors, I
frequently make a little party, with two or three select friends, to
visit anything curious that may be seen under cover. My principal
entertainments of this nature are pictures, insomuch that when I have
found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's
journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters.
By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth
swims in rain, and all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw
myself from these uncomfortable scenes, into the visionary worlds of art;
where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces,
and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and
disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark
disconsolate seasons.
I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions, which had taken
such an entire possession of my imagination that they formed in it a
short morning's dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather as
the first sketch and outlines of a vision, than as a finished piece.
I dreamt that I was admitted into a long, spacious gallery, which had one
side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living,
and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.
On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing,
colouring, and designing. On the side of the dead painters, I could not
discover more than one person at work, who was exceeding slow in his
motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches.
I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood before me, and
accordingly applied myself to the side of the living. The first I
observed at work in this part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair
tied behind him in a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces
he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air
which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex.
The _toujours gai_ appeared even in his judges, bishops, and Privy
Councillors. In a word, all his men were _petits maitres_, and all his
women _coquettes_. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited
to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be
mixed together; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured
to distinguish itself above the rest.
On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his
humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and
had a very hard name that sounded something like Stupidity.
The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a
Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very
much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself
with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most
elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream: and one could
say nothing more of his finest figures than that they were agreeable
monsters.
The fourth person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty hand,
which left his pictures so unfinished that the beauty in the picture,
which was designed to continue as a monument of it to posterity, faded
sooner than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste
to despatch his business that he neither gave himself time to clean his
pencils nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was
Avarice.
Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who
was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of
Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured. If he drew the
portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single hair in his face; if the
figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the tackle that escaped him.
He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that
seemed to show themselves by the candles which were lighted up in several
parts of them; and were so inflamed by the sunshine which accidentally
fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear crying out
"Fire!"
The five foregoing artists were the most considerable on this side the
gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look
into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very
busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced no originals of
his own. His pencil aggravated every feature that was before
overcharged, loaded every defect, and poisoned every colour it touched.
Though this workman did so much mischief on the side of the living, he
never turned his eye towards that of the dead. His name was Envy.
Having taken a cursory view of one side of the gallery, I turned myself
to that which was filled by the works of those great masters that were
dead; when immediately I fancied myself standing before a multitude of
spectators, and thousands of eyes looking upon me at once: for all before
me appeared so like men and women, that I almost forgot they were
pictures. Raphael's pictures stood in one row, Titian's in another,
Guido Rheni's in a third. One part of the wall was peopled by Hannabal
Carrache, another by Correggio, and another by Rubens. To be short,
there was not a great master among the dead who had not contributed to
the embellishment of this side of the gallery. The persons that owed
their being to these several masters appeared all of them to be real and
alive, and differed among one another only in the variety of their
shapes, complexions, and clothes; so that they looked like different
nations of the same species.
Observing an old man, who was the same person I before mentioned, as the
only artist that was at work on this side of the gallery, creeping up and
down from one picture to another, and retouching all the fine pieces that
stood before me, I could not but be very attentive to all his motions. I
found his pencil was so very light that it worked imperceptibly, and
after a thousand touches scarce produced any visible effect in the
picture on which he was employed. However, as he busied himself
incessantly, and repeated touch after touch without rest or intermission,
he wore off insensibly every little disagreeable gloss that hung upon a
figure. He also added such a beautiful brown to the shades, and
mellowness to the colours, that he made every picture appear more perfect
than when it came fresh from the master's pencil. I could not forbear
looking upon the face of this ancient workman, and immediately by the
long lock of hair upon his forehead, discovered him to be Time.
Whether it were because the thread of my dream was at an end I cannot
tell, but, upon my taking a survey of this imaginary old man, my sleep
left me.