By whom the prize is won!
“Yes, war will still devour the best!– Brother, remember’d in this hour!
His shade should be in feasts a guest, Whose form was in the strife a tower! What time our ships the Trojan fired,
Thine arm to Greece the safety gave– The prize to which thy soul aspired,
The crafty wrested from the brave.[3] Peace to thine ever-holy rest–
Not thine to fall before the foe! Ajax alone laid Ajax low:
Ah–wrath destroys the best!”
To his dead sire–(the Dorian king)– The bright-hair’d Pyrrhus[4] pours the wine:– “Of every lot that life can bring,
My soul, great Father, prizes thine. Whate’er the goods of earth, of all,
The highest and the holiest–FAME! For when the Form in dust shall fall,
O’er dust triumphant lives the Name! Brave Man, thy light of glory never
Shall fade, while song to man shall last; The Living, soon from earth are pass’d, ‘THE DEAD–ENDURE FOR EVER!'”
“While silent in their grief and shame, The conquer’d hear the conqueror’s praise,” Quoth Tydeus’ son, “let Hector’s fame, In me, his foe, its witness raise!
Who, battling for the altar-hearth, A brave defender, bravely fell–
It takes not from the victor’s worth, If honour with the vanquish’d dwell.
Who falleth for the altar-hearth, A rock and a defence laid low,
Shall leave behind him, in the foe, The lips that speak his worth!”
Lo, Nestor now, whose stately age
Through threefold lives of mortals lives!– The laurel’d bowl, the kingly sage
To Hector’s tearful mother gives. “Drink–in the draught new strength is glowing, The grief it bathes forgets the smart! O Bacchus! wond’rous boons bestowing,
Oh how thy balsam heals the heart! Drink–in the draught new vigour gloweth, The grief it bathes forgets the smart– And balsam to the breaking heart,
The healing god bestoweth.
“As Niobe, when weeping mute,
To angry gods the scorn and prey, But tasted of the charmed fruit,
And cast despair itself away;
So, while unto thy lips, its shore, This stream of life enchanted flows,
Remember’d grief, that stung before, Sinks down to Lethe’s calm repose.
So, while unto thy lips, its shore, The stream of life enchanted flows– Drown’d deep in Lethe’s calm repose, The grief that stung before!”
Seized by the god–behold the dark
And dreaming Prophetess[5] arise! She gazes from the lofty bark,
Where Home’s dim vapour wraps the skies– “A vapour, all of human birth!
As mists ascending, seen and gone, So fade earth’s great ones from the earth, And leave the changeless gods alone!
Behind the steed that skirs away, Or on the galley’s deck–sits Care!
To-morrow comes–and Life is where? At least–we’ll live to-day!”
[2] Ulysses.
[3] Need we say to the general reader, that Oileus here alludes to the strife between Ajax and Ulysses, which has furnished a subject to the Greek tragic poet, who has depicted, more strikingly than any historian, that intense emulation for glory, and that mortal agony in defeat, which made the main secret of the prodigious energy of the Greek character? The poet, in taking his hero from the Homeric age, endowed him with the feelings of the Athenian republicans he addressed.
[4] Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles.
[5] Cassandra.
* * * * *
RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG.–A BALLAD.
[Hinrichs properly classes this striking ballad (together with the yet grander one of the “Fight with the Dragon”) amongst those designed to depict and exalt the virtue of Humility. The source of the story is in AEgidius Tschudi–a Swiss chronicler–and Schiller (who, as Hinrichs suggests,) probably met with it in the researches connected with the compositions of his drama, “William Tell,” appears to have adhered, with much fidelity, to the original narrative.]
At Aachen, in imperial state,
In that time-hallow’d hall renown’d, At solemn feast King Rudolf sate,
The day that saw the hero crown’d! Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine,
Give this the feast, and that the wine; The Arch Electoral Seven,
Like choral stars around the sun, Gird him whose hand a world has won,
The anointed choice of Heaven.
In galleries raised above the pomp, Press’d crowd on crowd, their panting way; And with the joy-resounding tromp,
Rang out the million’s loud hurra! For closed at last the age of slaughter, When human blood was pour’d as water– LAW dawns upon the world![6]
Sharp Force no more shall right the wrong, And grind the weak to crown the strong– War’s carnage-flag is furl’d!
In Rudolf’s hand the goblet shines– And gaily round the board look’d he;
“And proud the feast, and bright the wines, My kingly heart feels glad to me!
Yet where the lord of sweet desire, Who moves the heart beneath the lyre,
And dulcet Sound Divine?
Dear from my youth the craft of song, And what as knight I loved so long,
As Kaisar, still be mine.”
Lo, from the circle bending there,
With sweeping robe the Bard appears, As silver, white his gleaming hair,
Bleach’d by the many winds of years: “And music sleeps in golden strings–
The minstrel’s hire, the LOVE he sings; Well known to him the ALL
High thoughts and ardent souls desire!– What would the Kaisar from the lyre
Amidst the banquet-hall?”
The Great One smiled–“Not mine the sway– The minstrel owns a loftier power–
A mightier king inspires the lay– Its hest–THE IMPULSE OF THE HOUR!
As through wide air the tempests sweep, As gush the springs from mystic deep,
Or lone untrodden glen;
So from dark hidden fount within, Comes SONG, its own wild world to win
Amidst the souls of men!”
Swift with the fire the minstrel glow’d, And loud the music swept the ear:–
“Forth to the chase a Hero rode,
To hunt the bounding chamois-deer: With shaft and horn the squire behind:– Through greensward meads the riders wind– A small sweet bell they hear.
Lo, with the HOST, a holy man,–
Before him strides the sacristan, And the bell sounds near and near.
The noble hunter down-inclined
His reverent head and soften’d eye, And honour’d with a Christian’s mind
The Christ who loves humility!
Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves A brook–the rains had fed the waves,
And torrents from the hill.
His sandal shoon the priest unbound, And laid the Host upon the ground,
And near’d the swollen rill!
“What wouldst thou, priest?” the Count began, As, marvelling much, he halted there. “Sir Count, I seek a dying man,
Sore hungering for the heavenly fare. The bridge that once its safety gave,
Rent by the anger of the wave,
Drifts down the tide below.
Yet barefoot now, I will not fear (The soul that seeks its God, to cheer) Through the wild wave to go!”
He gave that priest the knightly steed, He reach’d that priest the lordly reins, That he might serve the sick man’s need, Nor slight the task that heaven ordains. He took the horse the squire bestrode; On to the chase the hunter rode,
On to the sick the priest!
And when the morrow’s sun was red, The servant of the Saviour led
Back to its lord the beast.
“Now Heaven forefend,” the hero cried, “That e’er to chase or battle more
These limbs the sacred steed bestride, That once my Maker’s image bore!
But not for sale or barter given; Henceforth its Master is the Heaven–
My tribute to that King,
From whom I hold as fiefs, since birth, Honour, renown, the goods of earth,
Life, and each living thing.”
“So may the God who faileth never
To hear the weak and guide the dim, To thee give honour here and ever,
As thou hast duly honour’d Him!
Far-famed ev’n now through Switzerland Thy generous heart and dauntless hand; And fair from thine embrace
Six daughters bloom–six crowns to bring– Blest as the Daughters of a KING–
The Mothers of a RACE!”
The mighty Kaisar heard amazed;
His heart was in the days of old: Into the minstrel’s eyes he gazed–
That tale the Kaisar’s own had told. Yes, in the bard, the priest he knew,
And in the purple veil’d from view The gush of holy tears.
A thrill through that vast audience ran, And every heart the godlike man,
Revering God, reveres!
[6] Literally, “_A judge (ein richter)_ was again upon the earth.” The word substituted in the translation, is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., “THE LIVING LAW.”
* * * * *
THE WORDS OF ERROR.
Three errors there are, that for ever are found On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best; But empty their meaning and hollow their sound– And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast. The fruits of existence escape from the clasp Of the seeker who strives but these shadows to grasp–
So long as Man dreams of some Age in _this_ life When the Right and the Good will all evil subdue; For the Right and the Good lead us ever to strife, And wherever they lead us, the Fiend will pursue. And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length) The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength![7]
So long as Man fancies that Fortune will live, Like a bride with her lover, united with Worth; For her favours, alas! to the mean she will give– And Virtue possesses no title to earth! That Foreigner wanders to regions afar, Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!
So long as Man dreams that, to mortals a gift, The Truth in her fulness of splendour will shine; The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift, And all we can learn is–to guess and divine! Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form? The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!
O, Noble Soul! fly from delusions like these, More heavenly belief be it thine to adore; Where the Ear never hearkens, the Eye never sees, Meet the rivers of Beauty and Truth evermore! Not _without_ thee the streams–there the Dull seek them;–No! Look _within_ thee–behold both the fount and the flow!
[7] This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antaeus, the Son of Earth,–so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,–so the soul contends in vain with evil–the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antaeus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy, (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth’s offspring,) when bearing it from earth itself, and stifling it in the higher air.
* * * * *
THE WORDS OF BELIEF.
Three Words will I name thee–around and about, From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee; But they had not their birth in the being without, And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be! And all worth in the man shall for ever be o’er When in those Three Words he believes no more.
Man is made FREE!–Man, by birthright, is free, Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool. Whatever the shout of the rabble may be– Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool– Still fear not the Slave, when he breaks from his chain, For the Man made a Freeman grows safe in his gain.
And VIRTUE is more than a shade or a sound, And Man may her voice, in this being, obey; And though ever he slip on the stony ground, Yet ever again to the godlike way.
Though _her_ wisdom _our_ wisdom may not perceive, Yet the childlike spirit can still believe.
And a GOD there is!–over Space, over Time, While the Human Will rocks, like a reed, to and fro, Lives the Will of the Holy–A Purpose Sublime, A Thought woven over creation below;
Changing and shifting the All we inherit, But changeless through all One Immutable Spirit!
Hold fast the Three Words of Belief–though about From the lip to the lip, full of meaning they flee; Yet they take not their birth from the being without– But a voice from within must their oracle be; And never all worth in the Man can be o’er, Till in those Three Words he believes no more.
* * * * *
THE MIGHT OF SONG.
A rain-flood from the mountain-riven, It leaps, in thunder, forth to Day,
Before its rush the crags are driven– The oaks uprooted, whirl’d away–
Aw’d, yet in awe all wildly glad’ning, The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters mad’ning, Nor wits the source from whence they go,– So, from their high, mysterious Founts along, Stream on the silenc’d world the Waves of Song!
Knit with the threads of life, for ever, By those dread Powers that weave the woof,– Whose art the singer’s spell can sever? Whose breast has mail to music proof? Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder
The Herald[8] of the Gods has given: He sinks the soul the death-realm under, Or lifts it breathless up to heaven– Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As, when the halls of Mirth are crowded, Portentous, on the wanton scene–
Some Fate, before from wisdom shrouded, Awakes and awes the souls of Men–
Before that Stranger from ANOTHER, Behold how THIS world’s great ones bow– Mean joys their idle clamour smother,
The mask is vanish’d from the brow– And from Truth’s sudden, solemn flag unfurl’d, Fly all the craven Falsehoods of the World!
So, rapt from every care and folly, When spreads abroad the lofty lay,
The Human kindles to the Holy,
And into Spirit soars the Clay!
One with the Gods the Bard: before him All things unclean and earthly fly–
Hush’d are all meaner powers, and o’er him The dark fate swoops unharming by;
And while the Soother’s magic measures flow, Smooth’d every wrinkle on the brows of Woe!
Even as a child that, after pining
For the sweet absent mother–hears Her voice–and, round her neck entwining Young arms, vents all his soul in tears;– So, by harsh custom far estranged,
Along the glad and guileless track, To childhood’s happy home, unchanged,
The swift song wafts the wanderer back– Snatch’d from the coldness of unloving Art To Nature’s mother arms–to Nature’s glowing heart!
[8] Hermes.
* * * * *
HONOUR TO WOMAN.
Honour to Woman! To her it is given To garden the earth with the roses of Heaven! All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir– In the veil of the Graces her beauty concealing, She tends on each altar that’s hallow’d to Feeling, And keeps ever-living the fire!
From the bounds of Truth careering, Man’s strong spirit wildly sweeps, With each hasty impulse veering,
Down to Passion’s troubled deeps. And his heart, contented never,
Greeds to grapple with the Far, Chasing his own dream for ever,
On through many a distant Star!
But Woman with looks that can charm and enchain, Lureth back at her beck the wild truant again, By the spell of her presence beguil’d– In the home of the Mother her modest abode, And modest the manners by Nature bestow’d On Nature’s most exquisite child!
Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting, Foe to foe, the angry strife;
Man the Wild One, never resting, Roams along the troubled life;
What he planneth, still pursuing; Vainly as the Hydra bleeds,
Crest the sever’d crest renewing– Wish to wither’d wish succeeds.
But Woman at peace with all being, reposes, And seeks from the Moment to gather the roses– Whose sweets to her culture belong. Ah! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o’er The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore, And the infinite Circle of Song.
Strong, and proud, and self-depending, Man’s cold bosom beats alone;
Heart with heart divinely blending, In the love that Gods have known,
Souls’ sweet interchange of feeling, Melting tears–he never knows,
Each hard sense the hard one steeling, Arms against a world of foes.
Alive, as the wind-harp, how lightly soever If woo’d by the Zephyr, to music will quiver, Is Woman to Hope and to Fear;
Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving, How quiver the chords–how thy bosom is heaving– How trembles thy glance through the tear!
Man’s dominion, war and labour;
Might to right the Statute gave; Laws are in the Scythian’s sabre;
Where the Mede reign’d–see the Slave! Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War-lust, rude and wild; Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,
Where the vanish’d Graces smil’d.
But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth– Of the Senses she charmeth, the sceptre she swayeth; She lulls, as she looks from above, The Discord whose Hell for its victims is gaping, And blending awhile the for-ever escaping, Whispers Hate to the Image of Love!
* * * * *
THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON.
Who comes?–why rushes fast and loud, Through lane and street the hurtling crowd, Is Rhodes on fire?–Hurrah!–along
Faster and fast storms the throng! High towers a shape in knightly garb– Behold the Rider and the Barb!
Behind is dragg’d a wondrous load; Beneath what monster groans the road?
The horrid jaws–the Crocodile,
The shape the mightier Dragon, shows– From Man to Monster all the while–
The alternate wonder glancing goes.
Shout thousands, with a single voice, “Behold the Dragon, and rejoice,
Safe roves the herd, and safe the swain! Lo!–there the Slayer–here the Slain! Full many a breast, a gallant life,
Has waged against the ghastly strife, And ne’er return’d to mortal sight–
Hurrah, then, for the Hero Knight!” So to the Cloister, where the vow’d
And peerless Brethren of St John In conclave sit–that sea-like crowd,
Wave upon wave, goes thundering on.
High o’er the rest, the chief is seen– There wends the Knight with modest mien; Pours through the galleries raised for all Above that Hero-council Hall,
The crowd–And thus the Victor One:– “Prince–the knight’s duty I have done. The Dragon that devour’d the land
Lies slain beneath thy servant’s hand; Free, o’er the pasture, rove the flocks– And free the idler’s steps may stray– And freely o’er the lonely rocks,
The holier pilgrim wends his way!”
A lofty look the Master gave,
“Certes,” he said; “thy deed is brave; Dread was the danger, dread the fight– Bold deeds bring fame to vulgar knight; But say, what sways with holier laws
The knight who sees in Christ his cause, And wears the cross?”–Then every cheek Grew pale to hear the Master speak;
But nobler was the blush that spread His face–the Victor’s of the day–
As bending lowly–“Prince,” he said; “His noblest duty–TO OBEY!”
“And yet that duty, son,” replied
The chief, “methinks thou hast denied; And dared thy sacred sword to wield
For fame in a forbidden field.”
“Master, thy judgment, howsoe’er
It lean, till all is told, forbear– Thy law in spirit and in will,
I had no thought but to fulfil.
Not rash, as some, did I depart
A Christian’s blood in vain to shed; But hoped by skill, and strove by art, To make my life avenge the dead.
“Five of our Order, in renown
The war-gems of our saintly crown, The martyr’s glory bought with life;
‘Twas then thy law forbade the strife. Yet in my heart there gnaw’d, like fire, Proud sorrow, fed with stern desire:
In the still visions of the night, Panting, I fought the fancied fight;
And when the morrow glimmering came, With tales of ravage freshly done,
The dream remember’d, turn’d to shame, That night should dare what day should shun.
“And thus my fiery musings ran–
‘What youth has learn’d should nerve the man; How lived the great in days of old,
Whose Fame to time by bards is told– Who, heathens though they were, became As gods–upborne to heaven by fame?
How proved they best the hero’s worth? They chased the monster from the earth– They sought the lion in his den–
They pierced the Cretan’s deadly maze– Their noble blood gave humble men
Their happy birthright–peaceful days.
“‘What! sacred, but against the horde Of Mahound, is the Christian’s sword?
All strife, save one, should he forbear? No! earth itself the Christian’s care– From every ill and every harm,
Man’s shield should be the Christian’s arm. Yet art o’er strength will oft prevail, And mind must aid where heart may fail!’ Thus musing, oft I roam’d alone,
Where wont the Hell-born Beast to lie; Till sudden light upon me shone,
And on my hope broke victory!
“Then, Prince, I sought thee with the prayer To breathe once more my native air;
The license given–the ocean past– I reach’d the shores of home at last.
Scarce hail’d the old beloved land, Than huge, beneath the artist’s hand,
To every hideous feature true,
The Dragon’s monster-model grew.
The dwarf’d, deformed limbs upbore The lengthen’d body’s ponderous load; The scales the impervious surface wore, Like links of burnish’d harness, glow’d.
“Life-like, the huge neck seem’d to swell, And widely, as some porch to hell
You might the horrent jaws survey, Griesly, and greeding for their prey.
Grim fangs an added terror gave,
Like crags that whiten through a cave. The very tongue a sword in seeming–
The deep-sunk eyes in sparkles gleaming. Where the vast body ends, succeed
The serpent spires around it roll’d– Woe–woe to rider, woe to steed,
Whom coils as fearful e’er enfold!
“All to the awful life was done–
The very hue, so ghastly, won–
The grey, dull tint:–the labour ceased, It stood–half reptile and half beast! And now began the mimic chase;
Two dogs I sought, of noblest race, Fierce, nimble, fleet, and wont to scorn The wild bull’s wrath and levell’d horn; These, docile to my cheering cry,
I train’d to bound, and rend, and spring, Now round the Monster-shape to fly,
Now to the Monster-shape to cling!
“And where their gripe the best assails, The belly left unsheath’d in scales,
I taught the dexterous hounds to hang And find the spot to fix the fang;
Whilst I, with lance and mailed garb, Launch’d on the beast mine Arab barb.
From purest race that Arab came,
And steeds, like men, are fired by fame. Beneath the spur he chafes to rage;
Onwards we ride in full career– I seem, in truth, the war to wage–
The monster reels beneath my spear!
“Albeit, when first the _destrier_[9] eyed The laidly thing, it swerved aside,
Snorted and rear’d–and even they, The fierce hounds, shrank with startled bay; I ceased not, till, by custom bold,
After three tedious moons were told, Both barb and hounds were train’d–nay, more, Fierce for the fight–then left the shore! Three days have fleeted since I prest
(Return’d at length) this welcome soil, Nor once would lay my limbs to rest,
Till wrought the glorious crowning toil.
“For much it moved my soul to know
The unslack’ning curse of that grim foe. Fresh rent, mens’ bones lay bleach’d and bare Around the hell-worm’s swampy lair;
And pity nerved me into steel:–
Advice?–I had a heart to feel,
And strength to dare! So, to the deed.– I call’d my squires–bestrode my steed, And with my stalwart hounds, and by
Lone secret paths, we gaily go
Unseen–at least by human eye–
Against a worse than human foe!
“Thou know’st the sharp rock–steep and hoar?– The abyss?–the chapel glimmering o’er? Built by the Fearless Master’s hand,
The fane looks down on all the land. Humble and mean that house of prayer– Yet God hath shrined a wonder there:– Mother and Child, to whom of old
The Three Kings knelt with gifts, behold! By three times thirty steps, the shrine The pilgrim gains–and faint, and dim, And dizzy with the height, divine
Strength on the sudden springs to him!
“Yawns wide within that holy steep
A mighty cavern dark and deep–
By blessed sunbeam never lit–
Rank foetid swamps engirdle it;
And there by night, and there by day, Ever at watch, the fiend-worm lay,
Holding the Hell of its abode
Fast by the hallow’d House of God. And when the pilgrim gladly ween’d
His feet had found the healing way, Forth from its ambush rush’d the fiend, And down to darkness dragg’d the prey.
“With solemn soul, that solemn height I clomb, ere yet I sought the fight–
Kneeling before the cross within, My heart, confessing, clear’d its sin. Then, as befits the Christian knight,
I donn’d the spotless surplice white, And, by the altar, grasp’d the spear:– So down I strode with conscience clear– Bade my leal squires afar the deed,
By death or conquest crown’d, await– Leapt lightly on my lithesome steed,
And gave to God his soldier’s fate!
“Before me wide the marshes lay–
Started the hounds with sudden bay– Aghast the swerving charger slanting
Snorted–then stood abrupt and panting– For curling there, in coiled fold,
The Unutterable Beast behold!
Lazily basking in the sun.
Forth sprang the dogs. The fight’s begun! But lo! the hounds in cowering fly
Before the mighty poison-breath– A yell, most like the jackall’s cry,
Howl’d, mingling with that wind of death!
“No halt–I gave one cheering sound; Lustily springs each dauntless hound– Swift as the dauntless hounds advance, Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance–
Whirringly skirrs; and from the scale Bounds, as a reed aslant the mail.
Onward–but no!–the craven steed Shrinks from his lord in that dread need– Smitten and scared before that eye
Of basilisk horror, and that blast Of death, it only seeks to fly–
And half the mighty hope is past!
“A moment, and to earth I leapt;
Swift from its sheath the falchion swept; Swift on that rock-like mail it plied– The rock-like mail the sword defied:
The monster lash’d its mighty coil– Down hurl’d–behold me on the soil!
Behold the hell-jaws gaping wide– When lo! they bound–the flesh is found; Upon the scaleless parts they spring! Springs either hound;–the flesh is found– It roars; the blood-dogs cleave and cling!
“No time to foil its fast’ning foes– Light, as it writhed, I sprang, and rose; The all-unguarded place explored,
Up to the hilt I plunged the sword– Buried one instant in the blood–
The next, upsprang the bubbling flood! The next, one Vastness spread the plain– Crush’d down–the victor with the slain; And all was dark–and on the ground
My life, suspended, lost the sun, Till waking–lo my squires around–
And the dead foe!–my tale is done.”
Then burst, as from a common breast, The eager laud so long supprest–
A thousand voices, choral-blending, Up to the vaulted dome ascending–
From groined roof and banner’d wall, Invisible echoes answering all–
The very Brethren, grave and high, Forget their state, and join the cry.
“With laurel wreaths his brows be crown’d, Let throng to throng his triumph tell; Hail him all Rhodes!”–the Master frown’d, And raised his hand–and silence fell.
“Well,” said that solemn voice, “thy hand From the wild-beast hath freed the land. An idol to the People be!
A foe our Order frowns on thee!
For in thy heart, superb and vain, A hell-worm laidlier than the slain,
To discord which engenders death, Poisons each thought with baleful breath! That hell-worm is the stubborn Will–
Oh! What were man and nations worth If each his own desire fulfil,
And law be banish’d from the earth?
“_Valour_ the Heathen gives to story– _Obedience_ is the Christian’s glory;
And on that soil our Saviour-God
As the meek low-born mortal trod. We the Apostle-knights were sworn
To laws thy daring laughs to scorn– Not _fame_, but _duty_ to fulfil–
Our noblest offering–man’s wild will. Vain-glory doth thy soul betray–
Begone–thy conquest is thy loss: No breast too haughty to obey,
Is worthy of the Christian’s cross!”
From their cold awe the crowds awaken, As with some storm the halls are shaken; The noble brethren plead for grace–
Mute stands the doom’d, with downward face; And mutely loosen’d from its band
The badge, and kiss’d the Master’s hand, And meekly turn’d him to depart:
A moist eye follow’d, “To my heart Come back, my son!”–the Master cries: “Thy grace a harder fight obtains;
When Valour risks the Christian’s prize, Lo, how Humility regains!”
[In the ballad just presented to the reader, Schiller designed, as he wrote to Goethe, to depict the old Christian chivalry–half-knightly, half-monastic. The attempt is strikingly successful; and, even in so humble a translation, the unadorned simplicity and earnest vigour of a great poet, enamoured of his subject, may be sufficiently visible to a discerning critic. “The Fight of the Dragon” appears to us the most spirited and nervous of all Schiller’s ballads, with the single exception of “The Diver;” and if its interest is less intense than that of the matchless “Diver,” and its descriptions less poetically striking and effective, its interior meaning or philosophical conception is at once more profound and more elevated. The main distinction, indeed, between the ancient ballad and the modern, as revived and recreated by Goethe and Schiller, is, that the former is a simple narrative, and the latter a narrative which conveys some intellectual idea–some dim, but important truth. The one has but the good faith of the minstrel, the other the high wisdom of the poet. In “The Fight of the Dragon,” is expressed the moral of that humility which consists in self-conquest–even merit may lead to vain-glory–and, after vanquishing the fiercest enemies without, Man has still to contend with his worst foe,–the pride or disobedience of his own heart. “Every one,” as a recent and acute, but somewhat over-refining critic has remarked, “has more or less–his own ‘fight with the Dragon,’–his own double victory (without and within) to achieve.” The origin of this poem is to be found in the Annals of the Order of Malta–and the details may be seen in Vertot’s History. The date assigned to the conquest of the Dragon is 1342. Helion de Villeneuve was the name of the Grand Master–that of the Knight, Dieu-Donne de Gozon. Thevenot declares, that the head of the monster, (to whatever species it really belonged,) or its effigies, was still placed over one of the gates of the city in his time.]
[9] War-horse.
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REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES. PART II.
Having shown that the standard of Taste is in the Truth of Nature, and that this truth is in the mind, Sir Joshua, in the Eighth Discourse, proceeds to a further development of the principles of art. These principles, whether poetry or painting, have their foundation in the mind; which by its sensitive faculties and intellectual requirements, remodels all that it receives from the external world, vivifying and characterizing all with itself, and thus bringing forth into light the more beautiful but latent creations of nature. The “activity and restlessness” of the mind seek satisfaction from curiosity, novelty, variety, and contrast. Curiosity, “the anxiety for the future, the keeping the event suspended,” he considers to be exclusively the province of poetry, and that “the painter’s art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by painting must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can have.” Novelty, variety, and contrast, however, belong to the painter. That poetry has this power, and operates by more extensively raising our curiosity, cannot be denied; but we hesitate in altogether excluding this power from painting. A momentary action may be so represented, as to elicit a desire for, and even an intimation of its event. It is true _that_ curiosity cannot be satisfied, but it works and conjectures; and we suspect there is something of it in most good pictures. Take such a subject as the “Judgment of Solomon:” is not the “event suspended,” and a breathless anxiety portrayed in the characters, and freely acknowledged by the sympathy of the spectator? Is there no mark of this “curiosity” in the “Cartoon of Pisa?” The trumpet has sounded, the soldiers are some half-dressed, some out of the water, others bathing; one is anxiously looking for the rising of his companion, who has just plunged in, and we see but his hands above the water; the very range of rocks, behind which the danger is shown to come, tends to excite our curiosity; we form conjectures of the enemy, their number, nearness of approach, and from among the manly warriors before us form episodes of heroism in the great intimated epic: and have we not seen pictures by Rembrandt, where “curiosity” delights to search unsatisfied and unsatiated into the mysteries of colour and chiaro-scuro, receding further as we look into an atmosphere pregnant with all uncertain things? We think we have not mistaken the President’s meaning. Mr Burnet appears to agree with us: though he makes no remark upon the power of raising curiosity, yet it surely is raised in the very picture to which we presume he alludes, Raffaelle’s “Death of Ananias;” the event, in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. “Though,” says Mr Burnet, “the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, _but its effects upon the_ personages introduced after the catastrophe.”
There is, however, a natural indolence of our disposition, which seeks pleasure in repose, and the resting in old habits, which must not be too violently opposed by “variety,” “reanimating the attention, which is apt to languish under a continual sameness;” nor by “novelty,” making “more forcible impression on the mind than can be made by the representation of what we have often seen before;” nor by “contrasts,” that “rouse the power of comparison by opposition.”
The mind, then, though an active principle, having likewise a disposition to indolence, (might we have said repose?) limits the quantity of variety, novelty, and contrast which it will bear;–these are, therefore, liable to excesses. Hence arise certain rules of art, that in a composition objects must not be too scattered and divided into many equal parts, that perplex and fatigue the eye, at a loss where to find the principal action. Nor must there be that “absolute unity,” “which, consisting of one group or mass of light only, would be as defective as an heroic poem without episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the mind with that variety which it always requires.” Sir Joshua instances Rembrandt and Poussin, the former as having the defect of “absolute unity,” the latter the defect of the dispersion and scattering his figures without attention to their grouping. Hence there must be “the same just moderation observed in regard to ornaments;” for a certain repose must never be destroyed. Ornament in profusion, whether of objects or colours, does destroy it; and, “on the other hand, a work without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which it makes pretensions, has rather the appearance of poverty.” “We may be sure of this truth, that the most ornamental style requires repose to set off even its ornaments to advantage.” He instances, in the dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, Shakspeare’s purpose of repose–the mention of the martlets’ nests, and that “where those birds most breed and haunt, the air is delicate;” and the practice of Homer, “who, from the midst of battles and horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and adorn every object they touch; are always on the stretch; never deviate or sink a moment from the pompous and the brilliant.”[10]
[10] Could Sir Joshua now be permitted to visit his own Academy, and our exhibitions in general, he would be startled at the excess of ornament, in defiance of his rule of repose, succeeding the slovenliness of his own day. Whatever be the subject, history, landscape, or familiar life, it superabounds both in objects and colour. In established academies, the faults of genius are more readily adopted than their excellences; they are more vulgarly perceptible, and more easy of imitation. We have, therefore, less hesitation in referring the more ambitious of our artists to this prohibition in Sir Joshua’s Discourse. The greater the authority the more injurious the delinquency. We therefore adduce as examples, works of our most inventive and able artist, his “Macbeth” and his “Hamlet”–they are greatly overloaded with the faults of superabundance of ornament, and want unity; yet are they works of great power, and such as none but a painter of high genius could conceive or execute. In a more fanciful subject, and where ornament was more admissible, he has been more fortunate, and even in the multiplicity of his figures and ornaments, by their grouping and management, he has preserved a seeming moderation, and has so ordered his composition that the wholeness, the simplicity, of his subject is not destroyed. The story is told, and admirably–as Sir Joshua says, “at one blow.” We speak of his “Sleeping Beauty.” We see at once that the prince and princess are the principal, and they are united by that light and fainter fairy chain intimating, yet not too prominently, the magic under whose working and whose light the whole scene is; nothing can be better conceived than the prince–there is a largeness in the manner, a breadth in the execution of the figure that considerably dignifies the story, and makes him, the principal, a proper index of it. The many groups are all episodes, beautiful in themselves, and in no way injure the simplicity. There is novelty, variety, and contrast in not undue proportion, because that simplicity is preserved. Even the colouring, (though there is too much white,) and chiaro-scuro, with its gorgeousness, is in the stillness of repose, and a sunny repose, too, befitting the “Sleeping Beauty.” Mr Maclise has succeeded best where his difficulty and danger were greatest, and so it ever is with genius. It is not in such subjects alone that our artists transgress Sir Joshua’s rule; we too often see portraits where the dress and accessaries obtrude–there is too much lace and too little expression–and our painters of views follow the fashion most unaccountably–ornament is every where; we have not a town where the houses are not “turned out of windows,” and all the furniture of every kind piled up in the streets; and as if to show a pretty general bankruptcy, together with the artist’s own poverty, you would imagine an auction going on in every other house, by the Turkey carpets and odds and ends hanging from the windows. We have even seen a “Rag Fair” in a turnpike road.
Novelty, Variety, and Contrast are required in Art, because they are the natural springs that move the mind to attention from its indolent quiescence; but having moved, their duty is performed–the mind of itself will do the rest; they must not act prominent parts. In every work there must be a simplicity which binds the whole together, as a whole; and whatever comes not within that girdle of the graces, is worse than superfluous–it draws off and distracts the attention which should be concentrated. Besides that simplicity which we have spoken of–and we have used the word in its technical sense, as that which keeps together and makes one thing of many parts–there is a simplicity which is best known by its opposite, affectation; upon this Sir Joshua enlarges. “Simplicity, being a negative virtue, cannot be described or defined.” But it is possible, even in avoiding affectation, to convert simplicity into the very thing we strive to avoid. N. Poussin–whom, with regard to this virtue, he contrasts with others of the French school–Sir Joshua considers, in his abhorrence of the affectation of his countrymen, somewhat to approach it, by “what in writing would be called pedantry.” Du Piles is justly censured for his recipe of grace and dignity. “If,” says he, “you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn in such an attitude that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and as it were to say to us, ‘Stop, take notice of me–I am the invincible king, surrounded by majesty.’ ‘I am the valiant commander who struck terror every where,’ ‘I am that great minister, who knew all the springs of politics.’ ‘I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.'” This is indeed affectation, and a very vulgar notion of greatness. We are reminded of Partridge, and his admiration of the overacting king. All the characters in thus seeming to say, would be little indeed. Not so Raffaelle and Titian understood grace and dignity. Simplicity he holds to be “our barrier against that great enemy to truth and nature, affectation, which is ever clinging to the pencil, and ready to drop and poison every thing it touches.” Yet that, “when so very inartificial as to seem to evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious virtue.” Sir Joshua dwells much upon this, because he thinks there is a perpetual tendency in young artists to run into affectation, and that from the very terms of the precepts offered them. “When a young artist is first told that his composition and his attitudes must be contrasted; that he must turn the head contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce grace and animation; that his outline must be undulating and swelling, to give grandeur; and that the eye must be gratified with a variety of colours; when he is told this with certain animating words of spirit, dignity, energy, greatness of style, and brilliancy of tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules too far. It is then that the aid of simplicity ought to be called in to correct the exuberance of youthful ardour.” We may add that hereby, too, is shown the danger of particular and practical rules; very few of the kind are to be found in the “Discourses.” Indeed the President points out, by examples from Raffaelle, the good effect of setting aside these academical rules. We suspect that they are never less wanted than when they give direction to attitudes and forms of action. He admits that, in order “to excite attention to the more manly, noble, and dignified manner,” he had perhaps left “an impression too contemptuous of the ornamental parts of our art.” He had, to use his own expression, bent the bow the contrary way to make it straight. “For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it is not enough that a work be learned–it must be pleasing.” Pretty much as Horace had said of poetry,
“Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, _dulcia_ sunto.”
To which maxim the Latin poet has unconsciously given the grace of rhyme–
“Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto.”
He again shows the danger of particular practical rules.–“It is given as a rule by Fresnoy, that ‘_the principal figure of a subject must appear in the midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it from the rest._’ A painter who should think himself obliged strictly to follow this rule, would encumber himself with needless difficulties; he would be confined to great uniformity of composition, and be deprived of many beauties which are incompatible with its observance. The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to extend, no further than this: that the principal figure should be immediately distinguished at the first glance of the eye; but there is no necessity that the principal light should fall on the principal figure, or that the principal figure should be in the middle of the picture.” He might have added that it is the very place where generally it ought not to be. Many examples are given; we could have wished he had given a plate from any one in preference to that from Le Brun. Felebein, in praising this picture, according to preconceived recipe, gives Alexander, who is in shade, the principal light. “Another instance occurs to me where equal liberty may be taken in regard to the management of light. Though the general practice is to make a large mass about the middle of the picture surrounded by shadow, the reverse may be practised, and _the spirit of the rule be preserved_.” We have marked in italics the latter part of the sentence, because it shows that the rule itself must be ill-defined or too particular. Indeed, we receive with caution all such rules as belong to the practical and mechanical of the art. He instances Paul Veronese. “In the great composition of Paul Veronese, the ‘Marriage of Cana,’ the figures are for the most part in half shadow. The great light is in the sky; and indeed the general effect of this picture, which is so striking, is no more than what we often see in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country feasts: but those principles of light and shadow, being transferred to a large scale, to a space containing near a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted, to all appearance, with as much facility, and with attention as steadily fixed upon _the whole together_, as if it were a small picture immediately under the eye, the work justly excites our admiration, the difficulty being increased as the extent is enlarged.” We suspect that _the rule_, when it attempts to direct beyond the words Sir Joshua has marked in italics, refutes itself, and shackles the student. Infinite must be the modes of composition, and as infinite the modes of treating them in light and shadow and colour. “Whatever mode of composition is adopted, every variety and license is allowable.” All that is absolutely necessary is, that there be no confusion or distraction, no conflicting masses–in fact, that the picture tell its tale at once and effectually. A very good plate is given by Mr Burnet of the “Marriage of Cana,” by Paul Veronese. Sir Joshua avoids entering upon rules that belong to “the detail of the art.” He meets with combatants, as might have been expected, where he is thus particular. We will extract the passage which has been controverted, and to oppose the doctrine of which, Gainsborough painted his celebrated “Blue Boy.”
“Though it is not my _business_ to enter into the detail of our art, yet I must take this opportunity of mentioning one of the means of producing that great effect which we observe in the works of the Venetian painters, as I think it is not generally known or observed, that the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm mellow colour, yellow red or yellowish white; and that the blue, the grey, or the green colours be kept almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only to support and set off these warm colours; and for this purpose a small proportion of cold colours will be sufficient. Let this conduct be reversed; let the light be cold, and the surrounding colours warm, as we often see in the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and harmonious.” Le Brun and Carlo Maratti are censured as being “deficient in this management of colours.” The “Bacchus and Ariadne,” now in our National Gallery, has ever been celebrated for its harmony of colour. Sir Joshua supports his theory or rule by the example of this picture: the red of Ariadne’s scarf, which, according to critics, was purposely given to relieve the figure from the sea, has a better object. “The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, one half cold and the other warm, it was necessary to carry some of the mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly Titian gave Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchantes a little blue drapery.” As there is no picture more splendid, it is well to weigh and consider again and again remarks upon the cause of the brilliancy, given by such an authority as Sir Joshua Reynolds. With regard to his rule, even among artists, “adhuc sub judice lis est.” He combats the common notion of relief, as belonging only to the infancy of the art, and shows the advance made by Coreggio and Rembrandt; though the first manner of Coreggio, as well as of Leonardo da Vinci and Georgione, was dry and hard. “But these three were among the first who began to correct themselves in dryness of style, by no longer considering relief as a principal object. As these two qualities, relief and fulness of effect, can hardly exist together, it is not very difficult to determine to which we ought to give the preference.” “Those painters who have best understood the art of producing a good effect, have adopted one principle that seems perfectly conformable to reason–that a part may be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, whether the masses consist of light or shadow, it is necessary that they should be compact, and of a pleasing shape; to this end some parts may be made darker and some lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would warrant.” He instances a “Moonlight” by Rubens, now, we believe, in the possession of Mr Rogers, in which Rubens had given more light and more glowing colours than we recognize in nature,–“it might easily be mistaken, if he had not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun.” We stop not to enquire if that harmony so praised, might not have been preserved had the resemblance to nature been closer. Brilliancy is produced. The fact is, the _practice_ of art is a system of compensation. We cannot exactly in all cases represent nature,–we have not the means, but our means will achieve what, though _particularly_ unlike, may, by itself or in opposition, produce similar effects. Nature does not present a varnished polished surface, nor that very transparency that our colours can give; but it is found that this transparency, in all its degrees, in conjunction and in opposition to opaque body of colour, represents the force of light and shade of nature, which is the principal object to attain. _The_ richness of nature is not the exact richness of the palette. The painter’s success is in the means of compensation.
This Discourse concludes with observations on the Prize pictures. The subject seems to have been the Sacrifice of Iphigenia. All had copied the invention of Timanthes, in hiding the face of Agamemnon. Sir Joshua seems to agree with Mr Falconet, in a note in his translation of Pliny, who would condemn the painter, but that he copied the idea from the authority of Euripides; Sir Joshua considers it at best a trick, that can only with success be practised once. Mr Fuseli criticises the passage, and assumes that the painter had better reason than that given by Mr Falconet. Mr Burnet has added but two or three notes to this Discourse–they are unimportant, with the exception of the last, wherein he combats Sir Joshua’s theory of the cold and warm colours. He candidly prints an extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Lawrence, who differs with him. It is so elegantly written that we quote the passage. Sir Thomas says,–“Agreeing with you in so many points, I will venture to differ from you in your question with Sir Joshua. Infinitely various as nature is, there are still two or three truths that limit her variety, or, rather, that limit art in the imitation of her. I should instance for one the ascendency of white objects, which can never be departed from with impunity, and again, the union of colour with light. Masterly as the execution of that picture is (viz. the Boy in a blue dress,) I always feel a never-changing impression on my eye, that the “Blue Boy” of Gainsborough is a difficulty boldly combated, not conquered. The light blue drapery of the Virgin in the centre of the “Notte” is another instance; a check to the harmony of the celestial radiance round it.” “Opposed to Sir Thomas’s opinion,” says Mr Burnet, “I might quote that of Sir David Wilkie, often expressed, and carried out in his picture of the ‘Chelsea Pensioners’ and other works.” It strikes us, from our recollection of the “Chelsea Pensioners,” that it is not at all a case in point; the blue there not being light but dark, and serving as dark, forcibly contrasting with warmer light in sky and other objects; the _colour_ of blue is scarcely given, and is too dark to be allowed to enter into the question. He adds, “A very simple method may be adopted to enable the student to perceive where the warm and red colours are placed by the great colourists, by his making a sketch of light and shade of the picture, and then touching in the warm colours with red chalk; or by looking on his palette at twilight, he will see what colours absorb the light, and those that give it out, and thus select for his shadows, colours that have the property of giving depth and richness.” Unless the pictures are intended to be seen at twilight, we do not see how this can bear upon the question; if it does, we would notice what we have often observed, that at twilight blue almost entirely disappears, to such a degree that in a landscape where the blue has even been deep, and the sky by no means the lightest part of the picture, at twilight the whole landscape comes out too hard upon the sky, which with its colour has lost its tone, and become, with relation to the rest, by far too light. It is said that of all the pictures in the National Gallery, when seen at twilight, the Coreggios retire last–we speak of the two, the “Ecce Homo” and the “Venus, Mercury, and Cupid.” In these there is no blue but in the drapery of the fainting mother, and that is so dark as to serve for black or mere shadow; the lighter blue close upon the neck is too small to affect the power of the picture. It certainly is a fact, that blue fades more than any colour at twilight, and, relatively speaking, leaves the image that contains it lighter. We should almost be inclined to ask the question, though with great deference to authority, is blue, when very light, necessarily cold; and if so, has it not an activity which, being the great quality of light, assimilates it with light, and thus takes in to itself the surrounding “radiance?” A very little positive warm colour, as it were set in blue, from whatever cause, gives it a surprising glow. We desire to see the theory of colours treated, not with regard to their corresponding harmony in their power one upon the other, nor in their light and shadow, but, if we may so express it, in their sentimentality–the effect they are capable of in moving the passions. We alluded to this in our last paper, and the more we consider the subject, the more we convinced that it is worth deeper investigation.
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The NINTH DISCOURSE is short, and general in its character; it was delivered at the opening of the Royal Academy in Somerset Place, October 16, 1780. It is an elegant address; raises the aim of the artist; and gives a summary of the origin of arts and their use. “Let us for a moment take a short survey of the progress of the mind towards what is, or ought to be, its true object of attention. Man in his lowest state has no pleasures but those of sense, and no wants but those of appetite; afterwards, when society is divided into different ranks, and some are appointed to labour for the support of others, those whom their superiority sets free from labour begin to look for intellectual entertainments. Thus, while the shepherds were attending their flocks, their masters made the first astronomical observations; so music is said to have had its origin from a man at leisure listening to the strokes of a hammer. As the senses in the lowest state of nature are necessary to direct us to our support, when that support is once secure, there is danger in following them further; to him who has no rule of action but the gratification of the senses, plenty is always dangerous. It is therefore necessary to the happiness of individuals, and still more necessary to the security of society, that the mind should be elevated to the idea of general beauty, and the contemplation of general truth; by this pursuit the mind is always carried forward in search of something more excellent than it finds, and obtains its proper superiority over the common sense of life, by learning to feel itself capable of higher aims and nobler enjoyments.” This is well said. Again.–“Our art, like all arts which address the imagination, is applied to a somewhat lower faculty of the mind, which approaches nearer to sensuality, but through sense and fancy it must make its way to reason. For such is the progress of thought, that we perceive by sense, we combine by fancy, and distinguish by reason; and without carrying our art out of its natural and true character, the more we purify it from every thing that is gross in sense, in that proportion we advance its use and dignity, and in proportion as we lower it to mere sensuality, we pervert its nature, and degrade it from the rank of a liberal art; and this is what every artist ought well to remember. Let him remember, also, that he deserves just so much encouragement in the state as he makes himself a member of it virtuously useful, and contributes in his sphere to the general purpose and perfection of society.” Sir Joshua has been blamed by those who have taken lower views of art, in that he has exclusively treated of the Great Style, which neither he nor the academicians of his day practised; but he would have been unworthy the presidential chair had he taken any other line. His was a noble effort, to assume for art the highest position, to dignify it in its aim, and thus to honour and improve first his country, then all human kind. We rise from such passages as these elevated above all that is little. Those only can feel depressed who would find excuses for the lowness of their pursuits.
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The TENTH DISCOURSE.–Sir Joshua here treats of Sculpture, a less extensive field than Painting. The leading principles of both are the same; he considers wherein they agree, and wherein they differ. Sculpture cannot, “with propriety and best effect, be applied to many subjects.” Its object is “form and character.” It has “one style only,”–that one style has relation only to one style of painting, the Great Style, but that so close as to differ only as operating upon different materials. He blames the sculptors of the last age, who thought they were improving by borrowing from the ornamental, incompatible with its essential character. Contrasts, and the littlenesses of picturesque effects, are injurious to the formality its austere character requires. As in painting, so more particularly in sculpture, that imitation of nature which we call illusion, is in no respect its excellence, nor indeed its aim. Were it so, the Venus di Medici would be improved by colour. It contemplates a higher, a more perfect beauty, more an intellectual than sensual enjoyment. The boundaries of the art have been long fixed. To convey “sentiment and character, as exhibited by attitude, and expression of the passions,” is not within its province. Beauty of form alone, the object of sculpture, “makes of itself a great work.” In proof of which are the designs of Michael Angelo in both arts. As a stronger instance:–“What artist,” says he, “ever looked at the Torso without feeling a warmth of enthusiasm as from the highest efforts of poetry? From whence does this proceed? What is there in this fragment that produces this effect, but the perfection of this science of abstract form?” Mr Burnet has given a plate of the Torso. The expectation of deception, of which few divest themselves, is an impediment to the judgment, consequently to the enjoyment of sculpture. “Its essence is correctness.” It fully accomplishes its purpose when it adds the “ornament of grace, dignity of character, and appropriated expression, as in the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Moses of Michael Angelo, and many others.” Sir Joshua uses expression as will be afterwards seen, in a very limited sense. It is necessary to lay down perfect correctness as its essential character; because, as in the case of the Apollo, many have asserted the beauty to arise from a certain incorrectness in anatomy and proportion. He denies that there is this incorrectness, and asserts that there never ought to be; and that even in painting these are not the beauties, but defects, in the works of Coreggio and Parmegiano. “A supposition of such a monster as Grace begot by Deformity, is poison to the mind of a young artist.” The Apollo and the Discobolus are engaged in the same purpose–the one watching the effect of his arrow, the other of his discus. “The graceful, negligent, though animated air of the one, and the vulgar eagerness of the other, furnish a signal instance of the skill of the ancient sculptors in their nice discrimination of character. They are both equally true to nature, and equally admirable.” Grace, character, and expression, are rather in form and attitude than in features; the general figure more presents itself; “it is there we must principally look for expression or character; _patuit in corpore vultus_.” The expression in the countenances of the Laocoon and his two sons, though greater than in any other antique statues, is of pain only; and that is more expressed “by the writhing and contortion of the body than by the features.” The ancient sculptors paid but little regard to features for their expression, their object being solely beauty of form. “Take away from Apollo his lyre, from Bacchus his thyrsus and vine-leaves, and from Meleager the boar’s head, and there will remain little or no difference in their characters.” John di Bologna, he tells us, after he had finished a group, called his friends together to tell him what name to give it: they called it the “Rape of the Sabines.” A similar anecdote is told of Sir Joshua himself, that he had painted the head of the old man who attended him in his studio. Some one observed that it would make a Ugolino. The sons were added, and it became the well-known historical picture from Dante. He comments upon the ineffectual attempts of modern sculptors to detach drapery from the figure, to give it the appearance of flying in the air; to make different plans on the same bas-relievos; to represent the effects of perspective; to clothe in a modern dress. For the first attempt he reprehends Bernini, who, from want of a right conception of the province of sculpture, never fulfilled the promise given in his early work of Apollo and Daphne. He was ever attempting to make drapery flutter in the air, which the very massiveness of the material, stone, should seem to forbid. Sir Joshua does not notice the very high authority for such an attempt–though it must be confessed the material was not stone, still it was sculpture, and multitudinous are the graces of ornament, and most minutely described–the shield of Hercules, by Hesiod; even the noise of the furies’ wings is affected. The drapery of the Apollo he considers to have been intended more for support than ornament; but the mantle from the arm he thinks “answers a much higher purpose, by preventing that dryness of effect which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended almost at full length; to which we may add, the disagreeable effect which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle.” He conjectures that Carlo Maratti, in his love for drapery, must have influenced the sculptors of the Apostles in the church of St John Lateran. “The weight and solidity of stone was not to be overcome.”
To place figures on different plans is absurd, because they must still appear all equally near the eye; the sculptor has not adequate means of throwing them back; and, besides, the thus cutting up into minute parts, destroys grandeur. “Perhaps the only circumstance in which the modern have excelled the ancient sculptors, is the management of a single group in basso-relievo.” This, he thinks, may have been suggested by the practice of modern painters. The attempt at perspective must, for the same reason, be absurd; the sculptor has not the means for this “humble ambition.” The ancients represented only the elevation of whatever architecture they introduced into their bas-reliefs, “which is composed of little more than horizontal and perpendicular lines.” Upon the attempt at modern dress in sculpture, he is severe in his censure. “Working in stone is a very serious business, and it seems to be scarce worth while to employ such durable materials in conveying to posterity a fashion, of which the longest existence scarcely exceeds a year;” and which, he might have added, the succeeding year makes ridiculous. We not only change our dresses, but laugh at the sight of those we have discarded. The gravity of sculpture should not be subject to contempt. “The uniformity and simplicity of the materials on which the sculptor labours, (which are only white marble,) prescribe bounds to his art, and teach him to confine himself to proportionable simplicity of design.” Mr Burnet has not given a better note than that upon Sir Joshua’s remark, that sculpture has but one style. He shows how strongly the ancient sculptors marked those points wherein the human figure differs from that of other animals. “Let us take, for example, the human foot; on examining, in the first instance, those of many animals, we perceive the toes either very long or very short in proportion; of an equal size nearly, and the claws often long and hooked inwards: now, in rude sculpture, and even in some of the best of the Egyptians, we find little attempt at giving a character of decided variation; but, on the contrary, we see the foot split up with toes of an equal length and thickness; while, in Greek sculpture, these points characteristic of man are increased, that the affinity to animals may be diminished. In the Greek marbles, the great toe is large and apart from the others, where the strap of the sandal came; while the others gradually diminish and sweep round to the outside of the foot, with the greatest regularity of curve; the nails are short, and the toes broad at the points, indicative of pressure on the ground.” Rigidity he considers to have been the character of the first epochs, changing ultimately as in the Elgin marbles, “from the hard characteristics of stone to the vivified character of flesh.” He thinks Reynolds “would have acknowledged the supremacy of beautiful nature, uncontrolled by the severe line of mathematical exactness,” had he lived to see the Elgin marbles. “The outline of life, which changes under every respiration, seems to have undulated under the plastic mould of Phidias.” This is well expressed. He justly animadverts upon the silly fashion of the day, in lauding the vulgar imitation of the worsted stockings by Thom. The subjects chosen were most unfit for sculpture,–their only immortality must be in Burns. We do not understand his extreme admiration of Wilkie; in a note on parallel perspective in sculpture, he adduces Raffaelle as an example of the practice, and closes by comparing him with Sir David Wilkie,–“known by the appellation of the Raffaelle of familiar life,”–men perfect antipodes to each other! There is a proper eulogy on Chantrey, particularly for his busts, in which he commonly represented the eye. We are most anxious for the arrival of the ancient sculpture from Lycia, collected and packed for Government by the indefatigable and able traveller, Mr Fellowes.
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The ELEVENTH DISCOURSE is upon Genius, the particular genius of the painter in his power of seizing and representing nature, or his subject as a whole. He calls it the “genius of mechanical performance.” This, with little difference, is enforcing what has been laid down in former Discourses. Indeed, as far as precepts may be required, Sir Joshua had already performed his task; hence, there is necessary repetition. Yet all is said well, and conviction perpetuates the impressions previously made. Character is something independent of minute detail; genius alone knows what constitutes this character, and practically to represent it, is to be a painter of genius. Though it be true that he “who does not at all express particulars expresses nothing; yet it is certain that a nice discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have, (and I do not mean to detract from it,) never did confer on the artist the character of genius.” The impression left upon the mind is not of particulars, when it would seem to be so; such particulars are taken out of the subject, and are each a whole of themselves. Practically speaking, as we before observed, genius will be exerted in ascertaining how to paint the “_nothing_” in every picture, to satisfy with regard to detail, that neither its absence nor its presence shall be noticeable.
Our pleasure is not in minute imitation; for, in fact, that is not true imitation, for it forces upon our notice that which naturally we do not see. We are not pleased with wax-work, which may be nearer reality; “we are pleased, on the contrary, by seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inadequate means.” If this be sound, we ought to be sensible of the inadequacy of the means, which sets aside at once the common notion that art is illusion. “The properties of all objects, as far as the painter is concerned with them, are outline or drawing, the colour, and the light and shade. The drawing gives the form, the colour its visible quality, and the light and shade its solidity:” in every one of these the habit of seeing as a whole must be acquired. From this habit arises the power of imitating by “dexterous methods.” He proceeds to show that the fame of the greatest painters does not rest upon their high finish. Raffaelle and Titian, one in drawing the other in colour, by no means finished highly; but acquired by their genius an expressive execution. Most of his subsequent remarks are upon practice in execution and colour, in contradistinction to elaborate finish. Vasari calls Titian, “giudicioso, bello, e stupendo,” with regard to this power. He generalized by colour, and by execution. “In his colouring, he was large and general.” By these epithets, we think Sir Joshua has admitted that the great style comprehends colouring. “Whether it is the human figure, an animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius.” He condemns that high finish which softens off. “This extreme softening, instead of producing the effect of softness, gives the appearance of ivory, or some other hard substance, highly polished. The value set upon drawings, such as of Coreggio and Parmegiano, which are but slight, show how much satisfaction can be given without high finishing, or minute attention to particulars. “I wish you to bear in mind, that when I speak of a whole, I do not mean simply _a whole_ as belonging to composition, but _a whole_ with respect to the general style of colouring; _a whole_ with regard to light and shade; and _a whole_ of every thing which may separately become the main object of a painter. He speaks of a landscape painter in Rome, who endeavoured to represent every individual leaf upon a tree; a few happy touches would have given a more true resemblance. There is always a largeness and a freedom in happy execution, that finish can never attain. Sir Joshua says above, that even “unpromising” subjects may be thus treated. There is a painter commonly thought to have finished highly, by those who do not look into his manner, whose dexterous, happy execution was perhaps never surpassed; the consequence is, that there is “a largeness,” in all his pictures. We mean Teniers. The effect of the elaborate work that has been added to his class of subjects, is to make them heavy and fatiguing to the eye. He praises Titian for the same large manner which he had given to his history and portraits, applied to his landscapes, and instances the back-ground to the “Peter Martyr.” He recommends the same practice in portrait painting–the first thing to be attained, is largeness and general effect. The following puts the truth clearly. “Perhaps nothing that we can say will so clearly show the advantage and excellence of this faculty, as that it confers the character of genius on works that pretend to no other merit, in which is neither expression, character, nor dignity, and where none are interested in the subject. We cannot refuse the character of genius to the ‘Marriage’ of Paolo Veronese, without opposing the general sense of mankind, (great authorities have called it the triumph of painting,) or to the Altar of St Augustine at Antwerp, by Rubens, which equally deserves that title, and for the same reason. Neither of these pictures have any interesting story to support them. That of Paolo Veronese is only a representation of a great concourse of people at a dinner; and the subject of Rubens, if it may be called a subject where nothing is doing, is an assembly of various saints that lived in different ages. The whole excellence of those pictures consists in mechanical dexterity, working, however, under the influence of that comprehensive faculty which I have so often mentioned.”
The power of _a whole_ is exemplified by the anecdote of a child going through a gallery of old portraits. She paid very little attention to the finishing, or naturalness of drapery, but put herself at once to mimic the awkward attitudes. “The censure of nature uninformed, fastened upon the greatest fault that could be in a picture, because it related to the character and management of the whole.” What he would condemn is that substitute for deep and proper study, which is to enable the painter to conceive and execute every subject as a whole, and a finish which Cowley calls “laborious effects of idleness.” He concludes this Discourse with some hints on method of study. Many go to Italy to copy pictures, and derive little advantage. “The great business of study is, to form a mind adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions, to which all nature is then laid open, and which may be said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches.”
Mr Burnet has supplied a plate of the Monk flying from the scene of murder, in Titian’s “Peter Martyr,” showing how that great painter could occasionally adopt the style of Michael Angelo in his forms. In the same note he observes, that Sir Joshua had forgotten the detail of this picture, which detail is noticed and praised by Algarotti, for its minute discrimination of leaves and plants, “even to excite the admiration of a botanist.”–Sir Joshua said they were not there. Mr Burnet examined the picture at Paris, and found, indeed, the detail, but adds, that “they are made out with the same hue as the general tint of the ground, which is a dull brown,” an exemplification of the rule, “Ars est celare artem.” Mr Burnet remarks, that there is the same minute detail in Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne.”–He is right–we have noticed it, and suspected that it had lost the glazing which had subdued it. As it is, however, it is not important. Mr Burnet is fearful lest the authority of Sir Joshua should induce a habit of generalizing too much. He expresses this fear in another note. He says, “the great eagerness to acquire what the poet calls
‘That voluntary style,
Which careless plays, and seems to mock at toil,’
and which Reynolds describes as so captivating, has led many a student to commence his career at the wrong end. They ought to remember, that even Rubens founded this excellence upon years of laborious and careful study. His picture of himself and his first wife, though the size of life, exhibits all the detail and finish of Holbein.” Sir Joshua nowhere recommends _careless_ style; on the contrary, he every where urges the student to laborious toil, in order that he may acquire that facility which Sir Joshua so justly calls captivating, and which afterwards Rubens himself did acquire, by studying it in the works of Titian and Paul Veronese; and singularly, in contradiction to his fears and all he would imply, Mr Burnet terminates his passage thus:–“Nor did he (Rubens) quit the dry manner of Otho Venius, till a contemplation of the works of Titian and Paul Veronese enabled him to display with rapidity those materials which industry had collected.” It is strange to argue upon the abuse of a precept, by taking it at the wrong end.
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The TWELFTH DISCOURSE recurs likewise to much that had been before laid down. It treats of methods of study, upon which he had been consulted by artists about to visit Italy. Particular methods of study he considers of little consequence; study must not be shackled by too much method. If the painter loves his art, he will not require prescribed tasks;–to go about which sluggishly, which he will do if he have another impulse, can be of little advantage. Hence would follow, as he admirably expresses it, “a reluctant understanding,” and a “servile hand.” He supposes, however, the student to be somewhat advanced. The boy, like other school-boys, must be under restraint, and learn the “Grammar and Rudiments” laboriously. It is not such who travel for knowledge. The student, he thinks, may be pretty much left to himself; if he undertake things above his strength, it is better he should run the risk of discouragement thereby, than acquire “a slow proficiency” by “too easy tasks.” He has little confidence in the efficacy of method, “in acquiring excellence in any art whatever.” Methodical studies, with all their apparatus, enquiry, and mechanical labour, tend too often but “to evade and shuffle off real labour–the real labour of thinking.” He has ever avoided giving particular directions. He has found students who have imagined they could make “prodigious progress under some particular eminent master.” Such would lean on any but themselves. “After the Rudiments are past, very little of our art can be taught by others.” A student ought to have a just and manly confidence in himself, “or rather in the persevering industry which he is resolved to possess.” Raffaelle had done nothing, and was quite young, when fixed upon to adorn the Vatican with his works; he had even to direct the best artists of his age. He had a meek and gentle disposition, but it was not inconsistent with that manly confidence that insured him success–a confidence in himself arising from a consciousness of power, and a determination to exert it. The result is “in perpetuum.”–There are, however, artists who have too much self-confidence, that is ill-founded confidence, founded rather upon a certain dexterity than upon a habit of thought; they are like the improvisatori in poetry; and most commonly, as Metastasio acknowledged of himself, had much to unlearn, to acquire a habit of thinking with selection. To be able to draw and to design with rapidity, is, indeed, to be master of the grammar of art; but in the completion, and in the final settlement of the design, the portfolio must again and again have been turned over, and the nicest judgment exercised. This judgment is the result of deep study and intenseness of thought–thought not only upon the artist’s own inventions, but those of others. Luca Giordano and La Fage are brought as examples of great dexterity and readiness of invention–but of little selection; for they borrowed very little from others: and still less will any artist, that can distinguish between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow from them. Raffaelle, who had no lack of invention, took the greatest pains to select; and when designing “his greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons,” he had before him studies he had made from Masaccio. He borrowed from him “two noble figures of St Paul.” The only alteration he made was in the showing both hands, which he thought in a principal figure should never be omitted. Masaccio’s work was well known; Raffaelle was not ashamed to have borrowed. “Such men, surely, need not be ashamed of that friendly intercourse which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from the dead, and giving to the living, and perhaps to those who are yet unborn. The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. ‘Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco.'” The fact is, the most self-sufficient of men are greater borrowers than they will admit, or perhaps know; their very novelties, if they have any, commence upon the thoughts of others, which are laid down as a foundation in their own minds. The common sense, which is called “common property,” is that stock which all that have gone before us have left behind them; and we are but admitted to the heirship of what they have acquired. Masaccio Sir Joshua considers to have been “one of the great fathers of modern art.” He was the first who gave largeness, and “discovered the path that leads to every excellence to which the art afterwards arrived.” It is enough to say of him, that Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Bartolomeo, Andrea del Sarto, Il Rosso, and Pierino del Vaga, formed their taste by studying his works. “An artist-like mind” is best formed by studying the works of great artists. It is a good practice to consider figures in works of great masters as statues which we may take in any view. This did Raffaelle, in his “Sergius Paulus,” from Masaccio. Lest there should be any misunderstanding of this sort of borrowing, which he justifies, he again refers to the practice of Raffaelle in this his borrowing from Masaccio. The two figures of St Paul, he doubted if Raffaelle could have improved; but “he had the address to change in some measure without diminishing the grandeur of their character.” For a serene composed dignity, he has given animation suited to their employment. “In the same manner, he has given more animation to the figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is introduced in the picture of Paul preaching, of which little more than hints are given by Masaccio, which Raffaelle has finished. The closing the eyes of this figure, which in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not in the least ambiguous in the Cartoon. His eyes, indeed are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence, that the agitation of a mind _perplexed in the extreme_ is seen at the first glance; but what is most extraordinary, and I think particularly to be admired, is, that the same idea is continued through the whole figure, even to the drapery, which is so closely muffled about him, that even his hands are not seen: By this happy correspondence between the expression of the countenance and the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think from head to foot. Men of superior talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting other men’s minds to their own purposes, or are able to make out and finish what was only in the original a hint or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking such hints, which escape the dull and ignorant, makes, in my opinion, no inconsiderable part of that faculty of mind which is called genius.” He urges the student not even to think himself qualified to invent, till he is well acquainted with the stores of invention the world possesses; and insists that, without such study, he will not have learned to select from nature. He has more than once enforced this doctrine, because it is new. He recommends, even in borrowing, however, an immediate recurrence to the model, that every thing may be finished from nature. Hence he proceeds to give some directions for placing the model and the drapery–first to impress upon the model the purpose of the attitude required–next, to be careful not to alter drapery with the hand, rather trusting, if defective, to a new cast. There is much in being in the way of accident. To obtain the freedom of accident Rembrandt put on his colours with his palette-knife; a very common practice at the present day. “Works produced in an accidental manner will have the same free unrestrained air as the works of nature, whose particular combinations seem to depend upon accident.” He concludes this Discourse by more strenuously insisting upon the necessity of ever having nature in view–and warns students by the example of Boucher, Director of the French Academy, whom he saw working upon a large picture, “without drawings or models of any kind.” He had left off the use of models many years. Though a man of ability, his pictures showed the mischief of his practice. Mr Burnet’s notes to this Discourse add little to the material of criticism; they do but reiterate in substance what Sir Joshua had himself sufficiently repeated. His object seems rather to seize an opportunity of expressing his admiration of Wilkie, whom he adduces as a parallel example with Raffaelle of successful borrowing. It appears from the account given of Wilkie’s process, that he carried the practice much beyond Raffaelle. We cannot conceive any thing _very_ good coming from so very methodical a manner of setting to work. Would not the fire of genius be extinguished by the coolness of the process? “When he had fixed upon his subject, he thought upon _all_ pictures of that class already in existence.” The after process was most elaborate. Now, this we should think a practice quite contrary to Raffaelle’s, who more probably trusted to his own conception for the character of his picture as a whole, and whose borrowing was more of single figures; but, if of the whole manner of treating his subject, it is not likely that he would have thought of more than one work for his imitation. The fact is, Sir David Wilkie’s pictures show that he did carry this practice too far–for there is scarcely a picture of his that does not show patches of imitations, that are not always congruous with each other; there is too often in one piece, a bit of Rembrandt, a bit of Velasquez, a bit of Ostade, or others. The most perfect, as a whole, is his “Chelsea Pensioners.” We do not quite understand the brew of study fermenting an accumulation of knowledge, and imagination exalting it. “An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study, and exalted by imagination;” this is very ambitious, but not very intelligible. He speaks of Wilkie attracting the attention of admirers and detractors. It is very absurd to consider criticism that is not always favourable, detraction. The following passage is well put. “We constantly hear the ignorant advising a student to study the great book of nature, without being biassed by what has been done by other painters; it is as absurd as if they would recommend a youth to learn astronomy by lying in the fields, and looking on the stars, without reference to the works of Kepler, Tycho Brahe, or of Newton.” There is indeed a world of cant in the present day, that a man must do all to his own unprejudiced reason, contemning all that has been done before him. We have just now been looking at a pamphlet on Materialism (a pamphlet of most ambitious verbiage,) in which, with reference to all former education, we are “the slaves of prejudice;” yet the author modestly requires that minds–we beg his pardon, we have _no minds_–intellects must be _trained_ to his mode of thinking, ere they can arrive at the truth and the perfection of human nature. If this training is prejudice in one set of teachers, may it not be in another? We continually hear artists recommend nature without “a prejudice in favour of old masters.” Such artists are not likely to eclipse the fame of those great men, the study of whose works has so long _prejudiced_ the world.
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The THIRTEENTH DISCOURSE shows that art is not imitation, but is under the influence and direction of the imagination, and in what manner poetry, painting, acting, gardening, and architecture, depart from nature. However good it is to study the beauties of artists, this is only to know art through them. The principles of painting remain to be compared with those of other arts, all of them with human nature. All arts address themselves only to two faculties of the mind, its imagination and its sensibility. We have feeling, and an instantaneous judgment, the result of the experience of life, and reasonings which we cannot trace. It is safer to trust to this feeling and judgment, than endeavour to control and direct art upon a supposition of what ought in reason to be the end or means. We should, therefore, most carefully store first impressions. They are true, though we know not the process by which the first conviction is formed. Partial and after reasoning often serves to destroy that character, the truth of which came upon us as with an instinctive knowledge. We often reason ourselves into narrow and partial theories, not aware that “_real_ principles of _sound reason_, and of so much more weight and importance, are involved, and as it were lie hid, under the appearance of a sort of vulgar sentiment. Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine every thing; at this minute it is required to inform us when that very reason is to give way to feeling.” Sir Joshua again refers to the mistaken views of art, and taken too by not the poorest minds, “that it entirely or mainly depends on imitation.” Plato, even in this respect, misleads by a partial theory. It is with “such a false view that Cardinal Bembo has chosen to distinguish even Raffaelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the name divine. The same sentiment is adopted by Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller; and he turns the panegyric solely on imitation as it is a sort of deception.” It is, undoubtedly, most important that the world should be taught to honour art for its highest qualities; until this is done, the profession will be a degradation. So far from painting being imitation, he proceeds to show that “it is, and ought to be, in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no imitation at all of external nature.” Civilization is not the gross state of nature; imagination is the result of cultivation, of civilization; it is to this state of nature art must be more closely allied. We must not appeal for judgment upon art to those who have not acquired the faculty to admire. The lowest style of all arts please the uncultivated. But, to speak of the unnaturalness of art–let it be illustrated by poetry, which speaks in language highly artificial, and “a construction of measured words, such as never is nor ever was used by man.” Now, as there is in the human mind “a sense of congruity, coherence, and consistency,” which must be gratified; so, having once assumed a language and style not adopted in common discourse, “it is required that the sentiments also should be in the same proportion raised above common nature.” There must be an agreement of all the parts with the whole. He recognizes the chorus of the ancient drama, and the recitative of the Italian opera as natural, under this view. “And though the most violent passions, the highest distress, even death itself, are expressed in singing or recitative, I would not admit as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions on account of their being unnatural.” “Shall reason stand in the way, and tell us that we ought not to like what we know we do like, and prevent us from feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of art? It appears to us that imagination is that gift to man, to be attained by cultivation, that enables him to rise above and out of his apparent nature; it is the source of every thing good and great, we had almost said of every virtue. The parent of all arts, it is of a higher devotion; it builds and adorns temples more worthy of the great Maker of all, and praises Him in sounds too noble for the common intercourse and business of life, which demand of the most cultivated that they put themselves upon a lower level than they are capable of assuming. So far, therefore, is a servile imitation from being necessary, that whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds us of what we see and hear every day, perhaps does not belong to the higher provinces of art, either in poetry or painting. The mind is to be transported, as Shakspeare expresses it, _beyond the ignorant present_, to ages past. Another and a higher order of beings is supposed, and to those beings every thing which is introduced into the work must correspond.” He speaks of a picture by Jan Steen, the “Sacrifice of Iphigenia,” wherein the common nature, with the silks and velvets, would make one think the painter had intended to burlesque his subject. “Ill taught reason” would lead us to prefer a portrait by Denner to one by Titian or Vandyke. There is an eloquent passage, showing that landscape painting should in like manner appeal to the imagination; we are only surprised that the author of this description should have omitted, throughout these Discourses, the greatest of all landscape painters, whose excellence he should seem to refer to by his language. “Like the poet, he makes the elements sympathize with his subject, whether the clouds roll in volumes, like those of Titian or Salvator Rosa–or, like those of Claude, are gilded with the setting sun; whether the mountains have hidden and bold projections, or are gently sloped; whether the branches of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their trunks, or follow each other with only a gentle inclination. All these circumstances contribute to the general character of the work, whether it be of the elegant or of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the powerful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the artist has complete dominion, to vary and dispose them as he pleases–to diminish or increase them, as will best suit his purpose, and correspond to the general idea of his work; a landscape, thus conducted, under the influence of a poetical mind, will have the same superiority over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton’s “Allegro” and “Penseroso” have over a cold prosaic narration or description; and such a picture would make a more forcible impression on the mind than the real scenes, were they presented before us.” We have quoted the above passage, because it is wanted–we are making great mistakes in that delightful, and (may we not say?) that high branch of art. He pursues the same argument with regard to acting, and condemns the _ignorant_ praise bestowed by Fielding on Garrick. Not an idea of deception enters the mind of actor or author. On the stage, even the expression of strong passion must be without the natural distortion and screaming voice. Transfer, he observes, acting to a private room, and it would be ridiculous. “Quid enim deformius, quum scenam in vitam transferre?” Yet he gives here a caution, “that no art can be grafted with success on another art.” “If a painter should endeavour to copy the theatrical pomp and parade of dress and attitude, instead of that simplicity which is not a greater beauty in life than it is in painting, we should condemn such pictures, as painted in the meanest style.” What will our academician, Mr Maclise, say of this remark? He then adduces gardening in support of his theory,–“nature to advantage dressed,” “beautiful and commodious for the recreation of man.” We cannot, however, go with Sir Joshua, who adds, that “so dressed, it is no longer a subject for the pencil of a landscape painter, as all landscape painters know.” It is certainly unlike the great landscape he has described, but not very unlike Claude’s, nor out of the way of his pencil. We have in our mind’s eye a garden scene by Vander Heyden, most delightful, most elegant. It is some royal garden, with its proper architecture, the arch, the steps, and balustrades, and marble walks. The queen of the artificial paradise is entering, and in the shade with her attendants, but she will soon place her foot upon the prepared sunshine. Courtiers are here and there walking about, or leaning over the balustrades. All is elegance–a scene prepared for the recreation of pure and cultivated beings. We cannot say the picture is not landscape. We are sure it gave us ten times more pleasure than ever we felt from any of our landscape views, with which modern landscape painting has covered the walls of our exhibitions, and brought into disrepute our “annuals.” He proceeds to architecture, and praises Vanburgh for his poetical imagination; though he, with Perrault, was a mark for the wits of the day.[11] Sir Joshua points to the facade of the Louvre, Blenheim, and Castle Howard, as “the fairest ornaments.” He finishes this admirable discourse with the following eloquent passage:–“It is allowed on all hands, that facts and events, however they may bind the historian, have no dominion over the poet or the painter. With us history is made to bend and conform to this great idea of art. And why? Because these arts, in their highest province, are not addressed to the gross senses; but to the desires of the mind, to that spark of divinity which we have within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up by the world which is about us. Just so much as our art has of this, just so much of dignity, I had almost said of divinity, it exhibits; and those of our artists who possessed this mark of distinction in the highest degree, acquired from thence the glorious appellation of divine.
[11] The reader will remember the supposed epitaph, “Lie heavy on him, earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.”
Mr Burnet’s notes to this Discourse are not important to art. There is an amusing one on acting, that discusses the question of naturalness on the stage, and with some pleasant anecdotes.
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The FOURTEENTH DISCOURSE is chiefly occupied with the character of Gainsborough, and landscape painting. It has brought about him, and his name, a hornet’s nest of critics, in consequence of some remarks upon a picture of Wilson’s. Gainsborough and Sir Joshua, and perhaps in some degree Wilson, had been rivals. It has been said that Wilson and Gainsborough never liked each other. It is a well-known anecdote that Sir Joshua, at a dinner, gave the health of Gainsborough, adding “the greatest landscape painter of the age,” to which Wilson, at whom the words were supposed to be aimed, dryly added, “and the greatest portrait painter too.” We can, especially under circumstances, for there had been a coolness between the President and Gainsborough, pardon the too favourable view taken of Gainsborough’s landscape pictures. He was unquestionably much greater as a portrait painter. The following account of the interview with Gainsborough upon his death-bed, is touching, and speaks well of both:–“A few days before he died he wrote me a letter, to express his acknowledgments for the good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke of him; and desired that he might see me once before he died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to be thus connected with the dying testimony which this excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail upon myself to suppress that I was not connected with him by any habits of familiarity. If any little jealousies had subsisted between us, they were forgotten in these moments of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who deserved his good opinion by being sensible of his excellence. Without entering into a detail of what passed at this last interview, the impression of it upon my mind was, that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of leaving his art; and more especially as he now began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were; which, he said, he flattered himself in his last works were in some measure supplied.” When the Discourse was delivered, Raffaelle Mengs and Pompeo Batoni were great names. Sir Joshua foretells their fall from that high estimation. Andrea Sacchi, and “_perhaps_” Carlo Maratti, he considers the “ultimi Romanorum.” He prefers “the humble attempts of Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates in the great historical style.” He gives some account of the “customs and habits of this extraordinary man.” Gainsborough’s love for his art was remarkable. He was ever remarking to those about him any peculiarity of countenance, accidental combination of figures, effects of light and shade, in skies, in streets, and in company. If he met a character he liked, he would send him home to his house. He brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, &c. He even formed models of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which, magnified, became rocks, trees, and water. Most of this is the common routine of every artist’s life; the modelling his landscapes in the manner mentioned, Sir Joshua himself seems to speak doubtingly about. It in fact shows, that in Gainsborough there was a poverty of invention; his scenes are of the commonest kind, such as few would stop to admire in nature; and, when we consider the wonderful variety that nature did present to him, it is strange that his sketches and compositions should have been so devoid of beauty. He was in the habit of painting by night, a practice which Reynolds recommends, and thought it must have been the practice of Titian and Coreggio. He might have mentioned the portrait of Michael Angelo with the candle in his cap and a mallet in his hand. Gainsborough was ambitious of attaining excellence, regardless of riches. The style chosen by Gainsborough did not require that he should go out of his own country. No argument is to be drawn from thence, that travelling is not desirable for those who choose other walks of art–knowing that “the language of the art must be learned somewhere,” he applied himself to the Flemish school, and certainly with advantage, and occasionally made copies from Rubens, Teniers, and Vandyke. Granting him as a painter great merit, Sir Joshua doubts whether he excelled most in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures. Few now will doubt upon the subject–next to Sir Joshua, he was the greatest portrait painter we have had, so as to be justly entitled to the fame of being one of the founders of the English School. He did not attempt historical painting; and here Sir Joshua contrasts him with Hogarth; who did so injudiciously. It is strange that Sir Joshua should have characterised Hogarth as having given his attention to “the Ridicule of Life.” We could never see any thing ridiculous in his deep tragedies. Gainsborough is praised in that he never introduced “mythological learning” into his pictures. “Our late ingenious academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods and goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no means prepared to receive such personages. His landscapes were in reality too near common nature to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this mistake, in a very admirable picture of a storm, which I have seen of his hand, many figures are introduced in the foreground, some in apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by lightning: had not the painter injudiciously, (as I think,) rather chosen that their death should be imputed to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the children of Niobe.” This is the passage that gave so much offence; foolish admirers will fly into flame at the slightest spark–the question should have been, is the criticism just, not whether Sir Joshua had been guilty of the same error–but we like critics, the only true critics, who give their reason: and so did Sir Joshua. “To manage a subject of this kind a peculiar style of art is required; and it can only be done without impropriety, or even without ridicule, when we adopt the character of the landscape, and that too in all its parts, to the historical or poetical representation. This is a very difficult adventure, and requires a mind thrown back two thousand years, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In the picture alluded to, the first idea that presents itself is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so uncommon a situation as that in which Apollo is placed: for the clouds on which he kneels have not the appearance of being able to support him–they have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle of a human figure, and they do not possess, in any respect, that romantic character which is appropriated to such an object, and which alone can harmonize with poetical stories.” We presume Reynolds alludes to the best of the two Niobes by Wilson–that in the National Gallery. The other is villanously faulty as a composition, where loaf is piled upon loaf for rock and castle, and the tree is common and hedge-grown, for the purpose of making gates; but the other would have been a fine picture, not of the historical class–the parts are all common, the little blown about underwood is totally deficient in all form and character–rocks and trees, and they do not, as in a former discourse–Reynolds had laid down that they should–sympathize with the subject; then, as to the substance of the cloud, he is right–it is not voluminous, it is mere vapour. In the received adoption of clouds as