Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

In the tenth chapter he treats of "the causes of the superiority of the pictures of the 16th and 17th centuries over those of the past century." He looks upon Rome and the Antique as the chief cause, and that artists go there before they have established principles of art. It is not, he asserts, in difference of colours; for "Giorgione and Titian neither made this themselves, nor brought them from afar, but bought then uniformly in the shops at Venice." He appears to entertain no suspicion of loss or deterioration of vehicle; on the contrary, thinks some artists have been very successful in copies, here rather contradicting his former remarks upon the difference between old copies and new; but, above all, he attributes this _décadence_ of art to the neglect of colour. That, however, is evidently only one part of the art. We are almost induced to smile either at his flattery or his simplicity in naming certain exceptions of modern times, whose names will be little known to, and those known not much in the admiration of, the English collector, "all of whom have carried their art to a very high degree of perfection." In his chapter on the "different manners of the masters," it is observable how little he has to say of the Italian schools; almost all the subsequent remarks in the volume are confined to the Flemish and Dutch. He greatly praises Dietrici for his manner, which to us is not pleasing, and which we should term an imitating flippancy. He tells an anecdote of Titian, which, if it rest upon any good authority, tends to prove that Titian's medium must have been one which admitted the mixture of water with oil. Of Titian he says, that at the end of his life "he used to daub his best works anew with red paint, because he thought the colour too feeble. But happily his pupils had the address to prevent the fatal effects of his foolishness, _by making up his colours with water only_, or with an oil that was not of a drying nature." With colours ground, Titian could not have mixed his pencil in oil alone and unmixed--and he would himself have immediately discovered the cheat, for it would have dried as distemper dead, and crumbled away under his hand. He might have so painted, if oil and water had been combined, and the vehicle rendered saponaceous, which it probably was. Many artists have been led, he observes, to change the manner from good to bad. We have a remarkable instance in our Gainsborough, whose latter scratchy, slovenly manner is most displeasing; nor had he at any time an imagination to justify it, or rather to qualify it by the power of his compositions.

It is strange that he attributes slovenliness of manner to Rembrandt, "from Avarice." Documents have recently been produced showing that Rembrandt's goods were seized for payment of no very large debt. But is not M. de Burtin altogether mistaken in this manner of Rembrandt? Any of his pictures that show this slovenliness, are, we should suspect, in those parts merely sketched in--a method agreeable to his practice, which was to work upon and upon, glazing, and heaping colour--a method which required, in the first instance, a loose and undefined sketchy manner. Some few years ago there was a picture by him exhibited at the Institution, Pall-Mall--dead game, wonderfully painted, and evidently unfinished; a boy in the background was, as we might term it, daubed in in a very slovenly manner, and with a greenish colour, evidently for the sake of that colour as an underground. Under the head "Historical" in this chapter, it is strange to find but seven names, Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, Lairesse, Poelemburg, Albert Durer, and Hans Holbein. Even with some of these names it is too much honour to place Lairesse and Poelemburg.

In reference to the lower classes of subjects, we think justice is hardly done to Jan Steen, of whom, considering him even as a colourist, more should have been said, than that he "is distinguished by the drollery of his subjects, and by the most true and ingeniously simple expression of the feelings of common life." All this might be said of many others; the characteristic of Jan Steen is still wanting. So we think as to Philip Wouverman; no notice is taken of his too great softness, the evident fault of his manner. Nor are we satisfied with the description of Backhuysen. It should have been noticed in what he is distinguished from Vandervelde. His defect in composition is so striking, as frequently to show a want of perspective in design, and often he has no principal object in his picture. His vessels are either too large or too small for the scene; and his execution was likewise too softened. He winds up this part of the subject with a quotation from Diderot, that "he cannot be manner'd, either in design or colouring, who imitates nature scrupulously, and that mannerism comes of the master of the academy, of the school, and of the Antique," which we very much doubt, for the mannerism is often in the mind, the peculiar, the autographic character of the painter, which he stamps even upon nature. Were a Wynantz, and a Claude or Poussin, put down before the same scene, how different would be their pictures, how different the vision in the eye of the three! A Claude would see the distances, a Gaspar Poussin the middle distances and flowing lines, and Wynantz the docks and thistles. The chapter "on the signatures of the Masters," will be found useful to collectors. He says that where there is a false signature it is removed by spirits of wine, and that is the proof that it is false. He does not draw the inference, that as spirits of wine destroy the one vehicle and not the other, the old and original, they must differ.

Another chapter is devoted to "The famous balance composed by De Piles for estimating the different degrees of merit in the principal historical painters." This famous balance is a piece of critical coxcombry with which we never could have tolerable patience. It is an absurd assumption of superiority in the critic over all the masters that ever were; as if he alone were able to conceive perfection, to which no painter has ever been able to advance; that perfection on which the critic, or rather De Piles, had his eye, is Number 20; that no Painter has approached it nearer than nineteen. It commences with a falsehood in supposition, that the critic is above the Painter, or Art, or the only one really cognisant of it. The fact being quite the reverse, for _we know nothing that we have not been absolutely taught by genius_. It is genius that precedes; it is the maker, the worker, the inventor, who alone sees the step beyond. Did the critic see this step he would cease to be the critic, and become the maker. He would become the genius. In the arts, whether of poetry, painting, or music, we know nothing but what practical genius tells us, shows us, teaches us; seldom is it, indeed, that the scholar critic comprehends fully the lessons taught; but to pretend to go before the _masters_, and to set up a post with his Number 20 marked upon it, and to bid his master reach it if he can, is the puerile play of an infantine intellect, or very conceited mind! And so we give M. De Piles, and all his followers, a slap in the face, and bid them go packing with Number 20. We will not condescend to pull to pieces this fantastic scheme, which is in its distinctions, and weighings and calculations, appreciations and depreciations, as false as it must necessarily be, arising from a mind capable of laying down any such scheme at all. The chapter on prices, and the lists contained, will be consulted with advantage by collectors. It contains valuable documents, showing the fluctuations of public taste. There is much useful information upon cleaning pictures, and on varnishes. Something has been recently said to bring into practice again the varnishing with white of egg. M. de Burtin is decidedly against the practice. "As to the varnishes of water, isinglass, and white of egg, every prudent amateur will attack them the instant that he discovers such dangerous enemies, and will use every effort to free his pictures from them." We think him utterly mistaken in the following passage. "In operating upon a work of art, whether to clean it or to raise the varnish, it ought to be remembered, that the colours grow hard only by the lapse of time." If so, surely a hundred years would be time enough to harden--but the chemical tests which touch the hard paint, if it be hard, of a century old, will not be applicable to those of still older date, and of better time. He had shown this unconsciously in what he had said of spirits of wine. We have taken some pains in the pages of Maga to disabuse the public with regard to the imaginary benefit of painting in varnish--a most pernicious practice; and that it is so, we have elsewhere given both proof and authorities. We are glad to find our author on our side. "Besides, no one at the present day (1808) is ignorant of their absurd method of painting in varnish, which corrupts the colours, and prevents them ever attaining the requisite hardness." There is much useful matter upon varnishing, which it will be well that collectors and keepers of public galleries should read with attention. We do not say follow, but read; for it is indeed a very serious matter to recommend a varnish, seeing how many pictures are totally ruined by bad applications. We have been told that drying oil mixed with mastic varnish has been, though not very recently, used in our National Gallery. We hope it is a mistake, and that there has been no such practice. The effect must be to make them dull and horny, and to destroy all brilliancy in time. We say no more upon that subject, believing that our National Gallery is intrusted to good hands, and that whatever is done, will be done with judgment, and not without much reflection. A new varnish has appeared, "Bentley's." We believe it is copal, but rendered removable as mastic. It is certainly very brilliant, not, or but slightly, subject to chill, and is more permanent, as well as almost colourless. De Burtin not only denounces the use of oil in varnishes, but speaks of a more disgusting practice, common in Italy, of rubbing pictures "with fat, oil, or lard, or other animal grease.... So destructive a practice comes in process of time to rot the picture, so that it will not hold together." We should scarcely have thought it worth while to notice this, had we not seen pictures so treated in this country. Behold a specimen of folly and hazardous experiment:--"At that time, I frequented the Dresden gallery every morning, and got from M. Riedal all the details of his practice. He informed me that, amongst others, the chief works of Correggio, Raffaelle, Titian, and Procaccini, after having undergone his preparatory operations, had got a coat of his 'oil of flowers,' which he would repeat, until every part became 'perfectly bright.' And on my remarking, that in the admirable 'Venus' of Titian, the carnations alone were bright, and all the rest flat, he told me with perfect coolness, that 'having only as yet given it three coats of his oil, that it was not astonishing, but that he would put it all in unison by multiplying the coats.'" The man should have been suffocated in his "oil of flowers," preserved in them, and hung up in the gallery _in terrorem_. Could ghosts walk and punish, we would not have been in his skin, though perfumed with his preservative oil of flowers, under the visitations of the ghosts of Correggio, Raffaelle, Titian, and Procaccini. "Such," adds M. de Burtin, "was his threat at the very moment that I felt overpowered with chagrin, to see the superb carnations of Titian acquiring a yellowish, sad, and monotonous tone, through the coats that he had already given to it."

We have noticed, at considerable length, this work, and have been led on by the interest of the subject. The perusal of this translation will repay the connoisseur, and we think the artist. The former, in this country, will be surprised to find names of artists, whose works will not be found in our collections, at least with their titles. The artist will find some useful information, and will always find his flame of enthusiasm fed by reading works upon the subject of art, though they should be very inferior to the present useful volume. We recommend it as not unamusing to all who wish to think upon art, and to acquire the now almost necessary accomplishment of a taste for pictures.

MANNER AND MATTER.

A TALE.