Chapter XXVII (6)

FRENCH AND SPANISH PAINTERS.—In the French school there are but two names of high and established reputation, N. Poussin and Claude Lorraine. Of the former we have already spoken; of the latter we shall give our opinion when we come to speak of our own Wilson. We ought not to pass over the names of Murillo and Velasquez, those admirable Spanish painters. It is difficult to characterize their peculiar excellences as distinct from those of the Italian and Dutch schools. They may be said to hold a middle rank between the painters of mind and body. They express not so much thought and sentiment, nor yet the mere exterior, as the life and spirit of the man. Murillo is probably at the head of that class of painters who have treated subjects of common life. After making the colours on the canvass feel and think, the next best thing is to make them breathe and live. But there is in Murillo’s pictures of this kind a look of real life, a cordial flow of native animal spirits, which we find nowhere else. We might here refer particularly to his picture of the _Two Spanish Beggar Boys_, in the collection at Dulwich College, which cannot easily be forgotten by those who have ever seen it.

PROGRESS OF ART IN BRITAIN.—We come now to speak of the progress of art in our own Country,—of its present state,—and the means proposed for advancing it to still higher perfection.

HOGARTH.—We shall speak first of Hogarth, both as he is the first name in the order of time that we have to boast of, and as he is the greatest comic painter of any age or country. His pictures are not imitations of still life, or mere transcripts of incidental scenes or customs; but powerful moral satires, exposing vice and folly in their most ludicrous points of view, and with a profound insight into the weak sides of character and manners, in all their tendencies, combinations, and contrasts. There is not a single picture of his, containing a representation of merely natural or domestic scenery. His object is not so much ‘to hold the mirror up to nature,’ as ‘to show vice her own feature, scorn her own image.’ Folly is there seen at the height—the moon is at the full—it is the very error of the time. There is a perpetual collision of eccentricities, a tilt and tournament of absurdities, pampered into all sorts of affectation, airy, extravagant, and ostentatious! Yet he is as little a caricaturist as he is a painter of still life. Criticism has not done him justice, though public opinion has. His works have received a sanction which it would be vain to dispute, in the universal delight and admiration with which they have been regarded, from their first appearance, to the present moment. If the quantity of amusement, or of matter for reflection which they have afforded, is that by which we are to judge of precedence among the intellectual benefactors of mankind, there are perhaps few persons who can put in a stronger claim to our gratitude than Hogarth. The wonderful knowledge which he possessed of human life and manners, is only to be surpassed (if it can be) by the powers of invention with which he has arranged his materials, and by the mastery of execution with which he has embodied and made tangible the very thoughts and passing movements of the mind. Some persons object to the style of Hogarth’s pictures, or the class to which they belong. First, Hogarth belongs to no class, or, if he belongs to any, it is to the same class as Fielding, Smollett, Vanbrugh, and Molière. Besides, the merit of his pictures does not depend on the nature of his subjects, but on the knowledge displayed of them, on the number of ideas, on the fund of observation and amusement contained in them. Make what deductions you please for the vulgarity of the subjects—yet in the research, the profundity, the absolute truth and precision of the delineation of character,—in the invention of incident, in wit and humour, in life and motion, in everlasting variety and originality,—they never have, and probably never will be, surpassed. They stimulate the faculties, as well as amuse them. ‘Other pictures we see, Hogarth’s we read.’[54]

There is one error which has been frequently entertained on this subject, and which we wish to correct, namely, that Hogarth’s genius was confined to the imitation of the coarse humours and broad farce of the lowest life. But he excelled quite as much in exhibiting the vices, the folly, and frivolity of the fashionable manners of his time. His fine ladies do not yield the palm of ridicule to his waiting-maids, and his lords and his porters are on a very respectable footing of equality. He is quite at home, either in St. Giles’s or St. James’s. There is no want, for example, in his _Marriage à la Mode_, or his _Taste in High Life_, of affectation verging into idiotcy, or of languid sensibility that might

‘Die of a rose in aromatic pain.’

Many of Hogarth’s characters would form admirable illustrations of Pope’s Satires, who was contemporary with him. In short, Hogarth was a painter of real, not of low life. He was, as we have said, a satirist, and consequently his pencil did not dwell on the grand and beautiful, but it glanced, with equal success at the absurdities and peculiarities of high or low life, ‘of the great vulgar and the small.’

To this it must be added, that he was as great a master of passion as of humour. He succeeded in low tragedy, as much as in low or genteel comedy, and had an absolute power in moving the affections and rending the hearts of the spectators, by depicting the effects of the most dreadful calamities of human life, on common minds and common countenances. Of this, the _Rake’s Progress_, particularly the Bedlam scene, and many others, are unanswerable proofs. Hogarth’s merits, as a mere artist, are not confined to his prints. In general, indeed, this is the case. But when he chose to take pains, he could add the delicacies of execution and colouring in the highest degree to those of character and composition; as is evident in his series of pictures, all equally well painted, of the _Marriage à la Mode_, exhibited lately at the British Institution.

WILSON.—We shall next speak of Wilson, whose pictures may be divided into three classes:—his Italian landscapes, or imitations of the manner of Claude,—his copies of English scenery,—and his historical compositions. The first of these are, in our opinion, by much the best; and we appeal, in support of this opinion, to the _Apollo and the Seasons_, and to the _Phaeton_. The figures are of course out of the question (these being as uncouth and slovenly as Claude’s are insipid and finical); but the landscape, in both pictures, is delightful. In looking at them, we breathe the air which the scene inspires, and feel the genius of the place present to us. In the first, there is the cool freshness of a misty spring morning; the sky, the water, the dim horizon, all convey the same feeling. The fine grey tone, and varying outline of the hills; the graceful form of the retiring lake, broken still more by the hazy shadows of the objects that repose on its bosom; the light trees that expand their branches in the air; and the dark stone figure and mouldering temple, that contrast strongly with the broad clear light of the rising day,—give a charm, a truth, a force and harmony to this composition, which produce the greater pleasure the longer it is dwelt on. The distribution of light and shade resembles the effect of light on a globe. The _Phaeton_ has the dazzling fervid appearance of an autumnal evening; the golden radiance streams in solid masses from behind the flickering clouds; every object is baked in the sun;—the brown fore-ground, the thick foliage of the trees, the streams, shrunk and stealing along behind the dark high banks,—combine to produce that richness, and characteristic unity of effect, which is to be found only in nature, or in art derived from the study and imitation of nature. These two pictures, as they have the greatest general effect, are also more carefully finished than any other pictures we have seen of his.

In general, Wilson’s views of _English scenery_ want almost every thing that ought to recommend them. The subjects he has chosen are not well fitted for the landscape-painter, and there is nothing in the execution to redeem them. Ill-shaped mountains, or great heaps of earth, trees that grow against them without character or elegance, motionless waterfalls, a want of relief, of transparency and distance, without the imposing grandeur of real magnitude (which it is scarcely within the province of art to give),—are the chief features and defects of this class of his pictures. In more confined scenes, the effect must depend almost entirely on the difference in the execution and the details; for the difference of colour alone is not sufficient to give relief to objects placed at a small distance from the eye. But, in Wilson, there are commonly no details,—all is loose and general; and this very circumstance, which might assist him in giving the massy contrasts of light and shade, deprived his pencil of all force and precision within a limited space. In general, air is necessary to the landscape painter; and, for this reason, the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland afford few subjects for landscape-painting. However stupendous the scenery of that country is, and however powerful and lasting the impression which it must always make on the imagination, yet the effect is not produced merely through the medium of the eye, but arises chiefly from collateral and associated feelings. There is the knowledge of the physical magnitude of the objects in the midst of which we are placed,—the slow, improgressive motion which we make in traversing them;—there is the abrupt precipice, the torrent’s roar, the boundless expanse of the prospect from the highest mountains,—the difficulty of their ascent, their loneliness and silence; in short, there is a constant sense and superstitious awe of the collective power of matter, of the gigantic and eternal forms of nature, on which, from the beginning of time, the hand of man has made no impression, and which, by the lofty reflections they excite in us, give a sort of intellectual sublimity even to our sense of physical weakness. But there is little in all these circumstances that can be translated into the _picturesque_, which makes its appeal immediately to the eye.

Wilson’s historical landscapes, his _Niobe_, _Celadon and Amelia_, &c. do not, in our estimation, display either true taste or fine imagination, but are affected and violent exaggerations of clumsy common nature. They are made up mechanically of the same stock of materials,—an over-hanging rock, bare shattered trees, black rolling clouds, and forked lightning. The figures, in the most celebrated of these, are not like the children of Niobe, punished by the Gods, but like a group of rustics, crouching from a hail-storm. We agree with Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Wilson’s mind was not, like N. Poussin’s, sufficiently imbued with the knowledge of antiquity to transport the imagination three thousand years back, to give natural objects a sympathy with preternatural events, and to inform rocks, and trees, and mountains with the presence of a God. To sum up his general character, we may observe, that, besides his excellence in aërial perspective, Wilson had great truth, harmony, and depth of local colouring. He had a fine feeling of the proportions and conduct of light and shade, and also an eye for graceful form, as far as regards the bold and varying outlines of indefinite objects; as may be seen in his foregrounds, &c., where the artist is not tied down to an imitation of characteristic and articulate forms. In his figures, trees, cattle, and in everything having a determinate and regular form, his pencil was not only deficient in accuracy of outline, but even in perspective and actual relief. His trees, in particular, frequently seem pasted on the canvass, like botanical specimens. In fine, we cannot subscribe to the opinion of those who assert, that Wilson was superior to Claude as a man of genius; nor can we discern any other grounds for this opinion, than what would lead to the general conclusion,—that the more slovenly the performance the finer the picture, and that that which is imperfect is superior to that which is perfect. It might be said, on the same principle, that the coarsest sign-painting is better than the reflection of a landscape in a mirror; and the objection that is sometimes made to the mere imitation of nature, cannot be made to the landscapes of Claude, for in them the Graces themselves have, with their own hands, assisted in selecting and disposing every object. Is the general effect in _his_ pictures injured by the details? Is the truth inconsistent with the beauty of the imitation? Does the perpetual profusion of objects and scenery, all perfect in themselves, interfere with the simple grandeur and comprehensive magnificence of the whole? Does the precision with which a plant is marked in the fore-ground, take away from the air-drawn distinctions of the blue glimmering horizon? Is there any want of that endless airy space, where the eye wanders at liberty under the open sky, explores distant objects, and returns back as from a delightful journey? There is no comparison between Claude and Wilson. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that there would be another Raphael before there would be another Claude. His landscapes have all that is exquisite and refined in art and nature. Every thing is moulded into grace and harmony; and, at the touch of his pencil, shepherds with their flocks, temples and groves, and winding glades, and scattered hamlets, rise up in never-ending succession, under the azure sky and the resplendent sun, while

‘Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces, and the hours in dance,
Leads on the eternal spring.——’

Michael Angelo has left, in one of his sonnets, a fine apostrophe to the earliest poet of Italy:

‘Fain would I, to be what our Dante was,
Forego the happiest fortunes of mankind.’

What landscape-painter does not feel this of Claude.[55]

GAINSBOROUGH.—We have heard an anecdote connected with the reputation of Gainsborough’s pictures, which rests on pretty good authority. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the Academy dinners, speaking of Gainsborough, said to a friend,—‘He is undoubtedly the best English landscape-painter.’ ‘No,’ said Wilson, who overheard the conversation, ‘he is not the best landscape-painter, but he is the best portrait-painter in England.’ They were both wrong; but the story is creditable to the versatility of Gainsborough’s talents.

Those of his portraits which we have seen are not in the first rank. They are in a good measure imitations of Vandyke; and have more an air of gentility, than of nature. His landscapes are of two classes or periods; his early and his later pictures. The former are minute imitations of nature, or of painters who imitated nature, such as Ruysdael, &c. some of which have great truth and clearness. His later pictures are flimsy caricatures of Rubens, who himself carried inattention to the details to the utmost limit that it would bear. Many of Gainsborough’s latter landscapes may be compared to bad water-colour drawings, washed in by mechanical movements of the hand, without any communication with the eye. The truth seems to be, that Gainsborough found there was something wanting in his _early manner_, that is, something beyond the literal imitation of the details of natural objects; and he appears to have concluded rather hastily, that the way to arrive at that _something more_, was to discard truth and nature altogether. His fame rests principally, at present, on his fancy-pieces, cottage-children, shepherd-boys, &c. These have often great truth, great sweetness, and the subjects are often chosen with great felicity. We too often find, however, even in his happiest efforts, a consciousness in the turn of the limbs, and a pensive languor in the expression, which is not taken from nature. We think the gloss of art is never so ill bestowed as on such subjects, the essence of which is simplicity. It is perhaps the general fault of Gainsborough, that he presents us with an ideal common life, of which we have had a surfeit in poetry and romance. His subjects are softened, and sentimentalised too much; it is not simple unaffected nature that we see, but nature sitting for her picture. Our artist, we suspect, led the way to that masquerade style, which piques itself on giving the air of an Adonis to the driver of a hay-cart, and models the features of a milk-maid on the principles of the antique. His _Woodman’s Head_ is admirable. Nor can too much praise be given to his _Shepherd Boy in a Storm_; in which the unconscious simplicity of the boy’s expression, looking up with his hands folded and with timid wonder,—the noisy chattering of a magpie perched above,—and the rustling of the coming storm in the branches of the trees, produce a most delightful and romantic impression on the mind.

Gainsborough was to be considered, perhaps, rather as a man of delicate taste, and of an elegant and feeling mind, than as a man of genius; as a lover of the art, rather than an artist. He devoted himself to it, with a view to amuse and soothe his mind, with the ease of a gentleman, not with the severity of a professional student. He wished to make his pictures, like himself, amiable; but a too constant desire to please almost unavoidably leads to affectation and effeminacy. He wanted that vigour of intellect, which perceives the beauty of truth; and thought that painting was to be gained, like other mistresses, by flattery and smiles. It was an error which we are disposed to forgive in one, around whose memory, both as an artist and a man, many fond recollections, many vain regrets, must always linger.[56]

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.—The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds, both from his example and instructions, has had, and still continues to have, a considerable influence on the state of art in this country. That influence has been on the whole unquestionably beneficial in itself, as well as highly creditable to the rare talents and elegant mind of Sir Joshua; for it has raised the art of painting from the lowest state of degradation,—of dry, meagre, lifeless inanity, to something at least respectable, and bearing an affinity to the rough strength and bold spirit of the national character. Whether the same implicit deference to his authority, which has helped to advance the art thus far, may not, among other causes, limit and retard its future progress? Whether there are not certain original errors, both in his principles and practice, which, the farther they are proceeded in, the farther they will lead us from the truth? Whether there is not a systematic bias from the right line by which alone we can arrive at the goal of the highest perfection?—are questions well worth considering.

We shall begin with Sir Joshua’s merits as an artist. There is one error which we wish to correct at setting out, because we think it important. There is not a greater or more unaccountable mistake than the supposition that Sir Joshua Reynolds owed his success or excellence in his profession, to his having been the first who introduced into this country more general principles of the art, and who raised portrait to the dignity of history from the low drudgery of copying the peculiarities, meannesses, and details of individual nature, which was all that had been attempted by his immediate predecessors. This is so far from being true, that the very reverse is the fact. If Sir Joshua did not give these details and peculiarities so much as might be wished, those who went before him did not give them at all. Those pretended general principles of the art, which, it is said, ‘alone give value and dignity to it,’ had been pushed to their extremest absurdity before his time; and it was in getting rid of the mechanical systematic monotony and _middle forms_, by the help of which Lely, Kneller, Hudson, the French painters, and others, carried on their manufactories of history and face painting, and in returning (as far as he did return) to the truth and force of individual nature, that the secret both of his fame and fortune lay. The pedantic, servile race of artists, whom Reynolds superseded, had carried the abstract principle of improving on nature to such a degree of refinement, that they left it out altogether; and confounded all the varieties and irregularities of form, feature, character, expression or attitude, in the same artificial mould of fancied grace and fashionable insipidity. The portraits of Kneller, for example, seem all to have been turned in a machine; the eye-brows are arched as if by a compass; the mouth curled, and the chin dimpled, the head turned on one side, and the hands placed in the same affected position. The portraits of this mannerist, therefore, are as like one another as the dresses which were then in fashion; and have the same ‘dignity and value’ as the full bottomed wigs which graced their originals. The superiority of Reynolds consisted in his being varied and natural, instead of being artificial and uniform. The spirit, grace, or dignity which he added to his portraits, he borrowed from nature, and not from the ambiguous quackery of rules. His feeling of truth and nature was too strong to permit him to adopt the unmeaning style of Kneller and Hudson; but his logical acuteness was not such as to enable him to detect the verbal fallacies and speculative absurdities which he had learned from Richardson and Coypel; and, from some defects in his own practice, he was led to confound negligence with grandeur. But of this hereafter.

Sir Joseph Reynolds owed his vast superiority over his contemporaries to incessant practice, and habitual attention to nature, to quick organic sensibility, to considerable power of observation, and still greater taste in perceiving and availing himself of those excellences of others, which lay within his own walk of art. We can by no means look upon Sir Joshua as having a claim to the first rank of genius. He would hardly have been a great painter, if other greater painters had not lived before him. He would not have given a first impulse to the art, nor did he advance any part of it beyond the point where he found it. He did not present any new view of nature, nor is he to be placed in the same class with those who did. Even in colour, his pallet was spread for him by the old Masters, and his eye imbibed its full perception of depth and harmony of tone, from the Dutch and Venetian schools, rather than from nature. His early pictures are poor and flimsy. He indeed learned to see the finer qualities of nature through the works of art, which he, perhaps, might never have discovered in nature itself. He became rich by the accumulation of borrowed wealth, and his genius was the offspring of taste. He combined and applied the materials of others to his own purpose, with admirable success; he was an industrious compiler, or skilful translator, not an original inventor in art. The art would remain, in all its essential elements, just where it is, if Sir Joshua had never lived. He has supplied the industry of future plagiarists with no new materials. But it has been well observed, that the value of every work of art, as well as the genius of the artist, depends, not more on the degree of excellence, than on the degree of originality displayed in it. Sir Joshua, however, was perhaps the most original imitator that ever appeared in the world; and the reason of this, in a great measure, was, that he was compelled to combine what he saw in art, with what he saw in nature, which was constantly before him. The portrait-painter is, in this respect, much less liable than the historical painter, to deviate into the extremes of manner and affectation; for he cannot discard nature altogether, under the excuse that _she only puts him out_. He must meet her, face to face; and if he is not incorrigible, he will see something there that cannot fail to be of service to him. Another circumstance which must have been favourable to Sir Joshua was, that though not the originator _in point of time_, he was the first Englishman who transplanted the higher excellences of his profession into his own country, and had the merit, if not of an inventor, of a reformer of the art. His mode of painting had the graces of novelty in the age and country in which he lived; and he had, therefore, all the stimulus to exertion, which arose from the enthusiastic applause of his contemporaries, and from a desire to expand and refine the taste of the public.

To an eye for colour and for effects of light and shade, Sir Joshua united a strong perception of individual character,—a lively feeling of the quaint and grotesque in expression, and great mastery of execution. He had comparatively little knowledge of drawing, either as it regarded proportion or form. The beauty of some of his female faces and figures arises almost entirely from their softness and fleshiness. His pencil wanted firmness and precision. The expression, even of his best portraits, seldom implies either lofty or impassioned intellect or delicate sensibility. He also wanted grace, if grace requires simplicity. The mere negation of stiffness and formality is not grace; for looseness and distortion are not grace. His favourite attitudes are not easy and natural, but the affectation of ease and nature. They are violent deviations from a right line. Many of the figures in his fancy-pieces are placed in postures in which they could not remain for an instant without extreme difficulty and awkwardness. We might instance the _Girl drawing with a Pencil_, and some others. His portraits are his best pictures, and of these his portraits of men are the best; his pictures of children are the next in value. He had fine subjects for the former, from the masculine sense and originality of character of many of the persons whom he painted; and he had also a great advantage (as far as practice went) in painting a number of persons of every rank and description. Some of the finest and most interesting are those of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith (which is, however, too much a mere sketch), Baretti, Dr. Burney, John Hunter, and the inimitable portrait of Bishop Newton. The elegant simplicity of character, expression, and drawing, preserved throughout the last picture, even to the attitude and mode of handling, discover the true genius of a painter. We also remember to have seen a print of Thomas Warton, than which nothing could be more characteristic or more natural. These were all Reynolds’s intimate acquaintances, and it could not be said of them that they were men of ‘no mark or likelihood.’ Their traits had probably sunk deep into the artist’s mind; he painted them as pure studies from nature, copying the real image existing before him, with all its known characteristic peculiarities; and, with as much wisdom as good-nature, sacrificing the graces on the altar of friendship. They are downright portraits, and nothing more, and they are valuable in proportion. In his portraits of women, on the contrary (with very few exceptions), Sir Joshua appears to have consulted either the vanity of his employers or his own fanciful theory. They have not the look of individual nature, nor have they, to compensate the want of this, either peculiar elegance of form, refinement of expression, delicacy of complexion, or gracefulness of manner. Vandyke’s attitudes have been complained of as stiff and confined. Reynolds, to avoid this defect, has fallen into the contrary extreme of negligence and contortion. His female figures which aim at gentility, are twisted into that serpentine line, the idea of which he ridiculed so much in Hogarth. Indeed, Sir Joshua, in his _Discourses_ (see his account of Correggio), speaks of grace as if it were nearly allied to affectation. Grace signifies that which is pleasing and natural in the posture and motions of the human form, as Beauty is more properly applied to the form itself. That which is stiff, inanimate, and without motion, cannot, therefore, be graceful; but, to suppose that a figure, to be graceful, need only be put into some languishing or extravagant posture, is to mistake flutter and affectation for ease and elegance.

Sir Joshua’s children, as we have said above, are among his _chef d’œuvres_. The faces of children have in general that want of precision of outline, that prominence of relief, and strong contrast of colour, which were peculiarly adapted to his style of painting. The arch simplicity of expression, and the grotesque character which he has given to the heads of his children, were, however, borrowed from Correggio. His Puck is the most masterly of all these; and the colouring, execution, and character, alike exquisite. The single figure of the Infant Hercules is also admirable. Many of those to which his friends have suggested historical titles are mere common portraits or casual studies. Thus the Infant Samuel is an innocent little child saying its prayers at the bed’s feet: it has nothing to do with the story of the Hebrew prophet. The same objection will apply to many of his fancy-pieces and historical compositions. There is often no connection between the picture and the subject but the name. Even his celebrated Iphigenia (beautiful as she is, and prodigal of her charms) does not answer to the idea of the story. In drawing the naked figure, Sir Joshua’s want of truth and firmness of outline, became more apparent; and his mode of laying on his colours, which, in the face and extremities, was relieved and broken by the abrupt inequalities of surface and variety of tints in each part, produced a degree of heaviness and opacity in the larger masses of flesh-colour, which can indeed only be avoided by extreme delicacy, or extreme lightness of execution.

Shall we speak the truth at once? In our opinion, Sir Joshua did not possess either that high imagination, or those strong feelings, without which no painter can become a poet in his art. His larger historical compositions have been generally allowed to be most liable to objection, in a critical point of view. We shall not attempt to judge them by scientific or technical rules, but make one or two observations on the character and feeling displayed in them. The highest subject which Sir Joshua has attempted was the _Count Ugolino_, and it was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a total failure. He had, it seems, painted a study of an old beggar-man’s head; and some person, who must have known as little of painting as of poetry, persuaded the unsuspecting artist, that it was the exact expression of Dante’s Count Ugolino, one of the most grand, terrific, and appalling characters in modern fiction. Reynolds, who knew nothing of the matter but what he was told, took his good fortune for granted, and only extended his canvass to admit the rest of the figures. The attitude and expression of Count Ugolino himself, are what the artist intended them to be, till they were pampered into something else by the officious vanity of friends—those of a common mendicant at the corner of a street, waiting patiently for some charitable donation. The imagination of the painter took refuge in a parish work-house, instead of ascending the steps of the Tower of Famine. The hero of Dante is a lofty, high-minded, and unprincipled Italian nobleman, who had betrayed his country to the enemy, and who, as a punishment for his crime, is shut up with his four sons in the dungeon of the citadel, where he shortly finds the doors barred against him, and food withheld. He in vain watches with eager feverish eye the opening of the door at the accustomed hour, and his looks turn to stone; his children one by one drop down dead at his feet; he is seized with blindness, and, in the agony of his despair, he gropes on his knees after them,

——‘Calling each by name
For three days after they were dead.’

Even in the other world, he is represented with the same fierce, dauntless, unrelenting character, ‘gnawing the skull of his adversary, his fell repast.’ The subject of the _Laocoon_ is scarcely equal to that described by Dante. The horror _there_ is physical and momentary; in the other, the imagination fills up the long, obscure, dreary void of despair, and joins its unutterable pangs to the loud cries of nature. What is there in the picture to convey the ghastly horrors of the scene, or the mighty energy of soul with which they are borne?[57] His picture of _Macbeth_ is full of wild and grotesque images; and the apparatus of the witches contains a very elaborate and well arranged inventory of dreadful objects. His Cardinal Beaufort is a fine display of rich mellow colouring; and there is something gentlemanly and Shakespearian in the King and the attendant Nobleman. At the same time, we think the expression of the Cardinal himself is too much one of physical horror, a canine gnashing of the teeth, like a man strangled. This is not the best style of history. Mrs. Siddons as the _Tragic Muse_, is neither the tragic muse nor Mrs. Siddons; and we have still stronger objections to _Garrick between Tragedy and Comedy_.

There is a striking similarity between Sir Joshua Reynolds’s theory and his practice; and as each of these has been appealed to in support of the other, it is necessary that we should examine both. Sir Joshua’s practice was generally confined to the illustration of that part of his theory, which relates to the more immediate imitation of nature, and it is to what he says on this subject, that we shall chiefly direct our observations at present.

He lays it down as a general and invariable rule, that ‘_the great style in art, and the most_ PERFECT IMITATION OF NATURE, _consists in avoiding the details and peculiarities of particular objects_.’ This sweeping principle he applies almost indiscriminately to _Portrait_, _History_, and _Landscape_; and he appears to have been led to the conclusion itself, from supposing the imitation of particulars to be inconsistent with general truth and effect. It appears to us, that the highest perfection of the art depends, not on separating but on uniting general truth and effect with individual distinctness and accuracy.

_First_, it is said, that the great style in painting, as it relates to the immediate imitation of external nature, consists in avoiding the details of particular objects. It consists neither in giving nor avoiding them, but in something quite different from both. Any one may avoid the details. So far, there is no difference between the _Cartoons_, and a common sign-painting. Greatness consists in giving the larger masses and proportions with truth;—this does not prevent giving the smaller ones too. The utmost grandeur of outline, and the broadest masses of light and shade, are perfectly compatible with the utmost minuteness and delicacy of detail, as may be seen in nature. It is not, indeed, common to see both qualities combined in the imitations of nature, any more than the combination of other excellences; nor are we here saying to which the principal attention of the artist should be directed; but we deny, that, considered in themselves, the absence of the one quality is necessary or sufficient to the production of the other.

If, for example, the form of the eye-brow is correctly given, it will be perfectly indifferent to the truth or grandeur of the design, whether it consists of one broad mark, or is composed of a number of hair-lines, arranged in the same order. So, if the lights and shades are disposed in fine and large masses, the _breadth_ of the picture, as it is called, cannot possibly be affected by the filling up of those masses with the details, that is, with the subordinate distinctions which appear in nature. The anatomical details in Michael Angelo, the ever-varying outline of Raphael, the perfect execution of the Greek statues, do not destroy their symmetry or dignity of form; and, in the finest specimens of the composition of colour, we may observe the largest masses combined with the greatest variety in the parts of which those masses are composed.

The _gross_ style consists in giving no details; the _finical_ in giving nothing else. Nature contains both large and small parts, both masses and details; and the same may be said of the most perfect works of art. The union of both kinds of excellence, of strength with delicacy, as far as the limits of human capacity, and the shortness of human life would permit, is that which has established the reputation of the most successful imitators of nature. Farther, their most finished works are their best. The predominance, indeed, of either excellence in the best Masters, has varied according to their opinion of the relative value of these qualities,—the labour they had the time or the patience to bestow on their works,—the skill of the artist,—or the nature and extent of his subject. But, if the rule here objected to (that the careful imitation of the parts injures the effect of the whole), be once admitted, slovenliness would become another name for genius, and the most unfinished performance be the best. That such has been the confused impression left on the mind by the perusal of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses, is evident from the practice, as well as conversation, of many (even eminent) artists. The late Mr. Opie proceeded entirely on this principle. He left many admirable studies of portraits, particularly in what relates to the disposition and effect of light and shade; but he never finished any of the parts, thinking them beneath the attention of a great artist. He went over the whole head the second day as he had done the first, and therefore made no progress. The picture at last, having neither the lightness of a sketch, nor the accuracy of a finished work, looked coarse, laboured, and heavy. Titian is the most perfect example of high finishing. In him the details are engrafted on the most profound knowledge of effect, and attention to the character of what he represented. His pictures have the exact look of nature, the very tone and texture of flesh. The variety of his tints is blended into the greatest simplicity. There is a proper degree both of solidity and transparency. All the parts hang together; every stroke tells, and adds to the effect of the rest. Sir Joshua seems to deny that Titian finished much; and says that he produced, by two or three strokes of his pencil, effects which the most laborious copyist would in vain attempt to equal. It is true, he availed himself in some degree of what is called _execution_, to facilitate his imitation of the details and peculiarities of nature; but it was to facilitate, not to supersede it. There can be nothing more distinct than execution and daubing. Titian, however, made a very moderate, though a very admirable, use of this power; and those who copy his pictures will find that the simplicity is in the results, not in the details. To conclude our observations on this head, we will only add, that, while the artist thinks there is any thing to be done, either to the whole or to the parts of his picture, which can give it still more the look of nature, if he is willing to proceed, we would not advise him to desist. This rule is the more necessary to the young student, for he will relax in his attention as he grows older. And again, with respect to the subordinate parts of a picture, there is no danger that he will bestow a disproportionate degree of labour upon them, because he will not feel the same interest in copying them, and because a much less degree of accuracy will serve every purpose of deception.

_Secondly_, with regard to the imitation of expression, we can hardly agree with Sir Joshua, that ‘the perfection of portrait-painting consists in giving the general idea or character without the individual peculiarities.’ No doubt, if we were to choose between the general character, and the peculiarities of feature, we ought to prefer the former. But, they are so far from being incompatible with, that they are not without some difficulty distinguishable from, each other. There is a general look of the face, a predominant expression arising from the correspondence and connection of the different parts, which it is of the first and last importance to give; and without which, no elaboration of detached parts, or marking of the peculiarities of single features, is worth any thing; but which, at the same time, is not destroyed, but assisted by the careful finishing, and still more by giving the exact outline of each part.

It is on this point that the modern French and English schools differ, and (in our opinion) are both wrong. The English seem generally to suppose, that if they only leave out the subordinate parts, they are sure of the general result. The French, on the contrary, as erroneously imagine, that, by attending successively to each separate part, they must infallibly arrive at a correct whole; not considering that, besides the parts, there is their relation to each other, and the general expression stamped upon them by the character of the individual, which to be seen must be felt; for it is demonstrable, that all character and expression, to be adequately represented, must be perceived by the mind, and not by the eye only. The French painters give only lines and precise differences; the English only general masses, and strong effects. Hence the two nations reproach one another with the difference of their styles of art,—the one as dry, hard, and minute,—the other as gross, gothic, and unfinished; and they will probably remain for ever satisfied with each other’s defects, as they afford a very tolerable fund of consolation on either side.

Much has been said of _historical portrait_; and we have no objection to this phrase, if properly understood. The giving historical truth to a portrait, means, then, the representing the individual under one consistent, probable, and striking view; or showing the different features, muscles, &c. in one action, and modified by one principle. A portrait thus painted may be said to be _historical_; that is, it carries internal evidence of truth and propriety with it; and the number of individual peculiarities, as long as they are true to nature, cannot lessen, but must add to the strength of the general impression.

It might be shown (if there were room in this place) that Sir Joshua has constructed his theory of the _ideal_ in art, upon the same mistaken principle of the negation or abstraction of _particular nature_. The _ideal_ is not a negative but a positive thing. The leaving out the details or peculiarities of an individual face does not make it one jot more ideal. To paint history, is to paint nature as answering to a general, predominant, or preconceived idea in the mind, of strength, beauty, action, passion, thought, &c.; but the way to do this is not to leave out the details, but to incorporate the general idea with the details;—that is, to show the same expression actuating and modifying every movement of the muscles, and the same character preserved consistently through every part of the body. Grandeur does not consist in omitting the parts, but in connecting all the parts into a whole, and in giving their combined and varied action: abstract truth or ideal perfection does not consist in rejecting the peculiarities of form, but in rejecting all those which are not consistent with the character intended to be given; and in following up the same _general idea_ of softness, voluptuousness, strength, activity, or any combination of these through every ramification of the frame. But these modifications of form or expression can only be learnt from nature, and therefore the perfection of art must always be sought in nature. The ideal properly applies as much to the _idea_ of ugliness, weakness, folly, meanness, vice, as of beauty, strength, wisdom, magnanimity, or virtue. The antique heads of fauns and satyrs, of Pan or Silenus, are quite as ideal as those of the Apollo or Bacchus; and Hogarth adhered to an idea of humour in his faces, as Raphael did to an idea of sentiment. But Raphael found the character of sentiment in nature as much as Hogarth did that of humour; otherwise neither of them would have given one or the other with such perfect truth, purity, force, and keeping. Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _ideal_, as consisting in a mere negation of individuality, bears just the same relation to real beauty or grandeur as caricature does to true comic character.[58]

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PRESENT STATE OF BRITISH ART.—It is owing either to a mistaken theory of elevated art, or to the want of models in nature, that the English are hitherto without any painter of serious historical subjects, who can be placed in the first rank of genius. Many of the pictures of modern artists have shown a capacity for correct and happy delineation of actual objects and domestic incidents, only inferior to the masterpieces of the Dutch School. We might here mention the names of Wilkie, Collins, Heaphy, and many others. We have portrait-painters, who have attained to a very high degree of excellence in all the branches of their art. In landscape, Turner has shown a knowledge of the effects of air, and of powerful relief in objects, which was never surpassed. But in the highest walk of art—in giving the movements of the finer or loftier passions of the mind, this country has not produced a single painter, who has made even a faint approach to the excellence of the great Italian painters. We have, indeed, a good number of specimens of the clay-figure, the anatomical mechanism, the regular proportions measured by a two-foot rule;—large canvasses, covered with stiff figures, arranged in deliberate order, with the characters and story correctly expressed by uplifted eyes or hands, according to old receipt-books for the passions;—and with all the hardness and inflexibility of figures carved in wood, and painted over in good strong body colours, that look ‘as if some of nature’s journeymen had made them, and not made them well.’ But we still want a Prometheus to give life to the cumbrous mass, to throw an intellectual light over the opaque image,—to embody the inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye,—to lay bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of little comparative value which can be completely _translated_ into another language,—of which the description in a common catalogue conveys all that is expressed by the picture itself; for it is the excellence of every art to give what can be given by no other, in the same degree. Much less is that picture to be esteemed, which only injures and defaces the idea already existing in the mind’s eye,—which does not come up to the conception which the imagination forms of the subject, and substitutes a dull reality for high sentiment; for the art is in this case an incumbrance, not an assistance, and interferes with, instead of adding to, the stock of our pleasurable sensations. But we should be at a loss to point out (we will not say any English picture, but certainly) any English painter, who, in heroic and classical composition, has risen to the height of his subject, and answered the expectation of the well-informed spectator, or excited the same impression by visible means, as had been excited by words, or by reflection.[59] That this inferiority in English art is not owing to a deficiency of genius, imagination, or passion, is proved sufficiently by the works of our poets and dramatic writers, which, in loftiness and force, are not surpassed by those of any other nation. But whatever may be the depth of internal thought and feeling in the English character, it seems to be _more internal_; and (whether this is owing to habit, or physical constitution) to have, comparatively, a less immediate and powerful communication with the organic expression of passion,—which exhibits the thoughts and feelings in the countenance, and furnishes matter for the historic muse of painting. The English artist is instantly sensible that the flutter, grimace, and extravagance of the French physiognomy, are incompatible with high history; and we are at no loss to explain in this way, that is, from the defect of living models, how it is that the productions of the French school are marked with all the affectation of national caricature, or sink into tame and lifeless imitations of the antique. May we not account satisfactorily for the general defects of our own historic productions, in a similar way,—from a certain inertness and constitutional phlegm, which does not habitually impress the workings of the mind in correspondent traces on the countenance, and which may also render us less sensible of these outward and visible signs of passion, even when they are so impressed there? The irregularity of proportion, and want of symmetry, in the structure of the national features, though it certainly enhances the difficulty of infusing natural grace and grandeur into the works of art, rather accounts for our not having been able to attain the exquisite refinements of Grecian sculpture, than for our not having rivalled the Italian painters in expression.

Mr. West does not form an exception to, but a confirmation of, these general observations. His pictures have all that can be required in what relates to the composition of the subject; to the regular arrangement of the groups; the anatomical proportions of the human body; and the technical knowledge of expression,—as far as expression is reducible to abstract rules, and is merely a vehicle for the telling of a story; so that anger, wonder, sorrow, pity, &c. have each their appropriate and well-known designations. These, however, are but the instrumental parts of the art, the means, not the end; but beyond these, Mr. West’s pictures do not go. They never ‘snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’ They exhibit the _mask_, not the _soul_ of expression. We doubt, whether, in the entire range of Mr. West’s productions, meritorious and admirable as the design and composition often are, there is to be found one truly fine head. They display a total want of gusto. In Raphael, the same divine spirit breathes through every part; it either agitates the inmost frame, or plays in gentle undulations on the trembling surface. Whether we see his figures bending with all the blandishments of maternal love, or standing in the motionless silence of thought, or hurried into the tumult of action, the whole is under the impulse of deep passion. But Mr. West sees hardly any thing in the human face but bones and cartilages; or, if he avails himself of the more flexible machinery of nerves and muscles, it is only by rule and method. The effect is not that which the soul of passion impresses on the countenance, and which the soul of genius alone can seize; but such as might, in a good measure, be given to wooden puppets or pasteboard figures, pulled by wires, and taught to open the mouth, or knit the forehead, or raise the eyes in a very scientific manner. In fact, there is no want of art or learning in his pictures, but of nature and feeling.

MEANS OF PROMOTING THE FINE ARTS.—It is not long ago that an opinion was very general, that all that was wanting to the highest splendour and perfection of the arts in this country might be supplied by Academies and public institutions. We believe the most sanguine promoters of this scheme have at present relaxed in their zeal. There are _three_ ways in which Academies and public institutions may be supposed to promote the fine arts; either by furnishing the best models to the student; or by holding out immediate emolument and patronage; or by improving the public taste. We shall bestow a short consideration on the influence of each.

First, a constant reference to the best models of art necessarily tends to enervate the mind, to intercept our view of nature, and to distract the attention by a variety of unattainable excellence. An intimate acquaintance with the works of the celebrated masters may indeed add to the indolent refinements of taste, but will never produce one work of original genius, one great artist. In proof of the general truth of this observation, we might cite the history of the progress and decay of art in all countries where it has flourished. It is a little extraordinary, that if the real sources of perfection are to be sought in Schools, in Models, and Public Institutions, that whereever schools, models, and public institutions have existed, there the arts should regularly disappear,—that the effect should never follow from the cause.