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THE
COLLECTED WORKS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
VOLUME NINE
_All rights reserved_
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
WILLIAM HAZLITT
EDITED BY A. R. WALLER
AND ARNOLD GLOVER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
W. E. HENLEY
❦
The Principal
Picture-Galleries in England
Notes of a Journey through France and Italy
Miscellaneous Essays on the Fine Arts
❦
1903
LONDON: J. M. DENT _&_ CO.
McCLURE, PHILLIPS _&_ CO.: NEW YORK
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE PRINCIPAL PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND 1
NOTES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY 83
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS 305
NOTES 439
APPENDIX 489
SKETCHES OF THE PRINCIPAL PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND WITH A CRITICISM
ON ‘MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE’
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
_Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England. With a
Criticism on ‘Marriage a-la-mode,’_ appeared in a small 8vo. volume (6½
in. × 4 in.) in 1824, ‘Printed for Taylor and Hessey, 93, Fleet-Street,
and 13, Waterloo-Place, Pall-Mall.’ The last page bears advertisements
of the _Characters of Shakspeare’s Plays_, _Lectures on the English
Poets_, and _Lectures on the English Comic Writers_. The printer’s name,
given behind the half-title, is ‘T. Green, 76 Fleet-street.’
Four pages of Taylor & Hessey’s announcements (‘Booksellers to H.R.H.
the Prince Leopold’) are bound up with the volume.
The present text is that of the 1824 volume.
The _Sketches_ formed part of the two volumes of ‘Criticisms on Art,’
collected and edited by his son in 1843–4, and of the one volume of
‘Essays on the Fine Arts,’ edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in 1873.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is the object of the following little work to give an account of the
principal Picture-Galleries in this country, and to describe the
feelings which they naturally excite in the mind of a lover of art.
Almost all those of any importance have been regularly gone through. One
or two, that still remain unnoticed, may be added to our _catalogue
raisonnée_ at a future opportunity. It may not be improper to mention
here that Mr. Angerstein’s pictures have been lately purchased for the
commencement of a National Gallery, but are still to be seen in their
old places on the walls of his house.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Mr. Angerstein’s Collection 7
Dulwich Gallery 17
The Marquis of Stafford’s Gallery 27
Pictures at Windsor Castle 36
Pictures at Hampton Court 42
Lord Grosvenor’s Collection 49
Pictures at Wilton and Stourhead 55
Pictures at Burleigh House 62
Pictures at Oxford and Blenheim 69
APPENDIX
Criticism on Marriage a-la-Mode 75
PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND
MR. ANGERSTEIN’S COLLECTION
Oh! Art, lovely Art! ‘Balm of hurt minds, chief nourisher in life’s
feast, great Nature’s second course!’ Time’s treasurer, the unsullied
mirror of the mind of man! Thee we invoke, and not in vain, for we find
thee here retired in thy plentitude and thy power! The walls are dark
with beauty; they frown severest grace. The eye is not caught by glitter
and varnish; we see the pictures by their own internal light. This is
not a bazaar, a raree-show of art, a Noah’s ark of all the Schools,
marching out in endless procession; but a sanctuary, a holy of holies,
collected by taste, sacred to fame, enriched by the rarest products of
genius. For the number of pictures, Mr. Angerstein’s is the finest
gallery, perhaps, in the world. We feel no sense of littleness: the
attention is never distracted for a moment, but concentrated on a few
pictures of first-rate excellence. Many of these _chef-d’œuvres_ might
occupy the spectator for a whole morning; yet they do not interfere with
the pleasure derived from each other—so much consistency of style is
there in the midst of variety!
We know of no greater treat than to be admitted freely to a Collection
of this sort, where the mind reposes with full confidence in its
feelings of admiration, and finds that idea and love of conceivable
beauty, which it has cherished perhaps for a whole life, reflected from
every object around it. It is a cure (for the time at least) for
low-thoughted cares and uneasy passions. We are abstracted to another
sphere: we breathe empyrean air; we enter into the minds of Raphael, of
Titian, of Poussin, of the Caracci, and look at nature with their eyes;
we live in time past, and seem identified with the permanent forms of
things. The business of the world at large, and even its pleasures,
appear like a vanity and an impertinence. What signify the hubbub, the
shifting scenery, the fantoccini figures, the folly, the idle fashions
without, when compared with the solitude, the silence, the speaking
looks, the unfading forms within?—Here is the mind’s true home. The
contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were
created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of
which it never tires. A capital print-shop (Molteno’s or Colnaghi’s) is
a point to aim at in a morning’s walk—a relief and satisfaction in the
motley confusion, the littleness, the vulgarity of common life: but a
print-shop has but a mean, cold, meagre, petty appearance after coming
out of a fine Collection of Pictures. We want the size of life, the
marble flesh, the rich tones of nature, the diviner expanded expression.
Good prints are no doubt, better than bad pictures; or prints, generally
speaking, are better than pictures; for we have more prints of good
pictures than of bad ones: yet they are for the most part but hints,
loose memorandums, outlines in little of what the painter has done. How
often, in turning over a number of choice engravings, do we tantalise
ourselves by thinking ‘what a head _that_ must be,’—in wondering what
colour a piece of drapery is of, green or black,—in wishing, in vain, to
know the exact tone of the sky in a particular corner of the picture!
Throw open the folding-doors of a fine Collection, and you see all you
have desired realised at a blow—the bright originals starting up in
their own proper shape, clad with flesh and blood, and teeming with the
first conceptions of the painter’s mind! The disadvantage of pictures
is, that they cannot be multiplied to any extent, like books or prints;
but this, in another point of view, operates probably as an advantage,
by making the sight of a fine original picture an event so much the more
memorable, and the impression so much the deeper. A visit to a genuine
Collection is like going a pilgrimage—it is an act of devotion performed
at the shrine of Art! It is as if there were but one copy of a book in
the world, locked up in some curious casket, which, by special favour,
we had been permitted to open, and peruse (as we must) with unaccustomed
relish. The words would in that case leave stings in the mind of the
reader, and every letter appear of gold. The ancients, before the
invention of printing, were nearly in the same situation with respect to
books, that we are with regard to pictures; and at the revival of
letters, we find the same unmingled satisfaction, or fervid enthusiasm,
manifested in the pursuit or the discovery of an old manuscript, that
connoisseurs still feel in the purchase and possession of an antique
cameo, or a fine specimen of the Italian school of painting. Literature
was not then cheap and vulgar, nor was there what is called a _reading
public_; and the pride of intellect, like the pride of art, or the pride
of birth, was confined to the privileged few!
We sometimes, in viewing a celebrated Collection, meet with an old
favourite, a _first love_ in such matters, that we have not seen for
many years, which greatly enhances the delight. We have, perhaps,
pampered our imaginations with it all that time; its charms have sunk
deep into our minds; we wish to see it once more, that we may confirm
our judgment, and renew our vows. The _Susannah and the Elders_ at Mr.
Angerstein’s was one of those that came upon us under these
circumstances. We had seen it formerly, among other visions of our
youth, in the Orleans Collection,—where we used to go and look at it by
the hour together, till our hearts thrilled with its beauty, and our
eyes were filled with tears. How often had we thought of it since, how
often spoken of it!—There it was still, the same lovely phantom as
ever—not as when Rousseau met Madame de Warens, after a lapse of twenty
years, who was grown old and wrinkled—but as if the young Jewish Beauty
had been just surprised in that unguarded spot—crouching down in one
corner of the picture, the face turned back with a mingled expression of
terror, shame, and unconquerable sweetness, and the whole figure (with
the arms crossed) shrinking into itself with bewitching grace and
modesty! It is by Ludovico Caracci, and is worthy of his name, from its
truth and purity of design, its expression and its mellow depth of tone.
Of the _Elders_, one is represented in the attitude of advancing towards
her, while the other beckons her to rise. We know of no painter who
could have improved upon the Susannah, except Correggio, who, with all
his capricious blandishments, and wreathed angelic smiles, would hardly
have given the same natural unaffected grace, the same perfect
womanhood.
There is but one other picture in the Collection, that strikes us, as a
matter of taste or fancy, like this; and that is the _Silenus teaching a
Young Apollo to play on the pipe_—a small oblong picture, executed in
distemper, by Annibal Caracci. The old preceptor is very fine, with a
jolly, leering, pampered look of approbation, half inclining to the
brute, half-conscious of the God; but it is the Apollo that constitutes
the charm of the picture, and is indeed divine. The whole figure is full
of simple careless grace, laughing in youth and beauty; he holds the
Pan’s-pipe in both hands, looking up with timid wonder; and the
expression of delight and surprise at the sounds he produces is not to
be surpassed. The only image we would venture to compare with it for
innocent artless voluptuousness, is that of the shepherd-boy in Sir
Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, ‘piping as though he should never be old!’ A
comparison of this sort, we believe, may be made, in spite of the
proverb, without injustice to the painter or the poet. Both gain by it.
The idea conveyed by the one, perhaps, receives an additional grace and
lustre, while a more beautiful moral sentiment hovers round the other,
from thinking of them in this casual connection. If again it be asked,
_Which is the most admirable?_—we should answer—Both are equally
exquisite in their way, and yield the imagination all the pleasure it is
capable of—and should decline giving an invidious preference to either.
_The cup can only be full._ The young shepherd in the Arcadia wants no
outward grace to recommend him; the stripling God no hidden charm of
expression. The language of painting and poetry is intelligible enough
to mortals; the spirit of both is divine, and far too good for him, who,
instead of enjoying to the utmost height, would find an unwelcome flaw
in either. The _Silenus and Apollo_ has something of a Raffaellesque
air, with a mixture of Correggio’s arch sensibility—there is nothing of
Titian in the colouring—yet Annibal Caracci was in theory a deserter
from the first to the two last of these masters; and swore with an oath,
in a letter to his uncle Ludovico, that ‘they were the only true
painters!’
We should nearly have exhausted our stock of enthusiasm in descanting on
these two compositions, in almost any other case; but there is no danger
of this in the present instance. If we were at any loss in this respect,
we should only have to turn to the large picture of the _Raising of
Lazarus_, by Sebastian del Piombo;
——‘and still walking under,
Find some new matter to look up and wonder.’
We might dwell on the masterly strength of the drawing, the gracefulness
of the principal female figures, the high-wrought execution, the deep,
rich, _mosaic_ colouring, the massiness and bustle of the back-ground.
We think this one of the best pictures on so large a scale that we are
anywhere acquainted with. The whole management of the design has a very
noble and imposing effect, and each part severally will bear the closest
scrutiny. It is a magnificent structure built of solid and valuable
materials. The artist has not relied merely on the extent of his canvas,
or the importance of his subject, for producing a striking result—the
effect is made out by an aggregate of excellent parts. The hands, the
feet, the drapery, the heads, the features, are all fine. There is some
satisfaction in looking at a large historical picture, such as this: for
you really gain in quantity, without losing in quality; and have a
studious imitation of individual nature, combined with masculine
invention, and the comprehensive arrangement of an interesting story.
The Lazarus is very fine and bold. The flesh is well-baked, dingy, and
ready to crumble from the touch, when it is liberated from its dread
confinement to have life and motion impressed on it again. He seems
impatient of restraint, gazes eagerly about him, and looks out from his
shrouded prison on this new world with hurried amazement, as if Death
had scarcely yet resigned his power over the senses. We would wish our
artists to look at the legs and feet of this figure, and see how
correctness of finishing and a greatness of _gusto_ in design are
compatible with, and set off each other. The attendant female figures
have a peculiar grace and becoming dignity, both of expression and
attitude. They are in a style something between Michael Angelo and
Parmegiano. They take a deep interest in the scene, but it is with the
air of composure proper to the sex, who are accustomed by nature and
duty to works of charity and compassion. The head of the old man,
kneeling behind Christ, is an admirable study of drawing, execution, and
character. The Christ himself is grave and earnest, with a noble and
impressive countenance; but the figure wants that commanding air which
ought to belong to one possessed of preternatural power, and in the act
of displaying it. Too much praise cannot be given to the back-ground—the
green and white draperies of some old people at a distance, which are as
airy as they are distinct—the buildings like tombs—and the different
groups, and processions of figures, which seem to make life almost as
grave and solemn a business as death itself. This picture is said by
some to have been designed by Michael Angelo, and painted by Sebastian
del Piombo, in rivalship of some of Raphael’s works. It was in the
Orleans Gallery.
Near this large historical composition stands (or is suspended in a
case) a single head, by Raphael, of Pope Julius II. It is in itself a
Collection—a world of thought and character. There is a prodigious
weight and gravity of look, combined with calm self-possession, and
easiness of temper. It has the cast of an English countenance, which
Raphael’s portraits often have, Titian’s never. In Raphael’s the mind,
or the body, frequently prevails; in Titian’s you always see the
soul—faces ‘which pale passion loves.’ Look at the Music-piece by
Titian, close by in this Collection—it is ‘all ear,’—the expression is
evanescent as the sounds—the features are seen in a sort of dim _chiaro
scuro_, as if the confused impressions of another sense intervened—and
you might easily suppose some of the performers to have been engaged the
night before in
‘Mask or midnight serenade,
Which the starved lover to his mistress sings,
Best quitted with disdain.’[1]
The ruddy, _bronzed_ colouring of Raphael generally takes off from any
appearance of nocturnal watching and languid hectic passion! The
portrait of Julius II. is finished to a great nicety. The hairs of the
beard, the fringe on the cap, are done by minute and careful touches of
the pencil. In seeing the labour, the conscientious and modest pains,
which this great painter bestowed upon his smallest works, we cannot
help being struck with the number and magnitude of those he left behind
him. When we have a single portrait placed before us, that might seem to
have taken half a year to complete it, we wonder how the same painter
could find time to execute his Cartoons, the compartments of the
Vatican, and a thousand other matchless works. The same account serves
for both. The more we do, the more we can do. Our leisure (though it may
seem a paradox) is in proportion to our industry. The same habit of
intense application, which led our artist to bestow as much pains and
attention on the study of a single head, as if his whole reputation had
depended on it, enabled him to set about the greatest works with
alacrity, and to finish them with ease. If he had done any thing he
undertook to do, in a slovenly disreputable manner, he would (upon the
same principle) have lain idle half his time. Zeal and diligence, in
this view, make life, short as it is, long.—Neither did Raphael, it
should seem, found his historical pretensions on his incapacity to paint
a good portrait. On the contrary, the latter here looks very much like
the corner-stone of the historical edifice. Nature did not _put him
out_. He was not too great a genius to copy what he saw. He probably
thought that a deference to nature is the beginning of art, and that the
highest eminence is scaled by single steps!
On the same stand as the portrait of Julius II. is the much vaunted
Correggio—the _Christ in the Garden_. We would not give a farthing for
it. The drapery of the Christ is highly finished in a silver and azure
tone—but high finishing is not all we ask from Correggio. It is more
worthy of Carlo Dolce.—Lest we should forget it, we may mention here,
that the admired portrait of Govarcius was gone to be copied at
Somerset-house. The Academy have then, at length, fallen into the method
pursued at the British Gallery, of recommending the students to copy
from the OLD MASTERS. Well—_better late than never!_ This same portrait
is not, we think, the truest specimen of Vandyke. It has not his mild,
pensive, somewhat effeminate cast of colour and expression. His best
portraits have an air of faded gentility about them. The Govarcius has
too many streaks of blood-colour, too many marks of the pencil, to
convey an exact idea of Vandyke’s characteristic excellence; though it
is a fine imitation of Rubens’s florid manner. Vandyke’s most striking
portraits are those which look just like a gentleman or lady seen in a
looking-glass, and neither more nor less.
Of the Claudes, we prefer the St. Ursula—the _Embarking of the Five
thousand Virgins_—to the others. The water is exquisite; and the sails
of the vessels glittering in the morning sun, and the blue flags placed
against the trees, which seem like an opening into the sky behind—so
sparkling is the effect of this ambiguity in colouring—are in Claude’s
most perfect manner. The Altieri Claude is one of his noblest and most
classical compositions, with towers, and trees, and streams, and flocks,
and herds, and distant sunny vales,
——‘Where universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Leads on the eternal spring:—’
but the effect of the execution has been deadened and rendered flat by
time or ill-usage. There is a dull, formal appearance, as if the
different masses of sky, of water, &c., were laid on with plates of tin
or lead. This is not a general defect in Claude: his landscapes have the
greatest quantity of inflection, the most delicate brilliancy, of all
others. A lady had been making a good copy of the _Seaport_, which is a
companion to the one we have described. We do not think these Claudes,
famous as they are, equal to Lord Egremont’s _Jacob and Laban_; to the
_Enchanted Castle_; to a green vernal Landscape, which was in Walsh
Porter’s Collection, and which was the very finest we ever saw; nor to
some others that have appeared from time to time in the British
Institution. We are sorry to make this, which may be thought an
ill-natured, remark: but, though we have a great respect for Mr.
Angerstein’s taste, we have a greater for Claude Lorraine’s reputation.
Let any persons admire these specimens of his art as much as they will
(and the more they admire them, the more we shall be gratified), and
then we will tell them, he could do far finer things than these!
There is one Rembrandt, and one N. Poussin. The Rembrandt (the _Woman
taken in Adultery_) is prodigious in colouring, in light and shade, in
pencilling, in solemn effect; but that is nearly all—
‘Of outward show
Elaborate, of inward less exact.’
Nevertheless, it is worth any money. The Christ has considerable
seriousness and dignity of aspect. The marble pavement, of which the
light is even dazzling; the figures of the two Rabbis to the right,
radiant with crimson, green, and azure; the back-ground, which seems
like some rich oil-colour smeared over a ground of gold, and where the
eye staggers on from one abyss of obscurity to another,—place this
picture in the first rank of Rembrandt’s wonderful performances. If this
extraordinary genius was the most literal and vulgar of draughtsmen, he
was the most _ideal_ of colourists. When Annibal Caracci vowed to God,
that Titian and Correggio were the only true painters, he had not seen
Rembrandt;—if he had, he would have added him to the list. The Poussin
is a _Dance of Bacchanals_: theirs are not ‘pious orgies.’ It is,
however, one of this master’s finest pictures, both in the spirit of the
execution, and the ingenuity and _equivoque_ of the invention. If the
purity of the drawing will make amends for the impurity of the design,
it may pass: assuredly the same subject, badly executed, would not be
endured; but the life of mind, the dexterity of combination displayed in
it, supply the want of decorum. The old adage, that ‘Vice, by losing all
its grossness, loses half its evil,’ seems chiefly applicable to
pictures. Thus a naked figure, that has nothing but its nakedness to
recommend it, is not fit to be hung up in decent apartments. If it is a
Nymph by Titian, Correggio’s Iö, we no longer think of its being naked;
but merely of its sweetness, its beauty, its naturalness. So far art, as
it is intellectual, has a refinement and extreme unction of its own.
Indifferent pictures, like dull people, must absolutely be moral! We
suggest this as a hint to those persons of more gallantry than
discretion, who think that to have an indecent daub hanging up in one
corner of the room, is proof of a liberality of _gusto_, and a
considerable progress in _virtù_. _Tout au contraire._
We have a clear, brown, woody _Landscape_ by Gaspar Poussin, in his fine
determined style of pencilling, which gives to earth its solidity, and
to the air its proper attributes. There are perhaps, no landscapes that
excel his in this fresh, healthy look of nature. One might say, that
wherever his pencil loves to haunt, ‘the air is delicate.’ We forgot to
notice a _St. John in the Wilderness_, by A. Caracci, which has much of
the autumnal tone, the ‘sear and yellow leaf,’ of Titian’s
landscape-compositions. A _Rape of the Sabines_, in the inner room, by
Rubens, is, we think, the most tasteless picture in the Collection: to
see plump, florid viragos struggling with bearded ruffians, and tricked
out in the flounces, furbelows, and finery of the court of Louis XIV. is
preposterous. But there is another Rubens in the outer room, which,
though fantastical and quaint, has qualities to redeem all faults. It is
an allegory of himself and his three wives, as a St. George and Holy
Family, with his children as Christ and St. John, playing with a lamb;
in which he has contrived to bring together all that is rich in antique
dresses, (black as jet, and shining like diamonds,) transparent in
flesh-colour, agreeable in landscape, unfettered in composition. The
light streams from rosy clouds; the breeze curls the branches of the
trees in the back-ground, and plays on the clear complexions of the
various scattered group. It is one of this painter’s most splendid, and,
at the same time, most solid and sharply finished productions.
Mr. Wilkie’s _Alehouse Door_ is here, and deserves to be here. Still it
is not his best; though there are some very pleasing rustic figures, and
some touching passages in it. As in his _Blind-Man’s-buff_, the groups
are too straggling, and spread over too large a surface of bare
foreground, which Mr. Wilkie does not paint well. It looks more like
putty than earth or clay. The artist has a better eye for the individual
details, than for the general tone of objects. Mr. Liston’s face in this
‘flock of drunkards’ is a smiling failure.
A portrait of Hogarth, by himself, and Sir Joshua’s half-length of Lord
Heathfield, hang in the same room. The last of these is certainly a fine
picture, well composed, richly coloured, with considerable character,
and a look of nature. Nevertheless, our artist’s pictures, seen among
standard works, have (to speak it plainly) something old-womanish about
them. By their obsolete and affected air, they remind one of antiquated
ladies of quality, and are a kind of Duchess-Dowagers in the
art—somewhere between the living and the dead.
Hogarth’s series of the _Marriage a-la-Mode_[2] (the most delicately
painted of all his pictures, and admirably they certainly are painted)
concludes the _Catalogue Raisonnée_ of this Collection.—A study of
Heads, by Correggio, and some of Mr. Fuseli’s stupendous figures from
his Milton Gallery, are on the staircase.
A CATALOGUE OF THE PICTURES IN THE ANGERSTEIN GALLERY
1. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 1. _Hogarth._
2. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 2. _Ditto._
3. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 3. _Ditto._
4. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 4. _Ditto._
5. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 5. _Ditto._
6. The Marriage à la Mode, No. 6. _Ditto._
7. Portrait of Lord Heathfield, the Defender of _Sir Joshua
Gibraltar. Reynolds._
8. His own Portrait, with his Dog. _Hogarth._
9. The Village Festival. _Wilkie._
10. The Portrait of Rubens. (Formerly in the Collection _Vandyck._
of Sir Joshua Reynolds.)
11. The Woman taken in Adultery. Painted for the _Rembrandt._
Burgomaster Six.
12. A Landscape; Evening; with Horses, Cattle, and _Cuyp._
Figures. (From the Collection of Sir Laurence Dundas.)
13. Christ praying in the Garden. _Correggio._
14. The Adoration of the Shepherds. _Rembrandt._
15. A Land Storm. (From the Lansdown Collection.) _Gaspar
Poussin._
16. Portrait of Pope Julius the Second. (From the _Raphael._
Lancillotti Palace.)
17. The Emperor Theodosius refused admittance into the _Vandyck._
Church by St. Ambrose.
18. A Landscape, with Figures; representing Abraham _Gaspar
preparing to sacrifice his son Isaac. (From the Poussin._
Colonna Palace.)
19. Portrait of Govartius. _Vandyck._
20. Pan teaching Apollo the use of the Pipe. _Annibal
Caracci._
21. A Sea-Port at Sunset, in which is represented the _Claude._
Legend of the Embarkation of St. Ursula. (Formerly in
the Barberini Palace.)
22. Erminia discovering the Shepherds: From Tasso’s _Domenichino._
‘Jerusalem Delivered.’
23. Philip the Fourth and his Queen. _Velasquez._
24. Venus and Adonis. (From the Colonna Palace.) _Titian._
25. St. John in the Wilderness. (From the Orleans _Annibal
Collection.) Caracci._
26. A Landscape, with Figures. _Claude._
27. Christ raising Lazarus. (From the Orleans _Sebastian del
Collection.) Piombo._
28. A Concert. _Titian._
29. An Italian Sea-Port at Sunset, with Figures. _Claude._
30. The Rape of Ganymede. (From the Colonna Palace.) _Titian._
31. A Sea-Port, in which is represented the Embarkation _Claude._
of the Queen of Sheba on her visit to Solomon. (From
the Collection of the Duke de Bouillon.)
32. A Study of Heads. (From the Orleans Collection.) _Correggio._
33. A Study of Heads. (From the same Collection.) _Correggio._
34. The Rape of the Sabine Women. _Rubens._
35. The Holy Family, with St. George, a Female Saint, _Rubens._
and Angels.
36. A Landscape, with Figures; representing the Marriage _Claude._
of Rebecca. (From the Collection of the Duke de
Bouillon.)
37. Susanna and the Elders. (From the Orleans _Ludov.
Collection.) Caracci._
38. A Bacchanalian Scene. _Nich.
Poussin._
THE DULWICH GALLERY
It was on the 5th of November that we went to see this Gallery. The
morning was mild, calm, pleasant: it was a day to ruminate on the object
we had in view. It was the time of year
‘When yellow leaves, or few or none, do hang
Upon the branches;’
their scattered gold was strongly contrasted with the dark green spiral
shoots of the cedar trees that skirt the road; the sun shone faint and
watery, as if smiling his last; Winter gently let go the hand of Summer,
and the green fields, wet with the mist, anticipated the return of
Spring. At the end of a beautiful little village, Dulwich College
appeared in view, with modest state, yet mindful of the olden time; and
the name of Allen and his compeers rushed full upon the memory! How many
races of school-boys have played within its walls, or stammered out a
lesson, or sauntered away their vacant hours in its shade: yet, not one
Shakspeare is there to be found among them all! The boy is clothed and
fed and gets through his accidence: but no trace of his youthful
learning, any more than of his saffron livery, is to be met with in the
man. Genius is not to be ‘constrained by mastery.’—Nothing comes of
these endowments and foundations for learning,—you might as well make
dirt-pies, or build houses with cards. Yet something _does_ come of them
too—a retreat for age, a dream in youth—a feeling in the air around
them, the memory of the past, the hope of what will never be. Sweet are
the studies of the school-boy, delicious his idle hours! Fresh and
gladsome is his waking, balmy are his slumbers, book-pillowed! He wears
a green and yellow livery perhaps; but ‘green and yellow melancholy’
comes not near him, or if it does, is tempered with youth and innocence!
To thumb his Eutropius, or to knuckle down at taw, are to him equally
delightful; for whatever stirs the blood, or inspires thought in him,
quickens the pulse of life and joy. He has only to feel, in order to be
happy; pain turns smiling from him, and sorrow is only a softer kind of
pleasure. Each sensation is but an unfolding of his new being; care,
age, sickness, are idle words; the musty records of antiquity look
glossy in his sparkling eye, and he clasps immortality as his future
bride! The coming years hurt him not—he hears their sound afar off, and
is glad. See him there, the urchin, seated in the sun, with a book in
his hand, and the wall at his back. He has a thicker wall before him—the
wall that parts him from the future. He sees not the archers taking aim
at his peace; he knows not the hands that are to mangle his bosom. He
stirs not, he still pores upon his book, and, as he reads, a slight
hectic flush passes over his cheek, for he sees the letters that compose
the word FAME glitter on the page, and his eyes swim, and he thinks that
he will one day write a book, and have his name repeated by thousands of
readers, and assume a certain signature, and write Essays and Criticisms
in a LONDON MAGAZINE, as a consummation of felicity scarcely to be
believed. Come hither, thou poor little fellow, and let us change places
with thee if thou wilt; here, take the pen and finish this article, and
sign what name you please to it; so that we may but change our dress for
yours, and sit shivering in the sun, and con over our little task, and
feed poor, and lie hard, and be contented and happy, and think what a
fine thing it is to be an author, and dream of immortality, and sleep
o’nights!
There is something affecting and monastic in the sight of this little
nursery of learning, simple and retired as it stands, just on the verge
of the metropolis, and in the midst of modern improvements. There is a
chapel, containing a copy of _Raphael’s Transfiguration_, by Julio
Romano: but the great attraction to curiosity at present is the
Collection of pictures left to the College by the late Sir Francis
Bourgeois, who is buried in a mausoleum close by. He once (it is said)
spent an agreeable day here in company with the Masters of the College
and some other friends; and he determined, in consequence, upon this
singular mode of testifying his gratitude and his respect. Perhaps,
also, some such idle thoughts as we have here recorded might have
mingled with this resolution. The contemplation and the approach of
death might have been softened to his mind by being associated with the
hopes of childhood; and he might wish that his remains should repose, in
monumental state, amidst ‘the innocence and simplicity of poor _Charity
Boys_!’ Might it not have been so?
The pictures are 356 in number, and are hung on the walls of a large
gallery, built for the purpose, and divided into five compartments. They
certainly looked better in their old places, at the house of Mr.
Desenfans (the original collector), where they were distributed into a
number of small rooms, and seen separately and close to the eye. They
are mostly cabinet-pictures; and not only does the height, at which many
of them are necessarily hung to cover a large space, lessen the effect,
but the number distracts and deadens the attention. Besides, the
skylights are so contrived as to ‘shed a dim,’ though not a ‘religious
light’ upon them. At our entrance, we were first struck by our old
friends the Cuyps; and just beyond, caught a glimpse of that fine female
head by Carlo Maratti, giving us a welcome with cordial glances. May we
not exclaim—
‘What a delicious breath _painting_ sends forth!
The violet-bed’s not sweeter.’
A fine gallery of pictures is a sort of illustration of Berkeley’s
Theory of Matter and Spirit. It is like a palace of thought—another
universe, built of air, of shadows, of colours. Every thing seems
‘palpable to feeling as to sight.’ Substances turn to shadows by the
painter’s arch-chemic touch; shadows harden into substances. ‘The eye is
made the fool of the other senses, or else worth all the rest.’ The
material is in some sense embodied in the immaterial, or, at least, we
see all things in a sort of intellectual mirror. The world of art is an
enchanting deception. We discover distance in a glazed surface; a
province is contained in a foot of canvass; a thin evanescent tint gives
the form and pressure of rocks and trees; an inert shape has life and
motion in it. Time stands still, and the dead re-appear, by means of
this ‘so potent art!’ Look at the Cuyp next the door (No. 3). It is
woven of etherial hues. A soft mist is on it, a veil of subtle air. The
tender green of the vallies beyond the gleaming lake, the purple light
of the hills, have an effect like the down on an unripe nectarine. You
may lay your finger on the canvass; but miles of dewy vapour and
sunshine are between you and the objects you survey. It is almost
needless to point out that the cattle and figures in the fore-ground,
like dark, transparent spots, give an immense relief to the perspective.
This is, we think, the finest Cuyp, perhaps, in the world. The landscape
opposite to it (in the same room) by Albert Cuyp, has a richer colouring
and a stronger contrast of light and shade, but it has not that tender
bloom of a spring morning (so delicate, yet so powerful in its effect)
which the other possesses. _Two Horses_, by Cuyp (No. 74), is another
admirable specimen of this excellent painter. It is hard to say, which
is most true to nature—the sleek, well-fed look of the bay horse, or the
bone and spirit of the dappled iron-grey one, or the face of the man who
is busy fastening a girth. Nature is scarcely more faithful to itself,
than this delightfully _unmannered_, unaffected picture is to it. In the
same room there are several good Tenierses, and a small _Head of an old
Man_, by Rembrandt, which is as smoothly finished as a miniature. No.
10, _Interior of an Ale-house_, by Adrian Brouwer, almost gives one a
sick head-ache; particularly, the face and figure of the man leaning
against the door, overcome with ‘potations pottle deep.’ Brouwer united
the depth and richness of Ostade to the spirit and felicity of Teniers.
No. 12, _Sleeping Nymph and Satyr_, and 59, _Nymph and Satyr_, by
Polemberg, are not pictures to our taste. Why should any one make it a
rule never to paint any thing but this one subject? Was it to please
himself or others? The one shows bad taste, the other wrong judgment.
The grossness of the selection is hardly more offensive than the
finicalness of the execution. No. 49, a _Mater Dolorosa_, by Carlo
Dolce, is a very good specimen of this master; but the expression has
too great a mixture of piety and pauperism in it. It is not altogether
spiritual. No. 51, _A School with Girls at work_, by Crespi, is a most
rubbishly performance, and has the look of a modern picture. It was, no
doubt, painted in the fashion of the time, and is now old-fashioned.
Every thing has this modern, or rather uncouth and obsolete look, which,
besides the temporary and local circumstances, has not the free look of
nature. Dress a figure in what costume you please (however fantastic,
however barbarous), but add the expression which is common to all faces,
the properties that are common to all drapery in its elementary
principles, and the picture will belong to all times and places. It is
not the addition of individual circumstances, but the omission of
general truth, that makes the little, the deformed, and the short-lived
in art. No. 183, _Religion in the Desart_, a sketch by Sir Francis
Bourgeois, is a proof of this remark. There are no details, nor is there
any appearance of permanence or sta[bility about it. It] seems to have
been painted yesterday, and to labour under premature decay. It has a
look of being half done, and you have no wish to see it finished. No.
53, _Interior of a Cathedral_, by Sanadram, is curious and fine. From
one end of the perspective to the other—and back again—would make a
morning’s walk.
In the SECOND ROOM, No. 90, a _Sea Storm_, by Backhuysen, and No. 93, _A
Calm_, by W. Vandervelde, are equally excellent, the one for its gloomy
turbulence, and the other for its glassy smoothness. 92, _Landscape with
Cattle and Figures_, is by Both, who is, we confess, no great favourite
of ours. We do not like his straggling branches of trees without masses
of foliage, continually running up into the sky, merely to let in the
landscape beyond. No. 96, _Blowing Hot and Cold_, by Jordaens, is as
fine a picture as need be painted. It is full of character, of life, and
pleasing colour. It is rich and not gross. 98, _Portrait of a Lady_,
said in the printed Catalogue to be by Andrea Sacchi, is surely by Carlo
Maratti, to whom it used to be given. It has great beauty, great
elegance, great expression, and great brilliancy of execution; but every
thing in it belongs to a more polished style of art than Andrea Sacchi.
Be this as it may, it is one of the most perfect pictures in the
collection. Of the portraits of known individuals in this room, we wish
to say but little, for we can say nothing good. That of _Mr. Kemble_, by
Beechey, is perhaps the most direct and manly. In this room is Rubens’s
_Sampson and Delilah_, a coarse daub—at least, it looks so between two
pictures by Vandyke, _Charity_, and a _Madonna and Infant Christ_. That
painter probably never produced any thing more complete than these two
compositions. They have the softness of air, the solidity of marble: the
pencil appears to float and glide over the features of the face, the
folds of the drapery, with easy volubility, but to mark every thing with
a precision, a force, a grace indescribable. Truth seems to hold the
pencil, and elegance to guide it. The attitudes are exquisite, and the
expression all but divine. It is not like Raphael’s, it is true—but
whose else was? Vandyke was born in Holland, and lived most of his time
in England!—There are several capital pictures of horses, &c. by
Wouvermans, in the same room, particularly the one with a hay-cart
loading on the top of a rising ground. The composition is as striking
and pleasing as the execution is delicate. There is immense knowledge
and character in Wouvermans’ horses—an ear, an eye turned round, a
cropped tail, give you their history and thoughts—but from the want of a
little arrangement, his figures look too often like spots on a dark
ground. When they are properly relieved and disentangled from the rest
of the composition, there is an appearance of great life and bustle in
his pictures. His horses, however, have too much of the _manège_ in
them—he seldom gets beyond the camp or the riding school.—This room is
rich in master-pieces. Here is the _Jacob’s Dream_, by Rembrandt, with
that sleeping figure, thrown like a bundle of clothes in one corner of
the picture, by the side of some stunted bushes, and with those winged
shapes, not human, nor angelical, but bird-like, dream-like, treading on
clouds, ascending, descending through the realms of endless light, that
loses itself in infinite space! No one else could ever grapple with this
subject, or stamp it on the willing canvass in its gorgeous obscurity
but Rembrandt! Here also is the _St. Barbara_, of Rubens, fleeing from
her persecutors; a noble design, as if she were scaling the steps of
some high overhanging turret, moving majestically on, with Fear before
her, Death behind her, and Martyrdom crowning her:—and here is an
eloquent landscape by the same master-hand, the subject of which is, a
shepherd piping his flock homewards through a narrow defile, with a
graceful group of autumnal trees waving on the edge of the declivity
above, and the rosy evening light streaming through the clouds on the
green moist landscape in the still lengthening distance. Here (to pass
from one kind of excellence to another with kindly interchange) is a
clear sparkling _Waterfall_, by Ruysdael, and Hobbima’s _Water-Mill_,
with the wheels in motion, and the ducks paddling in the restless
stream. Is not this a sad anti-climax from Jacob’s Dream to a picture of
a Water-Mill? We do not know; and we should care as little, could we but
paint either of the pictures.
‘Entire affection scorneth nicer hands.’
If a picture is admirable in its kind, we do not give ourselves much
trouble about the subject. Could we paint as well as Hobbima, we should
not envy Rembrandt: nay, even as it is, while we can relish both, we
envy neither!
The CENTRE ROOM commences with a _Girl at a Window_, by Rembrandt. The
picture is known by the print of it, and is one of the most remarkable
and pleasing in the Collection. For clearness, for breadth, for a
lively, ruddy look of healthy nature, it cannot be surpassed. The
execution of the drapery is masterly. There is a story told of its being
his servant-maid looking out of a window, but it is evidently the
portrait of a mere child.—_A Farrier shoeing an Ass_, by Berchem, is in
his usual manner. There is truth of character and delicate finishing;
but the fault of all Berchem’s pictures is, that he continues to finish
after he has done looking at nature, and his last touches are different
from hers. Hence comes that resemblance to _tea-board_ painting, which
even his best works are chargeable with. We find here one or two small
Claudes of no great value; and two very clever specimens of the
court-painter, Watteau, the Gainsborough of France. They are marked as
Nos. 184 and 194, _Fête Champêtre_, and _Le Bal Champêtre_. There is
something exceedingly light, agreeable, and characteristic in this
artist’s productions. He might almost be said to breathe his figures and
his flowers on the canvas—so fragile is their texture, so evanescent is
his touch. He unites the court and the country at a sort of salient
point—you may fancy yourself with Count Grammont and the beauties of
Charles II. in their gay retreat at Tunbridge Wells. His trees have a
drawing-room air with them, an appearance of gentility and etiquette,
and nod gracefully over-head; while the figures below, thin as air, and
_vegetably_ clad, in the midst of all their affectation and grimace,
seem to have just sprung out of the ground, or to be the fairy
inhabitants of the scene in masquerade. They are the Oreads and Dryads
of the Luxembourg! Quaint association, happily effected by the pencil of
Watteau! In the _Bal Champêtre_ we see Louis XIV. himself dancing,
looking so like an old beau, his face flushed and puckered up with gay
anxiety; but then the satin of his slashed doublet is made of the
softest leaves of the water-lily; Zephyr plays wanton with the curls of
his wig! We have nobody who could produce a companion to this picture
now: nor do we very devoutly wish it. The Louis the Fourteenths are
extinct, and we suspect their revival would hardly be compensated even
by the re-appearance of a Watteau.—No. 187, _the Death of Cardinal
Beaufort_, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is a very indifferent and rather
unpleasant sketch of a very fine picture. One of the most delightful
things in this delightful collection is _the Portrait (195) of the
Prince of the Austurias_, by Velasquez. The easy lightness of the
childish Prince contrasts delightfully with the unwieldy figure of the
horse, which has evidently been brought all the way from the Low
Countries for the amusement of his rider. Velasquez was (with only two
exceptions, Titian and Vandyke) as fine a portrait-painter as ever
lived! In the centre room also is the _Meeting of Jacob and Rachel_, by
Murillo—a sweet picture with a fresh green landscape, and the heart of
Love in the midst of it.—There are several heads by Holbein scattered up
and down the different compartments. We need hardly observe that they
all have character in the extreme, so that we may be said to be
acquainted with the people they represent; but then they give nothing
but character, and only one part of that, _viz._ the dry, the literal,
the concrete, and fixed. They want the addition of passion and beauty;
but they are the finest _caput mortuums_ of expression that ever were
made. Hans Holbein had none of the volatile essence of genius in his
composition. If portrait-painting is the prose of the art, his pictures
are the prose of portrait-painting. Yet he is ‘a reverend name’ in art,
and one of the benefactors of the human mind. He has left faces behind
him that we would give the world to have seen, and there they
are—stamped on his canvass for ever! Who, in reading over the names of
certain individuals, does not feel a yearning in his breast to know
their features and their lineaments? We look through a small frame, and
lo! at the distance of three centuries, we have before us the figures of
Anne Boleyn, of the virtuous Cranmer, the bigoted Queen Mary, the noble
Surrey—as if we had seen them in their life-time, not perhaps in their
best moods or happiest attitudes, but as they sometimes appeared, no
doubt. We know at least what sort of looking people they were: our minds
are made easy on that score; the ‘body and limbs’ are there, and we may
‘add what flourishes’ of grace or ornament we please. Holbein’s heads
are to the finest portraits what state-papers are to history.
The first picture in the FOURTH ROOM is the _Prophet Samuel_, by Sir
Joshua. It is not the Prophet Samuel, but a very charming picture of a
little child saying its prayers. The second is, _The Education of
Bacchus_, by Nicholas Poussin. This picture makes one thirsty to look at
it—the colouring even is dry and adust. It is true _history_ in the
technical phrase, that is to say, true _poetry_ in the vulgate. The
figure of the infant Bacchus seems as if he would drink up a vintage—he
drinks with his mouth, his hands, his belly, and his whole body.
Gargantua was nothing to him. In the _Education of Jupiter_, in like
manner, we are thrown back into the infancy of mythologic lore. The
little Jupiter, suckled by a she-goat, is beautifully conceived and
expressed; and the dignity and ascendancy given to these animals in the
picture is wonderfully happy. They have a very imposing air of gravity
indeed, and seem to be by prescription ‘grand caterers and wet-nurses of
the state’ of Heaven! _Apollo giving a Poet a Cup of Water to drink_ is
elegant and classical; and _The Flight into Egypt_ instantly takes the
tone of Scripture-history. This is strange, but so it is. All things are
possible to a high imagination. All things, about which we have a
feeling, may be expressed by true genius. A dark landscape (by the same
hand) in a corner of the room is a proof of this. There are trees in the
fore-ground, with a paved road and buildings in the distance. The Genius
of antiquity might wander here, and feel itself at home.—The large
leaves are wet and heavy with dew, and the eye dwells ‘under the shade
of melancholy boughs.’ In the old collection (in Mr. Desenfans’ time)
the Poussins occupied a separated room by themselves, and it was (we
confess) a very favourite room with us.—No. 226, is a _Landscape_, by
Salvator Rosa. It is one of his very best—rough, grotesque, wild—Pan has
struck it with his hoof—the trees, the rocks, the fore-ground, are of a
piece, and the figures are subordinate to the landscape. The same dull
sky lowers upon the scene, and the bleak air chills the crisp surface of
the water. It is a consolation to us to meet with a fine Salvator. His
is one of the great names in art, and it is among our sources of regret
that we cannot always admire his works as we would do, from our respect
to his reputation and our love of the man. Poor Salvator! he was unhappy
in his life-time; and it vexes us to think that we cannot make him
amends by fancying him so great a painter as some others, whose fame was
not their only inheritance!—227, _Venus and Cupid_, is a delightful copy
after Correggio. We have no such regrets or qualms of conscience with
respect to him. ‘He has had his reward.’ The weight of his renown
balances the weight of barbarous coin that sunk him to the earth. Could
he live now, and know what others think of him, his misfortunes would
seem as dross compared with his lasting glory, and his heart would melt
within him at the thought, with a sweetness that only his own pencil
could express. 233, _The Virgin, Infant Christ, and St. John_, by Andrea
del Sarto, is exceedingly good.—290, Another _Holy Family_, by the same,
is an admirable picture, and only inferior to Raphael. It has delicacy,
force, thought, and feeling. ‘What lacks it then,’ to be equal to
Raphael? We hardly know, unless it be a certain firmness and freedom,
and glowing animation. The execution is more timid and laboured. It
looks like a picture (an exquisite one, indeed), but Raphael’s look like
the divine reality itself!—No. 234, _Cocles defending the Bridge_, is by
Le Brun. We do not like this picture, nor 271, _The Massacre of the
Innocents_, by the same artist. One reason is that they are French, and
another that they are not good. They have great merit, it is true, but
their merits are only splendid sins. They are mechanical, mannered,
colourless, and unfeeling.—No. 237, is Murillo’s _Spanish Girl with
Flowers_. The sun tinted the young gipsey’s complexion, and not the
painter.—No. 240, is _The Casatella and Villa of Mæcenas, near Tivoli_,
by Wilson, with his own portrait in the fore-ground. It is an imperfect
sketch; but there is a curious anecdote relating to it, that he was so
delighted with the waterfall itself, that he cried out, while painting
it: ‘Well done, water, by G—d!’—No. 243, _Saint Cecilia_, by Guercino,
is a very pleasing picture, in his least gaudy manner.—No. 251, _Venus
and Adonis_, by Titian. We see so many of these Venuses and Adonises,
that we should like to know which is the true one. This is one of the
best we have seen. We have two Francesco Molas in this room, the _Rape
of Proserpine_, and a _Landscape with a Holy Family_. This artist dipped
his pencil so thoroughly in Titian’s palette, that his works cannot fail
to have that rich, mellow look, which is always delightful.—No. 303,
_Portrait of Philip the Fourth of Spain_, by Velasquez, is purity and
truth itself. We used to like the _Sleeping Nymph_, by Titian, when we
saw it formerly in the little entrance-room at Desenfans’, but we cannot
say much in its praise here.
The FIFTH ROOM is the smallest, but the most precious in its
contents.—No. 322, _Spanish Beggar Boys_, by Murillo, is the triumph of
this Collection, and almost of painting. In the imitation of common
life, nothing ever went beyond it, or as far as we can judge, came up to
it. A Dutch picture is mechanical, and mere _still-life_ to it. But this
is life itself. The boy at play on the ground is miraculous. It is done
with a few dragging strokes of the pencil, and with a little tinge of
colour; but the mouth, the nose, the eyes, the chin, are as brimful as
they can hold of expression, of arch roguery, of animal spirits, of
vigorous, elastic health. The vivid, glowing, cheerful look is such as
could only be found beneath a southern sun. The fens and dykes of
Holland (with all our respect for them) could never produce such an
epitome of the vital principle. The other boy, standing up with the
pitcher in his hand, and a crust of bread in his mouth, is scarcely less
excellent. His sulky, phlegmatic indifference speaks for itself. The
companion to this picture, 324, is also very fine. Compared with these
imitations of nature, as faultless as they are spirited, Murillo’s
Virgins and Angels however good in themselves, look vapid, and even
vulgar. A _Child Sleeping_, by the same painter, is a beautiful and
masterly study.—No. 329, a _Musical Party_, by Giorgione, is well worthy
of the notice of the connoisseur. No. 331, _St. John Preaching in the
Wilderness_, by Guido, is an extraordinary picture, and very unlike this
painter’s usual manner. The colour is as if the flesh had been stained
all over with brick-dust. There is, however, a wildness about it which
accords well with the subject, and the figure of St. John is full of
grace and gusto.—No. 344, _The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, by the same,
is much finer, both as to execution and expression. The face is imbued
with deep passion.—No. 345, _Portrait of a Man_, by L. da Vinci, is
truly simple and grand, and at once carries you back to that age.—_Boors
Merry Making_, by Ostade, is fine; but has no business where it is. Yet
it takes up very little room.—No. 347, _Portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in the
character of the Tragic Muse_, by Sir Joshua, appears to us to resemble
neither Mrs. Siddons, nor the Tragic Muse. It is in a bastard style of
art. Sir Joshua had an importunate theory of improving upon nature. He
might improve upon indifferent nature, but when he had got the finest,
he thought to improve upon that too, and only spoiled it.—No. 349, _The
Virgin and Child_, by Correggio, can only be a copy.—No. 332, _The
Judgment of Paris_, by Vanderwerf, is a picture, and by a master, that
we hate. He always chooses for his subjects naked figures of women, and
tantalises us by making them of coloured ivory. They are like hard-ware
toys.—No. 354, _a Cardinal Blessing a Priest_, by P. Veronese, is
dignified and picturesque in the highest degree.—No. 355, _The Adoration
of the Shepherds_, by Annibal Caracci, is an elaborate, but not very
successful performance.—No. 356, _Christ bearing his Cross_, by Morales,
concludes the list, and is worthy to conclude it.
THE MARQUIS OF STAFFORD’S GALLERY
Our intercourse with the dead is better than our intercourse with the
living. There are only three pleasures in life, pure and lasting, and
all derived from inanimate things—books, pictures, and the face of
nature. What is the world but a heap of ruined friendships, but the
grave of love? All other pleasures are as false and hollow, vanishing
from our embrace like smoke, or like a feverish dream. Scarcely can we
recollect that they were, or recall without an effort the anxious and
momentary interest we took in them.—But thou, oh! divine _Bath of
Diana_, with deep azure eyes, with roseate hues, spread by the hand of
Titian, art still there upon the wall, another, yet the same that thou
wert five-and-twenty years ago, nor wantest
——‘Forked mountain or blue promontory
With Trees upon’t that nod unto the world,
And mock our eyes with air!’
And lo! over the clear lone brow of Tuderley and Norman Court, knit into
the web and fibres of our heart, the sighing grove waves in the autumnal
air, deserted by Love, by Hope, but forever haunted by Memory! And there
that fine passage stands in Antony and Cleopatra as we read it long ago
with exalting eyes in Paris, after puzzling over a tragedy of Racine’s,
and cried aloud: ‘Our Shakspeare was also a poet!’ These feelings are
dear to us at the time; and they come back unimpaired, heightened,
mellowed, whenever we choose to go back to them. We turn over the leaf
and ‘volume of the brain,’ and there see them face to face.—Marina in
Pericles complains that
‘Life is as a storm hurrying her from her friends!’
Not so from the friends above-mentioned. If we bring but an eye, an
understanding, and a heart to them, we find them always with us, always
the same. The change, if there is one, is in us, not in them. Oh! thou
then, whoever thou art, that dost seek happiness in thyself, independent
on others, not subject to caprice, not mocked by insult, not snatched
away by ruthless hands, over which Time has no power, and that Death
alone cancels, seek it (if thou art wise) in books, in pictures, and the
face of nature, for these alone we may count upon as friends for life!
While we are true to ourselves, they will not be faithless to us. While
we remember any thing, we cannot forget them. As long as we have a wish
for pleasure, we may find it here; for it depends only on our love for
them, and not on theirs for us. The enjoyment is purely _ideal_, and is
refined, unembittered, unfading, for that reason.
A complaint has been made of the short-lived duration of works of art,
and particularly of pictures; and poets more especially are apt to
lament and to indulge in an elegiac strain over the fragile beauties of
the sister-art. The complaint is inconsiderate, if not invidious. _They
will last our time._ Nay, they have lasted centuries before us, and will
last centuries after us; and even when they are no more, will leave a
shadow and a cloud of glory behind them, through all time. Lord Bacon
exclaims triumphantly, ‘Have not the poems of Homer lasted
five-and-twenty hundred years, and not a syllable of them is lost?’ But
it might be asked in return, ‘Have not many of the Greek statues now
lasted almost as long, without losing a particle of their splendour or
their meaning, while the Iliad (except to a very few) has become almost
a dead letter?’ Has not the Venus of Medicis had almost as many
partisans and admirers as the Helen of the old blind bard? Besides, what
has Phidias gained in reputation even by the discovery of the Elgin
Marbles? Or is not Michael Angelo’s the greatest name in modern art,
whose works we only know from description and by report? Surely, there
is something in a name, in wide-spread reputation, in endless renown, to
satisfy the ambition of the mind of man. Who in his works would vie
immortality with nature? An epitaph, an everlasting monument in the dim
remembrance of ages, is enough below the skies. Moreover, the sense of
final inevitable decay _humanises_, and gives an affecting character to
the triumphs of exalted art. Imperishable works executed by perishable
hands are a sort of insult to our nature, and almost a contradiction in
terms. They are ungrateful children, and mock the makers. Neither is the
noble idea of antiquity legibly made out without the marks of the
progress and lapse of time. That which is as good now as ever it was,
seems a thing of yesterday. Nothing is old to the imagination that does
not appear to grow old. Ruins are grander and more venerable than any
modern structure can be, or than the oldest could be if kept in the most
entire preservation. They convey the perspective of time. So the Elgin
Marbles are more impressive from their mouldering, imperfect state. They
transport us to the Parthenon, and old Greece. The Theseus is of the age
of Theseus: while the Apollo Belvidere is a modern fine gentleman; and
we think of this last figure only as an ornament to the room where it
happens to be placed.—We conceive that those are persons of narrow minds
who cannot relish an author’s style that smacks of time, that has a
crust of antiquity over it, like that which gathers upon old wine. These
sprinklings of _archaisms_ and obsolete turns of expression (so
abhorrent to the fashionable reader) are intellectual links that connect
the generations together, and enlarge our knowledge of language and of
nature. Of the two, we prefer _black-letter_ to hot-pressed paper. Does
not every language change and wear out? Do not the most popular writers
become quaint and old-fashioned every fifty or every hundred years? Is
there not a constant conflict of taste and opinion between those who
adhere to the established and triter modes of expression, and those who
affect glossy innovations, in advance of the age? It is pride enough for
the best authors _to have been read_. This applies to their own country;
and to all others, they are ‘a book sealed.’ But Rubens is as good in
Holland as he is in Flanders, where he was born, in Italy or in Spain,
in England, or in Scotland—no, there alone he is _not_ understood. The
Scotch understand nothing but what is Scotch. What has the dry, husky,
economic eye of Scotland to do with the florid hues and luxuriant
extravagance of Rubens? Nothing. They like Wilkie’s _pauper_ style
better. It may be said that translations remedy the want of universality
of language: but prints give (at least) as good an idea of pictures as
translations do of poems, or of any productions of the press that employ
the colouring of style and imagination. Gil Blas is translateable;
Racine and Rousseau are not. The mere English student knows more of the
character and spirit of Raphael’s pictures in the Vatican, than he does
of Ariosto or Tasso from Hoole’s Version. There is, however, one
exception to the catholic language of painting, which is in French
pictures. They are national fixtures, and ought never to be removed from
the soil in which they grow. They will not answer any where else, nor
are they worth Custom-House Duties. Flemish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian,
are all good and intelligible in their several ways—we know what they
mean—they require no interpreter: but the French painters see nature
with organs and with minds peculiarly their own. One must be born in
France to understand their painting, or their poetry. Their productions
in art are either literal, or extravagant—dry, frigid _fac-similes_, in
which they seem to take up nature by pin-points, or else vapid distorted
caricatures, out of all rule and compass. They are, in fact, at home
only in the light and elegant; and whenever they attempt to add force or
solidity (as they must do in the severer productions of the pencil) they
are compelled to substitute an excess of minute industry for a
comprehension of the whole, or make a desperate mechanical effort at
extreme expression, instead of giving the true, natural, and powerful
workings of passion. Their representations of nature are meagre
skeletons, that bear the same relation to the originals that botanical
specimens, enclosed in a portfolio, flat, dry, hard, and pithless, do to
flourishing plants and shrubs. Their historical figures are painful
outlines, or graduated elevations of the common statues, spiritless,
colourless, motionless, which have the form, but none of the power of
the _antique_. What an abortive attempt is the _Coronation of Napoleon_,
by the celebrated David, lately exhibited in this country! It looks like
a finished sign-post painting—a sea of frozen outlines.—Could the artist
make nothing of ‘the foremost man in all this world,’ but a stiff,
upright figure? The figure and attitude of the Empress are, however,
pretty and graceful; and we recollect one face in profile, of an
ecclesiastic, to the right, with a sanguine look of health in the
complexion, and a large benevolence of soul. It is not Monsieur
Talleyrand, whom the late Lord Castlereagh characterised as a worthy man
and his friend. His Lordship was not a physiognomist! The whole of the
shadowed part of the picture seems to be enveloped in a shower of blue
powder.—But to make amends for all that there is or that there is not in
the work, David has introduced his wife and his two daughters; and in
the Catalogue has given us the places of abode, and the names of the
husbands of the latter. This is a little out of place: yet these are the
people who laugh at our blunders. We do not mean to extend the above
sweeping censure to Claude, or Poussin: of course they are excepted: but
even in them the national character lurked amidst unrivalled excellence.
If Claude has a fault, it is that he is finical; and Poussin’s figures
might be said by a satirist to be antique puppets. To proceed to our
task.—
The first picture that struck us on entering the Marquis of Stafford’s
Gallery (a little bewildered as we were with old recollections, and
present objects) was the _Meeting of Christ and St. John_, one of
Raphael’s master-pieces. The eager ‘child-worship’ of the young St.
John, the modest retirement and dignified sweetness of the Christ, and
the graceful, matron-like air of the Virgin bending over them, full and
noble, yet feminine and elegant, cannot be surpassed. No words can
describe them to those who have not seen the picture:—the attempt is
still vainer to those who have. There is, however, a very fine engraving
of this picture, which may be had for a trifling sum.—No glory is around
the head of the Mother, nor is it needed: but the soul of the painter
sheds its influence over it like a dove, and the spirit of love,
sanctity, beauty, breathes from the divine group. There are four
Raphaels (Holy Families) in this collection, two others by the side of
this in his early more precise and affected manner, somewhat faded, and
a small one of the _Virgin, Sleeping Jesus, and St. John_, in his finest
manner. There is, or there was, a duplicate of this picture (of which
the engraving is also common) in the Louvre, which was certainly
superior to the one at the Marquis of Stafford’s. The colouring of the
drapery in that too was cold, and the face of the Virgin thin and poor;
but never was infancy laid asleep more calmly, more sweetly, more
soundly, than in the figure of Our Saviour—the little pouting mouth
seemed to drink balmy, innocent sleep—and the rude expression of wonder
and delight in the more robust, sun-burnt, fur-clad figure of St. John
was as spirited in itself as it was striking, when contrasted with the
meeker beauties of the figure opposed to it.—From these we turn to the
Four Ages, by Titian, or Giorgione, as some say. Strange that there
should have lived two men in the same age, on the same spot of earth,
with respect to whom it should bear a question—which of them painted
such a picture! Barry, we remember, and Collins, the miniature-painter,
thought it a Giorgione, and they were considered two of the best judges
_going_, at the time this picture was exhibited, among others, in the
Orleans Gallery. We cannot pretend to decide on such nice matters _ex
cathedra_; but no painter need be ashamed to own it. The gradations of
human life are marked with characteristic felicity, and the landscape,
which is thrown in, adds a pastoral charm and _naïveté_ to the whole. To
live or to die in such a chosen, still retreat must be happy!—Certainly,
this composition suggests a beautiful moral lesson; and as to the
painting of the group of children in the corner, we suppose, for
careless freedom of pencil, and a certain milky softness of the flesh,
it can scarcely be paralleled. Over the three Raphaels is a _Danae_, by
Annibal Caracci, which we used to adore where it was hung on high in the
Orleans Gallery. The face is fine, upturned, expectant; and the figure
no less fine, desirable, ample, worthy of a God.—The golden shower is
just seen descending; the landscape at a distance has (so fancy might
interpret) a cold, shuddering aspect. There is another very fine picture
of the same hand close by, _St. Gregory with Angels_. It is difficult to
know which to admire most, the resigned and yet earnest expression of
the Saint, or the elegant forms, the graceful attitudes, and bland,
cordial, benignant faces of the attendant angels. The artist in these
last has evidently had an eye to Correggio, both in the waving outline,
and in the charm of the expression; and he has succeeded admirably, but
not entirely. Something of the extreme unction of Correggio is wanting.
The drawing of Annibal’s Angels is, perhaps, too firm, too sinewy, too
masculine. In Correggio, the Angel’s spirit seemed to be united to a
human body, to imbue, mould, penetrate every part with its sweetness and
softness: in Caracci, you would say that a heavenly spirit inhabited,
looked out of, moved a goodly human frame,
‘And o’er-informed the tenement of clay.’
The composition of this picture is rather forced (it was one of those
_made to order_ for the monks) and the colour is somewhat metallic; but
it has, notwithstanding, on the whole, a striking and tolerably
harmonious effect.—There is still another picture by Caracci (also an
old favourite with us, for it was in the Orleans set) _Diana and Nymphs
bathing_, with the story of Calisto. It is one of his very best, with
something of the drawing of the antique, and the landscape-colouring of
Titian. The figures are all heroic, handsome, such as might belong to
huntresses, or Goddesses: and the coolness and seclusion of the scene,
under grey over-hanging cliffs, and brown overshadowing trees, with all
the richness and truth of nature, have the effect of an enchanting
reality.—The story and figures are more classical and better managed
than those of the _Diana and Calisto_ by Titian; but there is a charm in
that picture and the fellow to it, the _Diana and Actæon_, (there is no
other fellow to it in the world!) which no words can convey. It is the
charm thrown over each by the greatest genius for colouring that the
world ever saw. It is difficult, nay, impossible to say which is the
finest in this respect: but either one or the other (whichever we turn
to, and we can never be satisfied with looking at either—so rich a scene
do they unfold, so serene a harmony do they infuse into the soul) is
like a divine piece of music, or rises ‘like an exhalation of rich
distilled perfumes.’ In the figures, in the landscape, in the water, in
the sky, there are tones, colours, scattered with a profuse and unerring
hand, gorgeous, but most true, dazzling with their force, but blended,
softened, woven together into a woof like that of Iris—tints of flesh
colour, as if you saw the blood circling beneath the pearly skin; clouds
empurpled with setting suns; hills steeped in azure skies; trees turning
to a mellow brown; the cold grey rocks, and the water so translucent,
that you see the shadows and the snowy feet of the naked nymphs in it.
With all this prodigality of genius, there is the greatest severity and
discipline of art. The figures seem grouped for the effect of colour—the
most striking contrasts are struck out, and then a third object, a piece
of drapery, an uplifted arm, a bow and arrows, a straggling weed, is
introduced to make an intermediate tint, or carry on the harmony. Every
colour is melted, _impasted_ into every other, with fine keeping and
bold diversity. Look at that indignant, queen-like figure of Diana (more
perhaps like an offended mortal princess, than an immortal Goddess,
though the immortals could frown and give themselves strange airs), and
see the snowy, ermine-like skin; the pale clear shadows of the
delicately formed back; then the brown colour of the slender trees
behind to set off the shaded flesh; and last, the dark figure of the
Ethiopian girl behind, completing the gradation. Then the bright scarf
suspended in the air connects itself with the glowing clouds, and
deepens the solemn azure of the sky: Actæon’s bow and arrows fallen on
the ground are also red; and there is a little flower on the brink of
the Bath which catches and pleases the eye, saturated with this colour.
The yellowish grey of the earth purifies the low tone of the figures
where they are in half-shadow; and this again is enlivened by the
leaden-coloured fountain of the Bath, which is set off (or kept down in
its proper place) by the blue vestments strown near it. The figure of
Actæon is spirited and natural; it is that of a bold rough hunter in the
early ages, struck with surprise, abashed with beauty. The forms of some
of the female figures are elegant enough, particularly that of Diana in
the story of Calisto; and there is a very pretty-faced girl
mischievously dragging the culprit forward; but it is the texture of the
flesh that is throughout delicious, unrivalled, surpassingly fair. The
landscape canopies the living scene with a sort of proud, disdainful
consciousness. The trees nod to it, and the hills roll at a distance in
a sea of colour. Every where tone, not form, predominates—there is not a
distinct line in the picture—but a gusto, a rich taste of colour is left
upon the eye as if it were the palate, and the diapason of picturesque
harmony is full to overflowing. ‘Oh Titian and Nature! which of you
copied the other?’
We are ashamed of this description, now that we have made it, and
heartily wish somebody would make a better. There is another Titian here
(which was also in the Orleans Gallery),[3] _Venus rising from the sea_.
The figure and face are gracefully designed and sweetly
expressed:—whether it is the picture of the Goddess of Love, may admit
of a question; that it is the picture of a lovely woman in a lovely
attitude, admits of none. The half-shadow in which most of it is
painted, is a kind of veil through which the delicate skin shows more
transparent and aerial. There is nothing in the picture but this single
exquisitely turned figure, and if it were continued downward to a
whole-length, it would seem like a copy of a statue of the Goddess
carved in ivory or marble; but being only a half-length, it has not this
effect at all, but looks like an enchanting study, or a part of a larger
composition, selected _a l’envie_. The hair, and the arm holding it up,
are nearly the same as in the well-known picture of _Titian’s Mistress_,
and as delicious. The back-ground is beautifully painted. We said
before, that there was no object in the picture detached from the
principal figure. Nay, there is the sea, and a sea-shell, but these
might be given in sculpture.—Under the _Venus_, is a portrait by
Vandyke, of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, a most gentleman-like
performance, mild, clear, intelligent, unassuming; and on the right of
the spectator, a _Madonna_, by Guido, with the icy glow of sanctity upon
it; and to the left, the _Fable of Salmacis_, by Albano (saving the
ambiguity of the subject), exquisitely painted. Four finer specimens of
the art can scarcely be found again in so small a compass. There is in
another room a portrait, said to be by Moroni, and called TITIAN’S
SCHOOL-MASTER, from a vague tradition, that he was in the habit of
frequently visiting, in order to study and learn from it. If so, he must
have profited by his assiduity; for it looks as if he had painted it.
Not knowing any thing of Moroni, if we had been asked who had done it,
we should have replied, ‘_Either Titian or the Devil_.’[4] It is
considerably more laboured and minute than Titian; but the only
objection at all staggering is, that it has less fiery animation than is
ordinarily to be found in his pictures. Look at the portrait above it,
for instance—Clement VII. by the great Venetian; and you find the eye
looking at you again, as if it had been observing you all the time: but
the eye in _Titian’s School-master_ is _an eye to look at, not to look
with_,[5] or if it looks _at_ you, it does not look _through_ you, which
may be almost made a test of Titian’s heads. There is not the spirit,
the intelligence within, moulding the expression, and giving it
intensity of purpose and decision of character. In every other respect
but this (and perhaps a certain want of breadth) it is as good as
Titian. There is (we understand) a half-length of Clement VII. by Julio
Romano, in the Papal Palace at Rome, in which he is represented as
seated above the spectator, with the head elevated and the eye looking
down like a camel’s, with an amazing dignity of aspect. The picture (Mr.
Northcote says) is hard and ill-coloured, but, in strength of character
and conception, superior to the Titian at the Marquis of Stafford’s.
Titian, undoubtedly, put a good deal of his own character into his
portraits. He was not himself filled with the ‘milk of human kindness.’
He got his brother, who promised to rival him in his own art, and of
whom he was jealous, sent on a foreign embassy; and he so frightened
Pordenone while he was painting an altar-piece for a church, that he
worked with his palette and brushes in his hand, and a sword by his
side.
We meet with one or two admirable portraits, particularly No. 112, by
Tintoretto, which is of a fine fleshy tone, and _A Doge of Venice_, by
Palma Vecchio, stamped with an expressive look of official and assumed
dignity. There is a Bassan, No. 95, _The Circumcision_, the colours of
which are somewhat dingy with age, and sunk into the canvas; but as the
sun shone upon it while we were looking at it, it glittered all green
and gold. Bassan’s execution is as fine as possible, and his colouring
has a most striking harmonious effect.—We must not forget the
_Muleteers_, supposed to be by Correggio, in which the figure of the
Mule seems actually passing across the picture (you hear his bells); nor
the little copy of his _Marriage of St. Catherine_, by L. Caracci, which
is all over grace, delicacy, and sweetness. Any one may judge of his
progress in a taste for the refinements of art, by his liking for this
picture. Indeed, Correggio is the very essence of refinement. Among
other pictures in the Italian division of the gallery, we would point
out the Claudes (particularly Nos. 43 and 50,) which, though inferior to
Mr. Angerstein’s as compositions, preserve more of the delicacy of
execution, (or what Barry used to call ‘_the fine oleaginous touches of
Claude_‘)—two small Gaspar Poussins, in which the landscape seems to
have been just washed by a shower, and the storm blown over—the _Death
of Adonis_, by Luca Cambiasi, an Orleans picture, lovely in sorrow, and
in speechless agony, and faded like the life that is just expiring in
it—a _Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife_, by Alessandro Veronese, a very
clever, and sensible, but rigidly painted picture[6]—an Albert Durer,
the _Death of the Virgin_—a _Female head_, by Leonardo da Vinci—and _the
Woman taken in Adultery_, by Pordenone, which last the reader may admire
or not, as he pleases. We cannot close this list without referring to
the _Christ bearing his cross_, by Domenichino, a picture full of
interest and skill; and the little touching allegory of the _Infant
Christ sleeping on a cross_, by Guido.
The Dutch School contains a number of excellent specimens of the best
masters. There are two Tenierses, a _Fair_, and _Boors merry-making_,
unrivalled for a look of the open air, for lively awkward gesture, and
variety and grotesqueness of grouping and rustic character. There is a
little picture, by Le Nain, called the _Village Minstrel_, with a set of
youthful auditors, the most incorrigible little mischievous urchins we
ever saw, but with admirable execution and expression. The Metzus are
curious and fine—the Ostades admirable. Gerard Douw’s own portrait is
certainly a gem. We noticed a Ruysdael in one corner of the room (No.
221), a dark, flat, wooded country, but delectable in tone and
pencilling. Vandevelde’s Sea-pieces are capital—the water is smooth as
glass, and the boats and vessels have the buoyancy of butterflies on it.
The _Seaport_, by A. Cuyp, is miraculous for truth, brilliancy, and
clearness, almost beyond actual water. These cannot be passed over; but
there is a little picture which we beg to commend to the gentle reader,
the Vangoyen, at the end of the room, No. 156, which has that
yellow-tawny colour in the meads, and that grey chill look in the old
convent, that give one the precise feeling of a mild day towards the end
of winter, in a humid, marshy country. We many years ago copied a
Vangoyen, a view of a Canal ‘with yellow tufted banks and gliding sail,’
modestly pencilled, truly felt—and have had an affection for him ever
since. There is a small inner room with some most respectable modern
pictures. Wilkie’s _Breakfast-table_ is among them.
_The Sacraments_, by N. Poussin, occupy a separate room by themselves,
and have a grand and solemn effect; but we could hardly see them where
they are; and in general, we prefer his treatment of light and classical
subjects to those of sacred history. He wanted _weight_ for the last;
or, if that word is objected to, we will change it, and say _force_.
On the whole, the Stafford Gallery is probably the most magnificent
Collection this country can boast. The specimens of the different
schools are as numerous as they are select; and they are equally
calculated to delight the student by the degree, or to inform the
uninitiated by the variety of excellence. Yet even this Collection is
not complete. It is deficient in Rembrandts, Vandykes, and Rubenses;
except one splendid allegory and fruit-piece by the last.
THE PICTURES AT WINDSOR CASTLE
The palaces of Windsor and Hampton-court contain pictures worthy of the
feelings we attach to the names of those places. The first boasts a
number of individual pictures of great excellence and interest, and the
last the Cartoons.
Windsor Castle is remarkable in many respects. Its tall, grey, square
towers, seated on a striking eminence, overlook for many miles the
subjacent country, and, eyed in the distance, lead the mind of the
solitary traveller to romantic musing; or, approached nearer, give the
heart a quicker and stronger pulsation. Windsor, besides its
picturesque, commanding situation, and its being the only palace in the
kingdom fit for the receptacle of ‘a line of kings,’ is the scene of
many classical associations. Who can pass through Datchet, and the
neighbouring greensward paths, and not think of Falstaff, of Ann Page,
and the oak of Herne the hunter? Or if he does not, still he is affected
by them as if he did. The tall slim deer glance startled by, in some
neglected track of memory, and fairies trip it in the unconscious haunts
of the imagination! Pope’s lines on Windsor Forest also suggest
themselves to the mind in the same way, and make the air about it
delicate. Gray has consecrated the same spot by his _Ode on a Distant
Prospect of Eton College_; and the finest passage in Burke’s writings is
his comparison of the British Monarchy to ‘the proud Keep of Windsor.’
The walls and massy towers of Windsor Castle are indeed built of solid
stone, weather-beaten, time-proof; but the image answering to them in
the mind’s eye is woven of pure thought and the airy films of the
imagination—Arachne’s web not finer!
The rooms are chill and comfortless at this time of the year,[7] and
gilded ceilings look down on smoky fire-places. The view from the
windows, too, which is so rich and glowing in the summer-time, is
desolate and deformed with the rains overflowing the marshy grounds. As
to physical comfort, one seems to have no more of it in these tapestried
halls and on marble floors, than the poor bird driven before the pelting
storm, or the ploughboy seeking shelter from the drizzling sky, in his
sheep-skin jacket and clouted shoes, beneath the dripping, leafless
spray. The palace does not (more than the hovel) always defend us
against the winter’s cold. The apartments are also filled with too many
rubbishly pictures of kings and queens—there are too many of Verrio’s
paintings, and a whole roomful of West’s; but there are ten or twenty
pictures which the eye, having once seen, never loses sight of, and that
make Windsor one of the retreats and treasuries of art in this country.
These, however, are chiefly pictures which have a personal and
individual interest attached to them, as we have already hinted: there
are very few historical compositions of any value, and the subjects of
the others are so desultory that the young person who shows them, and
goes through the names of the painters and portraits very correctly,
said she very nearly went out of her mind in the three weeks she was
‘studying her part.’ It is a matter of nomenclature: we hope we shall
make as few blunders in our report as she did.
In the first room the stranger is shown into, there are two large
landscapes by Zuccarelli. They are clever, well-painted pictures; but
they are worth nothing. The fault of this artist is, that there is
nothing absolutely good or bad in his pictures. They are mere
handicraft. The whole is done with a certain mechanical ease and
indifference; but it is evident no part of the picture gave him any
pleasure, and it is impossible it should give the spectator any. His
only ambition was to execute his task so as to save his credit; and your
first impulse is, to turn away from the picture, and save your time.
In the next room, there are four Vandykes—two of them excellent. One is
the Duchess of Richmond, a whole-length, in a white satin drapery, with
a pet lamb. The expression of her face is a little sullen and
capricious. The other, the Countess of Carlisle, has a shrewd, clever,
sensible countenance; and, in a certain archness of look, and the
contour of the lower part of the face, resembles the late Mrs.
Jordan.—Between these two portraits is a copy after Rembrandt, by
Gainsborough, a fine _sombre_, mellow head, with the hat flapped over
the face.
Among the most delightful and interesting of the pictures in this
Collection, is the portrait by Vandyke, of Lady Venetia Digby. It is an
allegorical composition: but what truth, what purity, what delicacy in
the execution! You are introduced into the presence of a beautiful woman
of quality of a former age, and it would be next to impossible to
perform an unbecoming action with that portrait hanging in the room. It
has an air of nobility about it, a spirit of humanity within it. There
is a dove-like innocence and softness about the eyes; in the clear,
delicate complexion, health and sorrow contend for the mastery; the
mouth is sweetness itself, the nose highly intelligent, and the forehead
is one of ‘clear-spirited thought.’ But misfortune has touched all this
grace and beauty, and left its canker there. This is shown no less by
the air that pervades it, than by the accompanying emblems. The children
in particular are exquisitely painted, and have an evident reference to
those we lately noticed in the _Four Ages_, by Titian. This portrait,
both from the style and subject, reminds one forcibly of Mrs.
Hutchinson’s admirable Memoirs of her own Life. Both are equally
history, and the history of the female heart (depicted, in the one case,
by the pencil, in the other, by the pen) in the finest age of female
accomplishment and pious devotion. Look at this portrait, breathing the
beauty of virtue, and compare it with the ‘Beauties’ of Charles II.’s
court, by Lely. They look just like what they were—a set of
kept-mistresses, painted, tawdry, showing off their theatrical or
meretricious airs and graces, without one trace of real elegance or
refinement, or one spark of sentiment to touch the heart. Lady Grammont
is the handsomest of them; and, though the most voluptuous in her attire
and attitude, the most decent. The Duchess of Portsmouth, in her helmet
and plumes, looks quite like a heroine of romance or modern Amazon; but
for an air of easy assurance, inviting admiration, and alarmed at
nothing but being thought coy, commend us to my lady——above, in the
sky-blue drapery, thrown carelessly across her shoulders! As paintings,
these celebrated portraits cannot rank very high. They have an affected
ease, but a real hardness of manner and execution; and they have that
contortion of attitude and setness of features which we afterwards find
carried to so disgusting and insipid an excess in Kneller’s portraits.
Sir Peter Lely was, however, a better painter than Sir Godfrey
Kneller—that is the highest praise that can be accorded to him. He had
more spirit, more originality, and was the livelier coxcomb of the two!
Both these painters possessed considerable mechanical dexterity, but it
is not of a refined kind. Neither of them could be ranked among great
painters, yet they were thought by their contemporaries and themselves
superior to every one. At the distance of a hundred years we see the
thing plainly enough.
In the same room with the portrait of Lady Digby, there is one of
Killigrew and Carew, by the same masterly hand. There is spirit and
character in the profile of Carew, while the head of Killigrew is
surprising from its composure and sedateness of aspect. He was one of
the grave wits of the day, who made nonsense a profound study, and
turned trifles into philosophy, and philosophy into a jest. The pale,
sallow complexion of this head is throughout in wonderful keeping. The
beard and face seem nearly of the same colour. We often see this clear
uniform colour of the skin in Titian’s portraits. But then the dark
eyes, beard, and eye-brows, give relief and distinctness. The fair hair
and complexions, that Vandyke usually painted, with the almost total
absence of shade from his pictures, made the task more difficult; and,
indeed, the prominence and effect he produces in this respect, without
any of the usual means, are almost miraculous.
There are several of his portraits, equestrian and others, of Charles I.
in this Collection, some of them good, none of them first-rate. Those of
Henrietta (his Queen) are always delightful. The painter has made her
the most lady-like of Queens, and of women.
The family picture of the Children of Charles I. is certainly admirably
painted and managed. The large mastiff-dog is inimitably fine and true
to nature, and seems as if he was made to be pulled about by a parcel of
royal infants from generation to generation. In general, it may be
objected to Vandyke’s _dressed_ children, that they look like little old
men and women. His grown-up people had too much stiffness and formality;
and the same thing must quite overlay the playfulness of infancy. Yet
what a difference between these young princes of the House of Stuart,
and two of the princes of the reigning family with their mother, by
Ramsay, which are evident likenesses to this hour!
We have lost our reckoning as to the order of the pictures and rooms in
which they are placed, and must proceed promiscuously through the
remainder of our Catalogue.
One of the most noted pictures at Windsor is that of the _Misers_, by
Quintin Matsys. Its name is greater than its merits, like many other
pictures which have a lucky or intelligible subject, boldly executed.
The conception is good, the colouring bad; the drawing firm, and the
expression coarse and obvious. We are sorry to speak at all
disparagingly of Quintin Matsys; for the story goes that he was
originally bred a blacksmith, and turned painter to gain his master’s
daughter, who would give her hand to no one but on that condition. Happy
he who thus gained the object of his love, though posterity may differ
about his merits as an artist! Yet it is certain, that any romantic
incident of this kind, connected with a well-known work, inclines us to
regard it with a favourable instead of a critical eye, by enhancing our
pleasure in it; as the eccentric character, the wild subjects, and the
sounding name of Salvator Rosa have tended to lift him into the highest
rank of fame among painters.
In the same room with the _Misers_, by the Blacksmith of Antwerp, is a
very different picture by Titian, consisting of two figures also, _viz._
Himself and a Venetian Senator. It is one of the finest specimens of
this master. His own portrait is not much: it has spirit, but is hard,
with somewhat of a vulgar, knowing look. But the head of the Senator is
as fine as anything that ever proceeded from the hand of man. The
expression is a lambent flame, a soul of fire dimmed, not quenched by
age. The flesh _is_ flesh. If Rubens’s pencil fed upon roses, Titian’s
was _carnivorous_. The tone is betwixt a gold and silver hue. The
texture and pencilling are marrowy. The dress is a rich crimson, which
seems to have been growing deeper ever since it was painted. It is a
front view. As far as attitude or action is concerned, it is mere
_still-life_; but the look is of that kind that goes through you at a
single glance. Let any one look well at this portrait, and if he then
sees nothing in it, or in the portraits of this painter in general, let
him give up _virtù_ and criticism in despair.
This room is rich in valuable gems, which might serve as a test of a
real taste for the art, depending for their value on intrinsic
qualities, and not on imposing subjects, or mechanical arrangement or
quantity. As where ‘the still, small voice of reason’ is wanting, we
judge of actions by noisy success and popularity; so where there is no
true moral sense in art, nothing goes down but pomp, and bustle, and
pretension. The eye of taste looks to see if a work has nature’s finest
image and superscription upon it, and for no other title and passport to
fame. There is a _Young Man’s Head_, (we believe in one corner of this
room) by Holbein, in which we can read high and heroic thoughts and
resolutions, better than in any _Continence of Scipio_ we ever saw, or
than in all the _Battles of Alexander_ thrown into a lump. There is a
_Portrait of Erasmus_, by the same, and in the same or an adjoining
room, in which we see into the mind of a scholar and of an amiable man,
as through a window. There is a _Head_ by Parmegiano, lofty, triumphant,
showing the spirit of another age and clime—one by Raphael, studious and
self-involved—another, said to be by Leonardo da Vinci (but more like
Holbein) grown crabbed with age and thought—and a girl reading, by
Correggio, intent on her subject, and not forgetting herself. These are
the materials of history; and if it is not made of them, it is a
nickname or a mockery. All that does not lay open the fine net-work of
the heart and brain of man, that does not make us see deeper into the
soul, is but the apparatus and machinery of history-painting, and no
more to it than the frame is to the picture.
We noticed a little _Mater Dolorosa_ in one of the rooms, by Carlo
Dolci, which is a pale, pleasing, expressive head. There are two large
figures of his, a _Magdalen_ and another, which are in the very falsest
style of colouring and expression; and _Youth and Age_, by Denner, which
are in as perfectly bad a taste and style of execution as anything we
ever saw of this artist, who was an adept in that way.
We are afraid we have forgotten one or two meritorious pictures which we
meant to notice. There is one we just recollect, a _Portrait of a Youth_
in black, by Parmegiano. It is in a singular style, but very bold,
expressive, and natural. There is (in the same apartment of the palace)
a fine picture of the _Battle of Norlingen_, by Rubens. The size and
spirit of the horses in the fore-ground, and the obvious animation of
the riders, are finely contrasted with the airy perspective and
mechanical grouping of the armies at a distance; and so as to prevent
that confusion and want of positive relief, which usually pervade
Battle-pieces. In the same room (opposite) is Kneller’s _Chinese
converted to Christianity_—a portrait of which he was justly proud. It
is a fine oil-picture, clear, tawny, without trick or affectation, and
full of character. One of Kneller’s fine ladies or gentlemen, with their
wigs and _toupées_, would have been mortally offended to have been so
painted. The Chinese retains the same oily sly look, after his
conversion as before, and seems just as incapable of a change of
religion as a piece of _terra cotta_. On each side of this performance
are two Guidos, the _Perseus and Andromeda_, and _Venus attired by the
Graces_. We give the preference to the former. The Andromeda is a fine,
noble figure, in a striking and even daring position, with an
impassioned and highly-wrought expression of features; and the whole
scene is in harmony with the subject. The _Venus attired by the Graces_
(though full of beauties, particularly the colouring of the flesh in the
frail Goddess) is formal and disjointed in the composition; and some of
the actions are void of grace and even of decorum. We allude
particularly to the _Maid-in-waiting_, who is combing her hair, and to
the one tying on her sandals, with her arm crossing Venus’s leg at right
angles. The Cupid in the window is as light and wanton as a butterfly
flying out of it. He may be said to flutter and hover in his own
delights. There are two capital engravings of these pictures by Strange.
THE PICTURES AT HAMPTON COURT
This palace is a very magnificent one, and we think, has been
undeservedly neglected. It is Dutch-built, of handsome red brick, and
belongs to a class of houses, the taste for which appears to have been
naturalised in this country along with the happy introduction of the
Houses of Orange and Hanover. The approach to it through Bushy-Park is
delightful, inspiriting at this time of year; and the gardens about it,
with their close-clipped holly hedges and arbours of evergreen, look an
artificial summer all the year round. The statues that are interspersed
do not freeze in winter, and are cool and classical in the warmer
seasons. The _Toy-Inn_ stands opportunely at the entrance, to invite the
feet of those who are tired of a straggling walk from Brentford or Kew,
or oppressed with thought and wonder after seeing the Cartoons.
Besides these last, however, there are several fine pictures here. We
shall pass over the Knellers, the Verrios, and the different portraits
of the Royal Family, and come at once to the _Nine Muses_, by Tintoret.
Or rather, his Nine Muses are summed up in one, the back-figure in the
right-hand corner as you look at the picture, which is all grandeur,
elegance, and grace.—We should think that in the _gusto_ of form and a
noble freedom of outline, Michael Angelo could hardly have surpassed
this figure. The face too, which is half turned round, is charmingly
handsome. The back, the shoulders, the legs, are the perfection of bold
delicacy, expanded into full-blown luxuriance, and then retiring as it
were from their own proud beauty and conscious charms into soft and airy
loveliness—
‘Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.’
Is it a Muse? Or is it not a figure formed for action more than
contemplation? Perhaps this hypercritical objection may be true; and it
might without any change of character or impropriety be supposed, from
its buoyancy, its ease, and sinewy elasticity, to represent the quivered
Goddess shaping her bow for the chase. But, at any rate, it is the
figure of a Goddess, or of a woman in shape equal to a Goddess. The
colour is nearly gone, so that it has almost the tone of a black and
white chalk-drawing; and the effect of form remains pure and unrivalled.
There are several other very pleasing and ably-drawn figures in the
group, but they are eclipsed in the superior splendour of this one. So
far the composition is faulty, for its balance is destroyed; and there
are certain critics who could probably maintain that the picture would
be better, if this capital excellence in it had been deliberately left
out: the picture would, indeed, have been more according to rule, and to
the taste of those who judge, feel, and see by rule only! Among the
portraits which are curious, is one of _Baccio Bandinelli_, with his
emblems and implements of sculpture about him, said to be by Correggio.
We cannot pretend to give an opinion on this point; but it is a
studious, powerful, and elaborately painted head. We find the name of
Titian attached to two or three portraits in the Collection. There is
one very fine one of a young man in black, with a black head of hair,
the face seen in a three-quarter view, and the dark piercing eye, full
of subtle meaning, looking round at you; which is probably by Titian,
but certainly not (as it is pretended) of himself. It has not the
aquiline cast of features by which his own portraits are obviously
distinguished. We have seen a print of this picture, in which it is said
to be done for Ignatius Loyola. The portrait of a lady with green and
white purfled sleeves (like the leaves and flower of the water-lily, and
as clear!) is admirable. It was in the Pall-Mall exhibition of the Old
Masters a short time ago; and is by Sebastian del Piombo.—The care of
the painting, the natural ease of the attitude, and the steady,
sensible, _conversable_ look of the countenance, place this in a class
of pictures, which one feels a wish to have always by one’s side,
whenever there is a want of thought, or a flaw in the temper, that
requires filling up or setting to rights by some agreeable and at the
same time not over-exciting object. There are several _soi-disant_
Parmegianos; one or two good Bassans; a _Battle-Piece_ set down to Julio
Romano; a coloured drawing (in one corner of a room) of a _Nymph_ and
_Satyr_ is very fine; and some of Polemberg’s little disagreeable
pictures of the same subject, in which the Satyrs look like paltry bits
of painted wood, and the Nymphs like glazed China-ware. We have a
prejudice against Polemberg, which is a rare thing with us!
The _Cartoons_ occupy a room by themselves—there are not many such rooms
in the world. All other pictures look like oil and varnish to these—we
are stopped and attracted by the colouring, the pencilling, the
finishing, or the want of it, that is, by the instrumentalities of the
art—but here the painter seems to have flung his _mind_ upon the canvas;
his thoughts, his great ideas alone prevail; there is nothing between us
and the subject; we look through a frame, and see scripture-histories,
and are made actual spectators of miraculous events. Not to speak it
profanely, they are a sort of _revelation_ of the subjects, of which
they treat; there is an ease and freedom of manner about them, which
brings preternatural characters and situations home to us, with the
familiarity of common every-day occurrences; and while the figures fill,
raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the painter nothing.
The Cartoons are _unique_ productions in the art. They are mere
intellectual, or rather _visible abstractions_ of truth and nature.
Every where else we see the means; here we arrive at the end apparently
without any means. There is a Spirit at work in the divine creation
before us. We are unconscious of any details, of any steps taken, of any
progress made; we are aware only of comprehensive results, of whole
masses and figures. The sense of power supersedes the appearance of
effort. It is like a waking dream, vivid, but undistinguishable in
member, joint, or limb; or it is as if we had ourselves seen the persons
and things at some former period of our being, and that the drawing
certain dotted lines upon coarse paper, by some unknown spell, brought
back the entire and living images, and made them pass before us,
palpable to thought, to feeling, and to sight. Perhaps not all is owing
to genius: something of this effect may be ascribed to the simplicity of
the vehicle employed in embodying the story, and something to the
decayed and dilapidated state of the pictures themselves. They are the
more majestic for being in ruin: we are struck chiefly with the truth of
proportion, and the range of conception: all the petty, meretricious
part of the art is dead in them; the carnal is made spiritual, the
corruptible has put on incorruption, and, amidst the wreck of colour,
and the mouldering of material beauty, nothing is left but a universe of
thought, or the broad, imminent shadows of ‘calm contemplation and
majestic pains!’
The first in order is the _Death of Ananias_; and it is one of the
noblest of these noble designs. The effect is striking; and the contrast
between the steadfast, commanding attitude of the Apostles, and the
convulsed and prostrate figure of Ananias on the floor, is finely
imagined. It is much as if a group of persons on shore stood to witness
the wreck of life and hope on the rocks and quicksands beneath them. The
abruptness and severity of the transition are, however, broken and
relieved by the other human interests in the picture. The Ananias is a
masterly, a stupendous figure. The attitude, the drawing, the
expression, the ease, the force, are alike wonderful. He falls so
naturally, that it seems as if a person could fall in no other way; and
yet of all the ways in which a human figure could fall, it is probably
the most expressive of a person overwhelmed by and in the grasp of
Divine vengeance. This is in some measure, we apprehend, the secret of
Raphael’s success. Most painters, in studying an attitude, puzzle
themselves to find out what will be picturesque, and what will be fine,
and never discover it: Raphael only thought how a person would stand or
fall naturally in such or such circumstances, and the _picturesque_ and
the _fine_ followed as matters of course. Hence the unaffected force and
dignity of his style, which are only another name for truth and nature
under impressive and momentous circumstances. The distraction of the
face, the inclination of the head on one side, are as fine as possible,
and the agony is just verging to that point, in which it is relieved by
death. The expression of ghastly wonder in the features of the man on
the floor next him is also remarkable; and the mingled beauty, grief,
and horror in the female head behind can never be enough admired or
extolled. The pain, the sudden and violent contraction of the muscles,
is as intense as if a sharp instrument had been driven into the
forehead, and yet the same sweetness triumphs there as ever, the most
perfect self-command and dignity of demeanour. We could hazard a
conjecture that this is what forms the great distinction between the
natural style of Raphael and the natural style of Hogarth. Both are
equally _intense_; but the one is intense littleness, meanness,
vulgarity; the other is intense grandeur, refinement, and sublimity. In
the one we see common, or sometimes uncommon and painful, circumstances
acting with all their force on narrow minds and deformed bodies, and
bringing out distorted and violent efforts at expression; in the other
we see noble forms and lofty characters contending with adverse, or
co-operating with powerful impressions from without, and imparting their
own unaltered grace, and habitual composure to them. In Hogarth,
generally, the face is excited and torn in pieces by some paltry
interest of its own; in Raphael, on the contrary, it is expanded and
ennobled by the contemplation of some event or object highly interesting
in itself: that is to say, the passion in the one is intellectual and
abstracted; the passion in the other is petty, selfish, and confined. We
have not thought it beneath the dignity of the subject to make this
comparison between two of the most extraordinary and highly gifted
persons that the world ever saw. If Raphael had seen Hogarth’s pictures,
_he_ would not have despised them. Those only can do it (and they are
welcome!) who, wanting all that he had, can do nothing that he could
not, or that they themselves pretend to accomplish by affectation and
bombast.
_Elymas the Sorcerer_ stands next in order, and is equal in merit. There
is a Roman sternness and severity in the general look of the scene. The
figure of the Apostle, who is inflicting the punishment of blindness on
the impostor, is grand, commanding, full of ease and dignity: and the
figure of Elymas is blind all over, and is muffled up in its clothes
from head to foot. A story is told of Mr. Garrick’s objecting to the
natural effect of the action, in the hearing of the late Mr. West, who,
in vindication of the painter, requested the celebrated comedian to
close his eyes and walk across the room, when he instantly stretched out
his hands, and began to grope his way with the exact attitude and
expression of this noble study. It may be worth remarking here, that
this great painter and fine observer of human nature has represented the
magician with a hard iron visage, and strong uncouth figure, made up of
bones and muscles, as one not troubled with weak nerves, nor to be
diverted from his purpose by idle scruples, as one who repelled all
sympathy with others, who was not to be moved a jot by their censures or
prejudices against him, and who could break with ease through the cobweb
snares which he laid for the credulity of mankind, without being once
entangled in his own delusions. His outward form betrays the hard,
unimaginative, self-willed understanding of the Sorcerer.—There is a
head (a profile) coming in on one side of the picture, which we would
point out to our readers as one of the most finely relieved, and best
preserved, in this series. The face of Elymas, and some others in the
picture, have been a good deal hurt by time and ill-treatment. There is
a _snuffy_ look under the nose, as if the water colour had been washed
away in some damp lumber-room, or unsheltered out-house. The Cartoons
have felt ‘the seasons’ difference,’ being exposed to wind and rain,
tossed about from place to place, and cut down by profane hands to fit
them to one of their abodes; so that it is altogether wonderful, that
‘through their looped and tattered wretchedness,’ any traces are seen of
their original splendour and beauty. That they are greatly changed from
what they were even a hundred years ago, is evident from the heads in
the Radcliffe library at Oxford, which were cut out from one of them
that was nearly destroyed by some accident, and from the large French
engravings of single heads, done about the same time, which are as
finished and correct as possible. Even Sir James Thornhill’s copies bear
testimony to the same effect. Though without the spirit of the
originals, they have fewer blots and blotches in them, from having been
better taken care of. A skeleton is barely left of the Cartoons: but
their mighty relics, like the bones of the Mammoth, tell us what the
entire and living fabric must have been!
In the _Gate Beautiful_ there is a profusion of what is fine, and of
imposing contrasts. The twisted pillars have been found fault with; but
there they stand, and will for ever stand to answer all cavillers with
their wreathed beauty. The St. John in this Cartoon is an instance of
what we have above hinted as to the ravages of time on these pictures.
In the old French engraving (half the size of life) the features are
exceedingly well marked and beautiful, whereas they are here in a great
measure defaced; and the hair, which is at present a mere clotted mass,
is woven into graceful and waving curls,
‘Like to those hanging locks
Of young Apollo.’
Great inroads have been made on the delicate outline of the other parts,
and the surface has been generally injured. The Beggars are as fine as
ever: they do not lose by the squalid condition of their garb or
features, but remain patriarchs of poverty, and mighty in disease and
infirmity, as if they crawled and grovelled on the pavement of Heaven.
They are lifted above this world! The child carrying the doves at his
back is an exquisite example of grace, and innocence, and buoyant
motion; and the face and figure of the young woman seen directly over
him give a glad welcome to the eye in their fresh, unalloyed, and
radiant sweetness and joy. This head seems to have been spared from the
unhallowed touch of injury, like a little isle or circlet of beauty. It
was guarded, we may suppose, by its own heavenly, feminine look of
smiling loveliness. There is another very fine female head on the
opposite side of the picture, of a graver cast, looking down, and nearly
in profile. The only part of this Cartoon that we object to, or should
be for _turning out_, is the lubberly naked figure of a boy close to one
of the pillars, who seems to have no sort of business there, and is an
obvious eye-sore.
The _Miraculous Draught of Fishes_ is admirable for the clearness and
prominence of the figures, for the vigorous marking of the muscles, for
the fine expression of devout emotion in the St. Peter, and for the calm
dignity in the attitude, and divine benignity in the countenance of the
Christ. Perhaps this head expresses, more than any other that ever was
attempted, the blended meekness, benevolence, and sublimity in the
character of our Saviour. The whole figure is so still, so easy, it
almost floats in air, and seems to sustain the boat by the secret sense
of power. We shall not attempt to make a formal reply to the old
objection to the diminutive size of the boat, but we confess it appears
to us to enhance the value of the miracle. Its load swells
proportionably in comparison, and the waves conspire to bear it up. The
Storks on the shore are not the least animated or elevated part of the
picture; they exult in the display of divine power, and share in the
prodigality of the occasion.
The _Sacrifice at Lystra_ has the marks of Raphael’s hand on every part
of it. You see and almost hear what is passing. What a pleasing relief
to the confused, busy scene, are the two children piping at the altar!
How finely, how unexpectedly, but naturally, that innocent rustic head
of a girl comes in over the grave countenances and weighty, thoughtful
heads of the group of attendant priests! The animals brought to be
sacrificed are equally fine in the expression of terror, and the action
of resistance to the rude force by which they are dragged along.
A great deal has been said and written on the _St. Paul preaching at
Athens_. The features of excellence in this composition are indeed so
bold and striking as hardly to be mistaken. The abrupt figure of St.
Paul, his hands raised in that fervent appeal to Him who ‘dwelleth not
in temples made with hands,’ such as are seen in gorgeous splendour all
around, the circle of his auditors, the noble and pointed diversity of
heads, the one wrapped in thought and in its cowl, another resting on a
crutch and earnestly scanning the face of the Apostle rather than his
doctrine, the careless attention of the Epicurean philosopher, the fine
young heads of the disciples of the Porch or the Academy, the clenched
fist and eager curiosity of the man in front as if he was drinking
sounds, give this picture a superiority over all the others for popular
and intelligible effect. We do not think that it is therefore the best;
but it is the easiest to describe and to remember.
The _Giving of the Keys_ is the last of them: it is at present at
Somerset-House. There is no set purpose here, no studied contrast: it is
an aggregation of grandeur and high feeling. The disciples gather round
Christ, like a flock of sheep listening to some divine shepherd. The
figure of their master is sublime: his countenance and attitude ‘in act
to speak.’ The landscape is also extremely fine and of a soothing
character.—Every thing falls into its place in these pictures. The
figures seem to stop just where their business and feelings bring them:
not a fold in the draperies can be disposed of for the better or
otherwise than it is.
It would be in vain to enumerate the particular figures, or to explain
the story of works so well known: what we have aimed at has been to shew
the spirit that breathes through them, and we shall count ourselves
fortunate, if we have not sullied them with our praise. We do not care
about some works: but these were sacred to our imaginations, and we
should be sorry indeed to have profaned them by description or
criticism. We have hurried through our unavoidable task with fear, and
look back to it with doubt.
LORD GROSVENOR’S COLLECTION OF PICTURES
We seldom quit a mansion like that of which we have here to give some
account, and return homewards, but we think of Warton’s _Sonnet, written
after seeing Wilton-house_.
‘From Pembroke’s princely dome, where mimic art
Decks with a magic hand the dazzling bowers,
Its living hues where the warm pencil pours,
And breathing forms from the rude marble start,
How to life’s humbler scenes can I depart?
My breast all glowing from those gorgeous tow’rs,
In my low cell how cheat the sullen hours?
Vain the complaint! For Fancy can impart
(To Fate superior, and to Fortune’s doom)
Whate’er adorns the stately-storied hall:
She, mid the dungeon’s solitary gloom,
Can dress the Graces in their Attic pall:
Bid the green landscape’s vernal beauty bloom;
And in bright trophies clothe the twilight wall.’
Having repeated these lines to ourselves, we sit quietly down in our
chairs to con over our task, abstract the idea of exclusive property,
and think only of those images of beauty and of grandeur, which we can
carry away with us in our minds, and have every where before us. Let us
take some of these, and describe them how we can.
There is one—we see it now—the _Man with a Hawk_, by Rembrandt. ‘In our
mind’s eye, Horatio!’ What is the difference between this idea which we
have brought away with us, and the picture on the wall? Has it lost any
of its tone, its ease, its depth? The head turns round in the same
graceful moving attitude, the eye carelessly meets ours, the tufted
beard grows to the chin, the hawk flutters and balances himself on his
favourite perch, his master’s hand; and a shadow seems passing over the
picture, just leaving a light in one corner of it behind, to give a
livelier effect to the whole. There is no mark of the pencil, no jagged
points or solid masses; it is all air, and twilight might be supposed to
have drawn his veil across it. It is as much an idea on the canvas, as
it is in the mind. There are no means employed, as far as you can
discover—you see nothing but a simple, grand, and natural effect. It is
impalpable as a thought, intangible as a sound—nay, the shadows have a
breathing harmony, and fling round an undulating echo of themselves,
‘At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiles!’
In the opposite corner of the room is a _Portrait of a Female_ (by the
same), in which every thing is as clear, and pointed, and brought out
into the open day, as in the former it is withdrawn from close and
minute inspection. The face glitters with smiles as the ear-rings
sparkle with light. The whole is stiff, starched, and formal, has a
pearly or metallic look, and you throughout mark the most elaborate and
careful finishing. The two pictures make an antithesis, where they are
placed; but this was not probably at all intended: it proceeds simply
from the difference in the nature of the subject, and the truth and
appropriate power of the treatment of it.—In the middle between these
two pictures is a small history, by Rembrandt, of the _Salutation of
Elizabeth_, in which the figures come out straggling, disjointed,
quaint, ugly as in a dream, but partake of the mysterious significance
of preternatural communication, and are seen through the visible gloom,
or through the dimmer night of antiquity. Light and shade, not form or
feeling, were the elements of which Rembrandt composed the finest
poetry, and his imagination brooded only over the medium through which
we discern objects, leaving the objects themselves uninspired,
unhallowed, and untouched!
We must go through our account of these pictures as they start up in our
memory, not according to the order of their arrangement, for want of a
proper set of memorandums. Our friend, Mr. Gummow, of Cleveland-house,
had a nice little neatly-bound duodecimo Catalogue, of great use as a
_Vade Mecum_ to occasional visitants or absent critics—but here we have
no such advantage; and to take notes before company is a thing that we
abhor. It has a look of pilfering something from the pictures. While we
merely enjoy the sight of the objects of art before us, or sympathise
with the approving gaze of the greater beauty around us, it is well;
there is a feeling of luxury and refinement in the employment; but take
out a pocket-book, and begin to scribble notes in it, the date of the
picture, the name, the room, some paltry defect, some pitiful discovery
(not worth remembering), the non-essentials, the mechanic
_common-places_ of the art, and the sentiment is gone—you shew that you
have a further object in view, a job to execute, a feeling foreign to
the place, and different from every one else—you become a butt and a
mark for ridicule to the rest of the company—and you retire with your
pockets full of wisdom from a saloon of art, with as little right as you
have to carry off the dessert, (or what you have not been able to
consume,) from an inn, or a banquet. Such, at least, is our feeling; and
we had rather make a mistake now and then, as to a _numero_, or the name
of a room in which a picture is placed, than spoil our whole pleasure in
looking at a fine Collection, and consequently the pleasure of the
reader in learning what we thought of it.
Among the pictures that haunt our eye in this way is the _Adoration of
the Angels_, by N. Poussin. It is one of his finest works—elegant,
graceful, full of feeling, happy, enlivening. It is treated rather as a
classical than as a sacred subject. The Angels are more like Cupids than
Angels. They are, however, beautifully grouped, with various and
expressive attitudes, and remind one, by their half antic, half serious
homage, of the line—
‘Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.’
They are laden with baskets of flowers—the tone of the picture is rosy,
florid; it seems to have been painted at
‘The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,’
and the angels over-head sport and gambol in the air with
butterfly-wings, like butterflies. It is one of those rare productions
that satisfy the mind, and from which we turn away, not from weariness,
but from a fulness of delight.—The _Israelites returning Thanks in the
Wilderness_ is a fine picture, but inferior to this. Near it is a group
of Angels, said to be by Correggio. The expressions are grotesque and
fine, but the colouring does not seem to us to be his. The texture of
the flesh, as well as the hue, too much resembles the skin of ripe
fruit. We meet with several fine landscapes of the two Poussins,
(particularly one of a rocky eminence by Gaspar,) in the room before you
come to the Rembrandts, in which the mixture of grey rock and green
trees and shrubs is beautifully managed, with striking truth and
clearness.
Among detached and smaller pictures, we would wish to point out to the
attention of our readers, an exquisite head of a _Child_, by Andrea del
Sarto, and a fine Salvator in the inner room of all: in the room leading
to it, a pleasing, glassy Cuyp, an airy, earthy-looking Teniers, and _a
Mother and a Sleeping Child_, by Guido: in the Saloon, a _St.
Catherine_, one of Parmegiano’s most graceful pictures; a _St. Agnes_,
by Domenichino, full of sweetness, thought, and feeling; and two
pictures by Raphael, that have a look as if painted on paper: a _Repose
in Egypt_, and _St. Luke painting the Virgin_, both admirable for
drawing and expression, and a rich, purple, _crayon_ tone of colouring.
Wherever Raphael is, there is grace and dignity, and an informing soul.
In the last-mentioned room, near the entrance, is also a _Conversion of
Saint Paul_, by Rubens, of infinite spirit, brilliancy, and delicacy of
execution.
But it is in the large room to the right, that the splendour and power
of Rubens reign triumphant and unrivalled, and yet he has here to
contend with highest works and names. The four large pictures of
ecclesiastical subjects, the _Meeting of Abram and Melchisedec_, the
_Gathering of Manna_, the _Evangelists_, and the _Fathers of the
Church_, have no match in this country for scenic pomp, and dazzling
airy effect. The figures are colossal; and it might be said, without
much extravagance, that the drawing and colouring are so too.[8] He
seems to have painted with a huge sweeping gigantic pencil, and with
broad masses of unalloyed colour. The spectator is (as it were) thrown
back by the pictures, and surveys them, as if placed at a stupendous
height, as well as distance from him. This, indeed, is their history:
they were painted to be placed in some Jesuit’s church abroad, at an
elevation of forty or fifty feet, and Rubens would have started to see
them in a drawing-room or on the ground. Had he foreseen such a result,
he would perhaps have added something to the correctness of the
features, and taken something from the gorgeous crudeness of the colour.
But there is grandeur of composition, involution of form, motion,
character in its vast, rude outline, the imposing contrast of sky and
flesh, fine grotesque heads of old age, florid youth, and fawn-like
beauty! You see nothing but patriarchs, primeval men and women, walking
among temples, or treading the sky—or the earth, with an ‘air and
gesture proudly eminent,’ as if they trod the sky—when man first rose
from nothing to his native sublimity. We cannot describe these pictures
in their details; they are one staggering blow after another of the
mighty hand that traced them. All is cast in the same mould, all is
filled with the same spirit, all is clad in the same gaudy robe of
light. Rubens was at home here; his _forte_ was the processional, the
showy, and the imposing; he grew almost drunk and wanton with the sense
of his power over such subjects; and he, in fact, left these pictures
unfinished in some particulars, that, for the place and object for which
they were intended, they might be perfect. They were done (it is said)
for tapestries from small designs, and carried nearly to their present
state of finishing by his scholars. There is a smaller picture in the
same room, _Ixion embracing the false Juno_, which points out and
defines their style of art and adaptation for remote effect. There is a
delicacy in this last picture (which is, however of the size of life)
that makes it look like a miniature in comparison. The flesh of the
women is like lilies, or like milk strewed upon ivory. It is soft and
pearly; but, in the larger pictures, it is heightened beyond nature, the
veil of air between the spectator and the figures, when placed in the
proper position, being supposed to give the last finishing. Near the
_Ixion_ is an historical female figure, by Guido, which will not bear
any comparison for transparency and delicacy of tint with the two
Junos.—Rubens was undoubtedly the greatest _scene-painter_ in the world,
if we except Paul Veronese, and the Fleming was to him flat and insipid.
‘It is place which lessens and sets off.’ We once saw two pictures of
Rubens’ hung by the side of the _Marriage of Cana_ in the Louvre; and
they looked nothing. The Paul Veronese nearly occupied the side of a
large room (the modern French exhibition-room) and it was like looking
through the side of a wall, or at a splendid banquet and gallery, full
of people, and full of interest. The texture of the two Rubenses was
_woolly_, or flowery, or _satiny_: it was all alike; but in the
Venetian’s great work the pillars were of stone, the floor was marble,
the tables were wood, the dresses were various stuffs, the sky was air,
the flesh was flesh; the groups were living men and women. Turks,
emperours, ladies, painters, musicians—all was real, dazzling, profuse,
astonishing. It seemed as if the very dogs under the table might get up
and bark, or that at the sound of a trumpet the whole assembly might
rise and disperse in different directions, in an instant. This picture,
however, was considered as the triumph of Paul Veronese, and the two by
the Flemish artist that hung beside it were very inferior to some of
his, and assuredly to those now exhibited in the Gallery at Lord
Grosvenor’s. Neither do we wish by this allusion to disparage Rubens;
for we think him on the whole a greater genius, and a greater painter,
than the rival we have here opposed to him, as we may attempt to shew
when we come to speak of the Collection at Blenheim.
There are some divine Claudes in the same room; and they too are like
looking through a window at a select and conscious landscape. There are
five or six, all capital for the composition, and highly preserved.
There is a strange and somewhat _anomalous_ one of _Christ in the
Mount_, as if the artist had tried to contradict himself, and yet it is
Claude all over. Nobody but he could paint one single atom of it. The
_Mount_ is stuck up in the very centre of the picture, against all rule,
like a huge dirt-pye: but then what an air breathes round it, what a sea
encircles it, what verdure clothes it, what flocks and herds feed round
it, immortal and unchanged! Close by it is the _Arch of Constantine_;
but this is to us a bitter disappointment. A print of it hung in a
little room in the country, where we used to contemplate it by the hour
together, and day after day, and ‘_sigh our souls_’ into the picture. It
was the most graceful, the most perfect of all Claude’s compositions.
The Temple seemed to come forward into the middle of the picture, as in
a dance, to show its unrivalled beauty, the Vashti of the scene! Young
trees bent their branches over it with playful tenderness; and, on the
opposite side of a stream, at which cattle stooped to drink, there grew
a stately grove, erect, with answering looks of beauty: the distance
between retired into air and gleaming shores. Never was there scene so
fair, ‘so absolute, that in itself summ’d all delight.’ How did we wish
to compare it with the picture! The trees, we thought, must be of vernal
green—the sky recalled the mild dawn, or softened evening. No, the
branches of the trees are red, the sky burned up, the whole hard and
uncomfortable. This is not the picture, the print of which we used to
gaze at enamoured—there is another somewhere that we still shall see!
There are finer specimens of the _Morning_ and _Evening of the Roman
Empire_, at Lord Radnor’s, in Wiltshire. Those here have a more
polished, _cleaned_ look, but we cannot prefer them on that account. In
one corner of the room is a _St. Bruno_, by Andrea Sacchi—a fine study,
with pale face and garments, a saint dying (as it should seem)—but as he
dies, conscious of an undying spirit. The old Catholic painters put the
soul of religion into their pictures—for they felt it within themselves.
There are two Titians—_the Woman taken in Adultery_, and a large
mountainous landscape with the story of _Jupiter and Antiope_. The last
is rich and striking, but not equal to his best; and the former, we
think, one of his most exceptionable pictures, both in character, and
(we add) colouring. In the last particular, it is tricky, and discovers,
instead of concealing its art. The flesh is not transparent, but a
_transparency_! Let us not forget a fine Synders, a _Boar-hunt_, which
is highly spirited and natural, as far as the animals are concerned; but
is _patchy_, and wants the tone and general effect that Rubens would
have thrown over it. In the middle of the right-hand side of the room,
is the _Meeting of Jacob and Laban_, by Murillo. It is a lively,
out-of-door scene, full of bustle and expression; but it rather brings
us to the tents and faces of two bands of gypsies meeting on a common
heath, than carries us back to the remote times, places, and events,
treated of. Murillo was the painter of nature, not of the imagination.
There is a _Sleeping Child_ by him, over the door of the saloon (an
admirable cabinet-picture), and another of a boy, a little spirited
rustic, brown, glowing, ‘of the earth, earthy,’ the flesh thoroughly
baked, as if he had come out of an oven; and who regards you with a look
as if he was afraid you might bind him apprentice to some trade or
handicraft, or send him to a Sunday-school; and so put an end to his
short, happy, careless life—to his lessons from that great teacher, the
Sun—to his physic, the air—to his bed, the earth—and to the soul of his
very being, Liberty!
The first room you enter is filled with some very good and some very bad
English pictures. There is Hogarth’s _Distressed Poet_—the _Death of
Wolfe_, by West, which is not so good as the print would lead us to
expect—an excellent whole-length portrait of a youth, by Gainsborough—_A
Man with a Hawk_, by Northcote, and _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_,
by Sir Joshua. This portrait Lord Grosvenor bought the other day for
£1760. It has risen in price every time it has been sold. Sir Joshua
sold it for two or three hundred pounds to a Mr. Calonne. It was then
purchased by Mr. Desenfans who parted with it to Mr. William Smith for a
larger sum (we believe £500); and at the sale of that gentleman’s
pictures, it was bought by Mr. Watson Taylor, the last proprietor, for a
thousand guineas. While it was in the possession of Mr. Desenfans, a
copy of it was taken by a pupil of Sir Joshua’s, of the name of Score,
which is now in the Dulwich Gallery, and which we always took for an
original. The size of the original is larger than the copy. There was a
dead child painted at the bottom of it, which Sir Joshua Reynolds
afterwards disliked, and he had the canvas doubled upon the frame to
hide it. It has been let out again, but we did not observe whether the
child was there. We think it had better not be seen.
We do not wish to draw invidious comparisons; yet we may say, in
reference to the pictures in Lord Grosvenor’s Collection, and those at
Cleveland-house, that the former are distinguished most by elegance,
brilliancy, and high preservation; while those belonging to the Marquis
of Stafford look more like old pictures, and have a corresponding tone
of richness and magnificence. We have endeavoured to do justice to both,
but we confess we have fallen very short even of our own hopes and
expectations.
PICTURES AT WILTON, STOURHEAD, &c.
Salisbury Plain, barren as it is, is rich in collections and monuments
of art. There are, within the distance of a few miles, Wilton,
Longford-Castle, Fonthill-Abbey, Stourhead, and last though not least
worthy to be mentioned, Stonehenge, that ‘huge, dumb heap,’ that stands
on the blasted heath, and looks like a group of giants, bewildered, not
knowing what to do, encumbering the earth, and turned to stone, while in
the act of warring on Heaven. An attempt has lately been made to give to
it an antediluvian origin. Its mystic round is in all probability fated
to remain inscrutable, a mighty maze without a plan: but still the
imagination, when once curiosity and wonder have taken possession of it,
heaves with its restless load, launches conjecture farther and farther
back beyond the landmarks of time, and strives to bear down all
impediments in its course, as the ocean strives to overleap some vast
promontory!
Fonthill-Abbey, which was formerly hermetically sealed against all
intrusion,[9] is at present open to the whole world; and Wilton-House,
and Longford-Castle, which were formerly open to every one, are at
present shut, except to _petitioners_, and a favoured few. Why is this
greater degree of strictness in the latter instances resorted to? In
proportion as the taste for works of art becomes more general, do these
Noble Persons wish to set bounds to and disappoint public curiosity? Do
they think that the admiration bestowed on fine pictures or rare
sculpture lessens their value, or divides the property, as well as the
pleasure with the possessor? Or do they think that setting aside the
formality of these new regulations, three persons in the course of a
whole year would intrude out of an impertinent curiosity to see _their_
houses and furniture, without having a just value for them as objects of
art? Or is the expence of keeping servants to shew the apartments made
the plea of this churlish, narrow system? The public are ready enough to
pay servants for their attendance, and those persons are quite as
forward to do this who make a pilgrimage to such places on foot as those
who approach them in a post-chaise or on horseback with a livery
servant, which, it seems, is the prescribed and fashionable etiquette!
Whatever is the cause, we are sorry for it; more particularly as it
compels us to speak of these two admired Collections from memory only.
It is several years since we saw them; but there are some impressions of
this sort that are proof against time.
Lord Radnor has the two famous Claudes, the _Morning_ and _Evening of
the Roman Empire_. Though as landscapes they are neither so brilliant,
nor finished, nor varied, as some of this Artist’s, there is a weight
and concentration of historic feeling about them which many of his
allegorical productions want. In the first, half-finished buildings and
massy columns rise amidst the dawning effulgence that is streaked with
rims of inextinguishable light; and a noble tree in the foreground,
ample, luxuriant, hangs and broods over the growing design. There is a
dim mistiness spread over the scene, as in the beginning of things. The
_Evening_, the companion to it, is even finer. It has all the gorgeous
pomp that attends the meeting of Night and Day, and a flood of glory
still prevails over the coming shadows. In the cool of the evening, some
cattle are feeding on the brink of a glassy stream, that reflects a
mouldering ruin on one side of the picture; and so precise is the touch,
so true, so firm is the pencilling, so classical the outline, that they
give one the idea of sculptured cattle, biting the short, green turf,
and seem an enchanted herd! They appear stamped on the canvas to remain
there for ever, or as if nothing could root them from the spot. Truth
with beauty suggests the feeling of immortality. No Dutch picture ever
suggested this feeling. The objects are real, it is true; but not being
beautiful or impressive, the mind feels no wish to mould them into a
permanent reality, to bind them fondly on the heart, or lock them in the
imagination as in a sacred recess, safe from the envious canker of time.
No one ever felt a longing, a sickness of the heart, to see a Dutch
landscape twice; but those of Claude, after an absence of years, have
this effect, and produce a kind of calenture. The reason of the
difference is, that in mere literal copies from nature, where the
objects are not interesting in themselves, the only attraction is to see
the felicity of the execution; and having once witnessed this, we are
satisfied. But there is nothing to stir the fancy, to keep alive the
yearnings of passion. We remember one other picture (and but one) in
Lord Radnor’s Collection, that was of this _ideal_ character. It was a
_Magdalen_ by Guido, with streaming hair, and streaming eyes looking
upwards-full of sentiment and beauty.
There is but one fine picture at Wilton-house, the _Family Vandyke_;
with a noble Gallery of antique marbles, which we may pronounce to be
invaluable to the lover of art or to the student of history or human
nature. Roman Emperors or Proconsuls, the poets, orators, and almost all
the great men of antiquity, are here ‘ranged in a row,’ and palpably
embodied either in genuine or traditional busts. Some of these indicate
an almost preternatural capacity and inspired awfulness of look,
particularly some of the earlier sages and fabulists of Greece, which we
apprehend to be _ideal_ representations; while other more modern and
better authenticated ones of celebrated Romans are distinguished by the
strength and simplicity of common English heads of the best class.—The
large picture of the _Pembroke Family_, by Vandyke, is unrivalled in its
kind. It is a history of the time. It throws us nearly two centuries
back to men and manners that no longer exist. The members of a Noble
House (‘tis a hundred and sixty years since) are brought together _in
propriâ persona_, and appear in all the varieties of age, character, and
costume. There are the old Lord and Lady Pembroke, who ‘keep their
state’ raised somewhat above the other groups;—the one a lively old
gentleman, who seems as if he could once have whispered a flattering
tale in a fair lady’s ear; his help-mate looking a little fat and sulky
by his side, probably calculating the expence of the picture, and not
well understanding the event of it—there are the daughters, pretty,
well-dressed, elegant girls, but somewhat insipid, sentimental, and
vacant—then there are the two eldest sons, that might be said to have
walked out of Mr. Burke’s description of the age of chivalry; the one a
perfect courtier, a carpet-knight, smooth-faced, handsome, almost
effeminate, that seems to have moved all his life to ‘the mood of lutes
and soft recorders,’ decked in silks and embroidery like the tender
flower issuing from its glossy folds; the other the gallant soldier,
shrewd, bold, hardy, with spurred heel and tawny buskins, ready to
‘mount on barbed steeds, and witch the world with noble
horsemanship’—down to the untutored, carroty-headed boy, the
_Goose-Gibbie_ of the piece, who appears to have been just dragged from
the farm-yard to sit for his picture, and stares about him in as great a
heat and fright as if he had dropped from the clouds:—all in this
admirable, living composition is in its place, in keeping, and bears the
stamp of the age and of the master’s hand. Even the oak-pannels have an
elaborate, antiquated look, and the furniture has an aspect of cumbrous,
conscious dignity. It should not be omitted that it was here (in the
house or the adjoining magnificent grounds) that Sir Philip Sidney wrote
his ARCADIA; and the story of Musidorus and Philoclea, of Mopsa and
Dorcas, is quaintly traced on oval pannels in the principal
drawing-room.
It is on this account that we are compelled to find fault with the
Collection at Fonthill Abbey, because it exhibits no picture of
remarkable eminence that can be ranked as an heir-loom of the
imagination—which cannot be spoken of but our thoughts take wing and
stretch themselves towards it—the very name of which is music to the
instructed ear. We would not give a rush to see any Collection that does
not contain some single picture at least, that haunts us with an uneasy
sense of joy for twenty miles of road, that may cheer us at intervals
for twenty years of life to come. Without some such thoughts as these
riveted in the brain, the lover and disciple of art would truly be ‘of
all men the most miserable:’ but with them hovering round him, and ever
and anon shining with their glad lustre into his sleepless soul, he has
nothing to fear from fate, or fortune. We look, and lo! here is one at
our side, facing us, though far-distant. It is the Young Man’s Head, in
the Louvre, by Titian, that is not unlike Jeronymo della Porretta in Sir
Charles Grandison. What a look is there of calm, unalterable
self-possession—
‘Above all pain, all passion, and all pride;’
that draws the evil out of human life, that while we look at it
transfers the same sentiment to our own breasts, and makes us feel as if
nothing mean or little could ever disturb us again! This is high art;
the rest is mechanical. But there is nothing like this at Fonthill (oh!
no), but every thing which is the very reverse. As this, however, is an
extreme opinion of ours, and may be a prejudice, we shall endeavour to
support it by facts. There is not then a single Titian in all this
boasted and expensive Collection—there is not a Raphael—there is not a
Rubens (except one small sketch)—there is not a Guido, nor a
Vandyke—there is not a Rembrandt, there is not a Nicolo Poussin, nor a
fine Claude. The two Altieri Claudes, which might have redeemed
Fonthill, Mr. Beckford sold. What shall we say to a Collection, which
uniformly and deliberately rejects every great work, and every great
name in art, to make room for idle rarities and curiosities of
mechanical skill? It was hardly necessary to build a cathedral to set up
a toy-shop! Who would paint a miniature-picture to hang it at the top of
the Monument? This huge pile (capable of better things) is cut up into a
parcel of little rooms, and those little rooms are stuck full of little
pictures, and _bijouterie_. Mr. Beckford may talk of his _Diamond
Berchem_, and so on: this is but the language of a _petit-maitre_ in
art; but the author of VATHEK (with his leave) is not a _petit-maitre_.
His genius, as a writer, ‘hath a devil:’ his taste in pictures is the
quintessence and rectified spirit of _still-life_. He seems not to be
susceptible of the poetry of painting, or else to set his face against
it. It is obviously a first principle with him to exclude whatever has
feeling or imagination—to polish the surface, and suppress the soul of
art—to proscribe, by a sweeping clause or at one fell swoop, every thing
approaching to grace, or beauty, or grandeur—to crush the sense of
pleasure or of power in embryo—and to reduce all nature and art, as far
as possible, to the texture and level of a China dish—smooth,
glittering, cold, and unfeeling! We do not object so much to the
predilection for Teniers, Wouvermans, or Ostade—we like to see natural
objects naturally painted—but we unequivocally hate the affectedly mean,
the elaborately little, the ostentatiously perverse and distorted,
Polemberg’s walls of amber, Mieris’s groups of steel, Vanderwerf’s ivory
flesh;—yet these are the chief delights of the late proprietor of
Fonthill-abbey! Is it that his mind is ‘a volcano burnt out,’ and that
he likes his senses to repose and be gratified with Persian carpets and
enamelled pictures? Or are there not traces of the same infirmity of
feeling even in the high-souled Vathek, who compliments the complexion
of the two pages of Fakreddin as being equal to ‘the porcelain of
Franguestan?’ Alas! Who would have thought that the Caliph Vathek would
have dwindled down into an Emperor of China and King of Japan? But so it
is.—
Stourhead, the seat of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, did not answer our
expectations. But Stourton, the village where it stands, made up for our
disappointment. After passing the park-gate, which is a beautiful and
venerable relic, you descend into Stourton by a sharp-winding declivity,
almost like going underground, between high hedges of laurel trees, and
with an expanse of woods and water spread beneath. It is a sort of rural
Herculaneum, a subterranean retreat. The inn is like a modernized
guard-house; the village-church stands on a lawn without any inclosure;
a row of cottages facing it, with their white-washed walls and flaunting
honey-suckles, are neatness itself. Every thing has an air of elegance,
and yet tells a tale of other times. It is a place that might be held
sacred to stillness and solitary musing!—The adjoining mansion of
Stourhead commands an extensive view of Salisbury Plain, whose
undulating swells shew the earth in its primeval simplicity, bare, with
naked breasts, and varied in its appearance only by the shadows of the
clouds that pass across it. The view without is pleasing and singular:
there is little within-doors to beguile attention. There is one
master-piece of colouring by Paul Veronese, a naked child with a dog.
The tone of the flesh is perfection itself. On praising this picture
(which we always do when we like a thing) we were told it had been
criticized by a great judge, Mr. Beckford of Fonthill, who had found
fault with the execution as too coarse and muscular. We do not wonder—it
is not like his own turnery-ware! We should also mention an exquisite
Holbein, the _Head of a Child_, and a very pleasing little landscape by
Wilson. Besides these, there are some capital pen-and-ink drawings
(views in Venice), by Canaletti, and three large copies after Guido of
_the Venus attired by the Graces_, _the Andromeda_, and _Herodias’s
Daughter_. They breathe the soul of softness and grace, and remind one
of those fair, sylph-like forms that sometimes descend upon the earth
with fatal, fascinating looks, and that ‘tempt but to betray.’ After the
cabinet-pictures at Fonthill, even a good copy of a Guido is a luxury
and a relief to the mind: it is something to inhale the divine airs that
play around his figures, and we are satisfied if we can but ‘trace his
footsteps, and his skirts far-off behold.’ The rest of this Collection
is, for the most part, _trash_: either Italian pictures painted in the
beginning of the last century, or English ones in the beginning of this.
It gave us pain to see some of the latter; and we willingly draw a veil
over the humiliation of the art, in the age and country that we live in.
We ought, however, to mention a portrait of a youth (the present
proprietor of Stourhead) by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which is elegant,
brilliant, ‘though in ruins;’ and a spirited portrait by Northcote, of a
lady talking on her fingers, may, perhaps, challenge an exception for
itself to the above general censure.
We wish our readers to go to Petworth, the seat of Lord Egremont, where
they will find the coolest grottos and the finest Vandykes in the world.
There are eight or ten of the latter that are not to be surpassed by the
art of man, and that we have no power either to admire or praise as they
deserve. For simplicity, for richness, for truth of nature, for airiness
of execution, nothing ever was or can be finer. We will only mention
those of the Earl and Countess of Northumberland, Lord Newport, and Lord
Goring, Lord Strafford, and Lady Carr, and the Duchess of Devonshire. He
who possesses these portraits is rich indeed, if he has an eye to see,
and a heart to feel them. The one of _Lord Northumberland in the Tower_
is not so good, though it is thought better by the multitude. That is,
there is a subject—something to talk about; but in fact, the expression
is not that of grief, or thought, or of dignified resignation, but of a
man in ill health. Vandyke was a mere portrait-painter, but he was a
perfect one. His _forte_ was not the romantic or pathetic; he was ‘of
the court, courtly.’ He had a patent from the hand of nature to paint
lords and ladies in prosperity and quite at their ease. There are some
portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds in this Collection; and there are
people who persist in naming him and Vandyke in the same day. The rest
of the Collection consists (for the most part) of _staircase_ and family
pictures. But there are some admirable statues to be seen here, that it
would ask a morning’s leisure to study properly.
PICTURES AT BURLEIGH HOUSE[10]
Burleigh! thy groves are leafless, thy walls are naked—
‘And dull, cold winter does inhabit here.’
The yellow evening rays gleam through thy fretted Gothic windows; but I
only feel the rustling of withered branches strike chill to my breast;
it was not so twenty years ago. Thy groves were leafless then as now: it
was the middle of winter twice that I visited thee before; but the lark
mounted in the sky, and the sun smote my youthful blood with its slant
ray, and the ploughman whistled as he drove his team afield; Hope spread
out its glad vistas through thy fair domains, oh, Burleigh! Fancy decked
thy walls with works of sovereign art, and it was spring, not winter, in
my breast. All is still the same, like a petrification of the mind—the
same things in the same places; but their effect is not the same upon
me. I am twenty years the worse for _wear and tear_. What is become of
the never-ending studious thoughts that brought their own reward or
promised good to mankind? of the tears that started welcome and
unbidden? of the sighs that whispered future peace? of the smiles that
shone, not in my face indeed, but that cheered my heart, and made a
sunshine there when all was gloom around? That fairy vision—that
invisible glory, by which I was once attended—ushered into life, has
left my side, and ‘faded to the light of common day,’ and I now see what
is, or has been—not what may lie hid in Time’s bright circle and golden
chaplet! Perhaps this is the characteristic difference between youth and
a later period of life—that we, by degrees, learn to take things more as
we find them, call them more by their right names; that we feel the
warmth of summer, but the winter’s cold as well; that we see beauties,
but can spy defects in the fairest face; and no longer look at every
thing through the genial atmosphere of our own existence. We grow more
literal and less credulous every day, lose much enjoyment, and gain some
useful, and more useless knowledge. The second time I passed along the
road that skirts Burleigh Park, the morning was dank and ‘ways were
mire.’ I saw and felt it not: my mind was otherwise engaged. Ah! thought
I, there is that fine old head by Rembrandt; there within those cold
grey walls, the painter of old age is enshrined, immortalized in some of
his inimitable works! The name of Rembrandt lives in the fame of him who
stamped it with renown, while the name of Burleigh is kept up by the
present owner. An artist survives in the issue of his brain to all
posterity—a lord is nothing without the issue of his body lawfully
begotten, and is lost in a long line of illustrious ancestors. So much
higher is genius than rank—such is the difference between fame and
title! A great name in art lasts for centuries—it requires twenty
generations of a noble house to keep alive the memory of the first
founder for the same length of time. So I reasoned, and was not a little
proud of my discovery.
In this dreaming mood, dreaming of deathless works and deathless names,
I went on to Peterborough, passing, as it were, under an arch-way of
Fame,
——‘and still walking under,
Found some new matter to look up and wonder.’
I had business there: I will not say what. I could at this time do
nothing. I could not write a line—I could not draw a stroke. ‘I was
brutish;’ though not ‘like warlike as the wolf, nor subtle as the fox
for prey.’ In words, in looks, in deeds, I was no better than a
changeling. Why then do I set so much value on my existence formerly? Oh
God! that I could but be for one day, one hour, nay but for an instant,
(to feel it in all the plentitude of unconscious bliss, and take one
long, last, lingering draught of that full brimming cup of thoughtless
freedom,) what then I was—that I might, as in a trance, a waking dream,
hear the hoarse murmur of the bargemen, as the Minster tower appeared in
the dim twilight, come up from the willowy stream, sounding low and
underground like the voice of the bittern—that I might paint that field
opposite the window where I lived, and feel that there was a green, dewy
moisture in the tone, beyond my pencil’s reach, but thus gaining almost
a new sense, and watching the birth of new objects without me—that I
might stroll down Peterborough bank, (a winter’s day,) and see the fresh
marshes stretching out in endless level perspective, (as if Paul Potter
had painted them,) with the cattle, the windmills, and the red-tiled
cottages, gleaming in the sun to the very verge of the horizon, and
watch the fieldfares in innumerable flocks, gamboling in the air, and
sporting in the sun, and racing before the clouds, making summersaults,
and dazzling the eye by throwing themselves into a thousand figures and
movements—that I might go, as then, a pilgrimage to the town where my
mother was born, and visit the poor farm-house where she was brought up,
and lean upon the gate where she told me she used to stand when a child
of ten years old and look at the setting sun!—I could do all this still;
but with different feelings. As our hopes leave us, we lose even our
interest and regrets for the past. I had at this time, simple as I
seemed, many resources. I could in some sort ‘play at bowls with the sun
and moon;’ or, at any rate, there was no question in metaphysics that I
could not bandy to and fro, as one might play at cup-and-ball, for
twenty, thirty, forty miles of the great North Road, and at it again,
the next day, as fresh as ever. I soon get tired of this now, and wonder
how I managed formerly. I knew Tom Jones by heart, and was deep in
Peregrine Pickle. I was intimately acquainted with all the heroes and
heroines of Richardson’s romances, and could turn from one to the other
as I pleased. I could con over that single passage in Pamela about ‘her
lumpish heart,’ and never have done admiring the skill of the author and
the truth of nature. I had my sports and recreations too, some such as
these following:—
‘To see the sun to bed, and to arise,
Like some hot amourist, with glowing eyes
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him,
With all his fires and travelling glories round him.
Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest,
Like beauty nestling in a young man’s breast,
And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep
Admiring silence while those lovers sleep.
Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness,
Nought doing, saying little, thinking less,
To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air,
Go eddying round and small birds how they fare,
When Mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn,
Filch’d from the careless Amalthea’s horn:
And how the woods berries and worms provide
Without their pains, when earth has nought beside
To answer their small wants.
To view the graceful deer come tripping by,
Then stop and gaze, then turn, they know not why,
Like bashful younkers in society.
To mark the structure of a plant or tree,
And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.’
I have wandered far enough from Burleigh House; but I had some
associations about it which I could not well get rid of, without
troubling the reader with them.
The _Rembrandts_ disappointed me quite. I could hardly find a trace of
the impression which had been inlaid in my imagination. I might as well
‘Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.’
Instead of broken wrinkles and indented flesh, I saw hard lines and
stained canvas. I had seen better Rembrandts since, and had learned to
see nature better. Was it a disadvantage, then, that for twenty years I
had carried this fine idea in my brain, enriching it from time to time
from my observations of nature or art, and raising it as they were
raised; or did it much signify that it was disturbed at last? Neither.
The picture was nothing to me: it was the idea it had suggested. The one
hung on the wall at Burleigh; the other was an heir-loom in my mind. Was
it destroyed, because the picture, after long absence, did not answer to
it? No. There were other pictures in the world that did, and objects in
nature still more perfect. This is the melancholy privilege of art; it
exists chiefly in idea, and is not liable to serious reverses. If we are
disappointed in the character of one we love, it breaks the illusion
altogether; for we drew certain consequences from a face. If an old
friendship is broken up, we cannot tell how to replace it, without the
aid of habit and a length of time. But a picture is nothing but a face;
it interests us only in idea. Hence we need never be afraid of raising
our standard of taste too high; for the mind rises with it, exalted and
refined, and can never be much injured by finding out its casual
mistakes. Like the possessor of a splendid collection, who is
indifferent to or turns away from common pictures, we have a selector
gallery in our own minds. In this sense, the knowledge of art is _its
own exceeding great reward_. But is there not danger that we may become
too fastidious, and have nothing left to admire? None: for the
conceptions of the human soul cannot rise superior to the power of art;
or if they do, then we have surely every reason to be satisfied with
them. The mind, in what depends upon itself alone, ‘soon rises from
defeat unhurt,’ though its pride may be for a moment ‘humbled by such
rebuke,’
‘And in its liquid texture mortal wound
Receives no more than can the fluid air.’
As an illustration of the same thing, there are two Claudes at Burleigh,
which certainly do not come up to the celebrity of the artist’s name.
They did not please me formerly: the sky, the water, the trees seemed
all too blue, too much of the colour of indigo. But I believed, and
wondered. I could no longer admire these specimens of the artist at
present, but assuredly my admiration of the artist himself was not less
than before; for since then, I had seen other works by the same hand,
——‘inimitable on earth
By model or by shading pencil drawn,’—
surpassing every idea that the mind could form of art, except by having
seen them. I remember one in particular that Walsh Porter had (a
bow-shot beyond all others)—a vernal landscape, an ‘Hesperian fable
true,’ with a blue unclouded sky, and green trees and grey turrets and
an unruffled sea beyond. But never was there sky so soft or trees so
clad with spring, such air-drawn towers or such halcyon seas: Zephyr
seemed to fan the air, and Nature looked on and smiled. The name of
Claude has alone something in it that softens and harmonises the mind.
It touches a magic chord. Oh! matchless scenes, oh! orient skies, bright
with purple and gold; ye opening glades and distant sunny vales,
glittering with fleecy flocks, pour all your enchantment into my soul,
let it reflect your chastened image, and forget all meaner things!
Perhaps the most affecting tribute to the memory of this great artist is
the character drawn of him by an eminent master, in his _Dream of a
Painter_.
‘On a sudden I was surrounded by a thick cloud or mist, and my guide
wafted me through the air, till we alighted on a most delicious
rural spot. I perceived it was the early hour of the morn, when the
sun had not risen above the horizon. We were alone, except that at a
little distance a young shepherd played on his flageolet as he
walked before his herd, conducting them from the fold to the
pasture. The elevated pastoral air he played charmed me by its
simplicity, and seemed to animate his obedient flock. The atmosphere
was clear and perfectly calm: and now the rising sun gradually
illumined the fine landscape, and began to discover to our view the
distant country of immense extent. I stood awhile in expectation of
what might next present itself of dazzling splendour, when the only
object which appeared to fill this natural, grand, and simple scene,
was a rustic who entered, not far from the place where we stood, who
by his habiliments seemed nothing better than a peasant; he led a
poor little ass, which was loaded with all the implements required
by a painter in his work. After advancing a few paces he stood
still, and with an air of rapture seemed to contemplate the rising
sun: he next fell on his knees, directed his eyes towards heaven,
crossed himself, and then went on with eager looks, as if to make
choice of the most advantageous spot from which to make his studies
as a painter. “This,” said my conductor, “is that Claude Gelée of
Lorraine, who, nobly disdaining the low employment to which he was
originally bred, left it with all its advantages of competence and
ease to embrace his present state of poverty, in order to adorn the
world with works of most accomplished excellence.”’
There is a little Paul Brill at Burleigh, in the same room with the
Rembrandts, that dazzled me many years ago, and delighted me the other
day. It looked as sparkling as if the sky came through the frame. I
found, or fancied I found, those pictures the best that I remembered
before, though they might in the interval have faded a little to my
eyes, or lost some of their original brightness. I did not see the small
head of Queen Mary by Holbein, which formerly struck me so forcibly; but
I have little doubt respecting it, for Holbein was a sure hand; he only
wanted effect, and this picture looked through you. One of my old
favourites was the _Head of an Angel_, by Guido, nearly a profile,
looking up, and with wings behind the back. It was hung lower than it
used to be, and had, I thought, a look less aërial, less heavenly; but
there was still a pulpy softness in it, a tender grace, an expression
unutterable—which only the pencil, _his_ pencil, could convey! And are
we not then beholden to the art for these glimpses of Paradise? Surely,
there is a sweetness in Guido’s heads, as there is also a music in his
name. If Raphael did more, it was not with the same ease. His heads have
more meaning; but Guido’s have a look of youthful innocence, which his
are without. As to the boasted picture of Christ by Carlo Dolce, if a
well-painted table-cloth and silver-cup are worth three thousand
guineas, the picture is so, but not else. Yet one touch of Paul Veronese
is worth all this enamelling twice over. The head has a wretched mawkish
expression, utterly unbecoming the character it professes to represent.
But I will say no more about it. The _Bath of Seneca_ is one of Luca
Jordano’s best performances, and has considerable interest and effect.
Among other historical designs, there is one of _Jacob’s Dream_, with
the angels ascending and descending on a kind of stairs. The conception
is very answerable to the subject; but the execution is not in any high
degree spirited or graceful. The mind goes away no gainer from the
picture. Rembrandt alone perhaps could add any thing to this subject. Of
him it might be said, that ‘his light shone in darkness!’—The wreaths of
flowers and foliage carved in wood on the wainscots and ceiling of many
of the rooms, by the celebrated Grinling Gibbons in Charles the Second’s
time, shew a wonderful lightness and facility of hand, and give pleasure
to the eye. The other ornaments and curiosities I need not mention, as
they are carefully pointed out by the housekeeper to the admiring
visitor. There are two heads, however, (one of them happens to have a
screen placed before it) which I would by no means wish any one to pass
over, who is an artist, or feels the slightest interest in the art. They
are, I should suppose unquestionably, the original studies by Raphael of
the heads of the _Virgin_ and _Joseph_ in his famous picture of the
_Madonna of the Crown_. The Virgin is particularly beautiful, and in the
finest preservation, as indeed are all his genuine pictures. The canvas
is not quite covered in some places; the colours are as fresh as if
newly laid on, and the execution is as firm and vigorous as if his hand
had just left it. It shews us how this artist wrought. The head is, no
doubt, a highly-finished study from nature, done for a particular
purpose, and worked up according to the painter’s conception, but still
retaining all the force and truth of individuality. He got all he could
from Nature, and gave all he could to her in return. If Raphael had
merely sketched this divine face on the canvas from the idea in his own
mind, why not stamp it on the larger composition at once? He could work
it up and refine upon it there just as well, and it would almost
necessarily undergo some alteration in being transferred thither
afterwards. But if it was done as a careful copy from Nature in the
first instance, the present was the only way in which he could proceed,
or indeed by which he could arrive at such consummate excellence. The
head of the Joseph (leaning on the hand and looking down) is fine, but
neither so fine as the companion to it, nor is it by any means so
elaborately worked up in the sketch before us.
I am no teller of stories; but there is one belonging to Burleigh-House,
of which I happen to know some of the particulars. The late Earl of
Exeter had been divorced from his first wife, a woman of fashion, and of
somewhat more gaiety of manners than ‘lords who love their ladies like.’
He determined to seek out a second wife in an humbler sphere of life,
and that it should be one who, having no knowledge of his rank, should
love him for himself alone. For this purpose, he went and settled
_incognito_ (under the name of Mr. Jones) at Hodnet, an obscure village
in Shropshire. He made overtures to one or two damsels in the
neighbourhood, but they were too knowing to be taken in by him. His
manners were not boorish, his mode of life was retired, it was odd how
he got his livelihood, and at last, he began to be taken for a
highwayman. In this dilemma he turned to Miss Hoggins, the eldest
daughter of a small farmer, at whose house he lodged. Miss Hoggins, it
might seem, had not been used to romp with the clowns: there was
something in the manners of their quiet, but eccentric guest that she
liked. As he found that he had inspired her with that kind of regard
which he wished for, he made honourable proposals to her, and at the end
of some months, they were married, without his letting her know who he
was. They set off in a post-chaise from her father’s house, and
travelled homewards across the country. In this manner they arrived at
Stamford, and passed through the town without stopping, till they came
to the entrance of Burleigh-Park, which is on the outside of it. The
gates flew open, the chaise entered, and drove down the long avenue of
trees that leads up to the front of this fine old mansion. As they drew
nearer to it, and she seemed a little surprised where they were going,
he said, ‘Well, my dear, this is Burleigh-House; it is the home I have
promised to bring you to, and you are the Countess of Exeter!’ It is
said, the shock of this discovery was too much for this young creature,
and that she never recovered it. It was a sensation worth dying for. The
world we live in was worth making, had it been only for this. _Ye
Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Night’s Entertainment!_ hide your
diminished heads! I never wish to have been a lord, but when I think of
this story.
PICTURES AT OXFORD AND BLENHEIM
Rome has been called the ‘Sacred City:’—might not _our_ Oxford be called
so too? There is an air about it, resonant of joy and hope: it speaks
with a thousand tongues to the heart: it waves its mighty shadow over
the imagination: it stands in lowly sublimity, on the ‘hill of ages;’
and points with prophetic fingers to the sky: it greets the eager gaze
from afar, ‘with glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,’ that shine
with an internal light as with the lustre of setting suns; and a dream
and a glory hover round its head, as the spirits of former times, a
throng of intellectual shapes, are seen retreating or advancing to the
eye of memory: its streets are paved with the names of learning that can
never wear out: its green quadrangles breathe the silence of thought,
conscious of the weight of yearnings innumerable after the past, of
loftiest aspirations for the future: Isis babbles of the Muse, its
waters are from the springs of Helicon, its Christ-Church meadows,
classic, Elysian fields!—We could pass our lives in Oxford without
having or wanting any other idea—that of the place is enough. We imbibe
the air of thought; we stand in the presence of learning. We are
admitted into the Temple of Fame, we feel that we are in the sanctuary,
on holy ground, and ‘hold high converse with the mighty dead.’ The
enlightened and the ignorant are on a level, if they have but faith in
the tutelary genius of the place. We may be wise by proxy, and studious
by prescription. Time has taken upon himself the labour of thinking; and
accumulated libraries leave us leisure to be dull. There is no occasion
to examine the buildings, the churches, the colleges, by the rules of
architecture, to reckon up the streets, to compare it with Cambridge
(Cambridge lies out of the way, on one side of the world)—but woe to him
who does not feel in passing through Oxford that he is in ‘no mean
city,’ that he is surrounded with the monuments and lordly mansions of
the mind of man, outvying in pomp and splendour the courts and palaces
of princes, rising like an exhalation in the night of ignorance, and
triumphing over barbaric foes, saying, ‘All eyes shall see me, and all
knees shall bow to me!’—as the shrine where successive ages came to pay
their pious vows, and slake the sacred thirst of knowledge, where
youthful hopes (an endless flight) soared to truth and good, and where
the retired and lonely student brooded over the historic or over fancy’s
page, imposing high tasks for himself, framing high destinies for the
race of man—the lamp, the mine, the well-head from whence the spark of
learning was kindled, its stream flowed, its treasures were spread out
through the remotest corners of the land and to distant nations. Let him
then who is fond of indulging in a dream-like existence go to Oxford and
stay there; let him study this magnificent spectacle, the same under all
aspects, with its mental twilight tempering the glare of noon, or
mellowing the silver moonlight; let him wander in her sylvan suburbs, or
linger in her cloistered halls; but let him not catch the din of
scholars or teachers, or dine or sup with them, or speak a word to any
of the privileged inhabitants; for if he does, the spell will be broken,
the poetry and the religion gone, and the palace of enchantment will
melt from his embrace into thin air!
The only Collection of Pictures at Oxford is that at the Radcliffe
Library; bequeathed by Sir William Guise. It is so far appropriate that
it is dingy, solemn, old; and we would gladly leave it to its repose;
but where criticism comes, affection ‘clappeth his wings, and
straightway he is gone.’ Most of the pictures are either copies, or
spoiled, or never were good for any thing. There is, however, a _Music
Piece_ by Titian, which bears the stamp of his hand, and is ‘majestic,
though in ruins.’ It represents three young ladies practising at a
harpsichord, with their music-master looking on. One of the girls is
tall, with prominent features seen in profile, but exquisitely fair, and
with a grave expression; the other is a lively, good-humoured girl, in a
front view; and the third leans forward from behind, looking down with a
demure, reserved, sentimental cast of countenance, but very pretty, and
much like an English face. The teacher has a manly, intelligent
countenance, with a certain blended air of courtesy and authority. It is
a fascinating picture, to our thinking; and has that marked
characteristic look, belonging to each individual and to the subject,
which is always to be found in Titian’s groups. We also noticed a dingy,
melancholy-looking Head over the window of the farthest room, said to be
a _Portrait of Vandyke_, with something striking in the tone and
expression; and a small _Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise_,
attributed to Giuseppe Ribera, which has considerable merit. The amateur
will here find continual copies (of an indifferent class) of many of his
old favourite pictures of the Italian school, Titian, Domenichino,
Correggio, and others. But the most valuable part of the Collection
consists of four undoubted Heads cut out of one of the _Cartoons_, which
was destroyed by fire about a hundred years ago: they are here preserved
in their pristine integrity. They shew us what the Cartoons were. They
have all the spirit and freedom of Raphael’s hand, but without any of
the blotches and smearing of those at Hampton Court; with which the damp
of outhouses and the dews of heaven have evidently had nearly as much to
do as the painter. Two are Heads of men, and two of women; one of the
last, _Rachel weeping for her Children_, and another still finer (both
are profiles) in which all the force and boldness of masculine
understanding is combined with feminine softness of expression. The
large, ox-like eye, a ‘lucid mirror,’ with the eye-lids drooping, and
the long eye-lashes distinctly marked, the straight scrutinizing nose,
the full, but closed lips, the matronly chin and high forehead,
altogether convey a character of matured thought and expansive feeling,
such as is seldom to be met with. _Rachel weeping for her Children_ has
a sterner and more painful, but a very powerful expression. It is
heroic, rather than pathetic. The Heads of the men are spirited and
forcible, but they are distinguished chiefly by the firmness of the
outline, and the sharpness and mastery of the execution.
* * * * *
Blenheim is a morning’s walk from Oxford, and is not an unworthy
appendage to it—
‘And fast by hanging in a golden chain
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon!’
Blenheim is not inferior in waving woods and sloping lawns and smooth
waters to Pembroke’s princely domain, or to the grounds of any other
park we know of. The building itself is Gothic, capricious, and not
imposing—a conglomeration of pigeon-houses—
‘In form resembling a goose pie.’
But as a receptacle for works of art, (with the exception of Cleveland
House,) it is unrivalled in this country. There is not a bad picture in
it: the interest is sustained by rich and noble performances from first
to last. It abounds in Rubens’ works. The old Duchess of Marlborough was
fond of the historical pieces of this great painter; she had, during her
husband’s wars and negociations in Flanders, a fine opportunity of
culling them, ‘as one picks pears, saying, this I like, that I like
still better:’ and from the selection she has made, it appears as if she
understood the master’s genius well. She has chosen those of his works
which were most mellow, and at the same time gorgeous in colouring, most
luxuriant in composition, most unctuous in expression. Rubens was the
only artist that could have embodied some of our countryman Spenser’s
splendid and voluptuous allegories. If a painter among ourselves were to
attempt a SPENSER GALLERY, (perhaps the finest subject for the pencil in
the world after Heathen mythology and Scripture History,) he ought to go
and study the principles of his design at Blenheim!—The _Silenus_ and
the _Rape of Proserpine_ contain more of the Bacchanalian and lawless
spirit of ancient fable than perhaps any two pictures extant. We shall
not dispute that Nicolas Poussin could probably give more of the
abstract, metaphysical character of his traditional personages, or that
Titian could set them off better, so as to ‘leave stings’ in the eye of
the spectator, by a prodigious _gusto_ of colouring, as in his _Bacchus
and Ariadne_: but neither of them gave the same undulating outline, the
same humid, _pulpy_ tone to the flesh, the same graceful involution to
the grouping and the forms, the same animal spirits, the same breathing
motion. Let any one look at the figure of the _Silenus_ in the
first-mentioned of these compositions, its unwieldy size, its reeling,
drunken attitude, its capacity for revelling in gross, sensual
enjoyment, and contrast it with the figure of the nymph, so light, so
wanton, so fair, that her clear crystal skin and laughing grace spread a
ruddy glow, and account for the giddy tumult all around her; and say if
any thing finer in this kind was ever executed or imagined. In that sort
of licentious fancy, in which a certain grossness of expression bordered
on caricature, and where grotesque or enticing form was to be combined
with free and rapid movements, or different tones and colours were to be
flung over the picture as in sport or in a dance, no one ever surpassed
the Flemish painter; and some of the greatest triumphs of his pencil are
to be found in the Blenheim Gallery. There are several others of his
best pictures on sacred subjects, such as the _Flight into Egypt_, and
the illustration of the text, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’
The head and figure and deportment of the Christ, in this last admirable
production, are nobly characteristic (beyond what the painter usually
accomplished in this department)—the face of a woman holding a young
child, pale, pensive, with scarce any shadow, and the head of the child
itself (looking as vacant and satisfied as if the nipple had just
dropped from its mouth) are actually alive. Those who can look at this
picture with indifference, or without astonishment at the truth of
nature, and the felicity of execution, may rest assured that they know
as little of Rubens as of the Art itself. Vandyke, the scholar and rival
of Rubens, holds the next place in this Collection. There is here, as in
so many other places, a picture of the famous Lord Strafford, with his
Secretary—both speaking heads, and with the characters finely
diversified. We were struck also by the delightful family picture of the
Duchess of Buckingham and her Children, but not so much (we confess it)
as we expected from our recollection of this picture a few years ago. It
had less the effect of a perfect mirror of fashion in ‘the olden time,’
than we fancied to ourselves—the little girl had less exquisite primness
and studied gentility, the little boy had not the same chubby,
good-humoured look, and the colours in his cheek had faded—nor had the
mother the same graceful, matron-like air. Is it we or the picture that
has changed? In general our expectations tally pretty well with our
after-observations, but there was a falling-off in the present instance.
There is a fine whole-length of a lady of quality of that day (we think
Lady Cleveland); but the master-piece of Vandyke’s pencil here is his
_Charles I. on Horseback_. It is the famous cream or fawn-coloured
horse, which, of all the creatures that ever were painted, is surely one
of the most beautiful.
‘Sure never were seen
Two such beautiful ponies;
All others are brutes,
But these macaronies.’
Its steps are delicate, as if it moved to some soft measure or courtly
strain, or disdained the very ground it trod upon; its form all
lightness and elegance: the expression quick and fiery; the colour
inimitable; the texture of the skin sensitive and tremblingly alive all
over, as if it would shrink from the smallest touch. The portrait of
Charles is not equal; but there is a landscape-background, which in
breezy freshness seems almost to rival the airy spirit and delicacy of
the noble animal. There are also one or two fine Rembrandts
(particularly a _Jacob and Esau_)—an early Raphael, the _Adoration_ of
some saint, hard and stiff, but carefully designed; and a fine,
sensible, graceful head of the _Fornarina_, of which we have a common
and well-executed engraving.
‘But did you see the Titian room?’—Yes, we did, and a glorious treat it
was; nor do we know why it should not be shewn to every one. There is
nothing alarming but the title of the subjects—_The Loves of the
Gods_—just as was the case with Mr. T. Moore’s _Loves of the Angels_—but
oh! how differently treated! What a gusto in the first, compared with
the insipidity of the last! What streaks of living blood-colour, so
unlike gauze spangles or pink silk-stockings! What union, what symmetry
of form, instead of sprawling, flimsy descriptions—what an expression of
amorous enjoyment about the mouth, the eyes, and even to the
finger-ends, instead of cold conceits, and moonlight similes! This is
_en passant_; so to our task.—It is said these pictures were discovered
in an old lumber-room by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who set a high value on
them, and that they are undoubtedly by Titian, having been originally
sent over as a present by the King of Sardinia (for whose ancestor they
were painted) to the first Duke of Marlborough. We should (without,
however, pretending to set up an opinion) incline, from the internal
evidence, to think them from the pencil of the great Venetian, but for
two circumstances: the first is the texture of the skin; and secondly,
they do not compose well as pictures. They have no back-ground to set
them off, but a most ridiculous trellis-work, representing nothing, hung
round them; and the flesh looks monotonous and hard, like the rind of
fruit. On the other hand, this last objection seems to be answered
satisfactorily enough, and without impugning the skill of the artist;
for the pictures are actually painted on skins of leather. In all other
respects, they might assuredly be by Titian, and we know of no other
painter who was capable of achieving their various excellences. The
drawing of the female figures is correct and elegant in a high degree,
and might be supposed to be borrowed from classic sculpture, but that it
is more soft, more feminine, more lovely. The colouring, with the
exception already stated, is true, spirited, golden, harmonious. The
grouping and attitudes are heroic, the expression in some of the faces
divine. We do not mean, of course, that it possesses the elevation or
purity that Raphael or Correggio could give, but it is warmer, more
thrilling and ecstatic. There is the glow and ripeness of a more genial
clime, the purple light of love, crimsoned blushes, looks bathed in
rapture, kisses with immortal sweetness in their taste—Nay, then, let
the reader go and see the pictures, and no longer lay the blame of this
extravagance on us. We may at any rate repeat the subjects. They are
eight in number. 1. _Mars and Venus._ The Venus is well worthy to be
called the Queen of Love, for shape, for air, for every thing. Her
redoubted lover is a middle-aged, ill-looking gentleman, clad in a
buff-jerkin, and somewhat of a formalist in his approaches and mode of
address; but there is a Cupid playing on the floor, who might well turn
the world upside down. 2. _Cupid and Psyche._ The Cupid is perhaps
rather a gawky, awkward stripling, with eager, open-mouthed wonder: but
did ever creature of mortal mould see any thing comparable to the back
and limbs of the Psyche, or conceive or read any thing equal to it, but
that unique description in the Troilus and Cressida of Chaucer? 3.
_Apollo and Daphne._ Not equal to the rest. 4. _Hercules and Dejanira._
The female figure in this picture is full of grace and animation, and
the arms that are twined round the great son of Jove are elastic as a
bended bow. 5. _Vulcan and Ceres._ 6. _Pluto and Proserpine._ 7.
_Jupiter and Io._ Very fine. And finest of all, and last, _Neptune and
Amphitrite_. In this last work it seems ‘as if increase of appetite did
grow with what it fed on.’ What a face is that of Amphitrite for beauty
and for sweetness of expression! One thing is remarkable in these groups
(with the exception of two) which is that the lovers are all of them old
men; but then they retain their beards (according to the custom of the
good old times!) and this makes not only a picturesque contrast, but
gives a beautiful softness and youthful delicacy to the female faces
opposed to them. Upon the whole, this series of historic compositions
well deserves the attention of the artist and the connoisseur, and
perhaps some light might be thrown upon the subject of their
authenticity by turning over some old portfolios. We have heard a hint
thrown out that the designs are of a date prior to Titian. But ‘we are
ignorance itself in this!’
APPENDIX
CRITICISM ON HOGARTH’S MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE
_The Criticism on Hogarth’s ‘Marriage a-la-Mode,’ referred to in the
account of Mr. Angerstein’s pictures (page 15), is as follows_:—
The superiority of the pictures of Hogarth, which we have seen in the
late collection at the British Institution, to the common prints, is
confined chiefly to the _Marriage a-la-Mode_. We shall attempt to
illustrate a few of their most striking excellences, more particularly
with reference to the expression of character. Their merits are indeed
so prominent, and have been so often discussed, that it may be thought
difficult to point out any new beauties; but they contain so much truth
of nature, they present the objects to the eye under so many aspects and
bearings, admit of so many constructions, and are so pregnant with
meaning, that the subject is in a manner inexhaustible.
Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental of all the novel-writers,
has been stigmatized as a mere inventor of licentious tales, because
readers in general have only seized on those things in his works which
were suited to their own taste, and have reflected their own grossness
back upon the writer. So it has happened that the majority of critics
having been most struck with the strong and decided expression in
Hogarth, the extreme delicacy and subtle gradations of character in his
pictures have almost entirely escaped them. In the first picture of the
_Marriage a-la-Mode_, the three figures of the young Nobleman, his
intended Bride, and her innamorato the Lawyer, shew how much Hogarth
excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression. They
have, however, been less noticed than the other figures, which tell a
plainer story, and convey a more palpable moral. Nothing can be more
finely managed than the differences of character in these delicate
personages. The Beau sits smiling at the looking-glass, with a reflected
simper of self-admiration, and a languishing inclination of the head,
while the rest of his body is perked up on his high heels, with a
certain air of tiptoe elevation. He is the Narcissus of the reign of
George II., whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and patches,
divide his self-love equally with his own person, the true Sir Plume of
his day,—
——‘Of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.’
There is the same felicity in the figure and attitude of the Bride,
courted by the Lawyer. There is the utmost flexibility, and yielding
softness in her whole person, a listless languor and tremulous suspense
in the expression of her face. It is the precise look and air which Pope
has given to his favourite Belinda, just at the moment of the Rape of
the Lock. The heightened glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened
soul of love in the same face, in the Assignation-scene before the
masquerade, form a fine and instructive contrast to the delicacy,
timidity, and coy reluctance expressed in the first. The Lawyer, in both
pictures, is much the same—perhaps too much so—though even this unmoved,
unaltered appearance may be designed as characteristic. In both cases,
he has ‘a person and a smooth dispose, framed to make women false.’ He
is full of that easy good-humour, and easy good opinion of himself, with
which the sex are delighted. There is not a sharp angle in his face to
obstruct his success, or give a hint of doubt or difficulty. His whole
aspect is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, happy without the least
expense of thought, careless, and inviting; and conveys a perfect idea
of the uninterrupted glide and pleasing murmur of the soft periods that
flow from his tongue.
The expression of the Bride in the Morning-scene is the most highly
seasoned, and at the same time the most vulgar in the series. The
figure, face, and attitude of the Husband are inimitable. Hogarth has
with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the Husband with the
yellow whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece behind him, in such a
manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendour
of the view of the inner room in this picture, is probably not exceeded
by any of the productions of the Flemish school.
The Young Girl, in the third picture, who is represented as a victim of
fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the artist’s
_chef-d’œuvres_. The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only
surpassed by the felicity and subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be
more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her
person and the hardened indifference of her character. The vacant
stillness, the docility to vice, the premature suppression of youthful
sensibility, the doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which seems to
have no other feeling but a sickly sense of pain,—shew the deepest
insight into human nature, and into the effects of those refinements in
depravity, by which it has been good-naturedly asserted, that ‘vice
loses half its evil in losing all its grossness.’ The story of this
picture is in some parts very obscure and enigmatical. It is certain
that the Nobleman is not looking straight forward to the Quack, whom he
seems to have been threatening with his cane; but that his eyes are
turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to the Procuress. The
commanding attitude and size of this woman,—the swelling circumference
of her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock’s feathers,—the fierce,
ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, which hardly
needs the comment of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose, are all
admirable in themselves, and still more so, as they are opposed to the
mute insensibility, the elegant negligence of dress, and the childish
figure of the girl, who is supposed to be her _protegée_. As for the
Quack, there can be no doubt entertained about him. His face seems as if
it were composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos and
confusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impudent empiricism.
The gradations of ridiculous affectation in the Music-scene, are finely
imagined and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained admiration of the
Lady of Quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient, delight of the Man
with his hair in papers, and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking,
conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the
transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and
then to the wonder of the Negro-boy at the rapture of his mistress,—form
a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-coloured hair of the
female Virtuoso throw an additional light on the character. This is lost
in the print. The continuing the red colour of the hair into the back of
the chair, has been pointed out as one of those instances of
alliteration in colouring, of which these pictures are everywhere full.
The gross, bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well relieved by
the hard features of the instrumental Performer behind him, which might
be carved of wood. The Negro-boy, holding the chocolate, in expression,
colour, and execution, is a master-piece. The gay, lively derision of
the other Negro-boy, playing with the Actæon, is an ingenious contrast
to the profound amazement of the first. Some account has already been
given of the two lovers in this picture. It is curious to observe the
infinite activity of mind which the artist displays on every occasion.
An instance occurs in the present picture. He has so contrived the
papers in the hair of the Bride, as to make them look almost like a
wreathe of half-blown flowers; while those which he has placed on the
head of the musical Amateur very much resemble a _cheveux-de-fris_ of
horns, which adorn and fortify the lacklustre expression and mild
resignation of the face beneath.
The Night-scene is inferior to the rest of the series. The attitude of
the Husband, who is just killed, is one in which it would be impossible
for him to stand, or even to fall. It resembles the loose pasteboard
figures they make for children. The characters in the last picture, in
which the Wife dies, are all masterly. We would particularly refer to
the captious, petulant self-sufficiency of the Apothecary, whose face
and figure are constructed on exact physiognomical principles, and to
the fine example of passive obedience and non-resistance in the Servant,
whom he is taking to task, and whose coat of green and yellow livery is
as long and melancholy as his face. The disconsolate look, the haggard
eyes, the open mouth, the comb sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped
teeth, which, as it were, hitch in an answer—every thing about him
denotes the utmost perplexity and dismay. The harmony and gradations of
colour in this picture are uniformly preserved with the greatest nicety,
and are well worthy the attention of the artist.
It has been observed, that Hogarth’s pictures are exceedingly unlike any
other representations of the same kind of subjects—that they form a
class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may be worth
while to consider in what this general distinction consists.
In the first place they are, in the strictest sense, historical
pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones
ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a
regular developement of fable, manners, character, and passion, the
compositions of Hogarth will, in like manner be found to have a higher
claim to the title of Epic Pictures, than many which have of late
arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth
treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the
manners and humours of mankind in action, and their characters by
varying expression. Every thing in his pictures has life and motion in
it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every
feature and muscle is put into full play; the exact feeling of the
moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then
instantly seized and stamped on the canvas forever. The expression is
always taken _en passant_, in a state of progress or change, and, as it
were, at the salient point. Besides the excellence of each individual
face, the reflection of the expression from face to face, the contrast
and struggle of particular motives and feelings in the different actors
in the scene, as of anger, contempt, laughter, compassion, are conveyed
in the happiest and most lively manner. His figures are not like the
background on which they are painted: even the pictures on the wall have
a peculiar look of their own.—Again, with the rapidity, variety, and
scope of history, Hogarth’s heads have all the reality and correctness
of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he
gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. This is in fact what
distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, that
they are equally remote from caricature and from mere still-life. It of
course happens in subjects from common life, that the painter can
procure real models, and he can get them to sit as long as he pleases.
Hence, in general, those attitudes and expressions have been chosen
which could be assumed the longest; and in imitating which, the artist,
by taking pains and time, might produce almost as complete a fac-simile
as he could of a flower or a flower-pot, of a damask curtain, or a china
vase. The copy was as perfect and as uninteresting in the one case as in
the other. On the contrary, subjects of drollery and ridicule affording
frequent examples of strange deformity and peculiarity of features,
these have been eagerly seized by another class of artists, who, without
subjecting themselves to the laborious drudgery of the Dutch school and
their imitators, have produced our popular caricatures, by rudely
copying or exaggerating the casual irregularities of the human
countenance. Hogarth has equally avoided the faults of both these
styles—the insipid tameness of the one, and the gross vulgarity of the
other—so as to give to the productions of his pencil equal solidity and
effect: for his faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never
(we believe in any single instance) go beyond it; they take the very
widest latitude, and yet we always see the links which bind them to
nature: they bear all the marks, and carry all the conviction of reality
with them, as if we had seen the actual faces for the first time, from
the precision, consistency, and good sense, with which the whole and
every part is made out. They exhibit the most uncommon features with the
most uncommon expressions, but which are yet as familiar and
intelligible as possible; because, with all the boldness, they have all
the truth of nature. Hogarth has left behind him as many of these
memorable faces, in their memorable moments, as, perhaps, most of us
remember in the course of our lives; and has thus doubled the quantity
of our observation.
We have, in the present paper, attempted to point out the fund of
observation, physical and moral, contained in one set of these pictures,
the _Marriage a-la-Mode_. The rest would furnish as many topics to
descant upon, were the patience of the reader as inexhaustible as the
painter’s invention. But as this is not the case, we shall content
ourselves with barely referring to some of those figures in the other
pictures, which appear the most striking; and which we see, not only
while we are looking at them, but which we have before us at all other
times.—For instance: who, having seen, can easily forget that exquisite
frost-piece of religion and morality, the antiquated prude, in the
picture of _Morning_? or that striking commentary on the _good old
times_, the little wretched appendage of a foot-boy, who crawls, half
famished and half frozen, behind her? The French man and woman, in the
_Noon_, are the perfection of flighty affectation and studied grimace;
the amiable _fraternization_ of the two old women saluting each other,
is not enough to be admired; and in the little master, in the same
national group, we see the early promise and personification of that
eternal principle of wondrous self-complacency, proof against all
circumstances, which makes the French the only people who are vain, even
of being cuckolded and being conquered! Or shall we prefer to this, the
outrageous distress and unmitigated terrors of the boy who has dropped
his dish of meat, and who seems red all over with shame and vexation,
and bursting with the noise he makes? Or what can be better than the
good housewifery of the girl underneath, who is devouring the lucky
fragments? Or than the plump, ripe, florid, luscious look of the
servant-wench, embraced by a greasy rascal of an Othello, with her
pye-dish tottering like her virtue, and with the most precious part of
its contents running over? Just—no, not quite—as good, is the joke of
the woman over head, who, having quarrelled with her husband, is
throwing their Sunday’s dinner out of the window, to complete this
chapter of accidents of baked dishes. The husband, in the _Evening_
scene, is certainly as meek as any recorded in history; but we cannot
say that we admire this picture, or the _Night_ scene after it. But then
in the _Taste in High Life_, there is that inimitable pair, differing
only in sex, congratulating and delighting one another by ‘all the
mutually reflected charities’ of folly and affectation; with the young
lady, coloured like a rose, dandling her little, black, pug-faced,
white-teethed, chuckling favourite; and with the portrait of Mons. Des
Noyers, in the background, dancing in a grand ballet, surrounded by
butterflies. And again, in _The Election Dinner_, is the immortal
cobbler, surrounded by his peers, who ‘frequent and full,’—
‘In _loud_ recess and _brawling_ conclave sit:’—
the Jew, in the second picture, a very Jew in grain—innumerable fine
sketches of heads in the _Polling for Votes_, of which the nobleman,
overlooking the caricaturist, is the best;—and then the irresistible,
tumultuous display of broad humour in the _Chairing the Member_, which
is, perhaps, of all Hogarth’s pictures, the most full of laughable
incidents and situations. The yellow, rusty-faced thresher, with his
swinging flail, breaking the head of one of the chairmen; and his
redoubted antagonist, the sailor, with his oak stick, and stumping
wooden leg, a supplemental cudgel—the persevering ecstasy of the
hobbling blind fiddler, who, in the fray, appears to have been trod upon
by the artificial excrescence of the honest tar—Monsieur, the Monkey,
with piteous aspect, speculating the impending disaster of the
triumphant candidate; and his brother Bruin, appropriating the
paunch—the precipitous flight of the pigs, souse over head into the
water—the fine lady fainting, with vermilion lips—and the two chimney
sweepers, satirical young rogues! We had almost forgot the politician,
who is burning a hole through his hat with a candle, in reading a
newspaper; and the chickens, in _The March to Finchley_, wandering in
search of their lost dam, who is found in the pocket of the serjeant. Of
the pictures in _The Rake’s Progress_ we shall not here say any thing,
because we think them, on the whole, inferior to the prints; and because
they have already been criticised by a writer, to whom we could add
nothing, in a paper which ought to be read by every lover of Hogarth and
of English genius.[11]
-----
Footnote 1:
We like this picture of a Concert the best of the three by Titian in
the same room. The other two are a Ganymede, and a Venus and Adonis;
the last does not appear to us from the hand of Titian.
Footnote 2:
The Reader, if he pleases, may turn to an Essay on this subject in the
_Round Table_.
Footnote 3:
Two thirds of the principal pictures in the Orleans Collection are at
present at Cleveland-House, one third purchased by the Marquis of
Stafford, and another third left by the Duke of Bridgewater, another
of the purchasers Mr. Brian had the remaining third.
Footnote 4:
‘Aut Erasmus aut Diabolus.’ Sir Thomas More’s exclamation on meeting
with the philosopher of Rotterdam.
Footnote 5:
The late Mr. Curran described John Kemble’s eye in these words.
Footnote 6:
It is said in the catalogue to be painted on touch-stone.
Footnote 7:
Written in February, 1823.
Footnote 8:
We heard it well said the other day, that ‘Rubens’s pictures were the
palette of Titian.’
Footnote 9:
This is not absolutely true. Mr. Banks the younger, and another young
gentleman, formed an exception to this rule, and contrived to get into
the Abbey-grounds, in spite of warning, just as the recluse proprietor
happened to be passing by the spot. Instead, however, of manifesting
any displeasure, he gave them a most polite reception, shewed them
whatever they expressed a wish to see, asked them to dinner, and after
passing the day in the greatest conviviality, dismissed them by
saying, ‘That they might get out as they got in.’ This was certainly a
good jest. Our youthful adventurers on forbidden ground, in the midst
of their festive security, might have expected some such shrewd turn
from the antithetical genius of the author of Vathek, who makes his
hero, in a paroxysm of impatience, call out for ‘the Koran and
_sugar_!’
Footnote 10:
From the New Monthly Magazine.
Footnote 11:
See an Essay on the Genius of Hogarth, by C. Lamb.
NOTES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
_Notes of a Journey through France and Italy, By W. Hazlitt_, was
published in 1826, in an 8vo. volume (9 × 5¼ inches). Printed for Hunt
and Clarke, Tavistock-Street, Covent-Garden. The printer’s name is given
behind the title-page as ‘William Clowes, Northumberland-court,’ and the
following lines from _Cymbeline_ (Act III. 4.) appear underneath the
author’s name on the title-page:—
‘I’ the world’s volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in it;
In a great pool, a swan’s nest. Prithee think
There’s livers out of Britain.’
As stated in the ADVERTISEMENT, the _Notes_ were reprinted from the
_Morning Chronicle_, to which they had been contributed in 1824 and
1825. They are now reprinted for the first time since the publication of
the volume of 1826, and as they appeared in that volume. A few passages
which appeared in the papers as they came out in the _Morning
Chronicle_, and were omitted when Hazlitt collected the letters in
book-form, will be found among the notes at the end of the volume.
ADVERTISEMENT
The following _Notes of a Journey through France and Italy_ are
reprinted from the columns of the _Morning Chronicle_. The favourable
reception they met with there suggested the idea of the present work. My
object has been to describe what I saw or remarked myself; or to give
the reader some notion of what he might expect to find in travelling the
same road. There is little of history or antiquities or statistics; nor
do I regret the want of them, as it may be abundantly supplied from
other sources. The only thing I could have wished to expatiate upon more
at large is the _manners_ of the country: but to do justice to this, a
greater length of time and a more intimate acquaintance with society and
the language would be necessary. Perhaps, at some future opportunity,
this defect may be remedied.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—Rules for travelling abroad. Brighton. Crossing the 89
Channel. Dieppe. Remarks on the French common People
CHAPTER II.—Normandy. Appearance of the Country. Rouen. The 94
Cathedral there. The sense of Smell
CHAPTER III.—The Road from Rouen to Paris. A Mistake. Evreux. A 100
young Frenchman. A _trait_ of national Politeness. Louviers. The
Diligence, and the Company in it. Lord Byron and Mr. Moore
CHAPTER IV.—The Louvre 106
CHAPTER V.—Gravity of the French. Their Behaviour at the Theatre. 113
Account of going to a Play. Minute attention paid to the Arts
and Sciences in France. Sir T. Lawrence. Horace Vernet
CHAPTER VI.—Dialogue on the Exhibition of Modern French Pictures 122
CHAPTER VII.—The Luxembourg Gallery 129
CHAPTER VIII.—National Antipathies. Cemetery of _Père la Chaise_ 138
CHAPTER IX.—Mademoiselle Mars. The _Théatre Français_. Molière’s 147
_Misanthrope_ and _Tartuffe_. Admirable manner of casting a Play
in Paris. French Actors, Le Peintre, Odry, and Potier. Talma and
Mademoiselle Georges
CHAPTER X.—Description of Paris. The Garden of the Tuileries. The 155
_Champ de Mars_. The _Jardin des Plantes_. Reflections
CHAPTER XI.—French Sculpture. Note on the Elgin Marbles 162
CHAPTER XII.—The French Opera. Dido and Æneas. Madame Le Gallois 169
in the Ballet. Italian Opera or _Salle Louvois_. Mombelli and
Pellegrini in the _Gazza Ladra_. Allusion to Brunet
CHAPTER XIII.—Leave Paris for Lyons. Adventures on the Road. 175
Fontainbleau. Montargis. Girl at the Inn there. A French
Diligence. Moulins. Palisseau. The Bourbonnois. Descent into
Tarare. Meeting with a young Englishman there. Arrival at Lyons.
Manners of French Servants. French Translation of Tom Jones. M.
Martine’s _Death of Socrates_
CHAPTER XIV.—Set out for Turin by Way of Mont Cenis. The Cheats of 183
Scapin. The Diligence. Pont Beau Voisin, the frontier Town of
the King of Sardinia’s Dominions. Have to pass the Custom House.
My Box of Books _leaded_. A Note which is little to the Purpose.
First View of the Alps. The Grand Chartreuse. Cavern of La
Grotte. Chambery. St. Michelle. Lans-le-Bourg. Our Spanish
fellow-traveller. Passage of Mount Cenis. Arrival at Susa
CHAPTER XV.—Turin. Its magnificent Situation. The Effect of first 195
feeling one’s-self in Italy. Theatre. Capital Pantomime-acting.
Passports. Get seats in a Voiture to Florence, with two English
Ladies. Mode of travelling. Italian Peasants. Parma. Windows
lined with Faces. Maria-Louisa. Character of Correggio. Frescoes
by the same in the Cupola of St. Paul’s. The Farnese Theatre.
Bologna. Academy of Painting. Towns in Italy
CHAPTER XVI.—Road to Florence. The Apennines. Covigliaijo. La 207
Maschere. Approach to and Description of Florence. Carnival.
Lent. The Popish Calendar. Fesole. Cold in Italy
CHAPTER XVII.—The public Gallery. Antique Busts. The Venus. 219
Raphael’s Fornarina. The Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini. John of
Bologna’s Rape of the Sabines. The Palace Pitti
CHAPTER XVIII.—Sienna. Radicofani. Aquapendente. Description of 227
the Inn there. San Lorenzo. Monte-Fiascone. Lake of Bolsena.
Desolate Appearance of the Country near Rome. First View of St.
Peter’s from Baccano
CHAPTER XIX.—Rome. The Vatican. The Capella Sistina. Holy Week. 232
The Coliseum. The Temple of Vesta. Picture Galleries—the
Ruspigliosi, Doria, Borghese, Corsini, and Little Farnese. Guido
CHAPTER XX.—Character of the English 241
CHAPTER XXI.—Return to Florence. Italian Banditti. Terni. Tivoli. 253
Spoleto. Church and Pictures at Assizi. Perugia. An Irish
Priest. Cortona. Arrezo. Incisa
CHAPTER XXII.—Journey to Venice. Plain of Lombardy. A country Inn. 263
Ferrara. Rovigo. Padua. Description of Venice
CHAPTER XXIII.—Palaces at Venice—the Grimani, Barberigo, and 268
Manfrini Collections. Paul Veronese. Titian’s St. Peter Martyr.
The Assumption and Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. St. Mark’s Place
CHAPTER XXIV.—Journey to Milan. Verona. The Tomb of Juliet. The 275
Amphitheatre. The Fortress of Peschiera. Lake of Garda. Milan.
The Inhabitants. The Duomo. Theatre of the Gran Scala. Isola
Bella. Lago Maggiore. Baveno
CHAPTER XXV.—The passage over the Simplon. Inn at Brigg. Valley of 281
the Simplon. Sion. Bex. Vevey
CHAPTER XXVI.—Excursion to Chamouni. Mont-Blanc. Geneva. Lausanne 288
CHAPTER XXVII.—Return down the Rhine through Holland. Concluding 295
remarks
NOTES OF A JOURNEY
THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
CHAPTER I
The rule for travelling abroad is to take our common sense with us, and
leave our prejudices behind us. The object of travelling is to see and
learn; but such is our impatience of ignorance, or the jealousy of our
self-love, that we generally set up a certain preconception beforehand
(in self-defence, or as a barrier against the lessons of experience,)
and are surprised at or quarrel with all that does not conform to it.
Let us think what we please of what we really find, but prejudge
nothing. The English, in particular, carry out their own defects as a
standard for general imitation; and think the virtues of others (that
are not _their_ vices) good for nothing. Thus they find fault with the
gaiety of the French as impertinence, with their politeness as grimace.
This repulsive system of carping and contradiction can extract neither
use nor meaning from any thing, and only tends to make those who give
way to it uncomfortable and ridiculous. On the contrary, we should be as
seldom shocked or annoyed as possible, (it is our vanity or ignorance
that is mortified much oftener than our reason!) and contrive to see the
favourable side of things. This will turn both to profit and pleasure.
The intellectual, like the physical, is best kept up by an exchange of
commodities, instead of an ill-natured and idle search after grievances.
The first thing an Englishman does on going abroad is to find fault with
what is French, because it is not English. If he is determined to
confine all excellence to his own country, he had better stay at home.
On arriving at Brighton (in the full season,) a lad offered to conduct
us to an inn. ‘Did he think there was room?’ He was sure of it. ‘Did he
belong to the inn?’ No, he was from London. In fact, he was a young
gentleman from town, who had been stopping some time at the White-Horse
Hotel, and who wished to employ his spare time (when he was not riding
out on a blood-horse) in serving the house, and relieving the
perplexities of his fellow-travellers. No one but a Londoner would
volunteer his assistance in this way. Amiable land of _Cockayne_, happy
in itself, and in making others happy! Blest exuberance of
self-satisfaction, that overflows upon others! Delightful impertinence,
that is forward to oblige them!
There is something in being near the sea, like the confines of eternity.
It is a new element, a pure abstraction. The mind loves to hover on that
which is endless, and forever the same. People wonder at a steam-boat,
the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an
iron railway through the sea—I wonder at the sea itself, that vast
Leviathan, rolled round the earth, smiling in its sleep, waked into
fury, fathomless, boundless, a huge world of water-drops—Whence is it,
whither goes it, is it of eternity or of nothing? Strange, ponderous
riddle, that we can neither penetrate nor grasp in our comprehension,
ebbing and flowing like human life, and swallowing it up in thy
remorseless womb,—what art thou? What is there in common between thy
life and ours, who gaze at thee? Blind, deaf and old, thou seest not,
hearest not, understandest not; neither do we understand, who behold and
listen to thee! Great as thou art, unconscious of thy greatness,
unwieldy, enormous, preposterous twin-birth of matter, rest in thy dark,
unfathomed cave of mystery, mocking human pride and weakness. Still is
it given to the mind of man to wonder at thee, to confess its ignorance,
and to stand in awe of thy stupendous might and majesty, and of its own
being, that can question thine! But a truce with reflections.
The Pavilion at Brighton is like a collection of stone pumpkins and
pepper-boxes. It seems as if the genius of architecture had at once the
dropsy and the _megrims_. Any thing more fantastical, with a greater
dearth of invention, was never seen. The King’s stud (if they were
horses of taste) would petition against so irrational a lodging.
Brighton stands facing the sea, on the bare cliffs, with glazed windows
to reflect the glaring sun, and black pitchy bricks shining like the
scales of fishes. The town is however gay with the influx of London
visitors—happy as the conscious abode of its sovereign! Every thing here
appears in motion—coming or going. People at a watering-place may be
compared to the flies of a summer; or to fashionable dresses, or suits
of clothes walking about the streets. The only idea you gain is, of
finery and motion. The road between London and Brighton presents some
very charming scenery; Reigate is a prettier English country-town than
is to be found anywhere—out of England! As we entered Brighton in the
evening, a Frenchman was playing and singing to a guitar. It was a
relief to the conversation in the coach, which had been chiefly
supported in a nasal tone by a disciple of Mrs. Fry and amanuensis of
philanthropy in general. As we heard the lively musician warble, we
forgot the land of Sunday-schools and spinning-jennies. The genius of
the South had come out to meet us.
We left Brighton in the steam-packet, and soon saw the shores of Albion
recede from us. _Out of sight, out of mind._ How poor a geographer is
the human mind! How small a space does the imagination take in at once!
In travelling, our ideas change like the scenes of a pantomime,
displacing each other as completely and rapidly. Long before we touched
on French ground, the English coast was lost in distance, and nothing
remained of it but a dim mist; it hardly seemed ‘in a great pool a
swan’s nest.’ So shall its glory vanish like a vapour, its liberty like
a dream!
We had a fine passage in the steam-boat (Sept. 1, 1824). Not a cloud,
scarce a breath of air; a moon, and then star-light, till the dawn, with
rosy fingers, ushered us into Dieppe. Our fellow-passengers were
pleasant and unobtrusive, an English party of the better sort: a Member
of Parliament, delighted to escape from ‘late hours and bad company;’ an
English General, proud of his bad French; a Captain in the Navy, glad to
enter a French harbour peaceably; a Country Squire, extending his
inquiries beyond his paternal acres; the younger sons of wealthy
citizens, refined through the strainers of a University-education and
finishing off with foreign travel; a young Lawyer, quoting Peregrine
Pickle, and divided between his last circuit and projected tour. There
was also a young Dutchman, looking mild through his mustachios, and a
new-married couple (a French Jew and Jewess) who grew uxorious from the
effects of sea-sickness, and took refuge from the qualms of the disorder
in paroxysms of tenderness. We had some difficulty in getting into the
harbour, and had to wait till morning for the tide. I grew very tired,
and laid the blame on the time lost in getting some restive horses on
board, but found that if we had set out two hours sooner, we should only
have had to wait two hours longer. The doctrine of _Optimism_ is a very
good and often a very true one in travelling. In advancing up the steps
to give the officers our passport, I was prevented by a young man and
woman, who said they were before me, and on making a second attempt, an
elderly gentleman and lady set up the same claim, because they stood
_behind_ me. It seemed that a servant was waiting with passports for
four. Persons in a certain class of life are so full of their own
business and importance, that they imagine every one else must be aware
of it—I hope this is the last specimen I shall for some time meet with
of city-manners. After a formal custom-house search, we procured
admittance at Pratt’s Hotel, where they said they had reserved a bed for
a Lady. France is a country where they give _honneur aux Dames_. The
window looked out on the bridge and on the river, which reflected the
shipping and the houses; and we should have thought ourselves luckily
off, but that the bed, which occupied a niche in the sitting-room, had
that kind of odour which could not be mistaken for otto of roses.
DIEPPE.—This town presents a very agreeable and romantic appearance to
strangers. It is cut up into a number of distinct divisions by canals,
drawbridges, and bastions, as if to intercept the progress of an enemy.
The best houses, too, are shut up in close courts and high walls on the
same principle, that is, to stand a further siege in the good old times.
There are rows of lime-trees on the quay, and some of the narrow streets
running from it look like wells. This town is a picture to look at; it
is a pity that it is not a nosegay, and that the passenger who ventures
to explore its nooks and alleys is driven back again by ‘a compound of
villainous smells,’ which seem to grow out of the ground. In walking the
streets, one must take one’s nose with one, and that sense is apt to be
offended in France as well as in Scotland. Is it hence called in French
the _organ of sense_? The houses and the dresses are equally
old-fashioned. In France one lives in the imagination of the past; in
England every thing is new and on an improved plan. Such is the progress
of mechanical invention! In Dieppe there is one huge, misshapen, but
venerable-looking Gothic Church (a theological fixture,) instead of
twenty new-fangled erections, Egyptian, Greek or Coptic. The
head-dresses of the women are much the same as those which the
_Spectator_ laughed out of countenance a hundred years ago in England,
with high plaited crowns, and lappets hanging down over the shoulders.
The shape and colours of the bodice and petticoat are what we see in
Dutch pictures; the faces of the common people we are familiarized with
in Mieris and Jan Steen. They are full and fair like the Germans, and
have not the _minced_ and peaked character we attribute to the French.
They are not handsome, but good-natured, expressive, placid. They retain
the look of peasants more than the town’s-people with us, whether from
living more in the open air, or from greater health and temperance, I
cannot say. What I like in their expression (so far) is not the
vivacity, but the goodness, the simplicity, the thoughtful resignation.
The French are full of gesticulation when they speak; they have at other
times an equal appearance of repose and content. You see the figure of a
girl sitting in the sun, so still that her dress seems like streaks of
red and black chalk against the wall; a soldier reading; a group of old
women (with skins as tough, yellow, and wrinkled as those of a tortoise)
chatting in a corner and laughing till their sides are ready to split;
or a string of children tugging a fishing-boat out of the harbour as
evening goes down, and making the air ring with their songs and shouts
of merriment (a sight to make Mr. Malthus shudder!). Life here glows, or
spins carelessly round on its soft axle. The same animal spirits that
supply a fund of cheerful thoughts, break out into all the extravagance
of mirth and social glee. The air is a cordial to them, and they drink
drams of sunshine. My particular liking to the French is, however,
confined to their natural and unsophisticated character. The good
spirits ‘with which they are clothed and fed,’ and which eke out the
deficiencies of fortune or good government, are perhaps too much for
them, when joined with external advantages, or artificial pretensions.
Their vivacity becomes insolence in office; their success, presumption;
their gentility, affectation and grimace. But the national physiognomy
(taken at large) is the reflection of good temper and humanity. One
thing is evident, and decisive in their favour—they do not insult or
point at strangers, but smile on them good-humouredly, and answer them
civilly.
‘Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas’d with thyself, whom all the world can please!’
Nothing shews the contented soul within, so much as our not seeking for
amusement in the mortifications of others: we only envy their
advantages, or sneer at their defects, when we are conscious of wanting
something ourselves. The customs and employments of the people here have
a more primitive and picturesque appearance than in England. Is it that
with us every thing is made domestic and commodious, instead of being
practised in the open air, and subject to the casualties of the
elements? For instance, you see the women washing clothes in the river,
with their red petticoats and bare feet, instead of standing over a
washing-tub. Human life with us is framed and set in comforts: but it
wants the vivid colouring, the glowing expression that we meet
elsewhere. After all, is not the romantic effect produced partly owing
to the novelty of the scene; or do we not attribute to a superiority in
others what is merely a greater liveliness of impression in ourselves,
arising from curiosity and contrast? If this were all, foreigners ought
to be as much delighted with us, but they are not. A man and woman came
and sung ‘God save the King,’ before the windows of the Hotel, as if the
French had so much loyalty at present that they can spare us some of it.
What an opinion must they have formed of the absurd nationality of the
English, to suppose that we can expect them to feel this sort of
mock-sentiment towards our King! What English ballad-singer would dream
of flattering the French visitors by a song in praise of Louis _le
Desiré_ before a Brighton or a Dover Hotel?
As the door opened just now, I saw the lad or _garçon_, who waits on us,
going up stairs with a looking-glass, and admiring himself in it. If he
is pleased with himself, he is no less satisfied with us, and with every
thing else.