Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/sevendiscoursesdOOreyn SEVEN DISCOURSES DELIVERED IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY BY THE PRESIDENT. li • £ I j * : ; . ' />i ...... : ■ u ■' . ■ ■ : : ■ ■ ■’:'d •: - - ' ; T O THE KING. T HE regular progrefs of cultivated life is from Neceffaries to Accom- modations, from Accommo- dations to Ornaments. By Your illuftrious Predecellbrs were eftablifhed Marts for Manufactures, and Colleges for Science 5 but for the Arts of DEDICATION. of Elegance, thofe Arts by which Manufactures are em- bellilhed, and Science is re- fined, to found an Academy was refer ved for Your Ma- jefty. Had fuch Patronage been without Effect, there had been reafon to believe that Nature had, by fome iniiir- mountable impediment, ob- ftruted our proficiency, but the annual improvement of A the Exhibitions which Your DEDICATION. Majefcy has been pleafed to encourage, {hews that only Encouragement had been wanting. To give Advice to thole who are contending for Royal Liberality, has been for fome years the duty of my ftation in the Academy 5 and thele Difcourfes hope for Your Majefty’s acceptance as well- intended endeavours to incite that emulation which Your Notice has kindled, and di- rect DEDICATION. reel thofe ftudies which Your Bounty has rewarded. May it pleafe Your Majesty, Your Majesty’s moll: dutiful fervant, and moft faithful fubjedt, / Jofhua Reynolds, A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED at the OPENING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, JANUARY 2, 1769, BY THE PRESIDENT. B TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. GENTLE ME N, T HAT you have ordered the publication of this difcourfe, is not only very flat- tering to me, as it implies your approbation of the method of ftudy which I have recommend- ed ; but likewife, as this method receives, from that adt, fuch an additional weight and authority, B 2 as [ iv ] as demands from the Students, that deference and refpedt, which can be due only to the united fenfe of fo confiderable a Body of Artists. I am. With the greatefl efleem and refpect^ GENTLEMEN, Your moil humble, and obedient Servant, Joshua Reynolds, C 5 ] ^ ------- - - - ' - — - - - - - - — ---- A DISCOURSE, GENTLEMEN, A N Academy, in which the Polite Arts may be regularly cultivated, is at laft opened among us by Royal Munificence. This muft appear an event in the higheft degree interefiing, not only to the Artifts, but to the whole na- tion. It is indeed difficult to give any other reafon, why an empire like that of Bri- tain* fhould fo long have wanted an B 3 orna- t 6 ] ornament fo fuitable to its greatnefs, than that flow progreflion of things, which naturally makes elegance and refinement the laft effed of opulence and power. An Xnftitution like this has often been recommended upon confiderations merely mercantile. But an Academy, founded upon fuch principles, can never effed even its own narrow purpofes. If it has an origin no higher, no tafte can ever be formed in it, which can be ufeful even m manufactures ; but if the higher Arts of Defign flourifh, thefe inferior ends will be anfwered of courfe. We are happy in having a Prince, who has conceived the defign of fuch an Inftitution, according to its true dig- nity 3 and promotes the Arts, as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a [ 7 1 a commercial nation ; and I can now congratulate you, Gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and ardent wifhes. The numberlefs and ineffectual con- Fultations that I have had with many in this affembly, to form plans and concert fchemes for an Academy, afford a fuffi- cient proof of the impoffibility of fuc- ceeding but by the influence of Majes- ty. But there have* perhaps, been times, when even the influence of Ma- jesty would have been ineffectual j and it is pleafing to refled:, that we are thus embodied, when every circumftance feems to concur from which honour and profperity can probably arife. There are, at this time, a greater number of excellent Ariifts than were B 4 ever [ 8 ] ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general delire among our Nobility to be diftingui£hed as Lo- vers and Judges of the Arts ; there is a greater fuperfluity of wealth among the people to reward the profelTors ; and, above all, we are patronized by a Mo- narch, who, knowing the value of fcience and of elegance, thinks every Art worthy of his notice, that tends to foften and humanife the mind. S 4 After fo much has been done by His Majesty, it will be wholly our fault, if our progrefs is not in fome degree correfpondent to the wifdom and generolity of the Inftitution ; let us Ihew our gratitude in our diligence, that, though our merit may not anfwer his ex- pectations, yet, at leaf!:, our induftry may deferve his protection* 3 But [ 9 ] But whatever may be our proportion of fuccefs, of this we may be fure, that the prefent Xnflitution, will at lead con- tribute to advance our knowledge of the Arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence, which it is the lot of Ge- nius, always to contemplate and never to attain. The principal advantage of an Acade- my is, that, befides furnifhing able men to dired the Student, it will be a repofi- tory for the great examples of the Art. Thefe are the materials on which Genius is to work, and without which the dronged intelled may be fruitlefly or de- viouily employed. By dudying thefe au- thentick models, that idea of excellence which is the refult of the accumulated experience of pad ages may be at once acquired* and the tardy and obdruded progrefs ■ ■»' : ' - ■ / ; " . ; i 4 •’ ■■■■■■': : ; •: : , " [ IO ] progrefs of our predeceffors, may teach us a fhorter and eaiier way. The Student receives, at one glance, the principles which many Artifts have fpent their whole lives in afcertaining ; and, fatisfied with their effedt, is fpared the painful invefligation by which they come to be known and fixed. How many men of great natural abilities have been loft to o this nation, for want of thefe advan- tages ? They never had an opportunity of feeing thofe mafterly efforts of Geni- us, which at once kindle the whole foul, and force it into fudden and irrefiftible approbation. Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of ftudying in an Academy ; but all Rome , and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him an Academy. On the fight of the Capel- la [ II ] la Sistina, he immediately from a dry. Gothic, and even infipid manner, which attends to the minute accidental difcri- minations of particular and individual objedls, aflumed that grand ftyle of Paint- ing, which improves partial reprefenta- tion by the general and invariable ideas of nature. Every feminary of learning may be faid to be furrounded with an atmofphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe fomewhat congenial to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, has always fomething more popular and ufeful than that which is forced upon the mind by private pre- cepts, or folitary meditation. Befldes, it is generally found, that a youth more eafily receives inftrudtion from the com-* panions of his ftudies, whofe minds are nearly [ 12 ] nearly on a level with his own, that! from thofe who are much his fuperiors 5 and it is from his equals only that he catches the fire of emulation. One advantage, I will venture to af- firm, we fTiall have in our Academy* which no other nation can boaft. We (hall have nothing to unlearn. To this praife the prefen t race of Ar tills have a juft claim. As far as they have yet pro- ceeded they are right. With us the ex- ertions of Genius will henceforward be directed to their proper objedis. It will not be as it has been in other fchools, where he that travelled fafteft, only wan- dered fartheft from the right way. Impressed, as I am, therefore, with fuch a favourable opinion of my afiociates in this undertaking, it would ill become me [ T 3 ] me to didate to any of them. But as thefe Inftitutions have fo often failed in other nations; and as it is natural to think with regret, how much might have been done, and how little has been done, I muft take leave to offer a few hints, by which thofe errors may be rectified, and thofe defeats fupplied. Thefe the Profeffors and Vi fi tors may re- jed or adopt as they fhall think proper. I would chiefly recommend, that an implicit obedience to the Rules of Art , as eflablifhed by the pradice of the great Masters, fhould be exaded from the young Students. That thofe models, which have palled through the approba- tion of ages, fhould be confidered by them as perfed and infallible Guides ; as fubjeds for their imitation, not their criticifm. I AM [ H ] I am confident, that this is the only efficacious method of making a progrefs in the Arts; and that he who fets out with doubting, will find life finiffied before he becomes matter of the rudi- ments. For it may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by prefuming on his own fenfe, has ended his ftudies as foon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, therefore, fhould be taken to difcountenance that falfe and vul- gar opinion, that rules are the fetters of Genius. They are fetters only to men of no Genius ; as that armour, which upon the ftrong becomes an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and mifhapen turns into a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect. How much liberty may be taken to break through thofe rules, and, as the 3 Poet [ 15 J Poet exprefles it, 5f o J 'natch a Grace beyond the reach of Art , may be an after confideration, when the pupils become mailers themfelves. It is then, when their Genius has received its utmoft improvement, that rules may poffibly be difpenfed with. But let us not deftroy the fcaffold until we have raifed the building. The Diredtors ought more particu- larly to watch over the Genius of thofe Students, who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of fludy, on the nice management of which their future turn of tafte depends. At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is brilliant than with what is folid, and to prefer fplendid neafli- o [ 16 ] negligence to painful and humiliating exa&nefs. A facility in compofing, a lively, and what is called a mafterly handling the chalk or pencil, are, it mull be con- fefifed, captivating qualities to young minds, and become of courfe the objects of their ambition. They endeavour to imitate thofe dazzling excellences, which they will find no great labour in attain- ing. After much time fpent in thefe frivolous purfuits, the difficulty wall be to retreat ; but it will be then too late j and there is fcarce an inftance of return to fcrupulous labour, after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fal- lacious mailer v. J By this ufelefs induftry they are ex^ eluded from all power of advancing in real t 1 7 ] real excellence. Whilft Boys* they are arrived at their utmoft perfection ; they have taken the fhadow for the fubftance ; and make that mechanical facility, the chief excellence of the Art, which is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themfelves are judges. This feems to me to be one of the moft dangerous fources of corruption ; and I fpeak of it from experience, not as an error which may poffibly happen, but which has actually infeCted all fo- reign Academies. The directors were probably pleafed with this premature dexterity in their pupils, and p railed their difpatch at the expence of their cCrredtnefs. [ i8 I But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought mafterly inciting them on one hand, but alfo their natural lloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the profpeft before them, of the toil re- quired to attain exadtnefs. The impe- tuofity of youth is difgufted at the flow approaches of a regular fiege, and defires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by ftorrn. They wifli to find fome fhorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than thofe which the Indifpenfible rules of Art have prefcribed. They rnuft therefore be told again and again, that labour is the only price cf folid fame, and that whatever their force of Genius may be, there is no eafy me- thod of becoming a good Painter. W HEN [ i9 ] When we read the lives of the riioft eminent Painters, every page informs us, that no part of their time was fpent in diffipation. Even an increafe of fame ferved only to augment their induflry. To be convinced with what perfevering afliduity they purfued their ftudies, we need only refled: on their method of pro- ceeding in their moft celebrated works. When they conceived a fubjed, they firfl: made a variety of fketches ; then a finished drawing of the whole ; after that a more corred drawing of every feparate part, heads, hands, feet, and pieces of dra- pery; they then painted the pidure, and after all re-touched it from the life. The pidures, thus wrought with fuch pain, now appear like the effed of en- chantment, and as if fome mighty Genius had ftruck them off at a blow. €• 2 But, [ 20 ] But, whild diligence is thus recom- mended to the Students, the Vifitors will take care that their diligence be ef- fectual ; that it be well directed, and employed on the proper objeCt. A Stu- dent is not always advancing becaufe he is employed ; he mud apply his drength to that part of the Art where the real diffi- culties lie; to that part which didin- guifhes it as a liberal Art, and not by miftaken indudry lofe his time in that which is merely ornamental. The Stu- dents, indead of vying with each other which fhall have the readied: hand, ffiould be taught to contend who fhall have the pared: and mod correCt out-line; in- dead of driving which fhall produce the brighted tint, or, curioufly trifling, en- deavour to give the glofs of duffs, fo as to appear real, let their ambition be directed to contend, which fhall difpofe his [ 21 ] his drapery in the moft graceful folds, which fhall give the moft grace and dig- nity to the human figure. I must beg leave to fubmit one thing more to the confideration of the Vifitors, which appears to me a matter of very great confequence, and the omiffion of which I think a principal defedt in the method of education purfued in all the Academies I have ever vifited. The error 1 mean is, that the Students never draw exadtly from the living models which they have before them. It is not indeed their intention ; nor are they directed to do it. Their drawings refemble the mo- del only in the attitude. They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought to be, than of what it ap- C 3 pears. [ 22 ] pears. 1 have thought this the obflacle, that has ftopt the progrefs of many young men of real Genius ; and I very much doubt, whether a habit of drawing cor- rectly what we fee, will not give a pro- portionable power of drawing correCtly what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exaCtnefs and precifion, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure $ and though he feems to fuperficial ob- fervers to make a flower progrefs, he will be found at laft capable of adding (without running into capricious wild- nefs) that grace and beauty, w 7 hich is jieceflary to be given to his more finifhed works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well compared ftudy of the human form. 5 What [ I 2 3 1 Wiiat I think ought to enforce this method is, that it has been the pra&ice (as may be feen by their drawings) of the great Mailers in the Art. I will mention a drawing of Raffaelle, 5 The Difpute of the Sacrament , the print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It appears, that he made his fketch from one model ; and the habit he had of drawing exactly from the form before him, appears by his making all the figures with the fame cap, fuch as his model then happened to wear; fo fervile a copyifi: was this great man, even at a time when he was allowed to be at his higheft pitch of excellence. I have feen alfo Academy figures by Annibale Caracci, though he was often fufficiently licentious in his finifhed C 4 works, [ 2 4 ] % works, drawn with all the peculiarities of an individual model. This fcrupulous exactnefs is fo con- trary to the practice of the Academies, that it is not without great deference, that I beg leave to recommend it to the confideration of the Vifitors ; and fubmit it to them, whether the neglect of this method, is not one of the reafons why Students fo often difappoint expectation, and, being more than boys at fixteen, become lefs than men at thirty. In Ihort, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when there are but few living forms to copy ; for then Stu- dents, by always drawing from one alone, will by habit be taught to overlook de- fects, and miftake deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger ; fince the Council [ 25 3 Council has determined to fupply th@ Academy with a variety of fubje&s ; and indeed thofe laws which they have drawn up, and which the Secretary will prefently read for your confirmation, have in feme meafure precluded me from fay- ing more upon this occafion. Inftead, therefore, of offering my advice, permit me to indulge my Wifhes, and exprefs my Hope, that this Inftitution may anfwer the expectations of its Royal Founder; that the prefen t age may vie in Arts with that of Leo the Tenth ; and that the dignity of the dying Art (to make ufe of an expreffion of Pliny) may be re- vived under the Reign of GEORGE THE THIRD. A D I 3- A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS O F T H E ROYAL ACADEMY, ON THE Distribution of the Prizes, DECEMBER u, 1769, BY THE PRESIDENT. , 'UlbfLOfi) m uoy -stefr • - Th-\' V V v - - S v f. • - • ^ r; ' ; • . ;.’U; stem ; . . - : - . - : • . v it . ' [ 29 ] A DISCOURSE, &c. GENTLEMEN, I Congratulate you on the honour which you have juft received. I have the higheft opinion of your merits, and could wifh to fhow my fenfe of them in fomething which poffibly may be more ufeful to you than barren praife* I could wifh to lead you into fuch a courfe of ftudy as may render your future pro- grefs anfwerable to your paft improve- ment $ and, whilft I applaud you for 7 what [ 3 ° ] what has been done, remind you of how much yet remains to attain perfection. I hatter myfelf, that from the long ex- perience I have had, and the unceafing afiiduity with which I have purfued thofe ftudies, in which, like you, I have been engaged, I fhall be acquitted of vanity in offering fome hints to your confidera- tion. They are indeed in a great degree founded upon my own miftakes in the fame purfult. But the hiftory of errors properly managed, often fhortens the road to truth. And although no method of ftudy that I can offer, will of itfelf conduCt to excellence, yet it may pre- fer ve induftry from being mifapplied. In fpeaking to you of the Theory of the Art, I fhall only cohfider it as it has a relation to the method of your Studies. Dividing E 31 ] Dividing the ftudy of painting into three diftind periods, I fliall addrefs you as having palled through the firfl of them, which is confined to the rudiments ; in- cluding a facility of drawing any object that prefents itfelf, a tolerable reaainefs in the management of colours, and an acquaintance with the mcft Ample and obvious rules of compofition. This firft degree of proficienq/ is, in Painting, what Grammar is in Litera- ture, a general preparation to whatever fpecies of the Art the Student may after- wards chufe for his more particular ap- plication. The power of drawing, mo- delling, and ufing colours, is very pro- perly called the Language of the Art ; and in this language, the honours you have juft received, prove you to have made no inconfiderable progrefs. When [ 3 2 ] When the Artiil is once enabled to exprefs himfelf with fome degree of corrednefs, he mult then endeavour to colled: fubjedts for expreffion ; to amafs a flock of Ideas, to be combined and va- ried as occaiion may require. He is now in the fecond period of iludy, in which his bufinefs is to learn all that has been hitherto known and done. Having hi-* therto received inilrudions from a parti- cular mailer, he is now to coniider the Art itfelf as his mailer. He mu it ex- tend his capacity to more fublime and ge- neral inilrudions. Thofe perfedions which lye fcattered among various mas- ters, are now united in one general idea, which is henceforth to regulate his tafle, and enlarge his imagination. With a variety of models thus before him, he will avoid that narrownefs and pover- ty of conception which attends a bigot- led [ 33 5 ted admiration of a fingle matter* and will ceafe to follow any favourite where he ceafes to excel. This period is, how- ever, ttill a time of fubjedlion and difci- pline. Though the Student will not re- ttgn himfelf blindly to any fingle autho- rity when he may have the advantage of confulting many, he mutt ttill be afraid of trailing his own judgment, and of deviating into any track where he can- not find the footfteps of fome former matter. The third and laft period emancipates the Student from fubje&ion to any au- thority* but what he fhall himfelf judge to be fupported by reafon. Confiding now in his own judgment, he will confider and feparate thofe different prin- ciples to which different modes of beau- ty owe their original. In the former D period [ 34 ] period he fought only to know and com- bine excellence, wherever it was to be found, into one idea of perfection: in this, he learns, what requires the moft attentive furvey and the moft fubtle dif- quifition, to difcriminate perfections that are incompatible with each other. He is from this time to regard himfelf as holding: the fame rank with thofe matters whom he before obeyed as tea- chers j and as exercifing a fort of fove- reignty over thofe rules which have hi- therto refrained him. Comparing now no longer the performances of Art with each other, but examining the Art itfelf by the ftandard of Nature, he corrects what is erroneous, fupplies what is fcan- ty, and adds by his own obfervation what the induftry of his predeceftors may have yet left wanting to perfection* Having [ 35 ] Having well eftablifhed his judgment* and ftored his memory* he may now without fear tx^y the power of his imagi- nation. The mind that has been thus difcipliiied, may be indulged in the warmed: enthufiafm, and venture to play on the borders of the wildeft extravagance. The habitual dignity, which long con- verfe with the greateft minds has impart- ed to him, will difplay itfelf in all his at- tempts ; and he will ftand among his in- ftrudtors, not as an imitator, but a rival. These are the different ftages of tha Art. But as I now addrefs myfelf par- ticularly to thofe Students who have been d this day rewarded for their happy paffage through the iirft period, I can with no propriety fuppofe they want any help in the initiatory Studies. My prefent de- fign is to diredt your view to diftant ex- D a eellencej? [ 36 ] cellence, and to fhow you the readied: path that leads to it. Of this I fliall fpeak with fuch latitude, as may leave the province of the profeffor uninvaded ; and fhall not anticipate thole precepts, which it is his bulinefs to give, and your duty to underltand. It is indifputably evident that a great part of every man’s life muft be em- ployed in collecting materials for the exercife of Genius. Invention, ftriCtly fpeaking, is little more than a new com- bination of thofe images which have been previoufly gathered and depofited in the memory : nothing can come of nothing : he who has laid up no mate- rials, can produce no combinations. A Student unacquainted with the attempts of former adventurers, is always apt 3 [ 37 3 apt to over-rate his own abilities ; to miftake the moft trifling excurfions for difcoveries of moment, and every coaff new to him, for a new-found country. If by chance he pafifes beyond his ufual limits, he congratulates his own arrival at thofe regions which they who have fleer’d a better courfe have long left be- hind them. The productions of fuch minds are feldom diftinguifhed by an air of origi- nality : they are anticipated in their happieft efforts ; and if they are found to differ in any thing from their prede- ceffors, it is only in irregular fallies, and trifling conceits. The more extenflve therefore your acquaintance is with the works of thofe who have excelled, the more extenflve will be your powers of in- vention 5 and what may appear flill more D 3 like [ 3§ 1 like a paradox, the more original will be your conceptions. But the difficulty on this occafion is to determine who ought to be propofed as models of excellence, and who ought to be confidered as the propereft guides. To a young man juft arrived in Italy , many of the prefent painters of that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own performances as examples of that perfec- tion which they affed to recommend. The Modern, however, who recom- mends himfelf as a ftandard, may juftly be fufpeded as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper objed of the art which he profeffes. To fol- low fuch a guide, will not only retard the Student, but miflead him. On [ 39 ] On whom then can he rely, or who fhall (how him the path that leads to ex- cellence ? The anfwer is obvious : Thofe great mailers who have travelled the fame road with fuccefs, are the moil likely to condudl others. The works of thofe who have flood the tefl of ages, have a claim to that refpedl and veneration to which no modern can pretend. The duration and liability of their fame, is fufficient to evince that it has not been fufpended upon the {lender thread of falhion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tye of fympathetic approbation. There is no danger of fcudying too much the works of thofe great men ; but how they may be ft u died to advantage is an enquiry of great importance. D 4 Some [ 40 ] Some who have never raifed their minds to the confideration of the real dignity of the Art, and who rate the works of an Artift in proportion as they excel or are defe&ive in the mechanical parts, look on Theory as fomething that may enable them to talk but not to paint better; and confining themfelves entirely to mechanical practice, very affiduoufly toil on in the drudgery of copying ; and think they make a rapid progrefs while they faithfully exhibit the minuted: part of a favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, and I think a very erroneous method of proceeding. Of every large compofition, even of thofe which are mod: admired, a great part may be truly faid to be common-place , This, though it takes up much time in copying, conduces little to improve- nient. I coniider general copying as a delufive [ ] delufive kind of induftry; the Student fa- tisfies himfelf with the appearance of doing fomething ; he falls into the dan- gerous habit of imitating without fe- leding, and of labouring without any determinate objed ; as it requires no ef- fort of the mind, he fleeps over his work; and thofe powers of invention and com- pofition which ought particularly to be called out, and put in addon, lie torpid, and lofe their energy for want of exercife. It is an obfervation that all muft have made, how incapable thofe are of pro- ducing any thing of their own, who have fpent much of their time in making hni fired copies. To fuppofe that the complication of powers, and variety of ideas neceffary to that mind which afplres to the firft ho- nours [ 42 ] ,nours in the Art of Painting, can be ob- tained by the frigid contemplation of a few Angle models, is no lefs abfurd than it would be in him who wifhes to be a Poet, to imagine that by tranflating a Tragedy he can acquire to himfelf fuf- ficient knowledge of the appearances of nature, the operations of the paffions, and the incidents of life. The great ufe in copying, if it be at all ufefyii, fhould feem to be in learning to colour ; yet even colouring will never be perfectly attained by fervilely copying the model before you. An eye critically nice can only be formed by obferving well-coloured pictures with attention : and by clofe infpedtion, and minute ex- amination, you will difcover, at laft, the manner of handling, the artifices of contraft, glazing, and other expedients, 3 b y [ 43 } by which good colourifts have raifed the value of their tints, and by which Nature has been fo happily imitated. I must inform you, however, that old Pictures defervedly celebrated for their colouring, are often fo changed by dirt and varniih, that we ought not to wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputa- tion in the eyes of unexperienced Painters, or young Students. An Artift whofe judg- ment is matured by long obfervation, con- fiders rather what the Pidture once was, than what it is at prefent. He has acquired a power by habit of feeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by which it is ob- fcured. An exact imitation, therefore, of thofe Pictures, is likely to fill the Stu- dent's mind with falfe opinions ; and to fend him back a colourift of his own for- mation, with ideas equally remote from Nature [ 44 3 Nature and from Art, from the genuine pradice of the matters, and the real appearances of things. Following thefe rules, and ufing thefe precautions, when you have clearly and diftindly learned in what good co- louring confitts, you cannot do better than have recourfe to Nature herfelf, who is always at hand, and in comparifon of whofe true fplendor the beft coloured Pidures are but faint and feeble. However, as the practice of copying is not entirely to be excluded, fince the mechanical pradice of Painting is learned in fome meafure by it, let thofe choice parts only be feleded which have re- commended the work to notice. If its excellence conttfts in its general effed, it would be proper to make flight iketches of [ 45 1 ©f the machinery and general manage- ment of the Pidure. Thofe fketches fhould be kept always by you for the regulation of your flile. Infiead of co- pying the touches of thofe great mailers, copy only their conceptions. Infiead of treading in their footfleps, endeavour only to keep the fame road. Labour to invent on their general principles and way of thinking. Poffefs yourfelf with their fpirit. Confider with yourfelf how a Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this fubjed : and work yourfelf into a belief that your Pidure is to be feen and criticifed by them when compleated. Even an attempt of this kind will roufe your Powers. But as mere enthufiafm will carry you but a little way, let me reccommend a pradice that may be equivalent, and will '[ 46 ] will perhaps more efficacioufiy contri- bute to your advancement, than even the verbal corrections of thofe matters •themfelves, could they be obtained. What I would propofe is, that you fhould enter into a kind of competition, by painting a fimilai* fubjeCt, and making a companion to any Picture that you con- fider as a model. After you have finifhed your work, place it near the model, and compare them carefully together. You will then not only fee, but feel your own deficiencies more fenfibly than by precepts, or any other means of in- ftruCtion . The true principles of Paint- ing will mingle with your thoughts. Ideas thus fixed by fenfible objeCts, will be certain and definitive; and finking deep into the mind, will not only be more juft, but more lading than thofe prefented to you by precepts only; which will [ 47 ] will always be fleeting, variable, and un- determined. This method of comparing your own efforts with thofe of fome great mailer, is indeed a fevere and mortifying talk, to which none will fubmit, but fuch as have great views, with fortitude fufli- cient to forego the gratifications of pre- fent vanity for future honour. When the Student has fucceeded in fome mea- fure to his own fatisfadlion, and has felicitated himfelf on his fuccefs, to go voluntarily to a tribunal where he knows his vanity mu ft be humbled, and all felf- approbation rnuft vanifh, requires not only great refolution, but great hu- mility. To him, however, who has the ambition to be a real mailer, the folid fatisfadlion which proceeds from a con- fcioufnefs of his advancement, (of which feeing [ ] feeing his own faults is the firSt Step) will very abundantly cornpenfate for the mortification of prefent difappointment. There is, befides, this alleviating cir- cumstance. Every difcovery he makes, every acquisition of knowledge he aN tains, feems to proceed from his own fagacity; and thus he acquires a confi- dence in himfelf fufficient to keep up the refolution of perfeverance* We all muSt have experienced how lazily, and confequently how ineffec- tually, inftruCtion is received when forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught to any purpofe who have not been their own teachers. We pre- fer thofe inftrudtions which we have given ourfelves, from our affeCtion to the instructor ; and they are more ef- fectual, from being received into the mind [ 49 ] mind at the very time when it is mod open and eager to receive them. With refpect to the Pictures that you are to chufe for your models, I could wifli that you would take the world’s opinion rather than your own. In other v/ords, I would have you chufe thofe of eftablifhed reputation, rather than follow your own fancy. If you fhould not admire them at firft, you will, by endeavouring to imitate them, find that the world has not been miftaken. It is not an eafy talk to point out thofe various excellencies for your imi- tation which lye diftributed amongft the various fchools. An endeavour to do this may perhaps be the fubjed of fome fu- ture difcourfe. I will, therefore, at pre- fen t only recommend a model for Stile E In [ 5° I in Painting, which is a branch of the Art more immediately neceffary to the young Student. Stile in Painting is the fame as in Writing, a power over ma- terials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or fentiments are con- veyed. And in this Lodovico Car- rache (I mean in his beft works) ap- pears to me to approach the neareft to perfection. His unaffected breadth of light and fhadow, the fimplicity of co- louring, which holding its proper rank, does not draw aflde the leaft part of the attention from the fubjeCt, and the fo- lemn effeCt of that twilight which feems diffufed over his Pictures, appear to me to correfpond with grave and dignified fubjeCts, better than the more artificial brilliancy of funfhine which enlightens the Pictures of Titian. Though Tintoret thought that Titian's co- louring [ 5 1 ] louring was the model of perfeftion, and would correfpond even with the fublimb of Michael Angelo; and that if Angelo had coloured like Titian, or Titian defigned like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect Painter. It is our misfortune, however, that thofe works of Carr ache which I' would recommend to the Student* are not often found out of Bologna. The Bk Francis in the midfi of his Friars , The Transfiguration, The Birth of St ; John the Baptift , The Calling of St. Mat- thew, The St. Jerom, The Frefico Paint- ings in the Zampieri Palace, are all wor- thy the attention of the Student. And I think thofe who travel would do well To allot a much greater portion of their E 2 time [ 52 ] ■time to that city than it has been hi- therto the cuflom to beftow. In this Art* as in others* there are many Teachers who profefs to (hew the neared: way to excellence : and many expedients have been invented by which the toil of ftudy might be faved. But let no man be fed need to idlenefs by fpecious pro- mifes. Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour. It argues indeed no fmall ftrength of mind to perfevere in habits of induftry, with- out the pleafure of perceiving thofe ad- vances •> which, like the hand of a clock, whilft they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed fo (lowly as to efcape obfervation. A facility of draw- ing, like that of playing upon a mufical inftrument, cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of adts. I need not, therefore. [ 53 3 therefore, inforce by many words the neceffity of continual application ; nor tell you that the porte crayon ought to be for ever in your hands. Various me- thods will occur to you by which this power may be acquired. I would parti- cularly recommend, that after your re- turn from the Academy (where I fup- pofe your attendance to be conftant) you would endeavour to draw the figure by memory. I will even venture to add, that by perfeverance in thiscuflom, you will become able to draw the human figure tolerably corredt, with as little effort of the mind as to trace with a pen the let- ters of the alphabet. That this facility is not unattainable, fome members in this Academy give a a fufficient proof. And be affureci, that if this power is not acquired whilft you E 3 are [ 54 ] are young, there will be no time for it afterwards : at leaft the attempt will be attended with as much difficulty as thofe experience who learn to read or write after they have arrived to the age of ma- turity. But while I mention the porte-crayon as the Student’s conftant companion, he mu ft fall remember, that the Pencil is the inftrument by which he mu ft hope to obtain eminence. What, therefore, I with to imprefs upon you is, that whenever an opportunity offers, you paint your ftudies inftead of drawing them. This will give you fuch a facility in uiing colours, that in time they will arrange themfelves under the Pencil, even without the attention of the hand that conduds it. If one a£t excluded the other, this advice could not with any propriety [ 55 1 propriety be given. But if Painting comprifes both drawing and colouring, and if by a fhort ftruggle of refolute in- duftry, the fame expedition is attainable in Painting as in drawing on paper, I cannot fee what objection can juftly be made to the practice ; or why that fhould be done by parts, which may be done all together* If we turn our eyes to the feveral Schools of Painting, and confider their refpedtive excellencies, we fhall find, that thofe who excel moft in colouring, purfued this method. The Venetian and Flemijh fchools, which owe much of their fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the colledors of draw- ings, with very few examples. Thofe of Titian, Paul Veronese, Tinto- ret, and the Bassans, are in general E 4 fl ght [ 56 ] flight and undetermined. Their fketches on paper are as rude as their Pictures are excellent in regard to harmony of co- louring. Correggio and Barocci have left few, if any finiihed drawings behind them. And in the FJemifh fchool, Ru- bens and Vandyke made their defigns for the moft part either in colours, or in chiaro ofcuro. It is as common to find ftudies of- the Venetian and Fie- v i mijh Painters on.j canvafs, as of the Schools of Rome, and Florence on paper. Not but that many finifhed drawings are fold under" the names of thofe ma- ilers. Thofe, however, are undoubt- edly the productions either of engravers or of their fcholars, who copied their works. These inflrudtions I have ventured to offer from my own experience ^ but as they [ 57 1 they deviate widely from received opini- ons, I offer them with diffidence ; and when better are fuggefted, fhall retradt them without regret. There is one precept, however, in which I fhall only be oppofed by the vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I fhall repeat it too often. You mull have no derendence on your own genius. If you have great talents, induftry will improve them : if you have but moderate abilities, induftry will fup- ply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to well directed labour : nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter into metaphyfical difcufiions on the na- ture or eflence of genius, I will venture to aflert, that affiduity unabated by diffi- culty, and a difpofition eagerly diredted to the objedt of its purfuit, will produce 5 effedts [ 58 ] effe&s fimilar to thofe which fome call the refult of natural powers . Though a man cannot at all times, and in all places, paint or draw, yet the mind can prepare itfelf by laying in pro- per materials, at all times, and in all places. Both Livy and Plutarch, in defcribing Philopoemen, one of the ableffc generals of antiquity, have given us a ftriking picture of a mind always intent on its profeflion, and by affiduity obtaining thofe excellencies which fome all their lives vainly expert from Nature. I lhall quote the paffage in Livy at length, as it runs parallel with the prac- tice I would recommend to the Painter, Sculptor, or Architect. “ Philopoemen was a man eminent for his fagacity and experience in choofing ground. [ 59 ] ground, and in leading armies; to which he formed his mind by perpetual medi- tation, in times of peace as well as war. When, in any occafional journey, he came to a ftrait difficult paffage, if he was alone, he confidered with himfelf, and if he was in company he afked his friends, what it would be beft to do if in this place they had found an enemy, either in the front, or in the rear, on the one fide, or on the other. ‘ It might happen/ fays he, £ that the enemy to be oppofed might come on drawn up in re- gular lines, or in a tumultuous body, formed only by the nature of the place/ He then confidered a little what ground he ihould take ; what number of foldi- ers he ihould ufe, and what arms he ihould give them ; where he ihould lodge his carnages, his baggage, and the- de~ fencelefs followers of his camp ; how many C 60 ] many guards, and of what kind he fhould fend to defend them ; and whether it would be better to prefs forward along the pafs, or recover by retreat his for- mer ftation: he would confider likewife where his camp could moft commodi- oufly be formed ; how much ground he fhould inclofe within his trenches ; where he fhould have the convenience of water; and where he might find plenty of wood and forage ; and when he fhould break up his camp on the following day, thro* \vhat road he could moft fafely pafs, and in what form he fhould difpofe his troops. With fuch thoughts and dif- quifitions he had from his early years fo exercifed his mind, that on thefe occa- fions nothing could happen which he had not been already accuftomed to con- fider.” I CANNOT [ 6 1 ] I cannot help imagining that I fee a promifing young Painter, equally vi- gilant, whether at home, or abroad in the ftreets, or in the fields. Every objedt that prefents itfelf, is to him a leffon. He regards all Nature with a view to his profeffion ; and combines her beauties, or corredls her defedts. He examines the countenance of men under the influx ence of paffion ; and often catches the moft pleafing hints from fuhjedts of tur- bulence or deformity. Even bad Pic- tures themfelves fupply him with ufeful documents; and, as Leonardo da Vinci has obferved, he improves upon the fanciful images that are fometimes feen in the fire, or are accidentally fketched upon a difcoloured wall. The Artifl who has his mind thus filled with ideas, and his hand made ex- pert [ 62 ] pert by pra&ice, works with eafe and readinefs ; whilft he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the infpi- rations of Genius, is in reality at a lofs how to begin 5 and is at laft delivered of his Monfters, with difficulty and pain. The well-grounded Painter, on the contrary, has only maturely to confider his fubject, and all the mechanical parts of his Art follow without his exertion. Confcious of the difficulty of obtaining what he poffeffes, he makes no preten- fions to fecrets, except thofe of clofer application. Without conceiving tile fmallert jealoufy againft others, he is contented that all (hall be as great as himfelf, who are willing to undergo the fame fatigue : and as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free from 3 [ 63 ] from the painful fufpicions of a jugler, who lives in perpetual fear, left his trick fhould be difcovered. ADIS- A DISCOURSE, &>c. GENTLEMEN, I T is not eafy to fpeak with propriety to fo many Students of different ages and different degrees of advancement. The mind requires nourifhment adapted to its growth ; and what may have pro- moted our earlier efforts, might retard us in our nearer approaches to perfection. The firfc endeavours of a young Painter, as I have remarked in a former F 2 difcourfe. [ 68 ] difcourfe, mutt be employed in the at- tainment of mechanical dexterity, and confined to the mere imitation of the ohjed before him. Thofe who have ad- vanced beyond the Rudiments, may, per- haps, find advantage in refleding on the advice which I have likewife given them, when I recommended the diligent ftudy of the works of our great predeceflors ; but I at the fame time endeavoured to guard them againtt an implicit fubmif- fion to the authority of any one matter however excellent ; or by a ttrid imita- tion of his manner, to preclude our- felves from the abundance and variety of Nature. I will now add that nature herfelf is not to be too clofely copied. There are excellencies in the Art of Painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of nature : and thefe ex- cellencies I wifh to point put. The Students [ 6 9 j Students who, having paffed through the initiatory exercifes, are more, advanced in the art, and who, fure of their hand* have leifhre to exert their undemand- ing, muft now be told, that a mere co- pier of nature can never produce any thing great can never raife and enlarge the conceptions* or warm the heart df the fpedator, x The wifh of the genuine Painter muft be more extenfive : inftead of endea- vouring to amufe mankind with the minute neatnefs of his imitations, he muft endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas * inftead of feeking praife, by deceiving the fuperficial fen fe of the fpedlator, he muft ftrive for fame* by captivating the imagination i F 3 The- [ 7° ] The principle now laid down, that the perfection of this Art does not confift in mere imitation, is far from being new or lingular. It is, indeed, fupported by the general opinion of the enlightened part of mankind. The Poets, Orators, and Rhetoricians of antiquity, are continually enforcing this pofition, that all the arts receive their perfection from an ideal beauty, fuperior to what is to be found in individual nature. They are ever referring to the practice of the Painters and Sculptors of their times, particularly Phidias (the favourite ■Artift of Antiquity) to illuftrate their affertions. As if they could not fuffici- ently exprefs their admiration of his ge- nius by what they knew, they have re- courfe to poetical enthuliafm. They call it Infoiration ; a Gift from Heaven. The artift is fuppofed to have afcended the C 71 ] the celeftial regions, to furnifh his mind with this perfect Idea of beauty. “ He, 5 * fays Prod us .% “ who takes for his “ model fuch forms as nature produces, lc and confines himfelf to an exadt imi- “ tation of them, wfill never attain to “ what is perfectly beautiful. For the “ works of nature are full of difpro- “ portion* and fall very fbort of the “ true, ftandard of beauty. So that Phi- “ dias, when he formed his Jupiter, did “ not copy any objedt ever prefented to his fight ; but contemplated only ec that image which he had conceived in. “ his mind from Homer’s defcription.” And thus Cicero, fpeaking of the fame Phidias ; u Neither did this artift,” fays he, “ when he carved the image of Ju- u piter or Minerva, fet before him any * Lib.- 2. in Titnseiim Platonis, as cited by 8 Ju- nius d? Pidtura veterum. F 4 <4 on® [ 72 ] ce one human figure, as a pattern, which “ he was to copy ; but having a more “ perfect Idea of beauty fixed in his mind, this he fteadily contemplated, “ and to the, imitation of this all his Itill and labour were directed. ” The Moderns are not lefs convinced than the Ancients of this fuperior power exifting in the Art ; nor lefs confcious of its effects. Every language has adopted terms exprefiive of this excellence. The Gujio grande of the Italians ; the Beau ideal of the French ; and the great Jlyle , genius , and tajle among the Englifh, are but different appellations of the fame thing. It is this intellectual dignity, they fay, that ennobles the Painter’s art; that lays the line between him and the mere mechanic ; and produces thofe great ef- fects in an inftant, which eloquence and poetry. [ 73 ] poetry, by flow and repeated efforts, are fcarcely able to attain. Such is the warmth with which both the Antients and Moderns fpeak of this divine principle of the art ; but, as I have formerly obferved, enthufiaftic ad- miration feldom promotes knowledge. Though a Student by fuch praife may have his attention roufed, and a defire excited, of running in this great career; yet it is poflible that what has been faid to excite, may only ferve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and per- ceives there nothing of that divine in- fpiration, with which, he is told, fo many others have been favoured. He never travelled to Heaven to gather new ideas ; and he finds himfelf pofleffed of no other qualifications than what mere common obfervation and a plain under- ftanding I [ 74 1 /landing can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidfl the fplendor of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopelefs, to purfue an object which he fuppofes out of the reach of human induftry. But on this, as upon many other oc- casions, we ought to diftinguifh how much is to be given to enthufiafm, and how much to reafon. We ought to allow for, and we ought to commend, that ftrength of vivid expreffion, which is neceffary to convey, in its full force, the higheft fenfe of the moil complete efFedt of art ; taking care at .the fame time, not to lofe in terms of vague ad- miration, that folidity and truth of prin- ciple, upon which alone we can reafon, and may be enabled to pradtife. It [ 75 ] It is not eafy to define in what this great ftyle confifts ; nor to defcribe, by words, the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the Student fhould be at all capable of fuch an acquifition. Could we teach tafte or genius by rules, they would be no longer tafte and genius. But though there neither are, nor can be, any precife invariable rules for the exercife, or the acquifition, of thefe great qualities ; yet we may as truly fay that they always operate in proportion to our attention in obferving the works of na- ture, to our fkill in felefting, and to our care in digefting, methodizing, and com- paring our obfervations. There are many beauties in our art, that feem, at fir ft, to lie without the reach of precept, and yet may eafily be reduced to practical principles. Experience is all in all ; but it is not every one who profits by expe- rience j [ 7 6 3 rience ; and moll people err, not 1(J much from want of capacity to find their objed, as from not knowing what ob- ject to purfue. This great ideal per- fection and beauty are not to be fought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and upon every fide of us. But the power of difcovering what is deformed in nature, or in other words, what is particular and uncom- mon, can be acquired only by experi- ence ; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art confifts, in my opinion, in being able to get above all lingular forms, local cuftoms, particularities, and details of every kind. All the objeds which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon clofe ex- amination will be found to have their blemilhes and defeds* The moft beau- tiful [ 77 ] tiful forms have fomething about them like weaknefs, minutenefs, or imper- fection. But it is not every eye that perceives thefe blemifhes. It muft be an eye long ufed to the contemplation and comparifon of thefe forms ; and which, by a long habit of obferving what any fet of objects of the fame kind have in common, that alone can acquire the power of difcerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious com- parifon Ihould be the firft fludy of the Painter, who aims at the greateft ftyle. By this means, he acquires a juft Idea of beautiful forms ; he corrects nature by herfelf, her imperfeCt ftate by her more perfeCt. Plis eye being enabled to dif- tinguifh the accidental deficiencies, ex- crefcences and deformities of things from their general figures, he makes out an ^bftraCt idea of their forms more perfeCt 7 than [ ] than any one original ; and what may feern a paradox, he learns to defign na- turally by drawing his figures unlike to any one objed. This idea of the perfed flate of nature, which the artifc calls the Ideal Beauty, is the great leading prin- ciple, by which works of genius are conducted. By this Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a fober prin- ciple, what has fo much excited the enthufiafm of the world ; and by this method you, who have courage to tread the fame path, may acquire equal re- putation. Th is is the idea which has acquired, and which feems to have a right to the epithet of Divine as it may be faid to prefide, like a fupreme judge, over all the produdtions of nature ; appearing to be poffeffed of the will and intention of the [ 79 ] the Creator, as far as they regard the external form of living beings. When a man once poffefies this idea in its perfection, there is no danger, but that he will be fufficiently warmed by it himfelf, and be able to warm and ravifh every one elfe. Thus it is from a reiterated experi- ence, and a clofe comparifon of the ob- jects in nature, that an artifc becomes pofieffed of the idea of that central form, if I may fo exprefs it, from which every deviation is deformity. But the invefti- gation of this form I grant is painful, and I know but of one method of fliortening the road ; this is, by a care- ful ftudy of the works of the antient fculptors ; who, being indefatigable in the fchool of nature, have left models 5 of [ 3o ] of that perfect form behind them, which an artift would prefer as fupremely beau- tiful, who had fpent his whole life in that Angle contemplation. But if in- duftry carried them thus far, may not you alfo hope for the fame reward from the fame labour? We have the ' fame fchool opened to us, that was opened to them ; for nature denies her inftrudtions v to none, who defire to become her pupils. To. the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty in each fpecies of Beings is invariably one, it may be ob- jected, that in every particular fpecies there are various central forms, which are feparate- and diftindt from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful; that in the human figure, for inftance, the beauty of the Hercules is one, of the Gladiator [ 8i 3 Gladiator another, of the Apollo ano- ther ; which makes fo many different ideas of beauty. It is true, indeed, that thefe figures are each perfed in their kind, though of different characters and proportions ; but ftill none of them is the reprefen ta- tion of an individual, but of a clafs* And as there is one general form, which, as I have faid, belongs to the human kind at large, fo in each of thefe claffes there is one common idea and central form, which is the abftrad of the vari- ous individual forms belonging to that clafs. Thus, though the forms of child- hood and age differ exceedingly; there is a common form in childhood, and a common form in age, which is the more perfed, as it is more remote from all pe- culiarities. But I muft add further, that G [ *2 ] that though the moft perfect forms of each of the general divifions of the hu- man figure are ideal, and fuperior to any individual form of that clafs ; yet the higheft perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the Hercules, nor in the Gladi- ator, nor in the Apollo ; but in that form which is taken from them all, and which partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of the mufcular ftrength of the Hercules. For perfeCt beauty in any fpecies muft combine all the characters which are beautiful in that fpecies.* It cannot confift in any one to the exclufion of the reft : no one, therefore, muft be predominant, that no one may be de- ficient* The C 83 ] The knowledge of thefe different characters, and the power of feparating and diftinguifhing them, is undoubt- edly neceffary to the painter* who is to Vary his compofitions with figures of various forms and proportions, though he is never to lofe fight of the general idea of perfection in each kind. There is, likewife, a kind of fym- metry, or proportion, which may pro- perly be faid to belong to deformity. A figure lean or corpulent, tall or fhort, though deviating from beauty, may ftill have a certain union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them on the whole* not unpleafing. When the Artift has by diligent at- tention acquired a clear and diftinCt idea of beauty and fymmetry *, when he has G 2 reduced [ §4 3 reduced the variety of nature to the ab- ftract idea ; his next talk will be to be- come acquainted with the genuine habits of nature, as diftinguifhed from thofe of fafhion. For in the fame manner, and on the fame principles, as he has acquired the knowledge of the real forms of na- ture, diftindt from accidental deformity, he mu ft endeavour to feparate fimple chafte nature, from thofe adventitious, thofe affedled and forced airs or adtions, with which fhe is loaded by modem education* # .... Perhaps I cannot better explain what 1 mean, than by reminding you of what was taught us, by the ProfefTor of Anato- my, in refpedl to the natural pofition and movement of the feet. He obferved that the fafhion of turning them outwards was contrary to the intent of nature, as might [ 8 5 ] might be feen from the ftrudure of the bones, and from the weaknefs that pro- ceeded from that manner of handing. To this we may add the ered pofition of the head, the projedion of the cheft, the walking with ffrait knees, and many fuch adions, which are merely the re- fult of fafhion, and what nature never warranted, as we are fure that we have been taught them when chil- dren. I have mentioned but a few of thofe Inftances, in which vanity or caprice have contrived to diftort and disfigure the human form ; your own recolledion will add to thefe a thoufand more of ill- underftood methods, that have been pradifed to difguife nature, among our dancing-mafters, hair-dreffers, and tay- G 3 lors. [ 86 3 lors, in their various fchools of de- formity However the mechanic and orna- mental arts may facrifice to fafhion fhe muft be entirely excluded from the Art of Painting; the Painter muft never mif- take this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of nature ; he muft diveft himfelf of all prejudices in fa- vour of his age or country ; he muft diftegard all local and temporary or- naments, and look only on thofe ge- neral habits that are every where and cc * Thofe, fays Quintilian, cc who are taken 44 with the outward fhew of things, think that • f 4 there is more beauty in perfons, who are trim - 44 med, curled, and painted, than uncorrupt nature 44 can give ; as if beauty were merely the efFedt of 44 the corruption of manners . 55 always f 87 ] ah fhz fame. He addrefles his Vv to the people of every country and every age ; he calls upon pofterity to be his fpedtators, and fays with Zeuxis, In ceternitatem pin go. The negledt of feparating modern fafhions from the habits of nature, leads to that ridiculous flile which has been practifed by fome Painters, who have given to Graecian Heroes the airs and graces pradtifed in the cCurt of Lewis the Fourteenth j an abfurdity almoft as great as it would have been to have dreffed them after the faffiion of that court. To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true fimplicity of nature, is a talk more difficult than at firft fight it may appear. The prejudices in favour G 4 of [ 88 ] pf the fafhions and cuftoms that we have been ufed to, and which are jultly call- ed a fecond nature, make it too often difficult to diftinguiffi that which is natural, from that which is the refult of education ; they frequently even give a predilection in favour of the artificial mode ; and almofl every one is apt to be guided by thofe local preju- dices who has not chaftifed his mind, and regulated the inftability of his af- fections, by the eternal invariable idea of nature. Here then, as before, we mu ft have recourfe to the Ancients as inftruCtors. \ It is from a careful ftudy of their works that you will be enabled to attain to the real fimplicity of nature; they will fug- ged: many obfervations, which would probably efcape you, if your ftudy were 5 confined [ §9 ] confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot help fufpeding, that in this in- flance the Ancients had an eafier talk than the moderns. They had, probably, little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were nearly approaching to this definable fimplicity ; while the modem artiil, before he can fee the truth of things, is obliged to remove a veil, with which the fafhion of the times has thought proper to cover her. Having gone thus far in our invefti- gation of the great ftile in painting ; if we now fhouid fuppofe that the Artiffc has formed the true idea of beauty, which enables him to give his works a correft and perfed defign ; if we fhould fuppofe alfo, that he , has acquired a knowledge of the unadulterated habits of nature, which gives him fimplicity ; the reft r 90 ] reft of his talk is, perhaps, lefs than is ge* nerally imagined. Beauty and fimplicity have fo great a fhare in the compofition of a great ftile, that he who has acquir- ed them has little elfe to learn. It muft not, indeed, be forgot, that there is a noblenefs of conception, which goes be- yond any thing im the mere exhibition, even of perfect form ; there is an art of animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual grandeur, of imprefiing the appearance of philofophic wifdom, or heroick virtue. This can only be ac- quired by him that enlarges the fphere of his underftanding by a variety of knowledge, and warms his imagination with the beft productions of antient and modern poetry. A Hand thus exercifed, and a mind thus inftruCted, will bring the Art to an higher [ 9 1 ] higher degree of excellence than, per- haps, it has hitherto attained in this country. Such a Student will difdain the humbler walks of Painting, which, however profitable, can never allure him a permanent reputation. Ke will leave the meaner artift fer vilely to fuppofe that thole are the belt pictures, which are in oft likely to deceive the fpedlator. He will permit the lower Painter, like the florift or collector of Ihells, to exhibit the minute difcriminations^ which dilV tinguiih one object of the fame fpecies from another ; while he like the philo- fopher will confider nature in the ab- ftraft, and reprefent in every one of his figures the character of its fpecies. If deceiving the eye were the only bufinefs of the Art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute Painter would be [ 92 ] be more apt to fucceed : but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the Painter of genius defires to addrefs ; nor will he wafte a moment upon thefe fmaller objects, which only ferve to catch the fenfe, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great defign of fpeaking. to the heart. This is the ambition I could with to excite in your minds; and the objeCt I have had in my view, throughout this difeourfe, is that one great idea, which gives to Painting its true dignity, that entitles it to the name of a Liberal Art, and ranks it as a filler of poetry. It may poffibly have happened to many young Students whofe application was fufficient to overcome all difficul- ties, and whofe minds were capable of embracing [ 93 1 embracing the moil: extenfive views, that they have, by a wrong diredion ori- ginally given, fpent their lives in the meaner walks of Painting, without ever knowing there was a nobler to purfue. Albert Durer, as Vafari has juftly re- marked, would, probably, have been one of the iirft painters of his age (and he lived in an sera of great artifts) had he been initiated into thofe great princi- ples of the Art, which were fo well un- derwood, and pradifed, by his contempo- raries in Italy. But unluckily having never feen or heard of any other manner, he considered his own, without doubt, as perfed. As for the various departments of Painting, which do not prefume to make fuch high pretenfions, they are many. None of them are without their merit, though [ 94 ] though none enter into competition with this great univerfal prefiding idea of the Art. The Painters who have applied themfelves more particularly to low and vulgar characters, and who exprefs with precifion, the various ffiades of paffion, as they are exhibited by vulgar minds (fuch as we fee in the works of Hogarth) deferve great praife ; but as their genius has been employed on low and con- fined fubjeCts, the praife that we give mult be as limited as its objeCt. The merry-making, or quarrelling of the Boors of Teniers 3 the fame fort of pro- ductions of Brouwer, or Gftade, are ex- cellent in their kind ; and the excellence and its praife will be in proportion, as, in thofe limited fubjeCtSi and pecu- liar forms, they introduce more or lefs of the exprefiion of thofe paffion s, as they appear in general and more en- larged t 95 ] larged nature. This principle may be applied to the Battle pieces of Bour- gognone, the French Gallantries of Wat- teau, and even beyond the exhibition of animal life, to the Landfcapes of Claude Lorraine, and the Sea Views of Vander- velde. All thefe Painters have, in ge- neral, the fame right, in different de- grees, to the name of a Painter, which a fatirift, an epigrammatift, a fonnetteer, a writer of paftorals, or defcriptive po- etry, has to that of a poet. In the fame rank, and, perhaps, of hot fo great merit, is the cold painter of portraits. But his corred and juft imi- tation of his objed has its merit. Even the painter of foil life, whofe higheft ambition is to give a minute reprefenta- tion of every part of thofe low objeds, which he fets before him, deferves praife m [ g6 J in proportion to his attainment^ becaufb no part of this excellent Art, fo much the ornament of polifhed life, is deftitute of value and ufe. Thefe, however, are by no means the views to which the mind of the Student ought to b z primarily directed. By aiming at better things, if from particular inclination, or from the tafte of the time and place he lives in, or from neceffity, or from failure in the highefl attempts, he is obliged to defcend lower; he will bring into the lower fphere of art, a grandeur of com- pofition and character, that will raife and ennoble his works far above their natural rank. A man is not weak, though he may not be able to weild the club of Her- cules ; nor does a man always pradtife that which he efteems the bell ; but does [ 97 1 does that which he can belt do. In moderate attempts, there are many walks open to the artifl. But as the idea of beauty is of neceffity but one, fo there can be but one great mode of painting; the leading principle of which I have endeavoured to explain. I should be forry, if what is here recommended, fhould be at all under- ftood to countenance a carelefs or indeter- mined manner of painting. For though the Painter is to overlook the accidental difcriminations of nature, he is to pro- nounce diftindtly, and with precifion, the general forms of things. A firm and determined outline is one of the cha- rafteriftics of the great ftyie in painting; and let me add, that he who poffefTes the knowledge of the exadl form, that every part of nature ought to have, will be H fond [ 9.8 ] fond of expreffing that knowledge with corredtnefs and precifion in all his works. To conclude; I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of Beauty to general prin- ciples. And I had the pleafure to ob- ferve that the profeffor of painting pro- ceeded in the fame method, when he fhewed you that the artifice of contraft was founded but on one principle. And I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing fcience, of clearing the mind from a confufed heap of con- tradictory obfervations, that do but per- plex and puzzle the Student, when he compares them, or mifguide him if he gives himfelf up to their authority ; but bringing them under one general head, can alone give reft and fatisfadlion to an jnquifitive mind. A D I Sr A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON THE Distribution of the Prizes, DECEMBER 30, 1771, BY the PRESIDENT. H 2 1 H . & i ki J V. iy J. . art ba;- ,1 H , - ,. - ■ ' i - ..; a, ..k{xV$ 5 -' ISJOdsL # -bu-- • . a : , ■'* :• . - .■■■■- ij siwissi'q '... J' : bv', • '{ VJ '.. I . 1 8 fieri ' bsdgb An n;A by; a ■ a m; stll da** a'aaaihv.. J ; /lb* , -v ' 1-- b ‘ ,- 4 'np 3 S-i non n < ■ Am Ji iU.cn . ... I *• i *JaT : i • i a 10 boil* i-H bb SIS-; a ... , S‘3fUV bmun b; A DISCOURSE, GENTLEMEN, 1 » V | ^ H E value and rank of every art 1 is in proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the mental pleafure produced by it. As this princi- ple is obferved or neglected, our profef- lion becomes either a liberal art, or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one man it makes the higheft: pretenfions* as it is addreffed to the nobleft facul- ties. In thofe of another it is reduced to a mere matter of ornament, and the Painter has but the humble province H 3 of [ 102 ] of furnifhing our apartments with ele- gance. This exertion of mind, which is the only circumftance that truly ennobles our Art, makes the great diftin&ion between the Roman and Venetian fchools. I have formerly obferved, that perfedt form is produced by leaving out particularities, and retaining only general ideas. I fliall now endeavour to fhew that this princi- ple, which I have proved to be metaphy- ficallyjuft, extends itfelf to every part of the Art ; that it gives what is called the grand ftile , to Invention, to Compo- sition, to Expreffion, and even to Co- louring and Drapery. Invention in Painting does not im- ply the invention of the fubjedt j for that is commonly fupplied by the Poet or [ i°.3 ] or Historian. With refped to the choice^ no fubjed can be proper that is not ge- nerally interefting. It ought to be either fome eminent inftance of heroic adion, or heroic fuffering. There muft be fomething either in the adion, or in the objed, in which men are univerfally con- cerned, and which powerfully ftrikes upon the publick fympathy. Strictly fpeaking, indeed, no fub- jed can be of univerfal, hardly can it be of general concern ; but there are events and charaders fo popularly known in thole countries where our Art is in re- qu eft, that they may be confidered as fufficiently general for all our purpofes. Such are the great events of Greek and Roman fable and hiftory, which early education, and the tifual collide of read- ing, have made familiar and interefting H 4 to [ 104 ] to all Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarifm of ordinary life in any country. Such too are the capital fub- jeds of fcripture hiftory, which, befides their general notoriety, become venerable by their connedion with our religion. As it is required that the fubjed fe- leded fhould be a general one, it is no lefs neceffary that it fhould be kept un- eoi bar railed with whatever may any way ferve to divide the attention of the fpec- tator. Whenever a ftory is related, every man forms a pidure in his mind of the adion and the expreffion of the perfons employed. The power of reprefen ting this mental pidure in canvafs is what we call Invention in a Painter. And as in the conception of this ideal pidure, the mind does not enter into the minute peculiarities of the drefs, furniture, or fcene [ i°5 1 fcene of aftion ; fo when the Painter comes to reprefent it, he contrives thofe little neceflary concomitant circumftances in fuch a manner, that they fhall ftrike the fpe&ator no more than they did himfelf in his firffc conception of the ftory. I am very ready to allow that fome circumftances of minutenefs and particu- larity frequently tend to give an air of truth to a piece, and to intereft the fpec- tator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumftances therefore cannot wholly be rejected ; but if there be any thing in the Art which requires peculiar nicety of difcernment, it is the difpofition of thefe minute circumftantial parts, which, according to the judgement employed in the choice, become fo ufeful to truth, or fo injurious to grandeur. However, [ i°6 ] However, the ufual and moft dan- gerous error is on the fide of minutenefs ; and therefore I think caution moft ne- cefiary where moft have failed. The general idea conftitutes real excellence. All fmaller things, however perfed in their way, are to be facrificed without mercy to the greater. The Painter will not enquire what things may be admitted without much cenfure. He will not think it enough to ftiew that they may be there, he will ftiew that they mu ft be there ; that their abfence would render his pidure maimed and defedive. Thus, though to the principal group a fecond or third be added, and a fecond and third mafs of light, care muft be yet taken that thefe fubotdinate adions and lights, neither each in particular, nor all together, come into any degree of com^ [ I0 7 1 competition with the principal ; they fhould make a part of that whole which would be imperfedt without them. To every part of painting this rule may be applied. Even in portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likenefs, confifts more in taking the general air, than in obferving the exaft fimilitude of every feature. Thus figures mult have a ground whereon to Hand ; they muft be cloathed; there muft be a back-ground ; there muft be light and Ihadow : but none of thefe ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artift’s attention. They fhould be fo managed as not even to catch that of the fpedtator. We know well enough, when we analyze a piece, the difficulty and the fubtilty with which an artift adj lifts the back-ground, drapery, and maffes t i°8 ] inafles of light ; we know that a conli- derable part of the grace and effedt of his picture depends upon them : but this art is fo much concealed, even to a judicious eye, that no remains of any of thefe fubordinate parts occur to the memory when the pidture is not p refen t. The great end of the art is to ftrike the imagination. The Painter is there- fore to make no oftentation of the means by which this is done ; the fpedtator is only to feel the refult in his bofom. An inferior artifi is unwilling that any part of his induftry fhould be loft upon the fpedtator. He takes as much pains to difcover, as the greater artift does to conceal, the marks of his fubordinate affiduity. In Works of the lower kind, every thing appears ftudied, and encum- 5 bered ; [ I0 9 ] bered ; it is all boaftful art, and open affe&ation. The ignorant often part from fuch pidtures with wonder in their mouths, and indifference in their hearts. But it is not enough in Invention that the Artift £hould reftrain and keep under all the inferior parts of his fubjedt ; he muft fo me times deviate from vulgar and ftridt hiftorical truth, in purfuing the grandeur of his defign. How much the great flile exadts from its profeifors to conceive and reprefent their fubjedts in a poetical manner, not confined to mere matter of fadt, may be feen in the Cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the pidtures in which the painter has reprefented the apoflles, he has drawn them with great noblenefs ; he has given them [ ] them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of receiving ; yet we are exprefsly told in fcripture they had no fuch refpedable appearance; and of St. Paul in particular, we are told by himfelf, that his bodily prefence was mean . Alexander is faid to have been of a low ftature : a Painter ought not fo to reprefent him. Ageiilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance. None of thefe defeds ought to appear in a piece of which he is the hero. In conformity to cuftom, I call this part of the art Hiftory Painting : it ought to be called Poetical, as in reality it is. All this is not fallifying any fad ; it is taking an allowed poetical licence, A painter of portraits retains the in- dividual likenefs ; a painter of hiftory fhews the man by ftiewing his ad> 3 ions. t in i ions. A Painter muft compenfate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one lenten ce to utter, but one mo- ment to exhibit. Pie cannot, like the poet or hiftorian, expatiate, and imprefs the mind with great veneration for the character of tjie hero or faint he repre- fents, though he lets us know at the fame time, that the faint was deformed, or the hero lame. The Painter has no other means of giving an idea of the dignity of the mind, but by that external appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, though not always, im- prefs on the countenance ; and by that correfpondence of figure to fentiment and fituation, which all men wifh, but carmot command. The Painter, who may in this one particular attain with eafe what others defire in vain, ought to give all that he poffibly can, Tince there are [ 112 ] are fo many circumftances of true great- nefs that he cannot give at all. He can- not make his hero talk like a great man ; he muft make him look like one. For which reafon, he ought to be well ftu- died in the analyfis of thofe circum- ftances, which conftitute dignity of ap- pearance in real life. As in Invention, fo likewife in Expref- fion, care muft be taken not to run into particularities. Thofe expreflions alone fhould be given to the figures which their refpedive fituations generally pro- duce. Nor is this enough ; each perfon fhould alfo have that expreffion which men of his rank generally exhibit. The joy, or the grief cf a charader of dig- nity, is not to be exprefled in the fame manner as a fimilar paffion in a vulgar face. Upon this principle, Bernini, per- haps. t 1*3 1 haps, may be fubjed: to cenfure. This fculptor, in many refpeds admirable, has given a very mean expreffion to his ftatue of David, who is reprefented as juft going to throw the ftone from the fling ; and in order to give it the expreflion of energy, he has made him biting his under-lip. This expreflion is far from being general, and ftill far- ther from being dignified. He might have feen it in an inftance or tv/oj and he miftook accident for univer- fality. With refpedl to Colouring, though it may appear at firft a part of Painting merely mechanical, yet it ftill has its rules, and thofe grounded upon that prefiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the ftudy of a ■ Painter. By this, the firft effed: pf the I picture [ ”4 ] pidture is produced ; and as this is per- formed, the fpedtator as he walks the gallery, will flop, or pafs along. To give a general air of grandeur at firfl view, all trifling or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided ; a quietnefs and fimplicity mud reign over the whole work ; to which a breadth of uniform, and Ample colour, will very much con- tribute. Grandeur of effedt is produced by two different ways, which feem en- tirely oppofed to each other. One is, by reducing the colours to little more than chiaro ofcuro, which was often the pradtice of the Bolognian fchools ; and the other, by making the colours very diftindt and forcible, fuch as we fee in thofe of Rome and Florence; but ftill, the preflding principle of both thofe manners is fimplicity. Certainly, no- thing L 1 15 1 thing can be more Ample than monoto^ hy ; and the diftindl blue, red, and yel- low colours which are feen in the drape- ries of the Roman and Florentine fchools, though they have not that kind of har- mony which is produced by a variety of broken and tranfparent colours, have that effect of grandeur that was intended. Perhaps thefe diftindt colours firike the mind more forcibly, from there not be- ing any great union between them ; as martial mufic, which is intended to rouze the nobler paffions, has its effedl from the fudden and ftrongly marked tranfitions from one note to another, which that ftile of mufic requires ; whilfl; that which is intended to move the jfofter paffions, the notes impercep- tibly melt into one another. I a Is [ xi6 ] In the fame manner as the hiflorical Painter never enters into the detail of colours, fo neither does he debafe his conceptions with minute attention to the difcriminations of Drapery. It is the inferior flile that marks the variety of fluffs. With him, the cloathing is neither woollen, nor linen, nor filk, fat tin, or velvet : it is Drapery ; it is nothing more. The art of difpofing the foldings of the Drapery make a very confiderable part of the Painter’s fludy. To make it merely natural is a mechanical operation, to which neither genius or tafte are required ; whereas, it requires the nicefl judgment to difpofe the dra- pery, fo that the folds have an eafy communication, and gracefully follow each other, with fuch natural negligence as to look like the effedt of chance, and at the 7 [ 1 1 7 3 the fame time fhew the figure under it to the utmod advantage. Carlo Maratti was of opinion, that the difpofition of drapery was a more difficult art than even that of drawing the human figure ; that a Stu- dent might be more eafily taught the latter than the former ; as the rules of drapery, he faid, could not be fo well afcertained as thofe for delineating a cor- rect form. This, perhaps, is a proof how willingly we favour our own pecu- liar excellence. Carlo Maratti is faid to have valued himfelf particularly upon his Ikill in this part of his art ; yet in him, the difpofition appears fo artificial, that he is inferior to RafFaelle, even in that which gave him his bed; claim to repu- tation, I 3 Such [ n8 ] Such is the great principle by which we miifl be directed in the nobler branches of our art. Upon this prin- ciple* the Roman* the Florentine, the Bolognefe fchools, have formed their practice ^ and by this they have deferv- edly obtained the liigheft praife. Thefe are the three great fchools of the world in the epic ftile. The beft of the French fchool, Poufiin, Le Sueur, and Le Brun, have formed themfelves upon thefe mo- dels, and confequently may be faid, though Frenchmen* to be a colony from the Roman fchool. Next to thefe, but in a very different ftile of excellence, we may rank the Venetian, together with the Flemifh and the Dutch fchools, all profeffing to depart from the great pur- pofes of Painting, and catching at ap- plaufe by inferior qualities . I AM t IJ 9 1 I am not ignorant that fome will cen- fare me for placing the Venetians in this inferior clafs, and many of the warmeft admirers of Painting will think them unjuftly degraded ; but I wilh not to be mifunderftood. Though I can by no means allow them to hold any rank with j the nobler fchools of Painting, they ac- complifhed perfectly the thing they at- tempted. But as mere elegance is their principal objed, as they feem more wil- ling to dazzle than to affed, it can be no injury to them to fuppofe that their pradice is ufeful only to its- proper end. But what may heighten the elegant may degrade the fublime. There is a fimpli- city, and I may add, feverity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, al- raoft incompatible with this compara- tively fenfual ftile. I 4 Tinto- \ [ 120 ] Tintoret, Paul Veronefe, and others of the Venetian fchools, feem to have painted with no other purpofe than to be admired for their fkill and expert- nefs in the mechanifm of Painting, and to make a parade of that Art, which as I before obferved, the higher ftile re- quires its followers to conceal. In a conference of the French Acade- my, at which were prefen t Le Brun, Se- baftian Bourdon, and all the eminent. Ar~ tifts of that age, one of the academici- ans defired to have their opinion on the cpndudt of Paul Veronefe, who, though a Painter of great confideration, had, contrary to the flridt rules of art, in his pidture of Perfeus and Andromeda, re- prefented the principal figure in fhade. To this queftion no fatisfadtory anfwer was then given. But I will venture to [ 121 ] fay, that if they had confidered the clafs of the Artift, and ranked him as an or- namental Painter, there would have been no difficulty in anfwering ; “ It was ** unreafonable to expect what was never i( intended. His intention was folely to produce an effect of light and fha- “ dow ; every thing was to be facrificed to that intent, and the capricious com- pofition of that picture fuited very well with the ftile he profeffedff Young minds are indeed too apt to be captivated by this fplendor of ftile ; and that of the Venetians will be particularly pleafing ; for by them, all thofe parts of the Art that give pleafure to the eye ®r fenfe, have been cultivated with care, and carried to the degree neareft to per- fection. The powers exerted in the mechanical part of the Art have been called [ 122 ] called the language of Painters ; but we may fay, that it is but poor eloquence which only fhews that the orator can talk. Words fhould be employed as the means, not as the end : language is the indrument, convidtion is the work. The language of Painting muft in- deed be allowed thefe mailers ; but even in that, they have fhewn more copiouf- nefs than choice, and more luxuriancy than judgment. If we confider the un- intereding fubjedls of their invention, or at lead the unintereding manner in which they are treated 3 if we attend to their capricious compofition, their violent and affected contrails, whether of fi- gures, or of light and ihadow, the rich- nefs of their drapery, and at the fame time, the mean effedt which the difcri- 1 mination [ 12 3 ] ruination of duffs gives to their pic- t u res ; if to thefe we add their total in- attention to expreflion, and then refled on the conceptions and the learning of Michael Angelo, or the fimplicity of Raffaelle, we can no longer dwell on the comparifon, Even in colouring, if we compare the quietnefs and chadity of the Bolognefe pencil to the budle and tumult that fills every part of a Vene- tian pidure, without the lead attempt to intereft the paffions, their boaded art will appear a mere druggie without effed; an empty tale told by an ideot, fiitt of found and fury , fgnifying nothing . Such as fuppofe that the great dile might happily be blended with the or- namental, that the fimple, grave and majedic dignity of Raffaelle could unite with, the glow and budle of a Paulo, or [ 124 ] ©r Tintoret, are totally miftaken. The principles by which each are attained are fo contrary to each other, that they feem, in my opinion, incompatible, and as impoffible to exift together, as to unite in the mind at the fame time the moft fublime ideas, and the lowed: fenfu- ality. The fubjedts of the Venetian Painters are moftly fuch as give them an oppor- tunity of introducing a great number of figures ; fuch as feafts, marriages, and proceffions, public martyrdoms, or mi- racles. I can eafily conceive that Paul Veronefe, if he were afked, would fay, that no fubjedt was proper for an hiflo- rical pifture, but fuch as admitted at lead: forty figures ; for in a lefs number, he would affert, there could be no op- portunity of the Painter’s fhewing his art [ «5 ] art in competition, his dexterity of ma- naging and difpofing the maffes of light, and groups of figures, and of introduc- ing a variety of Eaftern drefles and cha- racters in their rich fluffs. But the thing is very different with a pupil of the greater fchools. Annibal Carrache thought twelve figures fuffici- ent for any ftory : he conceived that more would contribute to no end but to fill fpace ; that they would be but cold fpeCtators of the general aCtion, or, to ufe his own expreflion, that they would be figures to be let . Befides, it is impofiible for a picture compofed of fo many parts to have that effeCt, fo indif- penfably neceflary to grandeur, of one complete whole. However contradictory it may be in geometry, it is true in tafts, that many little things will not make a great [ 126 ] great one. The Sublime impreffes the mind at once with one great idea ; it is a Angle blow : the Elegant indeed may be produced by a repetition, by an accumulation of many minute circum^ fiances. However great the difference is be- tween the compofition of the Venetian* and the reft of the Italian fchools, there is full as great a difparity in the eftedt of their pictures as produced by colours. And though in this refpedl the Venetians muft be allowed extraordinary fkill ; yet even that fkill, as they have employed it, will but ill correfpond with the great ftile. Their colouring is not only too brilliant, but, I will venture to fay, too harmonious to produce that folidity, fteadinefs, and fimplicity of effedl, which heroic fubjedls require, and which Am- ple [ I2 7 1 pie or grave colours only can give to a work. That they are to be cautioufly ftudied by thofe who are ambitious of treading the great walk of hiftory, is confirmed, if it wants confirmation, by the greateft of all authorities, Michael Angelo. This wonderful man, after having feen a pifture by Titian, told Vafari, who accompanied him “ that “ he liked much his colouring and man- as if he wanted to convince the u world that the art was a trifle, and of * c the moft eafy attainment.” For my own part, when I fpeak of the Venetian painters, I wilh to be under-* flood to mean Paulo Verohefe and Tin- e fuori dell’ ufo degli altri pittori : anzi ha fuperato la ftravagan2a, Con le huove, e capricciofe inven- tion!, e ftrani ghiribizzi del fno intelletto, che ha lavorato a cafo, e fenza difegno, quafi monftrando che quell’ arte e una baia. K tore*, E r 3° J tor et, to the exclufion of Titian ; for though his ftile is not fo pure as that of many other of the Italian fchools, yet there is a fort of fenatorial dignity about him, which, however aukward in his imitators, feems to become him exceed- ingly. His portraits alone, from the noblenefs and fimplicity of charadter which he always gave them, will intitle him to the greateft refpedt, as he un- doubtedly ftands in the firft rank in this branch of the art. It is not with Titian, but with the feducing qualities of the two former, that I could wilh to caution you againft being too much captivated. Thefe are the perfons v/ho may be faid to have exhauifed all the powers of florid elo- quence, to debauch the young and un- experienced, and have, without doubt, been t *31 ] been the caufe of turning off the at* tendon of the connoifteur and of the pa* tron of art, as well as that of the Painter, from thofe higher excellencies of which the art is capable, and which ought to be required in every confiderable pro- dudion. By them, and their imitators, a ftile merely ornamental has been aif- feminated throughout all Europe. Ru- bens carried it to Flanders ; Voet, to France; and Luca Giordano, to Spain and Naples. The Venetian is indeed the mo ft fplen- did of the fchools of elegance ; and it is not without reafon, that the beft per- formances in this lower fchool are valued higher than the fecond rate performances of thofe above them: for every pidure has value when it has a decided charader, and is excellent in its kind. But the K 2 Student [ ! 3 2 ] Student muft take care not to be fo much dazzled with this fplendor, as to be tempted to imitate what muft ultimately lead from perfedtion. Pouffin, whofe eye was always fteadily fixed on the Sublime, has been often heard to fay, “ * That a particular attention to co~ louring, was an obftacle to the Stu- “ dent, in his progrefs to the great end “ and deiign of the art ; and that he f € who attaches himfelf to this principal “ end, will acquire by practice a rea- “ fonable good method of colouring.” Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of * Que cette application finguliere n’etoit qtrun obftacle pour, empecher de parvenir au veritable but de la peinture, Sc celui qui s’attache au principal, acquiert par la pratique une afTez belle maniere de peindrp. Conference de l’Acad, Franc. tints. [ 133 3 tints, a foft and gradual tranfition from one to another, prefent to the eye what an harmonious concert of mufic does to the ear, it muft be remembered, that painting is not merely a gratification of the fight. Such excellence, though pro^ perly cultivated, where nothing higher than elegance is intended, is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work afpires to grandeur and fublimity. The fame reafbns that have been urged why a mixture of the Venetian ftile can- not improve the great ftile, will hold good in regard to the Flemiflh and Dutch fchools. Indeed, the Flemifh fchool, of which Rubens is the head, was formed upon that of the Venetian; like them, he took his figures too much from the people before him. But it muft be al- lowed in favour of the Venetians, that K 3 he [ 134 ] he was more grofs than they, and car- ried all their miftaken methods to a far greater excefs. In the Venetian fchool itfelf, where they all err from the fame caufe, there is a difference in the effect. The difference between Paulo and Baf- fano feems to be only, that one intro- duced Venetian gentlemen into his pic- tures, and the other the boors of the diftridt of Baffano, and called them pa- triarchs and prophets. The Painters of the Dutch fchool have flill more locality. With them, a hiftory piece is properly a portrait of themfelves ; whether they deferibe the infide or outfide of their houfes, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations, working, or jdrinking, playing, or fighting. The circumftances that enter into a pidlure 5 of [ J 35 3 of this kind, are fo far from giving a general view of human life, that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in feveral refpedts from the reft of mankind. Yet, let them have their fhare of more humble praife. The, Painters of this fchool are excellent in their own way ; they are only ridiculous when they attempt general hiftory on their own narrow principles, and debafe great events by the meanncfs of their characters. Some inferior dexterity, fome extra- ordinary mechanical power is apparently that from which they feek diftinCtion. Thus, we fee, that fchool alone has the cuftom of reprefenting candle-light, not as it really appears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate objedts to a fpeCtator by day. Such tricks, howxver K. 4 par- [ * 3 6 3 pardonable in the little IHle, where petty effe&s are the foie end, are inexcufable in the greater, where the attention fhould never be drawn afide by trifles, but fhould be entirely occupied by the fubjed itfelf. • The fame local principles which cha- racterize the Dutch fchool extend even to their Landfchape Painters * and Ru- bens himfelf, who has painted many landlchapes, has fometimes tranfgrefled in this particular. Their pieces in this way are, I think, always a reprefentatiop of an individual fpot, and each in its kind a very faithful but very confined portrait. Claude Lorrain, on the contrary, was convinced, that taking Nature as he found it feldom produced beauty. His pictures are a compofition of the various draughts [ J 3 7 ] draughts which he has previoufly mad® from various beautiful fcenes and prof- pedts. However, Rubens in fome mea- fure has made amends for the deficiency with which he is charged ; he has con- trived to raife and animate his other- wife uninterefting views, by introducing a rainbow, ftorm, or fome particular accidental effedt of light. That the pradtice of Claude Lorrain, in refpedt to his choice, is to be adopted by Land- fchape Painters, in oppofition to that of the Flemish and Dutch fchools, there can be no doubt, as its truth is founded upon the fame principle as that by which the Hiitorical Painter acquires perfedt form. But whether landfchape painting has a right to afpire fo far as to reject what the Painters call Accidents of Na- ture, is not eafy to determine. It is certain Claude Lorrain feldom, if ever^ availed [ 138 ] availed himfelf of thofe accidents ; ei- ther he thought that fuch peculiarities were contrary to that ftile of general Nature which he profeffed, or that it would catch the attention too ftrongly, and deftroy that quietnefs and repofe which he thought neceffary to that kind of painting. A Portrait Painter likewife, when he attempts hiftory, unlefs he is upon his guard, is likely to enter too much into the detail. He too frequently makes his hiftorical heads look like portraits ; and this was once the cuftom amongft thofe old Painters, who revived the art before general ideas were practifedor un- derftood. An Hiftory Painter paints man in general -> a Portrait Painter, a particu- lar man, and confequently a defective model. Thus C *39 ] Thus an habitual pradlice in the lower exercifes of the art will prevent many from attaining the greater. But fuch of us who move in thefe humbler walks of the profefiion, are not ignorant that, as the natural dignity of the fub- je<5t is lefs, the more all the little orna- mental helps are ne.ceflary to its embel- lifhment. It would be ridiculous for a Painter of domeftic fcenes, cf portraits, landfchapes, animals, or of ftill life, to fay that he defpifed thofe qualities which have made the fubordinate fchools fo fa- mous. The art of colouring, and the feilful management of light and fhadow, are eftential requifites in his confined la- bours. If we defcend ftill lower, what is the Painter of fruit and flowers with- out the utmoft art in colouring, and what the Painters call handling; that is, a lightnefs of pencil that implies great practice. [ H° ] practice, and gives the appearance of being done with eafe ? Some here, I be- lieve, mu ft remember a flower-painter whofe boaft it was, that he fcorned to paint for the million : no, he profefled to paint in the true Italian tafte ; and defpiflng the crowd, called ftrenuoufly upon the few. to admire him. His idea of the Italian tafte was to paint as black and dirty as he could, and to leave all clearnefs and brilliancy of colouring to thofe who were fonder of money than of immorta- lity. The confequence was fuch as might be expedited. For thefe petty ex- cellencies are here eflential beauties ; and without this merit the artift’s work will be more fhort lived than the objefts of his imitation. From what has been advanced, we muft now be convinced .that there are two [ HI 3 two diftindt ftiles in hiftory-painting t the grand, and the fplendid or orna- mental. The great ftile ftands alone, and does not require, perhaps does not fo well admit, any addition from inferior beau- ties. The ornamental ftile alfo pof- fefles its own peculiar merit. However, though the union of the two may make a fort of compoft te ftile, yet that ftile is likely to be more imperfedt than either of thofe which go to its compofition. Both kinds have merit, and may be ex- cellent though in different ranks, if uniformity be preferved, and the gene- ral and particular ideas of Nature be not mixed. Even the meaneft of them is difficult enough to attain ; and the ftrft place being already occupied by the great artifts in either department, fome of thofe t H 2 3 thofe who followed thought there was lefs room for them, and feeling the im- pulfe of ambition and the defife of novelty, and being at the fame time perhaps willing to take the fhortefi: way, they endeavoured to make for themfelves a place between both. This they have effected by forming an union of the different orders. But as the grave and majefiic flile would fuffer by an union with the florid and gay, fo alfo has the Venetian ornament in fome refped: beet! injured by attempting an alliance with flmplicity. It may be afferted, that the great ftile is always more or lefs contaminated by any meaner mixture. But it happens in a few inftances, that the lower may be improved by borrowing from the grand. Thus if a portrait painter is de- fifous [ 43 ] firous to raife and improve his fubjedt, he has no other means than by approach- ing it to a general idea. He leaves out all the minute breaks and peculiarities in the face, and changes the drefs from a temporary fafhion to one more perma- nent, which has annexed to it no ideas of meannefs from its being familiar to us. But if an exadt refemblance of an individual be confidered as the foie objedt to be aimed at, the portrait painter will be apt to lofe more than he gains by the acquired dignity taken from general Na- ture. It is very difficult to ennoble the charadter of a countenance but at the expence of the likenefs, which is what is moft generally required by fuch as fit to the Painter. Of thofe who have pradtifed the com- pofite ftile, and have fucceeded in this perilous [ 144 1 perilous attempt, perhaps the foremoft is Coregio. His ftile is founded upon modern grace and elegance, to which is fuperadded fomethingof the fimplicityof the grand frile. A breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the drapery ^ an uninterrupted flow of outline, all con- Ipire to this effedt. Next him (perhaps equal to him) Parmegiaho has dignified the genteelnefs of modern effeminacy, by uniting it with the fimplicity of the anci- ents and the grandeur and feverity of Mi- chael Angelo. It muft be confefled how- ever that thefe two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmofl: de- gree of grace, have fometimes perhaps exceeded its boundaries, and have fallen into the moft’ hateful of all hateful qua- lities, affedtation. Indeed, it is the pe- culiar charadleriflic of men of genius to be afraid of coldnefs and infipidity, front [ Mi J which they think they never can be tod far removed. It particularly happens tc* thefe great mailers of grace and elegance; They often boldly drive on to the very verge of ridicule ; the fpedator is alarm- ed, but at the fame time admires their vigour and intrepidity. Strange graces ftUJ and ftr anger flights they had , Tet ne'er fo Jure, our pajfion to create As when they touch'd the brink of all we hate,. , The errors of genius j however^ are par- donable, and none even of the «more ex- alted Painters are wholly free from them ; but they have taught us, by the reditude of their general practice, to correct their own affeded or accidental deviation. The very firft have not been .-.always upon their guard, and perhaps there is not a fault, but what may take flicker under the moft venerable authorities ; yet that L ftils [ H 6 1 ftile only is perfect, in which the no- bleft principles are uniformly purfued; and thofe mailers only are entitled to the fir xl rank in our eilimation, who have enlarged the boundaries of their art, and have raifed it to its highefl digni- ty, by exhibiting the general Ideas of Nature. On the whole, it feems to me that there is but one preliding principle which regulates and gives liability to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, moralifts, or hiftorians, which are built upon general Nature, live for ever 3 while thofe which depend for their exiltence on particular culloms and habits* a partial view of Nature, or the fluctuation of falhion, can only be coeval with that which firft raifed them from obfcurity. Prefent time and future t H7 3 future may be confidered as rivals, and he who folicits the one mu ft expedt to be difcountenanced by the other* A D 1 S~ A DISCOURSE, DELIVER ED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY* ON THE Distribution of the Prizes, DECEMBER 10, 1772, BY THE PRESIDENT. L 3 V,i, , It - . / nJKtV m - sill i-i l^poi tB$y.:' ■ ’ y .'In d A . > 1 ■ A DISCOURSE, &c. GENTLEMEN, I Purpose to carry on in this difcourfe the fubjedt which I begun in my laft. It was my wifh upon that occafion to incite you to purfue the higher ex- cellencies of the art. But I fear that in this particular I have been mifunder- flood. Some are ready to imagine, when any of their favorite acquirements in the art are properly claffed, that they are utterly difgraced. This is a very great miftake : nothing has its proper luftre L 4 but [ 152 ] but in its proper place. That which is snoft worthy of efteem in its allotted fphere, becomes an objedt, not of refpedt* but of derifion, when it is forced into a higher, to which it is not fuited ; and there it becomes doubly a fource of dif- order, by occupying a fituation which is not natural to it, and by putting down from the firft place what is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and proportion that fubordinate fiat-ion, to which feme thing of lefs value would he much better fuited. My advice in a word is this : keep your principal attention fixed upon the higher excellencies. If you compafs them and- compafs nothing more, you are Hill in the firft clafs. We may regret the innu- merable beauties which you may want : you may be very imperfedt : but ftill, 3 y°u [ 153 ] you are an imperfect perfon of the higheft order. If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the fubordinate qualifications, it is my with and advice that you ihould not negledt them. But this is as much a matter of cir- cumfpedtion and caution at leaft, as of eagernefs and purfuit. The mind is apt to be diftradted by a multiplicity of purfuits ; and that fcale of perfedtion, which I wifh always to be preferved, is in the greateft danger of being totally difordered, and even in- verted. Some excellencies bear to be united, and are improved by union, others are of C 154 ] of a difcordant nature j and the attempt to join them, only produces a harfher jarring of incongruent principles. The attempt to unite contrary excel- lencies, (of form, for inftance) in a lingle figure, can never efcape degenerating into the monftrous, but by finking into the Infipid ; taking away its marked cha- racter, and weakening its expreffion. This remark is true to a certain de- gree with regard to the paffions. If you mean to preferve the moft perfect beauty in its moft perfect ftate , you cannot ex- prefs the paffions, which produce (all of them) diftortion and deformity, more or lefs, in the moft beautiful faces. Guido, from want of choice in adapt- ing his fubjedl to his ideas and his powers. [ i55 ] powers, or in attempting to preferve beauty where it could not be preferved, has in this refpedt fucceeded very ill. His figures are often engaged in fubjefts that required great expreffion : yet his Judith and Holofernes, the daughter of Herodias with the Baptift’s-Head, the Andromeda, and even the Mothers of the Innocents, have little more expreffion than his Venus attired by the Graces. Obvi ous as thefe remarks appear, there are many writers on our art, who, not being of the profeffion, and confe- quently not knowing what can or what cannot be done, have been very liberal of abfurd praifes in their defcriptions of favorite works. They always find in them what they are refolved to find. They praife excellencies that can hardly exifi: together, and above all things are fond [ 1 5 6 1 fond of defcribing with great exaftnefs the expreffion of a mixt paffion, which more particularly appears to me out of the reach of our art. Such are many difquifitions which I have read on fome of the Cartoons and other Pictures of Raffle lie, where the Critics have defcribed their own ima- gination ; or indeed where the excellent m after himfelf may have attempted this expreffion of Paffions above the powers of the Art ; and has therefore, by an in- diftindl and imperfedl marking, left room for every imagination, with equal pro- bability to find a paffion of his own. What has been, and what can be done in the Art, is fufficiently difficult ; we need not be mortified or difcouraged for not being able to execute the conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has its bound- [ i57 1 boundaries, though Imagination has none. We can eafily, like the Ancients, fup- pofe a Jupiter to be pofteffed of all thofe powers and perfections which the fub- ordinate Deities were endowed with fe- parately. Yet, when they employed their Art to reprefent him, they confined his character to majefty alone. Pliny, there- fore, though we are under great obligations to him for the information he has given us in relation to the works of the ancient artifts, is very frequently wrong when he fpeaks of them, which he does very often in the ftile of many of our modern Connoifleurs. He obferves, that in a ftatue of Paris, by Euphranor, you might difcover at the fame time three different characters s the dignity of a Judge of the Goddefles, the Lover of Helen, and the conqueror of Achilles. A ftatue in which you endeavour to unite ftately dignity, vouth- [ 158 ] youthful elegance, and ftern valour, mull furely poffefs none of thefe to any emi- nent degree. From hence it appears, that there is much difficulty as well as danger, in an endeavour to concentrate upon a fingle fubjeCt thofe various powers, which, riling from different points, naturally move in different directions. The fummit of excellence feems to be an affemblage of contrary qualities, but mixed, in fuch proportions, that no one part is found to counteract the other. How hard this is to be attained in every art, thofe only know, who have made the greateft progrefs in their re- fpeCtive profeffions 0 [ *59 ] To conclude what I have to fay on this part of the fubjeft, which I think of great importance, I wi£h you to un- derftand, that I do not difcourage the younger Students from the noble attempt of uniting all the excellencies of art, but to make them aware, that, befides the difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there is a peculiar difficulty in the choice of the excellencies which ought to be united ; I wifh you to attend to this, that you may try yourfelves, when- ever you are capable of that trial, what you can, and what you cannot do : and that, inftead of diffipating your natural faculties over the immenfe field of poffi iible excellence, you may chufe fome particular walk in which you may ex- ercife all your powers ; in order each of you to be the firffi in his way. If any man fhall be mailer of fuch a tranf- cendent. 3 [ * 6 ° ] cendent, commanding, and ductile ge- nius, as to enable him to rife to the higheft, and to floop to the lowed: flights . of art, and to fweep over all of them un- obftruded and fecure, he is fitter to give example than to receive inftrudion. Having faid thus much on the union of excellencies, I will next fay fome- thing of the fubordination in which va- rious excellencies ought to be kept. I am of opinion, that the ornamental ftile, which in my difcourfe of laft year I cautioned you againft, confidering as principal , may not be wholly unworthy the attention of thofe, who aim even at the grand ftyle ; when it is properly placed and properly reduced. But [ 161 ] But this ftudy will be ufed with far better effedt, if its principles are em- ployed in foftening the harfhnefs and mitigating the rigour of the great ftyle, than if in attempt to ftand forward with any pretenilons of its own to pofitive and original excellence. It was thus Lodovico Caracci, whole example I formerly recommended to you* employed it. He was acquainted with the works both of Coreggio and the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced thofe pleating effects which at the firft glance prepoffefs us fo much in their favour ; but he took only as much from each as would ernbellifh, but not over-power that manly ftrength and energy of ftyle, which is his peculiar character. M Since [ 162 ] Since I have already expatiated fo largely in my former Difcourfe, and in my prefen t, upon the Jiyles and characters of Painting, it will not Be at all un- fa it able to my fubjeCt if 1 mention to you fome particulars relative to the lead- ing principles, and capital works of thofe, who excelled in the great Jiyle , that I may bring you from abftraCtion nearer to practice, and by exemplifying the pro- portions which I have laid down, enable you to underftand more clearly what I would enforce. The principal works of modern’ Art are in Frefco : a mode of Painting which excludes attention to minute elegancies : yet thefe works in Frefco, are the pro- ductions on which the fame of the greatefl: matters depend : fuch are the pictures of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle in the Va- tican. [ l6 3 1 ticari, to which we may add the Cartoons j which, though not ftridtly to be called Frefco, yet may be put under that deno- mination 3 and fuch are the works of Giulio Romano at Mdritua. If thefe per- formances were deftfoyed, with them would be loft the be ft part of the repu- tation of thofe illuftrlous Painters ; for thefe- are jiiftly coniidered as the greateft efforts of our Art which the world can boaft. To thefe therefore, we fliould principally direft our attention for higher excellencies. As for the lower Arts, as they have been once difcovered, they in ay be eafily attained by thofe pofteffed Of the former, Raffaelle^ who (lands in general foremoft of the firft Painters, owes his reputation, as I have obferved, to his excellence in the higher parts of the art, M a There- [ i6 4 ] Therefore, his works in Frefco , ought to be the firft objedt of our ftudy and at- tention. His eafel - works ftand in a lower degree of eftimation ; for though he con- tinually, to the day of his death, em- bellifhed his works more and more with the addition of thefe lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of fome ; yet he never arrived at fuch perfection as to make him an objedl of imitation. He never was able to conquer perfectly that drynefs, or even littlenefs of manner, which he inherited from his matter. He never acquired that nicety of tafte in co- lours, that breadth of light and fhadow, that art and management of uniting light to light, and fhadow to fhadow, fo as to make the object rife out of the ground with that plenitude of effedt fo much admired in the works of Coreggio. When he painted in oil, his hand feemed to [ i6 5 1 to be fo cramped and confined, that he not only loft that facility and fpirit, but I think even that corrednefs of form, which is fo perfed and admirable in his Frefco- works. I do not recoiled: any Pidures of his of this kind, except per- haps the Transfiguration, in which there are not fome parts that appear to be even feebly drawn. That this is not a necef- fary attendant on Oil-Painting, we have abundant inftances in more modern Paint- ers. Lodovico Caracci, for inftance, preferved in his works in oil the fame fpirit, vigour, and corrednefs, which he had in Frefco . I have no defire to de- grade Raffaelle from the high rank which he defervedly holds : but by comparing him with himfelf, he does not appear to me to be the fame man in Oil as in Frefco. M 3 From [ 1 66 ] From thofe who have ambition to tread in this great walk of the Art, Michael Angelo claims the next attention. He did not poffefs fo many excellencies as RafFaelle, but thofe he had were of the higheft kindc Fie confidered the Art as confiding of little more than what may be attaine4 by Sculpture, corredtnefs of form, and energy of character. We ought not to expedt more than an Artifl: intends in his work. He never attempted thofe leffer elegancies and graces in the Art. Yafari fays, he never painted but one Pidture in oil, and refolved never to paint another, faying it was an employ- ment only fit for women and children. If any man had a right to look down upon the lower accompfifhments as be- neath his attention, it was certainly Michael Angelo : nor can it be thought ftrange. [ i6 7 3 ftrange, that fuch a mind fhouid have flighted or have been withheld from pay- ing due attention to all thofe graces and embellifhments of Art, which have dif- fufed fuch luftre over the works of other Painters. It mu ft be acknowledged likewife, that together with thefe, which we with he had more attended to, he has rejected all thefalfe, though fpecious ornaments, which difgrace the works even of the moft efteemed Artifts ; and I will ven- ture to fay, that when thofe higher ex- cellencies are more known and culti- vated by the Artifts and the Patrons of Arts, his fame and credit will encreafe with pur encreafing knowledge. His name will then be held in the fame ve- veration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo the tenth : and it is remarkable . M 4 that [ i68 ] that the reputation of this truly great man has been continually declining as the Art itfelf has declined. For I mull remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and that our only hope of its revival will conlift in your being thoroughly fenfible of its depra- vation and decay. It is to Michael Angelo, that we owe even the exigence of Raf- faelle : it is to him Raffaelle owes the grandeur of his ftile. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and to con- ceive his fubjebts with dignity. His Genius however formed to blaze and to ihine, might, like fire in combuftible matter, for ever have lain dormant if it had not caught a fpark by its contadt with Michael Angelo: and though it ne- ver burft out with that extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it muft be acknow- ledged to be a more pure, regular, and chafte [ 169 ] chafte flame. Though our judgment will upon the whole decide in favour of Raffaelle ; yet he never takes that firm hold and entire poffeffion of the mind in fuch a manner as to defire nothing elfe, and feel nothing wanting. The effedt of the capital works of Michael Angelo, perfectly correfpond to what Bouchardon faid he felt from reading Homer. His whole frame appeared to himfelf to be enlarged, and all nature which furrounded him, diminifhed to atoms. If we put thofe great Artifts in a light of comparifon with each other, Raffaelle had moreT afteand Fancy, Michael Angelo more Genius and Imagination. The one excelled in Beauty, the other in Energy. Michael Angelo, has more of the Poetical o Infpiration 3 his ideas are vaft and fublime ; 1 his [ J 7° 1 Ills people are a fuperior order of beings ; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their aftions, or their attitudes, or the ftyle and cafl: of their very limbs or features, that puts one in mind of their belonging to our own fpecies. Raffaelle’s imagination is not fo elevated ; his figures are not fo much disjoined from our own diminutive race of beings, though his ideas are chafte, noble, and of great conformity to their fubjedts. Michael Angelo’s works have adrong, pe- culiar,. and marked character : they feeni to proceed from his own mind intirely, and that mind fo rich and abundant, that he never needed, or feemed to difaain, to look abroad for foreign help. Raffa- elle’s materials are generally borrowed, though the noble ftrudture is his own. The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and Ma- jefty t ] jefty of his charadters, his judicious con- trivance of his Compofition, correftnefs of Drawing, purity of Tafte, and the fkilful accommodation of other men’s conceptions to his own purpofe. No- body excelled him in that judgment, with which he united to his own ob- fervations on Nature, the Energy of Michael Angelo, and the Beauty and Sim- plicity of the Antique. To the qjjeftion therefore, which ought to hold the firft rank, Raffaelle orMichael Angelo, itmuft be anfwered, that if it is to be given to him who poffeffed a greater combination of the higher qualities of the Art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is the firft. But if, according to Longinus, the ftxblime being the high eft excellence that human compofition can attain to, abundantly compenfates the ab fence of every other beauty, and i atones [ *7* ] atones for all other deficiencies, then Mi- chael Angelo demands the preference. These two extraordinary men carried fome of the higher excellencies of the Art to a greater degree of perfection than probably they ever arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, nor equalled fince. Many of their fuc- ceffors were induced to leave this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to furprife and pleafe by fomething uncom- mon or new. When this defire after novelty has proceeded from mere idlenefs or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of Criticifm ; but when it has been in con- fluence of a bufy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always ftriking and interefting, never infipid. Such [ J 73 ] Such is the great ftyle as it appears in thofe who poffeffed it at its height, in this, fearch after novelty, in conception or intreating the fubjed, has no place. But there is another ftyle, which, though inferior to the former, has ftill great merit, becaufe it fliews that thofe who cultivated it were rtsen of lively and vigorous imagination. This I call the original, or charaderiftical Style; this, being lefs referred to any true architype exifting either in general or particular na- ture, muft be fupported by the Painter’s confiftency in the principles he has af- fumed, and in the union and harmony of his whole deiign. The excellency of every ftyle, but 1 think of the fubordi- nate ones, more efpecially, will very much depend on preferving that union and harmony between all the component ✓ parts, \ t J 74 3 parts, that they appear to hang well together as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is in the works of art, as in the characters of men. The faults or defeCls of fame men feem to become them when they appear to be the natu- ral growth, and of a piece with the reft of their character. A faithful picture of a mind, tho’ it be not of the moft ele- vated kind, tho > it be irregular, wild- and incorreCt, yet if it be marked with that fpirit and firmnefs which charaCte- riles works of genius, will claim atten- tion, and be more ftriking than a com- bination of excellencies, that do not feem to hang well together, or we may fay than a work that poftefles even all excellencies, but thofe in a mo- derate degree. One [ ^75 J One of the ftrongeft marked characters of this kind* which mufl be allowed to be fubordinate to the great ilyle, is that of Salvator Rofa. He gives us a pecu- liar call of nature, which, tho’ void of all grace, elegance, and iimplicity ; tho' it has nothing of that elevation and dig- nity, which belongs to the grand ftyle, yet, has that fort of dignity which be- longs to favage and uncultivated nature : but what is moft to be admired in him, is, the perfect correfpondence which he obferved between the fubjedts which he chofe and his manner of treating them. Every thing is of a piece : his Rocks, Trees, Sky, even to his handling have the fame rude and wild character, which animates his figures. To him we may contrail the character of Carlo Marat ti, who, in my own opi- nion, t J 7 6 ] nion, had no great vigour of mind or ftrength of original genius. He rarely feizes the imagination by exhibiting the higher excellencies, nor does he captivate us by that originality which attends the Painter, who thinks for himfelf. He knew and praftifed all the rules of art, and from a compofition of Raffaelle, Caracci, and Guido made up a flyle of which its only fault was, that it had no manifeft defe&s and no Unking beauties, and that the principles of his compofition are never blended together, fo as to form one uni- form body original in its kind, or excel- lent in any view. 1 will mention two other Painters, who tho’ entirely diffimilar, yet by being each confident with himfelf and poffef- fing a manner entirely his own, have both [ I 77 3 both gained reputation, tho 5 for very op- pofite accomplifhments. The Painters I mean are Rubens and Pouffin. Rubens I mention in this place, as I think him a remarkable in- fiance of the fame mind being feen in all the various parts of the Art. The whole is fo much of a piece, that one can fcarce be brought to believe but that if any one of them had been more corred and perfed, his works would not be fo compleat as they now appear. If we fhould allow a greater purity and cor- rednefs of Drawing, his want of Sim- plicity in Compofition, Colouring, and Drapery would appear more grofs. In his Compofition his art is too apparent. His figures have expreffion and ad with energy, but without fim- N plicity [ ] plicity or dignity. His colouring, in which he is eminently {killed, is not- withftanding too much of what we call tinted. Throughout the whole of his works, there is a proportionable want of that nicety of diftindtion and elegance of mind, which is required in the higher walks of Painting ; and to this want it may be in fome degree afcribed, that thofe qualities which make the excel- lency of this fubordinate ftyle appear in him with their greateft luftre. Indeed the facility with which he invented, the richnefs of his compofition, the luxuri- ant harmony and brilliancy of his colour- ing, fo dazzle the eye, that whilft his works continue before us we cannot help thinking, that all his deficiencies are fully Tupplied. Opposed to this florid carelefs, loofe, and [ 1 79 ] and Inaccurate flyle, that of the iimple, careful, pure, and corredt ftyle of Pouf- fin feems to be a com pleat contrail. Yet however oppoiite their Charac- ters, in one thing they agreed, both of them having a perfedt correfpondence between all the parts of their refpedtive manners. One is not fare but every alteration of what is confidered as defedtive in either, would deilroy the effedt of the whole. Poussin lived ‘and converfed with the ancient ftatues fo long, that he may be faid to be better acquainted with them, than with the people who were about him. I have often thought that he car- ried his veneration for them fo far as to N z wiih [ i8o J wifh to give his works the air of Anci- ent Paintings, It is certain he copied fome of the Antique Paintings, par^ ticularly the Marriage in the Albro-* brandini-Palace at Rome, which I be^ lieve to be the beft relique of thofe re^ rnote ages that has yet been found. No works of any modern has fo much of the Air of Antique Painting as thofe of Pouffin. His beft perform- ances have a remarkable drynefs of manr ner, which though by no means to be recommended for imitation, yet feems perfectly correfpondent to that ancient Simplicity which diftinguifhes his Style. Like Polidoro he ftudied them fo much, that he acquired a habit of thinking in their way, and feemed to know perfedtly the actions and geftures they would ufe on every occafion. 3 Poussin t 181 ] Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry manner to one much fofter and richer, where there is a greater union between the figures and the ground, fuch as the Seven Sacra- ments in the Duke of Orleans' collec- tion ; but neither thefe, nor any in this manner* are at all comparable to many in his dry manner which we have in England * The favourite Subjects of Pouffin Were Ancient Fables; and rio Painter was ever better qualified to paint fuch fub- jedts, not only from his being eminently {killed in the knowledge of Ceremonies, Cuftoms and Habits of the Ancients* but from his being fo well acquainted with the different Characters which thofe who invented them gave their Allegori- cal Figures. Though Rubens has fhewil N 3 great [ 182 ] great fancy in his Satyrs, Silenus’s, and Fauns, yet they are not that diftindt fe- parate clafs of beings, which is carefully exhibited by the Ancients, and by Pouf- fin. Certainly when fuch fubjedts of Antiquity are reprefented, nothing in the pidiure ought to remind as of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and nothing ought to be in- troduced that may tend to awaken it from the illufion. Poussin feemed to think that the ftyle and the language in which fuch ftories are told, is not the worfe for pre- ferving fome relifh of the old way of painting, which feemed to give a gene- ral uniformity to the whole, fo that the mind was thrown back into antiquity not only by the fubjedt, but the exe- cution 9 If t ‘83 ] If Poufiin in imitation of die Anci- ents reprefents Apollo driving his chariot out of the fea by way of reprefenting the Sun riling, if he perfonifi.es Lakes and Rivers, it is no ways offenlive in him $ but feems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the con- trary, if the Figures which people his Pi&ures had a modem air or counte- nance, if they appeared like our Coun- trymen,. if the Draperies were like cloth or filk of our manufadlure, if the land- fir ip had the appearance of a modern view, how ridiculous would Apollo ap- pear inftead of the Sun, an old Man or a Nymph with an Urn inftead of a Ri- ver or Lake, I cannot avoid mentioning here a rircumftance in Portrait-Painting, which N 4 . may may help to confirm what has been faid. When a Portrait is painted in the Hiftorical Style, as it is neither an exadt minute reprefentation of an individual, nor completely ideal, every circum- ftance ought to correfpond to this mix- ture. The Simplicity of the Antique Air and Attitude, however much to be admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a modern drefs. It is not to my purpofe to enter into the queflion at prefent, whether this mixed flyle ought to be adopted or not ; yet if it is chofen ’tis neceflary it fliould be com- pleat and all of a piece : the difference of fluffs, for inflance, which make the cloathing, fhould be diflinguifhed in the fame degree as the head deviates from a general Idea. t Without [ -85 1 Without this union, which I have fo often recommended, a work can have no marked and determined character, which is the peculiar and conftant evi- dence of Genius. But when this is ac- complished to a high degree, it becomes in fome fort a rival to that ftyle which we have fixed as the highefh Thus I have given a fketch of the Characters of Rubens and Salvator Rofa, as they appear to me to have the greatefl uniformity of mind throughout their whole work. But we may add to thefe, all thofe Artifts who are at the head of a clafs, and have had a fchool of Imitators from Michael Angelo down to Vatteau. Upon the whole it appears that fetting afide the Ornamental Style, there are two different paths, either of which a Student may take without de- grading [ 1 86 ] grading the dignity of his Art. The firft is to combine the higher excellencies and embellilh them to the greateft ad- vantage. The other is to carry one of thefe excellencies to the higheft degree* But thofe who poffefs neither muft be claffed with them, who, as Shakefpeare fays, are men of no mark or likeli- hood, I inculcate as frequently as I can your forming yourfelves upon great prin- ciples and great models. Your time w T ill be much mifpent in every other piirfuit. Small excellencies ihould be viewed, not fmdied ; they ought to be viewed, becaufe nothing ought to efcape a Painter's obfervation 5 but for no other reafom Ther# [ i3 7 ] There is another caution which I wiih to give you. Be as feleCt in thofe whom you endeavour to pleafe, as in thofe whom you endeavour to imitate. Without the love of fame you can never do any thing excellent ; but by an ex- ceffive and undiftinguifhing third: after it, you will come to have vulgar views ; you will degrade your Style ; and your Tafte will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the lowed: ftyle will be the mod: popular, as it falls within the com- pafs of ignorance itfelf ; and the Vulgar will always be pleaded with what is na- tural in the confined and mifunderftood fenfe of the word. One would with that fuch depravation of tafte fliould be counteracted, with fuch manly pride as Euripides exprefied 3 t0 [ i88 ] to the Athenians who criticifed his works : “ I do not compofe, fays he* “ my works in order to be corrected t( by you, but to inftrudt you-” It is true, to have a right to fpeak thus a man mu ft be an Euripides. However* thus much may be allowed, that when an Artift is fure, that he is upon firm ground, fupported by the authority and practice of his predeceflbrs of the greatefl: reputation, he may then aflame the bold- nefs and intrepidity of Genius; at any rate he mu ft not be tempted out of the right path, by any tide of popularity that always accompanies the lower ftyles of painting. I mention this, becaufe our exhi- bitions, that produce fuch admirable effefts by nourifliing emulation, and call- ing [ i8 9 ] ing out Genius, have alfo a mifchievous tendency by feducing the Painter to an ambition of pleafing indifcriminately the mixed multitude of people who refort to them. A BIS- - JL 1 # A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS O F T H E » ROYAL ACADEMY, ON THE Distribution of the Prizes DECEMBER io, 1774, BY THE PRESIDENT V V • sib to y ?rtumm o. ui a, ; irr. - ■ i v. .. ., : - -- v -*•..• - • - - - • • : ••••.•> .. • *■' J. V * Mr* ■rtli A DISCOURSE, &t. GENTLEMEN, W H E N I have taken the liberty of addreffing you on the courfe and order of your ftudies, I never pro- pofed to enter into a minute detail of the Art. This I have always left to the feveral Profeffors, who purfue the end of our inftitution with the higheft ho- nour to themfelves, and with the greateft advantage to the Students. O My [ *94 ] My purpofe in the difcourfes I have held in the Academy is, to lay down certain general Ideas, which feem to me proper for the formation of a found tafte.- — Principles, neceffary to guard the Pupils againft thofe errors, into which the fanguine temper, common at their time of life, has a tendency to lead them ; and which have rendered abor- tive the hopes of fo many fucceffions of promifmg young men in all parts of Europe. I wish alfo, to intercept and fup- prefs thofe prejudices, which parti- cularly prevail when the mechanifm of painting is come to its perfection, and which when they do prevail are certain to prevail to the utter deflruc- tion of the higher, and more valuable luable C 1 9 S ] parts of this literate and liberal pro- feffion* These two have been my principal purpofes ; they are Hill as much my concern, as ever ; and if I repeat my own Ideas on the fubjedt, you who know how fail miftake and prejudice, when neglected, gain ground upon truth and reafon, will eafily excufe me* I only attempt to fet the fame thing in the greateft variety of lights* The fubjedi of this Difcourfe will be Imitation , as far as a Painter is concerned in it. By imitation I do not mean Imi- tation in its largeft fenfe, but limply the following of other Mailers, and the ad- vantage to be drawn from the lludy of their works. O a Those [ J 9 6 ] Those who have undertaken to write on our Art, and have reprefented it as a kind of inspiration, as a gift beftowed upon peculiar favourites at their birth, feem to in fare a much more favourable difpofition from their readers ; and have a much more captivating and liberal air, than he who goes about to examine, coldly, whether there are any means by which this Art may be acquired ; how our mind may be ftrengthened and ex- panded, and what guides will £hew the way to eminence. It is very natural for thofe who are unacquainted with the canfe of any thing extraordinary, to be aftonifhed at the effeffi, and to confider it as a kind of magic. They, who have never obferved,. the gradation by which Art is acquired; who fee only what is the full refult of long [ l 97 1 long labour and application of an in- finite number, and infinite variety of adts, are apt to conclude from their entire inability to do the fame at once, that it is not only inacceffible to themfelves, but can be done by thofe only, who have fome gift of the nature of infpiration be- llowed upon them. The travellers into the Eaft tell us, that when the ignorant inhabitants of thefe countries are allied concerning the ruins of ftately edifices yet remaining among!! them, the melancholy monu- ments of their former grandeur and long loft fcience, they always anfwer, that they were built by magicians. The un- taught mind finds a vaft gulph between its own powers, and thefe works of com- plicated art, which it is utterly unable to fathom : And it fuppofes that fuch O 3 a void [ ] a void can be paffed only by fupernatural powers,, And, as for Artifts themfelves, it is by no means their intereft to undeceive fuch judges, however confcious they may be, of the very natural means by which the extraordinary powers were acquired ; our art being intrinfically imitative, re- jects this idea of infpiration more, per- haps, than any other. It is to avoid this plain confeffion of truth, as it ihould feem, that this imi- tation of m afters, indeed, almoft all imi- tation, which implies a more regular and progrefiive method of attaining the ends of painting, has ever b een parti- cularly inveighed againft with great keennefs, both by antient and modern writers. To [ 199 1 To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to another, is the praife which men, who do not much think what they are faying, beftow fometimes upon others, and fometimes on them- felves ; and their imaginary dignity is naturally heightened by a fupercilious cenfure of the low, the barren, the groveling, the fervile imitator. It would be no wonder if a faxdent, frightened by thefe terrors and difgraceful epithets, with which the poor imitators are fo of- ten loaded, fhould let fall his pencil in mere defpair ; confcious how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, how little, how very little of his art was born with him ; and, confi- dering it as hopelefs, to fet about ac- quiring by the imitation of any human mafter, what he is taught to ftippofe is matter of infpiration from heaven. O 4 Some [ 200 ] Some allowance muft be made for what is faid in the gaiety or ambition of rhetoric. We cannot fuppofe that any one can really mean to exclude all imitation of others. A pofition fo wild would fcarce deferve a ferious anfwer, for it is apparent, if we were forbid to make ufe of the advantages which our predeceffors afford us, the art would be always to begin, and confequently re- main always in its infant ftate ; and it is a common obfervation, that no art was ever invented and carried to perfec- tion at the fame time. But to bring us entirely to reafon and fobriety, let it be obferved, that a Painter muft not only be of neceffity an imi- tator of the works of nature, which alone is fufficient to difpel this phan- tom of infpiration, but he muft be as 5 necelfarily [ 2QI ] neceffarily an imitator of the works of other Painters : This appears more hu- miliating ; but is equally true 5 and no man can be an artift, whatever he may fuppofe, upon any other terms. PI oweveRj thofe who appear more moderate and reafonable, allow, that ftudy is to begin by imitation, but that we fhould no longer ufe the thoughts of our predeceffors, when we are become able to think for ourfelves. They hold that imitation is as hurtful to the more advanced ftudent, as it was advantage- ous to the beginner. For my own part, I confefs, I am not only very much difpofed, to lay down the abfolute neceffity of imitation in the firft ftages of the art 5 but am of opinion, that the ftudy of other mafters, , which [ 202 ] which I here call imitation, may be ex- tended throughout our whole life, with- out any danger of the inconveniencies with which it is charged, of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving that original air which every work un- doubtedly ought always to have. I am on the contrary perfuaded, that by imitation only, variety, and even ori- ginality of invention is produced. I will go further; even genius, at lead: what generally is fo called, is the child of imitation. But as this appears to be contrary to the general opinion, I mu ft explain my pofition before I en- force it. Genius is fuppofed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of [ 203 ] of the reach of the rules of Art* a power which no precepts can teach, and which no induftry can acquire* This opinion of the impoffibility of acquiring thofe beauties, which ftamp the work with the character of Genius, fuppofes, that it is fomething more fixed than in reality it is 5 and that we always do, and ever did agree, about what fhould be confidered as a charafteriftic of Ge- nius* But the truth is, that the degree of excellence which proclaims Genius is different,' in different times, and different places ; and what fhows it to be fo is, that mankind have often changed their opinion upon this matter. When [ 204 ] When the Arts were in their infan- cy, the power of merely drawing the likenefs of any object, was confidered as one of its greatefi: efforts. The common people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the fame language, even to this day. But when it was found that every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal more, merely by the obfervance of cer- tain precepts ; the name of Genius then Ihifted its application, and was given only to thofe who added the peculiar character of the objeft they reprefented; to thofe who had invention, expreffion, grace, or dignity; or in fhort, fuch qualities, or excellencies, the producing of which, could not then be taught by any known and promulgated rules. We [ 20 5 ] We are very fure that the beauty of form, the expreffion of the paffions, the art of compofition, even the power of giving a general air of grandeur to your work, is at prefent very much under the dominion of rules. Thefe excellen- cies were, heretofore, confidered merely as the effedts of genius; and juftly, if genius is not taken for infpiration, but as the effedt of clofe obfervation and experience. He who firft made any of thefe ob- fervation s, and digefted them, fo as to form an invariable principle for himfelf to work by, had that merit; but pro- bably no one went very far at once ; and generally, the firfl who gave the hinf^ did not know how to purfue it fteadily, and methodically ; at leaft not in the beginning. He himfelf worked on it, and [ 2o6 ] and improved it, others worked more* and improved farther, until the fecret was difcovered, and the practice made as general, as refined practice can be made* How many more principles may be fixed and afcertained, we cannot tell ; but as criticifm is likely to go hand in hand with the art which is its fubjedt, we may venture to fay, that as that art fhall ad- vance, its powers will be ftill more and more fixed by rules. But by whatever ftrides criticifm may gain ground, we need be under no apprehenfion, that invention will ever be annihilated, or fubdued ; or intel- lectual energy be brought entirely within the reftraint of written law. Genius will ftill have room enough to expatiate, and keep always the fame diftance from 5 narrow [ 207 ] narrow comprehenfion, and mechanical performance. What we now call Genius, begins, not where rules, abftractedly taken, end ; but where known vulgar and trite rules have no longer any place. It muft of neceftity be, that even works of Genius as well as every other effedt, as it muft have its caufe, muft likewife have its rules ; it cannot be by chance, that ex- cellencies are produced with any con- ftancy, or any certainty, for this is not the nature of chance; but the rules by which men of extraordinary parts, and fuch as are called men of Genius work, are either fuch as they difcover by their own peculiar obfervation, or of fuch a nice texture, as not eaiily to admit hand- ling, or expreffing in words, efpecially as [ 208 ] as Artifts are not very frequently fkilful in that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, however, as thefe rules may feem, and difficult as it may be to convey them in writing, they are ftill feen and felt in the mind of the Artift, and he works from them with as much certainty, as if they were embodied, as I may fay, upon paper. It is true, thefe refined principles cannot be always made palpable, like the more grofs rules of art ; yet it does not follow, but that the mind may be put in fuch a train, that it fhall perceive, by a kind of fcientific fenfe, that propriety, which words, par- ticularly words of unpraftifed writers, fuch as we are, can but very feebly fuggeft. Invention [ 209 ] Invention is one of the great ttiarks t>f genius ; but if we confult experience, we Ihall find, that it is by being con- verfant with the inventions of others, that we learn to invent ; as by reading the thoughts of others we learn to think. Whoever has fo fat formed his tafie, as to be able to relifhj and feel the beau-^ ties of the great mafters, has gone a great way in his ftudy ; for, merely from a confcioufnefs of this relifh of the right, the mind f wells with an inward pride, and is almofi: as powerfully affeded, as if it had itfelf produced, what it admires. Our hearts frequently warmed in this manlier* by the con tad of thofe whom we wiih to referable, will Undoubtedly catch fomething of their way of think- ing, and we fhall receive in our own P bofoms C 210 ] bofoms fome radiation at lead: of their fire and fplendour. That difpofition, which is fo ftrong in children, ftill con- tinues with us, of catching involuntarily the general air, and manner, of thofe with whom we are moft converfant ; with this difference only, that a young mind is naturally pliable and imitative ; but in a more advanced ftate it grows rigid, and muft be warmed and foftened, before it will receive a deep impreflion. From thefe confederations, which a little of your refledion will carry a great way further, it appears, of what great confequence it is, that our minds fhould be habituated to the contemplation of excellence, and that, far from being contented to make fuch habits, the dis- cipline of our youth only, we fhould, to the laft moment of our lives, continue . . .j % a fettled [ 21 X } & fettled intercourfe with all the true examples of grandeur* Their inventions are not only the food of our infancy, but the fubftance which fupplies the fulled maturity of our vigour. The mind is but a barren foil ; is a foil foon exhauded, and will produce no crop, or only one, unlefs it be continu- ally fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. When" v/e have had continually be- fore us the great works of Art to im- pregnate our minds with kindred ideas $ we are then, and not till then, fit to produce fomething of the fame fpecies. We behold all about us with the eyes of thefe penetrating obfervers ; and our minds accudomed to think the thoughts of the nobleft and brighted intellects, are P 2 pre- [ 212 ] prepared for the difcovery and fele&ron of all that is great and noble in Nature, The gteatefl natural genius cannot fubfift on its own flock : he who refolves never to ranfack any mind but his own, will be foon reduced, from mere barrennefs, to the pooreft of all imitations ; he will be obliged to imitate himfelf, and to re- peat what he has before often repeated. When we know the fubjedt aefigned by fuch men, it will never be difficult to guefs what kind of work is to be pro- duced. It is vain for Painters or Poets to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind mav work, and from which invention muft originate. No- thing can come of nothing. Homer [ 213 ] Homer is fuppofed to be poffeffed of all the learning of his time. And we are certain that Michael Angelo, and Raffaelle, were equally pofleffed of all the knowledge in the Art which was difcoverable in the works of their pre- deceffors, A mind enriched by an affemblage of all the treafures of antient and modem Art, will be more elevated and fruitful in refources in proportion to the number of ideas which have been carefully col- lected and thoroughly digefted. There can be no doubt but that he who has the moft materials has the gteatefl: means of invention ; and if he has not the power of ufing them, it muff proceed from a feeblenefs of intellect ; or from the confufed manner in which thofe, P 3 col. C 2I 4 ] collections have been laid up in his mind. The addition of other men’s judg~ ment is fo far from weakening, as is the opinion of many, our own, that it will falhion and confolidate thofe ideas of excellence which lay in their birth feeble ? ill-fhaped, and confafed, but which are finifhed and put in order by the autho- rity and practice of thofe, whole works may be faid to have been confecrated by having flood the teft of ages. The mind, or genius, has been com- pared to a fpark of fire, which is fmo- thered by a heap of fuel, and prevented from blazing into a flame ; This fimile, which is made ufe of by the younger Pliny, may be eafily miftaken for argu- ment or proof. There [ 215 3 There is no danger of the mind’s being over-burdened with knowledge, or the genius extinguifhed by any addi- tion of images ; on the contrary, thefe acquifitions may be as well, perhaps better, be compared, if comparifons fig- nified any thing in reafoning, to the fupply of living embers, which will contribute to ftrengthen the fpark, that without the affociation of more, would have died away. The truth is, he whofe feeblenefs is fuch, as to make other mens thoughts, an incumbrance to him, can have no very great flrength of mind, or genius, of his own to be deftroyed ; fo that not much harm will be done at worfc; We may oppofe to Pliny, the greater authority of Cicero, who is continually P 4 en- [ *■« ] enforcing the neceffity of this method of ftudy. In his Dialogue on Oratory, he makes CraiTus fay, that one of the firft and mqft important precepts, is to choofe a proper model for our imitation. Hoc Jt primum in preceptis meis ut demon - Jr emus qyem imitemur . When I fpeak of the habitual imi- tation, and continued ftudy of Mafters, it is not to be underftood, that I advife any endeavour to copy the exadt peculiar colour and complexion of another man’s mind ^ the fuccefs of fuch an attempt muft always be like his, who imitates exa&ly the air, manner, and geftures, of him whom he admires. His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridi- culous ; this ridicule does not arife from his having imitated, but from hi$ not i having C 2I 7 1 having chofen the right mode of imi r Ration. It is a neceflary and warrantable pride to difdain to walk fervilely behind any individual, however elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is an. open field, where, though he, who precedes, has had the advantage of ftart- ing before you ; yet it is enough to pur- fue his courfe ; you need not tread in his fpotfteps ; and you certainly have a right to outftrip him if you can. Nor whilft I recommend ftudying the Art from Artifts, can I be fuppofed to mean, that Nature is to be negledled ? I take this ftudy in aid and not in ex- clufion of the other. Nature is, and mu ft be the fountain which alone is in- exhauftible ; i 218 ] cxhauftible ; and from which all excel- lencies muft originally flow. The great ufe of ftudying our prede- ceffors is, to open the mind, to fhorten our labour, and to give us the refult of the feledtion made by thofe great minds of what is grand or beautiful in Nature : her rich ftores are all fpread out before us $ but it is an art, and no eafy art, to know how or what to choofe, and how to attain and fecure the object of our choice. Thus the higheft beauty of form muft be taken from Nature ; but it is an art of long deduction, and great experience, to know how to find it. We muft not content ourfelves with merely admiring and relifhing; we muft enter [ 2I 9 ] enter into the principles on which the work is wrought : thefe do not fwim on the fuperficies, and confequently are not open to fuperficial obfervers. Art in its perfection is not often ta- tious ; it lies hid, and works its effeft, itfelf unfeen. It is the proper ftudy and labour of an Artift to uncover and find out the latent caufe of confpicuous beau- ties, and from thence form principles for his own conduct : fuch an examination is a continual exertion of the mind, as great, perhaps, as that of the Artift whofe works he is thus ftudying. The fagacious imitator, not only re- marks what diftinguifties the different manner or genius of each matter ; he enters into the contrivance in the com- pofition, how the maffes of lights are difpofed. [ 220 ] difpofed, the means by which the effedl is produced, how artfully forne parts are loft in the ground, others boldly re- lieved, and how all thefe are mutually altered and interchanged according to the reafon and fcheme of the work. He ad- mires not the harmony of colouring alone, but he examines by what artifice one colour is a foil to its neighbour. He looks clofe into the tints, of what colours they are compofed, till he has formed clear, and diftindt ideas, and has learnt to fee in what harmony and good colouring confifts. What is learnt in this manner from the works of others becomes really our own, finks deep, and is never forgotten ; nay, it is by feizing on this Clue that we proceed forward, and get further and further in enlarging the principle, and improving the pradlice. There [ 221 ] There can be no doubt, but the art is better learnt from the works them- felves, than from the precepts which are formed upon thefe works ; but if it is difficult to choofe proper models for imitation, it requires no lefs circu-m- fpedtion to feparate and difringuifli what in thofe models we ought to imitate. I cannot avoid mentioning here, though it is not my intention, at prefent, to enter into the art, and method of ftudy ; an error which fludents are too apt to fall into. He that is forming hlmfelf, muft look with great caution and warinefs on thofe peculiarities, or prominent parts, which at firft force them felves upon view;, and are the marks, or what is commonly called [ 222 ] called the manner, by which that indi- vidual Artift is diftinguifhed. Peculiar marks, I hold to be, ge- nerally, if not always, defeats ; however difficult it may be, wholly to efcape them. Peculiarities in the works of Art* are like thofe in the human figure j it is by them that we are cognizable and dif- tinguifhed one from another, but they are always fo many blemifhes ; which, however, both in the one Cafe, and in the other, ceafe to appear deformities, to thofe who have them continually be- fore their eyes. In the w r orks of Art, even the moft enlightened mind, when warmed by beauties of the higheft kind, will by degrees find a repugnance within [ 22 3 ] within him, to acknowledge any defe&s $ nay, his enthuftafm will carry him fo far, as to transform them into beauties, and objects of imitation. It mu ft be acknowledged, that a pe- culiarity of ftile, either from its novelty, or by feeming to proceed from a pecu- liar turn of mind, often efcapes blame ; on the contrary, it is fometimes ftriking and pleafing 5 but this it is vain labour to endeavour to imitate ; becaufe no- velty, and peculiarity, being its only merit, when it ceafes to be new, it ceafes to have value. A manner, therefore, being a defect, and every Painter, however excellent, having a manner, it feerns to follow, that all kinds of faults, as well as beau- ties, t S24 j ties, may be learned under the fandiioa of the greateft authorities * Even the great name of Michael Angelo may be ufed, to keep in coun- tenance a deficiency, or rather negledt of colouring, and every other ornamental part of the Art* If the young Student is dry and hard* Pouffin is the fame. If his work has a carelefs and unfinifhed air ; he has mof! of the Venetian fchool to fupport hirm If he makes no feledlion of objedts, but takes individual nature juft as he finds it ; he is like Rembrant. If he is in- curred! in the proportions of his figures ; Corregio was likewife incorredt. If his colours are not blended and united > Rubens was equally crude. In [ 225 ] In fhort, there is no defed, but may be excufed, if it is a fufficient excufe, that it can be imputed to confiderable artitts ; but it mutt be remembered, that it was not by thefe defeds they acquired their reputation ; they have a right to our pardon, but not to our admiration. However, to imitate peculiarities or mi flake defeds for beauties that man will be moil liable, who confines his imitation to one favourite matter ; and even though he chufes the bett, and is capable of dif- tinguittiing the real excellencies of his model ; it is not by fuch narrow pradice, that a genius or mattery in the Art is ac- quired. A man is as little likely to form a true idea of the perfedion of the Art, by ftudying a Angle Artift, as he would be of producing a perfedly beautiful QL_ figure. [ 226 3 figure, by an exadl imitation of any in- dividual living model. And as the painter, by bringing to- gether in one piece, thofe beauties, which are difperfed amongft a great variety of individuals, produces a figure more beau- tiful than can be found in Nature. So that Artift who can unite in himfelf the excellencies of the various Painters, will approach nearer to perfection than any one of his mailers. He, who confines himfelf to the imi- tation of an individual, as he never pro- pofes to furpafs, fo he is not likely to equal, the object of imitation. He pro- feffes only to follow : and he that follows mttft neceffarily be behind* We C 227 ] We Ihould imitate the condudt of the great Artifts in the courfe of their fiudies, as well as the works which they pro- duced when they were perfectly formed, Raffaelle begun by imitating implicitly the manner of Pietro Perugino, under whom he lludied ; fo his firft works are fcarce to be diftinguifhed from his mailers ; but foon forming higher, and more extenfive views, he imitated the grand outline of Michael Angelo ; he learnt the manner of uiing colours from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, and Fratre Bartolomeo : to all this he added the contemplation of all the remains of antiquity that were within his reach $ and employed others to draw for him what was in Greece and diftant places. And it is from his having taken fo many models, that he became himfelf a model Q_2 ' for C 22 8 ] for all facceeding Painters ; always imi- tating and always original. If your ambition therefore be to equal Raffaelle, you muft do as Raffaelle did ; take many models, and not take even him for your guide alone to the exclufion of others And yet the number is in- finite of thofe who feem, if one may judge by their ftile, to have feen no other works but thofe of their mafter, or of foine favorite, whofe ?nanner is their firft with, and their laft. I will mention a few that occur to me of this narrow, confined, illiberal, unfcientifick, and fervile kind of imi- tators. Guido was thus meanly copied * Sed non qui maxime imitandus, etiam folus smitandus eft. Quintilian. b y [ 2 29 ] by Elizabetta, Sirani, and Simone Can- tarini. Pouffin, by Verdier, and Cheron. Parmigiano, by Jeronimo Mazzuoli. Paolo Veronefe, and Iacomo Bafian, had for their imitators their brothers and fons. Pietro de Cortona was followed by Giro Ferri, and Romanelli. Rubens, by Jacques Jordans, and Diepenbeck ; Guercino, by his own Family, the Gen- nari. Carlo Marratti was imitated by Geufeppe Chiari, and Pietro da Pietri. And Rembrant, by Bramer, Eckhout, and Flink. All thefe, to whom may be added a much longer lift of painters, whofe works among the ignorant, pafs for thofe of their matters, arejuftlyto be cenfured for barrennefs and fervility. To oppofe to this lift, a few that have adopted a more liberal ftile of imitation, Pelegrino Tibaldi, Roftb, and Primaticio 0.3 did [ 2 3 o ] did not coldly imitate, but caught fome- thing of the fire that animates the works of Michael Angelo. The Carraches formed their ftile from Pelegrino Ti- baldi, Corregio, and the Venetian School. Domenichino, Guido, Lanfranco, Al- bano, Guercino, Cavidone, Schidone, Tiarini, though it is fufficiently apparent that they came from the School of the Carraches, have yet the appearance of men who extended their views beyond the model that lay before them, and have fhewn that they had opinions of their own, and thought for themfelves, after they had made themfelves matters of the general principles of their fchools. Le Seure’s firft manner refembles very much that of his matter Vovet : but as he foon excelled him, fo he differed from him in every part of the Art, Carlo 7 Marratti [ 231 ] Marratti fucceeded better than thofe I have firft named, and I think owes his fuperiority to the extenfion of his views; betides his matter Andrea Sacci, he imi- tated Raffaelle, Guido, and the Carraehes. It is true, there is nothing very capti- vating in Carlo Marratti ; but this pro- ceeded from wants which cannot be compleatly fuppliea ; that is, want of ftrength of parts. In this, certainly men are not equal, and a man can bring home wares only in proportion to the capital with which he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the moft of what he had ; but there was undoubtedly a hea- vinefs about him, which extended itfelf, uniformly, to his invention, expreffion, his drawing, colouring, and the general effedt of his pictures. The truth is, he never equalled any of his patterns in any 0^4 one [ 2 3 2 ] one thing, and he added little of his own. But we mull not red: contented, evert in this general ftudy of the moderns ; We muft trace back the art to its foun- tain head, to that fource from whence they drew their principal excellencies, the monuments of pure antiquity. All the inventions and thoughts of the Antien'ts, whether conveyed to us in ftatues, bafreliefs, intaglios, cameos, or coins, are to be fought after and care- fully ftudied : The genius that hovers over thefe venerable reliques, may be called the father of modern art. From the remains of the works of the antients the modern arts were re- vived, and it is by their means that they muft [ 2 33 3 mint be reftored a fecond time. How- ever it may mortify our vanity, we muft be forced to allow them our mailers ; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they final! ceafe to be ftudied. Arts will no longer flourifh, and we ihali again relapfe into barbarifm. The fire of the artiiVs own genius operating upon thefe materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, fuperior to what had ever be- fore been in the poffeilion of the Art. As in the mixture of the variety of me- tals, which are faid to have been melted and run together at the burning of Co- rinth, a new and till then unknown metal was produced equal in value to any of thofe that had contributed to its eompofition. And though a curious re- finer { 234 ] finer may come with his crucibles, analyfe and feparate its various component parts, yet Corinthian brafs would ftiil hold its rank amongft the mo ft beautiful and va- luable of metals. We have . hitherto confidered the ad- vantages of imitation as it tends to form the tafte, and as a practice by which a fpark of that genius may be caught which illumines thefe noble works, that ought always to be prefent to our thoughts. We come now to fpeak of another kind of imitation ; the borrowing a par- ticular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and tranfplanting it into your own work : this will either come under the charge of plagiarifm, or be warrant- able, and deferve commendation, ac- cording to the adclrefs with which it is per- [ 2 3 5 ] performed. There is fome difference likewife whether it is upon the antients or the moderns that thefe depredations are made. It is generally allowed, that no man need be afhamed of copying the antients : their works are confidered as a magazine of common property, always open to the public, whence every man has a right to what materials he pleafes ; and if he has the art of ufing them, they are fuppofed to become to all intents and purpofes his own property. The collection which Rafraelle made of the thoughts of the antients with fo much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this fubjeCt. Such collections may be made with much more eafe, by means of an art fcarce known in his time ; I mean that of engraving, by which, at an [ 2 3 6 ] an eafy rate, every man may now avail himfelf of the inventions of antiquity. It muft he acknowledged that the works of the moderns are more the pro- perty of their authors ; he, who borrows an idea from an artift, or perhaps from a modern, not his contemporary, and fo accommodates it to his own work, that it makes a part of it, with no feam or joining appearing, can hardly be charged with plagiarifm ; poets pradtife this kind of borrowing, without referve. But an artift fhould not be contented with this onty • he fhauld enter into a competition with his original, and endeavour to im- prove, what he is appropriating to his own work. Such imitation is fo far from having any thing in it of the fervility of plagiarifm, that it is a perpetual exercife of the mind, a continual invention. Borrow- [ 2 37 1 Borrowing or flealing with fuch art and caution, will have a right to the fame lenity as was ufed by the Lacede- monians ; who did not punifh theft, but the want of artifice to conceal it. In order to encourage you to imita- tion, to the utmoft extent, let me add, that very finished Ar tills in the inferior branches of the Art, will contribute to furnilh the mind and give hints, of which a ikilful painter, who is fenfible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being infedted by the contadl of vicious models, will know how to avail himfelf. He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymiftry, pafiing through his own mind, fhail be converted into pure gold ; and, under the rudenefs of Gothic e flays, he will find original, rational, and even fublime inventions. In [ 2 3 8 3 In the luxuriant ftile of Paul Vero- nefe, in the capricious compofitions of Tintoret, he will find fomething, that will afiift his invention, and give points, from which his own imagination fhall rife and take flight, when the fubjedt which he treats, will, with propriety, admit of fplendid effefts. In every fchool, whether Venetian, French, or Dutch., he will find, either ingenious compofitions, extraordinary ef- fects, fome peculiar exprefiions, or fome mechanical excellence, well worthy his *- attention, and, in fome meafure, of his imitation ; even in the lower clafs of the French painters, great beauties are often found united with great defects. Though Coypel ‘wanted a fimplicity of tafte, and miftook a prefumptuous and afluming [ 239 ] affuming air for what is grand and ma- jefticj yet he frequently has good fenfe and judgment in his manner of telling his ftories, great Ikill in his competi- tions, and is not without a considerable power of expreffing the paflions; The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in thofe of Bouche and Wat- teau, may be (aid to be feparated, by a very thin partition, from the more fim- ple and pure grace of Coreggio and Parmigiano. Amongst the Dutch painters, the correft, firm, and determined pencil, which was employed by Bamboccio and Jan Miel, on vulgar and mean fubjects, might, without any change, be employed on the higheft, to which, indeed, it feems more properly to belong. The greateft ftile, if that ftile is confined to final! i [ 240 ] fmall figures, fuch as Poufim generally painted, would receive an additional grace, by the elegance and precifion of pencil fo admirable in the works of Teniers. Though this fchool more particularly excelled in the mechanifm of painting, yet there are many, who have £hewn great abilities in exprefling what muft be ranked above mechanical excellencies. s In the works of Frank Halls, the portrait painter may obferve the compo- fition of a face ; the features well put together, as the painters exprefs it ; from whence proceeds that ftrong marked chara&er of individual nature, which is fo remarkable in his portraits, and is not to be found in an equal degree in any other painter. If he had joined to 7 this [ 241 ] this moll difficult part of the Art* a pa- tience in finifhing what he had fo cor- rectly planned, he might juftly have claimed the place which Vandyke, all things confidered, fo juftly holds as thq firft of portrait painters. Others of the fame fchool have fhewn great power in exp r effing the character and paffions of thofe vulgar people, which are the fubjeCts of their ftudy and attention. Amongft thofe Jean Stein feems to be one of the moil diligent and accurate obfervers of what paffed in thofe feenes which he fre- quented, and which were to him an academy. I can eafily imagine, that if this extraordinary man had had the good fortune to have been born in Italy, in- ftead of Holland, had he lived in Rome inftead of Leyden, and had been bleffed R with [ 2 4 2 ] with Michael Angelo and Raffaelle for his mailers, inftead of Brower and Van Gowen ; that the fame fagacity and pe- netration which, diftinguifhed fo accu- rately the different characters and ex- prefiion in his vulgar figures, would, when exerted in the feleCtion and imita- tion of what was great and elevated in Nature, have been equally fuccefsful, and his name would have been now ranged with the great pillars and fup- porters of our Art. Men who although thus bound down by the almofl invincible powers of early habits, have flill exerted extraordinary abilities within their narrow and con- fined circle, and have, from the natural vigour of their mind, given fuch an interefting expreffion, fuch force and energy to their works, though they can- not [ 2 43 1 not be recommended to be exa&ly Imb tated, may yet invite an Artift to endea- vour to transfer, by a kind of parody* thofe excellencies to his own works. Whoever has acquired the power of making this ufe of the Flemifh, Venetian* and French Schools, is a real genius, and has fources of knowledge open to him which were wanting to the great Artifts who lived in the great age of Painting. To find excellencies, however dif- perfed, to difcover beauties, however concealed by the multitude of defeds with which they are furrounded, can be the work only of him who having a mind always alive to his Art, has extended his views to all ages and to all fchools ; and has acquired from that comprehensive mafs which he has thus gathered to him- R a felf. [ 2 44 ] felf, a weil-digefted and perfedt idea of his Art, to which every thing is re- ferred. Like a fovereign judge and ar- biter of Art, he is poflefled of that prefiding power which feparates and at- tracts every excellence from every fchool ; feledts both from what is great, and what is little ; brings home knowledge from the Eaft and from the Weft; making the univerfe tributary towards furniftiing his mind and enriching his works with originality, and variety of inventions. Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what appears to me the true, and only method, by which an Artift makes himfelf mafter of his profeffion ; which I hold ought to be one continued courfe of imitation that is not to ceafe but with our lives. Those, [ I 2 45 1 Those, who either from their o wn engagements and hurry of bufinefs, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themfelves, as far as my experience and obfervation reaches, have from that time, not only ceafed to advance, and improve in their performance, but have gone back- ward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal hill they are reduced to beggary, and left without refources. I can recommend nothing better, therefore, than that you endeavour to infufe into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others. To recommend this has the appearance of needlefs and fuperfluous advice j but it has fallen within my own knowledge, that Artifts, though R 3 ♦ they [ 2 4 6 3 they are not wanting in a fincere love for their Art, though they have great pleafure in feeing good pictures, and are well dulled to diftinguiffi what is ex- cellent or defedive in them, yet go on in their own manner, without any en- deavour to give a little of thofe beauties, which they admire in others, to their own works. It is difficult to conceive how the prefent Italian Painters, who live in the midft of the treafures of art, diould be contented with their own ftile. They proceed in their common place inventions, and never think it worth while to vifit the works of thofe great artifts with which they are furrounded, I remember, feveral years ago, to have converfed at Rome with an Artift of great fame throughout Europe ; he was not without a confiderable degree of I I 24 7 ] of abilities, but thofe abilities were by no means equal to his own opinion of them. From the reputation he had ac- quired, he too fondly concluded that he flood in the fame rank, when compared to his predeceifors, as he held w r ith regard to his miferable contemporary rivals. In converfation about fome particu- lars of the works of Raffaelle, he feemed to have, or to affedl to have, a very obfcure memory of them. He told me that he had not fet his foot in the Va- tican for fifteen years together ; that in- deed he had been in treaty to copy a capital picture of Raffaelle, but that the bufinefs had gone off $ however, if the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly exceeded the original. The merit of this Artift, however great we may fuppofe it, I am fure would have R 4 been t 248 ] been far greater, and his prefumption would have been far lefs, if he had vi- fited the Vatican, as in reafon he ought to have done, once at lead: every month of his life. I address myfelf. Gentlemen, to you who have made fome progrefs in the art, and are to be for the future, under the guidance of your own judg- ment and difcretion. I consider you as arrived to that period, when you have a right to think for yourfelves, and to prefume, that every man is fallible ; to ftudy the mafters with a fufpicion, that great men are not always exempt from great faults ; to criticife, compare, and rank their works in your own efcimation, as they approach to, or recede from, that llandard of [ 249 ] of perfection which you have formed in your own mind, but, which thofe mafters. themfelves, it mu ft be remem- bered, have taught you to make ; and, which you will ceafe to make with cor- rednefs, when you ceafe to ftudy therm It is their excellencies which have taught you their defects. I would wifh you to forget where you are, and who it is that fpeaks to you. I only dired you to higher models, and better advifers. We can teach you here but very little ; you are henceforth to be your own teachers. Do this juftice, however, to the Englifh x^cademy, to bear in mind, that in this place, you contraded no narrow habits, no falfe ideas, nothing that could lead you to the imitation of any living m after, who may be the faihionable darling of the day. C 2 5 ° ] day. As you have not been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter your- felves. We have endeavoured to lead you to the admiration of nothing but what is truly admirable. If you choofe inferior patterns, or if you make your own former works, your patterns for your latter , it is your own fault. The purpofe of this Difcourfe, and, indeed, of moft of my others, is to cau- tion you againfl: that falfe opinion, but too prevalent amongfl: Artifts, of the ima- ginary power of native genius, and its fufficiency in great works. This opinion, according to the temper of mind it meets with, almofl always produces, either a vain confidence, or a fluggifh defpair, both equally fatal to all proficiency. 5 Study [ * 5 I ^ Study therefore the great works of the great matters, for ever. Study as nearly as you can, in the order, in the manner, on the principles, on which they ftudied. Study nature attentively, but always with thofe matters in your company ; confider them as models which you are to imitate, and at the fame time as rivals, which you are to combat. f A D I S- 1 ‘ \ ' \'Urno? ■ . ■ ;.... ;,v / \ A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON THE Distribution of the Prizes, DECEMBER io, 1776, BY THE PRESIDENT. ? ;i / 1 ■ ' ^ ! jfc ' . . ,* ■ iA , > , 1 , . vi ; i.q iv. , . A DISCOURSE, &>c. GENTLEMEN, I T has been my uniform endeavour, fince I firft addreffed you from this ♦ place, to imprefs you ftrongly with one ruling idea. I wiflied you to be per- fuaded, that fuccefs in your Art de- pends aimed; entirely on your own in- dud ry ; but the induftry which I prin- cipally recommended, is not the induilry of the hands , but of the mind . As [ 256 ] As cur art is not a divine gift, Co neither is it a mechanical trade , Its foundations are laid In folid fcience. And practice, though effential to per- fection , can never attain that to which it aims, unlefs it works under the di- redtion of principle. Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and fuppofe that fuch a body of univerfal and profound learning is re- quifite, that the very enumeration of its kinds is enough to frighten a beginner. Vitruvius, after going through the many accomplifhments of nature, and the many acquirements of learning, neceflary to an architect, proceeds with great gra- vity to affert, that he ought to be well fkilled in the civil law, ’ that he may not be cheated in the title of the ground he builds on. Bur 5 t HI ] But without fuch exaggeration, may go fo far as to affert, that a painter Hands in need of more knowlege than is to be picked off his pallet, or collected by looking on his model, whether it be in life or in picture. He can never be a great artift, who is grofsly illiterate* Evert man whofe bufinefs is defcrip- tion ought to be tolerably converfant with the poets, in fome language or other; that he may imbibe a poetical fpirit, and enlarge his flock of ideas* He ought to acquire an habit of com- paring and digefting his notions. He ought not to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philofophy which gives him an infight into human nature, and relates to the manners, characters, pafi« lions and affections. He ought to know feme thing concerning the mind, as well 8 as t * 5 8 3 as a great deal concerning the body of man. For this purpofe, it is not neceffary that he fhould go into fuch a compafs of reading, as muft, by diftradting his attention, difqualify him for the prac- tical part of his profeffion, and make him link the performer in the critic. Reading, if it can be made the favourite recreation of his leifure hours, will im- prove and enlarge his mind, without retarding his adtual induftry. What fuch partial and defultory read- ing cannot afford, may be fupplied by the converfaiion of learned and ingenious men, which is the belt of all fubfti- iutes for thole who have not the means or opportunities of deep fludy. There are many fuch men in this age > and they [ 2 59 1 they will be pleafed with communis eating their ideas to artifts, when they fee them curious and docile, if they are treated with that refpedt and deference which is fo juftly their due. Into fuch fociety, young artifts, if they make it the point of their ambition, will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal teaching, they will infeniibly come to feel and reafon like thofe they live with, and find a rational and fyftematic tafte imperceptibly formed in their minds, which they will know how to reduce to a ftandard, by applying general truth to their own purpofes, better perhaps than thofe to whom they owed the original fentiment. Of thefe ftudies and this conv^rfa- tion, the defired and legitimate offspring is a power of diftinguifhing right from S 2 wrong. [ 26o ] wrong, which power applied to works of art, is denominated Tafte. Let me then, without further introduction, enter upon an examination, whether Tafte be fo far beyond our reach, as to be un- attainable by care , or be fo very vague and capricious, that no care ought to be employed about it* It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in myfterious and incompre- henfible language, as if it was thought neceflary that even the terms mould cor- refpond to the idea entertained of the inftability and uncertainty cf the rules which they exprefted. To fpeak of genius and tafte, as any way connected with reafon or common fenfe, would be, in the opinion of fome towering talkers, to fpeak like a man who [ 26 i ] who polfefled neither, who had never felt that enthufiafm, or, to ufe their own inflated language, was never warmed by that Promethean fire, which animates the canvas and vivifies the marble. If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art by bringing her down from her vifionary fituation in the clouds, it is only to give her a more folid man- fion upon the earth. It is neceflary that at fome time or other we fhould fee things as they really are, and not impofe on ourfelves by that falfe magnitude with which objefts appear when viewed in- diftinftly as through a miff. We will allow a poet to exprefs his meaning, when his meaning is not well known to himfelf, with a certain de- gree of obfcurity, as it is one fource S 3 of [ 262 ] of the fublime. But when, in plain profe, we gravely talk of courting the mufe in fhady bowers ; waiting the call and infpiration of Genius, finding out where he inhabits, and where he is to be invoked with the greateft fuccefs ; of attending to times and feafons when the imagination fhoots with the greateft vi- gour, whether at the fummer folftice or the equinox 3 fagacioufly obferving how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is cramped by attention to eftablifhed rules ; and how this fame imagination begins to grow dim in ad- vanced age, fmothered and deadened by too much judgment. When we talk fuch language, or entertain fuch fenti- ments as thefe, we generally reft con- tented with mere words, or at beft en- tertain notions not only grounalefs, but pernicious. If [ 2 6 3 ] If all this means what it is very pof- fible was originally intended only to be meant, that in order to cultivate an art, a man fecludes himfelf from the com- merce of the world, and retires into the country at particular feafons j or that at one time of the year his body is in better health, and confequently his mind litter for the bufinefs of hard thinking than at another time ; or that the mind may be fatigued and grow confufed by long and unremitted application ; this I can underftand. I can likewife believe, that a man eminent when young for pof- feffing poetical imagination, may, from having taken another road, fo negledt its cultivation, as to Ihew lefs of its powers in his latter life. But I am perfuaded, that fcarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preferved a found mind in a found body, and con- S 4 tinned C 264 ] tinned pradtifing his profeffion to the very laft, whofe later works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as thofe which were produced in his more youthful days. To underfland literally thefe meta- phors or ideas exprefied in poetical lan- guage, feems to be equally abfurd as to conclude, that becaufe painters fome- times . reprefent poets writing from the didtates of a little winged boy or genius, that this fame genius did really inform him in a whifper what he was to write ; and that he is himfslf but a mere ma- chine, unconfcious of the operations of his own mind. Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true or fajfe, we naturally adopt and make our own ; [ 2 6 5 ] own; they may be confidered as a kind of inheritance to which we fucceed and are tenants for life, and which we leave to our pofterity very near in the condition in which we received it ; not much be- ing in any one man’s power either to impair or improve it. The greateft part of thefe opinions, like current coin in its circulation, we are obliged to take without weighing or examining ; but by this inevitable inat- tention, many adulterated pieces are re- ceived, which, when we ferioufly efti- mate our wealth, we mud throw away. So the collector of popular opinions, when he embodies his knowledge, and forms a fyflem, mud feparate thofe which are true from thofe which are only plaufible. But it becomes more pecu- liarly a duty to the profeffors of art not to [ 266 ] to let any opinions relating to that art pafs unexamined. The caution and cir- cumfpe&ion required in fuch examina- tion we ftiall prefently have an oppor- tunity of explaining. Genius and tafte, in their common acceptation, appear to be very nearly re- lated ; the difference lies only in this, that genius has fuperadded to it a habit or power of execution. Or we may fay, that tafte, when this power is added, changes its name, and is called genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pre- tend to an entire exemption from the reftraint of rules. It is fuppofed that their powers are intuitive; that under the name of genius great works are pro- duced, and under the name of tafte an exad judgment is given, without our knowing why, and without being under the [ 26 7 ] the leaft obligation to reafon, precept, or experience. One can fcarce ftate thefe opinions without expofing their abfurdity, yet they are conftantly in the mouths of men, and particularly of artifts* They who have thought ferioufly on this fub- jedt, do not carry the point fo far; yet I am perfuaded, that even among thofe few who may be called thinkers, the prevalent opinion gives lefs than it ought to the powers of reafon ; and confiders the principles of tafte, which give all their authority to the rules of art, as more fluctuating, and as having lefs fo- lid foundations, than we fhall find, upon examination, they really have. The common faying, that tajies are not to be difputed, owes its influence, and [ 268 ] and its general reception, to the fame error which leads us to imagine it of too high original to fubmit to the au- thority of an earthly tribunal. It will likewife correfpond with the notions of thofe who confider it as a mere phan- tom of the imagination, fo devoid of fubftance as to elude all, criticifm. We often appear to differ in fenti- ments from each other, merely from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are not obliged to fpeak always with critical exa&nefs. Something of this too may arife from want of words in the lan- guage to exprefs the more nice difcri- minations which a deep inveftigation dif- covers. A great deal however of this dif- ference vanifhes, when each opinion is to- lerably explained and underftood by con- jfancy and precifion in the ufe of terms. Wn [ 269 ] We apply the term Tajle to that adt of the mind by which we like or diflike, whatever be the fubjedh Our judgment upon an airy nothing, a fancy which has no foundation, is called by the fame name which we give to our determination concerning thofe truths which refer to the moft general and moft unalterable principles of human na- ture, to works which are only to be produced by the greateft efforts of the human underftanding. However incon- venient this may be, we are obliged to take words as we find them; all we can do is to diftinguifli the things to which they are applied. We may let pafs thofe things which are at once fubjefts of tafte and fenfe, and which having as much certainty as the fenfes themfelves, give no occafion , to 5 [ 2 7 ° ] to enquiry or difpute. The natural ap- petite or tafte of the human mind is for "Truth ; whether that truth refults from the real agreement or equality of original ideas among themfelves ; from the agreement of the reprefen ration of any object with the thing reprefented; or from the correfpondence of the fe- veral parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the very fame tafte which reliihes a demonftration in geometry, that is pleafed with the refemblance of a pidure to an original, and touched with the harmony of mufic. All thefe have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are there- fore equally inveftigated by reafon, and known by ftudy ; fome with more, fome with lefs clearnefs, but all exadly in the fame way, A pidure that is un- 5 like. C 2 7 l ] like, is falfe. Difproportionate ordon- nance of parts is not right ; becaufe it cannot be true, until it ceafes to be a contradiction to affert, that the parts have no relation to the whole. Colouring is true where it is naturally adapted to the eye, from brightnefs, from foftnefs, from harmony, from refemblance; becaufe thefe agree with their objeCt nature , and there- fore are true j as true as mathematical demonfixation 1 but known to be true only to thofe who ftudy thefe things. But befides real , there is alfo apparent truth, or opinion, or prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the tafte which conforms to it, is, and muft be, uniform. With regard to the fecond fort of truth, which may be called truth upon fufferance, or truth by cour- tefy, it is not fixed, but variable. How- ever, [ 2 7 2 1 ever, whilfc thefe opinions and preju- dices, on which it is founded, continue, they operate as truth ; and the Art, whofe office it is to pleafe the mind, as well as inftrudl it, muft diredt itfelf accord- ing to opinion> or it will not attain its end. In proportion as thefe prejudices are known to be generally diffufed, or long received, the tafte which conforms to them approaches nearer to certainty, and to a fort of refemblance to real fcience, even where opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. And fince they deferve, on account of their du- ration and extent, to be coniidered as really true, they become capable of no final! degree of liability and determi- nation by their permanent and uniform nature. As [ 2 73 1 I As thefe prejudices become more naf* row, more local, more tranfitory, this fecondary tafte becomes more and more fantaftical $ recedes from real fcience; is lefs to be approved by reafon* and lefs followed in practice j though in no cafe perhaps to be wholly negledted, where it does not ftand, as it fometimes does, in diredt defiance of the moft re^ fpedtable opinions received amongfl man^ kind. Having laid down thefe pofitions* I fhall proceed with lefs method, be- caufe lefs will ferve, to explain and apply them. We will take it for granted, that reafon is fomething invariable and fixed in the nature of things ; and without endeavouring to go back to an account T of [ 274 3 of rft principles, which for ever will elude our fearch, we will conclude, that whatever goes under the name of tafte, which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reafon, mu ft be confidered. as equally exempt from change. If there- for^, in the courfe of this enquiry, we can fhew that there are rules for the condud of the artift which are fixed and invariable, it implies of courfe, that the art of the connoiffeur, or, in other words, tafte, has like wife invariable prin- ciples. Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the preference that we give to one clafs of art over another, if a realbn be demanded, the queftion is perhaps evaded by anfwer- ing, I judge from my tafte ; but it does not follow that a better anfwer cannot be [ 2 75 ] be given, though, for common gamers, this may be fufficient. Every man is not obliged to inveftigate the caufes of his approbation or difiike. The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and cafualty, if thofe who are to judge of their excellencies had no fettled principles by which they are to regulate their decifions, and the merit or defed of performances were to be de- termined by unguided fancy. And in- deed we may venture to affert, that whatever fpeculative knowledge is ne~ ceffary to the artifl, is equally and in- difpenfably neceffary to the connoiileur. The firft idea that occurs in the con- fideration of what is fixed in art, or in tafte, is that prefiding principle of which I have fo frequently fpoken in former T a dlf- [ 2 7 6 1 difcourfes, the general idea of nature. The beginning, the middle, and the end of every thing that is valuable in tafte, is comprized in the knowledge of what is truly nature ; for whatever ideas are not conformable to thofe of nature, or univerfal opinion, muft be confidered as more or lefs capricious. The idea of nature comprehending not only the forms which nature pro- duces, but alfo the nature and internal fabric and organization, as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination. General ideas, beauty, or nature, are but different ways of expreffing the fame thing, whether we apply thefe terms to hatues, ' poetry, or picture. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental devi- ation from her accuftomed practice. This general idea therefore ought, to be called Nature, E 2 77 3 Nature, and nothing elfe, correCtly fpeak- ing, has a right to that name. But we are fo far from fpeaking, in com- mon converfation, with any fuch ac- curacy, that, on the contrary, when we criticife Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced into their his- torical pictures exaCt reprefen tations of individual objects with all their imper- fections, we fay, though it is not in a good tafte, yet it is nature. This mifapplication of terms muft be very often perplexing to the young ftu- dent. Is not, he may fay, art an imi- tation of nature ? Muft he not there- fore who imitates her with the greateft fidelity, be the beft artift ? By this mode of reafoning Rembrandt has a higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflection will ferve to fhew us that thefe T 3 par- [ *7 .8 ] particularities cannot be nature : for how can that be the nature of man, in which no two individuals are the fame ? I t plainly appears, that as a work is conducted under the influence of ge- neral ideas, or partial, it is principally to be confidered as the effed of a good or a bad tafte* As beauty therefore does not confift in taking what lies immediately before you, fo neither, in our purfuit of tafte, are thofe opinions which we iirft re- ceived and adopted, the heft choice, or the moft natural to the mind and ima- gination. I n the infancy of our knowledge we feize with greedinefs the good that i$ within our reach ; it is by after-confi- deration. deration, and in conference of difci- pline, that we refufe the prefen t for a greater good at a diftance 0 The nobi- lity or elevation of all arts, like the excellency of virtue itfelf, confifts in adopting this enlarged and comprehen- five idea; and all eriticifm built upon the more confined view of what is na- tural, may properly be called jhallow eriticifm, rather than falfe } its defied is, that the truth is not fufficiently ex- tenfive. * It has fometimes happened, that fame of the greateft men in our art have been betrayed into errors by this confined mode of reafoning. Pouffin, who, upon the whole, may be produced as an in- fiance of attention to the moft enlarged and extenfive ideas of nature, from not having fettled principles on this point, T 4 has [ 2S0 ] has in one inftance at leaft, I think, deferted truth for prejudice. He is faid to have vindicated the conduct of Julio Romano for his inattention to the maffes of light and fhade, or grouping the figures in the battle of Conftantine, as if dehgnedly negledted, the better to correfpond with the hurry and confu- fion of a battle. Pouffin's own conduct in his reprefentations of Bacchanalian triumphs and facrifices, makes us more eafily give credit to this report, fince in fuch fubjedts, as well indeed as in many others, it was too much his own practice. The belt apology we can make for this condudt is what proceeds from the afiociation of our ideas, the pre- judice we have in favour of antiquity, Pouffin’s works, as I have formerly ob- ferved, have very much the air of the antient manner of painting ; in which there [ 28 x ] there is not the leaft traces to make us think that what we call the keeping , the compofition of light and lhade, or difiri- bution of the work into maffes, claimed any part of their attention. But furely whatever apology we may find out for this negledt, it ought to be ranked among the defedts of Poufiin, as well as of the antique paintings ; and the moderns have a right to that praife which is their due, for having given fo pleafing an addition to the fplendor of the art. Perhaps no apology ought to be re- ceived for offences committed againft the vehicle (whether it be the organ of fee- ing, or of hearing) by which our plea- fures are conveyed to the mind. We muft take the fame care that the eye be not perplexed and diftradled by a con- fufion of equal parts, or equal lights, as of of offending it by an unharmonious mix- ture of colours. We may venture to be more confident of the truth of this ob- fervation, fince we find that Shakefpear, on a parallel occafion, has made Hamlet recommend to the players a precept of the fame kind, never to offend the ear by harfh founds : In the very torrent , temp eft and whirlwind of your pajjions , fays he, you muft beget a temperance that may give it fmoothnefs . And yet, at the fame time, he very juftly obferves. The end of playing , both at the firft , and now, is, to hold , as it were , the mirror up to nature . No one can deny, but that violent pafiions will naturally emit harfh and difagreeable tones ; yet this great poet and critic thought that this imi- tation of nature would cofl too much, if pur-chafed at the expence of difagreeable fenfatiojis, or, as he expreffes it, of [ 28 3 ] /flitting the ear . The poet and adtor, as well as the painter of genius who is well acquainted with all the variety and fourcesr of pleafure in the mind and imagination, has little regard or attention to common nature, or creeping after common fenfe. By overleaping thofe narrow bounds, he more effedtually feizes the whole mind, and more powerfully accomplices his purpofe. This fuccefs is ignorantly ima- gined to proceed from inattention to all rules, and in defiance of reafon and judg- ment ; whereas it is in truth a&ing ac- cording to the b eft rules, and the jufteft reafon. He who thinks nature, in the narrow fenfe of the word, is alone to be fob- lowed, will produce but a fcanty enter- tainment for the imagination : every thing is to be done with which it is natural [ 284 ] natural for the mind to be pleafed, whe- ther it proceeds from iimplicity or va- riety, uniformity or irregularity : whether the fcenes are familiar or exotic ; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated; for it is natural for the mind to be pleafed with all thefe in their turn. In fhort, whatever pleafes has in it what is ana- logous to the mind, and is therefore, in the higheft and beft fenfe of the wx>rd, natural. It is this fenfe of nature or truth which ought more particularly to be cul- tivated by the profeffors of art; and it may be obferved, that many wife and learned men, who have accuftomed their minds to admit nothing for truth but what can be proved by mathematical ae- monftration, have feldom any relifh for thofe arts which addrefs themfelves to the [ 285 ] the fancy, the re&itude and truth of which is known by another kind of proof : and we may add, that the ac- quifition of this knowledge requires as much circumfpection and fagacity, as to attain thofe truths which are more open to demonftration. Reafon muft ulti- mately determine our choice on every occafion ; but this reafon may ftill be exerted ineffectually by applying to tafte principles which, though right as far as they go, yet do not reach the objeCt. No man, for inftance, can deny, that it feems at firft view very reafonable, that a ftatue which is to carry down to pofte- rity the refemblance of an individual, fhouid be dreffed in the faihion of the times in the drefs which he himfelf wore : this would certainly be true, if the drefs were part of the man. But after a time, the drefs is only an amufe- 5 ment \ [ 286 ] merit for an antiquarian ; and if it ob* ftrudts the general defign of the piece? it is to be difregarded by the artift. Common fenfe muft here give way to a higher fenfe. In the naked form, and in the difpo- fition of the drapery, the difference be- tween one artiff and another is princi- pally feen. But if he is compelled to the modern drefs, the naked form is entirely hid, and the drapery is already difpofed by the llcill of the taylor. Were a Phidias to obey fuch abfurd commands, he would pleafe no more than an ordinary fculptor ; fince, in the inferior parts of every art, the learned and the ignorant are nearly upon a level. These were probably among the rea- fons that induced the fculptor of that wonder- [ *7 3 wonderful figure of Laocoon to exhibit him naked, notwithstanding he was fur- prifed in the aft of facrificing to Apollo, and confequently ought to be fhewn in his facerdotal habits, if thole greater rea- fons had not preponderated. Art is not yet in fo high eflimation with us, as to obtain fo great a facrifice as the antients made, efpecially the Grecians, who fuf- fered themfelves to be reprefented naked, whether they were generals, lawgivers, or kings. Under this head of balancing and chufing the greater reafon, or of two evils taking the leaft, we may conlider the conduft of Reubens in the Luxem- bourg gallery, of mixing allegorical figures with reprefentations of real per- fonages, which, though acknowledged to be a fault, yet, if the Artift considered himfelf [ 288 ] himfelf as engaged to furnifii this gal- lery with a rich and fplendid ornament, this could not be done, at leaft in an equal degree, without peopleing the air and water with thefe allegorical figures : he therefore accomplifhed all that he purpofed. In this cafe all lefler confi- derations, which tend to obftrud: the great end of the work, muR yield and give way. If it is objected that Rubens judged ill at firR in thinking it neceflary to make his work fo very ornamental, this brings the queRion upon new ground. It was his peculiar Rile ; he could paint in no other ; and he was feledted for that w r ork, probably, becaufe it was his Rile. Nobody will difpute but fome of the befi of the Roman or Bolognian fchools would [ 2^9 1 would have produced a more learned and more noble work. This leads us to another important province of tafte, of weighing the value of the different claffes of the art, and of eftimating them accordingly. All arts have means within them of applying themfelves with fuccefs both to the intellectual and fenfitive part of our natures. It can be no difpute, fuppofing both thefe means put in practice with equal abilities, to which we ought to give the preference ; to him who repre- fents the heroic arts and more dignified paflions of man, or to him who, by the help of meretricious ornaments, however elegant and graceful, captivates the fen- fuality, as it may be called, of our tafte. Thus the Roman and Bplognian fchools U are 0 [ 290 j are reafonably preferred to the Venetian, Flemifh, or Dutch fchools, as they ad- ore fs themfeives to our bed: and nobleft faculties. Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of numbers in poetry, which are in thofe arts what colouring is in painting, however highly we may efteem them, can never be confidered as of equal importance with the art of unfolding truths that are ufeful to mankind, and which make us better or wifer. Nor can thofe works which remind us of the po- verty and meannefs of our nature, be confidered as of equal rank with what excites ideas of grandeur, or raifes and dignifies humanity; or, in the words of a late poet, which makes the beholder learn to venerate himfelf as man ** * Dr. Goldfmith, It [ 291 3 It is reafon and good fenfe therefore Which ranks and eftimates every art, and every part of that art, according to its importance; from the painter of ani- mated, down to inanimated nature. We will not allow a man, who (hall prefer the inferior ftile, to fay it is his tafte % tafte here has nothing, or at leaft ought to have nothing to do with the queftion. He wants not tafte, but fenfe, and found- nefs of judgment. Indeed perfection in an inferior ftile may be reafonably preferred to medio- crity in the higheft walks of art, A landlkip of Claude Lorrain may be pre- ferred to a hiftory of Luca Jordano 3 but hence appears the neceffity of the con- noifleur’s knowing in what confifts the excellency of each clafs, in order to U 2 judge \ [ 2 9 2 ] judge how near it approaches to per- fection. Even in works of the fame kind, as in hiftory painting, which is compofed of various parts, excellence of an in- ferior fpecies, carried to a /very high de- gree, will make a work very valuable, and in forne meafure compenfate for the abfence of the higher kind of merits. It is the duty of the connoiffeur to know and efteem, as much as it may deferve, every part of painting : he will not then think even Baffano unworthy of his no- tice, who, though totally devoid of ex- preffion, fenfe, grace, or elegance, may be efteemed on account of his admirable tafte of colours, which, in his bed: works, are little inferior to thofe of Titian. Since [ 2 93 1 Since I have mentioned Bafiano, we mu ft do him likewife the juftice to ac- knowledge, that though he did not afpire to the dignity of expreffing the characters and paffions of men, yet, with refpedt to the facility and truth in his manner of touching animals of all kinds, and giving them what painters call their characters few have ever excelled him. To Baflano we may add Paul Veronefe and Tintoret, for their entire inattention to what is juftly efleemed the moft ef- fential part of our art, the expreffion of the paffions, Notwithftanding thefe gla- ring deficiencies, we juftly efteem their works ; but it mu ft be remembered, that they do not pleafe from thofe defedls, but from their great excellencies of ano- ther kind, and in fpite of fuch tranf- greflions. Thefe excellencies too, as far u 3 as t I 2 94 3 as they go, are founded in the truth of general nature. They tell the truth , though not the whole truth . By thefe confiderations, which can never be too frequently impreffed, may be obviated two errors which I obferved to have been, formerly at lead, the mod: prevalent, and to be moft injurious to artifts > that of thinking tafte and ge- nius to have nothing to do with reafon* and that of taking particular living ob- iedts for nature. I shall now fay fomething on that part of tafte> which, as I have hinted to you before, does not belong fo much to the external form of things, but is ad- dreffed to the mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to ufe the expreffion, the organization of the foul, I mean the ima- [ 2 95 ] imagination and the paffions, The prin- ciples of thefe are as invariable as the former, and are to be known and rea- foned upon in the fame manner, by an appeal to common fenfe deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This fenfe, and thefe feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally con- clufive. Now this appeal implies a general uni- formity and agreement in the minds of men. It would be elfe an idle and vain endeavour to eftablifh rules of. art; it would be purfiiing a phantom to attempt to move affections with which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no rea- fon to fufpedt there is a greater diffe- rence between our minds than between our forms, of which, though there are no two alike, yet there is a general fimi- U 4 litude [ 2 9 6 3 litude that goes through the whole race of mankind 3 and thofe who have cul- tivated their tafte can diftinguifh what is beautiful or deformed, or, in other words, what agrees or what deviates from the general idea of nature, in one cafe, as well as in the other. The internal fabric of our mind, as well as the external form of our bodies, being nearly uniform 3 it feems then to follow of courfe, that as the imagination is incapable of producing any thing originally of itfelf, and can only vary and combine thefe ideas with which it is furniihed by means of the fenfes, there will be of courfe an agreement in the imaginations as in the fenfes of men. There being this agree- ment, it follows, that in all cafes, in our lighted: amufements, as well as in our [ 297 1 cur moil: ferious a&ions and engagements of life, we mu ft regulate our affections of every kind by that of others. The well-difciplined mind acknowledges this authority, and fubmits its own opinion to the public voice. tf It is from knowing what are the ge- neral feelings and paffions of mankind, that we acquire a true idea of what ima- gination is ; though it appears as if we had nothing to do but to confult our own particular fenfations, and thefe were fufflcient to enfure us from all error and miftake. A knowledge of the difpolition and character of the human mind can be ac- quired only by experience : a great deal will be learned, I admit, by a habit of examining what paffes in our bofoms, what [ 2 98 ] what are our own motives of adlion, and of what kind of fentiments we are confcious on any occafion. We may fuppofe an •uniformity, and conclude that the fame effedt will be produced by the fame caufe in the minds of others. This examina- tion will contribute to fuggefc to us matters of enquiry ^ but we can never be fure that our own fenfations are true and right, till they are confirmed by more extenfive obfervation. One man oppofing another determines nothing ; but a general union of minds, like a general combination of the forces of all mankind, makes a ftrength that is irrefiftibie. In fadt, as he who does not know himfelf does not know others, fo it may be faid with equal truth, that he who does not know others, knows him- felf but very im perfectly. J X A MAN [ 299 ] A man who thinks he is guarding himfelf againft prejudices by refilling the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to Angularity, vanity, felf-conceit, obftinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp the judgment, and pre- vent the natural operation of his 'fa- culties. This fub million to others is a defe- rence which we owe, and indeed are forced involuntarily to pay. In fact, we are never fatisfied with our opinions till they are ratified and confirmed by the fuffrages of the reft of mankind. We difpute and wrangle for ever we endea- vour to get men to come to us, when we do not go to them. He therefore who is acquainted wi tin the works which have plcafed different ages [ 3 °° ] ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on them, has more materials, and more means of knowing what is analogous to the mind of man, than he who is converfant only with the works of his own age or country. What has pleafed, and continues to pleafe, is likely to pleafe again : hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immoveable foundation they rauft ever (land. This fearch and ftudy of the hiftory of the mind ought not to be confined to one art only. Iris by the analogy that one art bears to another, that many things are afcertained, which either were but faintly feen, or, perhaps, would not have been difcovered at all, if the in- ventor had not received the firfl hints from the practices of a filler art on a fimilar [ 3 DI ] limilar occafion *. The frequent allu- ev lions which every man who treats of any art is obliged to draw from others in order to illuftrate and confirm his prin- ciples, fufficiently fliew their near con- nection and infeparable relation. All arts having the fame general end, which is to pleafe, and addrefling them- felves to the fame faculties through the medium of the fenfes, it follows that their rules and principles mu ft have as great affinity as the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which they pafs to the mind, will per- mit them to retain *f\ * Nulla ars, non alterius artis, ant mater, aut propinqua eft. Tertull. as cited by Junius. f Omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent, habent qucddam commune vinculum, et quafi cog- nations inter fe continejitur, Cicero. We [ 3° 2 3 We may therefore conclude, that the real fubftance, as it may be called, of what goes under the name of tafte, is fixed and eftablifhed in the nature of things ; that there are certain and re- gular caufes by which the imagination and paffions of men are affefted s and that the knowledge of thefe caufes is ac- quired by a laborious and diligent in- veftigation of nature, and by the fame flow progrefs as wifdom or knowledge of every kind, however inftantaneous its operations may appear when thus ac- quired. It has been often obferved, that the good and virtuous man alone can acquire this true or juft relifh even of works of art. This opinion will not appear en- tirely without foundation, when we coh- fider that the fame habit of mind which [ 3°3 ] is acquired by our fearch after truth in the more ferious duties of life, is only transferred to the purfuit of lighter amufements. The faixi-e; difpofttion, the fame deiire to find fomething fteady, lubftantial and durable, on which the mind can lean as it were, and reft with fafety. The fuhjeCt only is changed* Wc purfue the fame method in our fearch after the idea of beauty and perfection in each ; of virtue, by looking forwards beyond ourfelves to fociety, and to the whole ; of arts, by extending our views in the fame manner to all ages and all times. Every art, like our own, has in its compolition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive enquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced I by C 3°4 ] by cuflom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things. To diftinguifh how much has folid foundation, we may have recourfe to the fame proof by which feme hold wit ought to be tried •> whether it preferves itfelf when tranflated. That wit is falfe which can fubfift only in one language ; and that picture which pleafes only one age or one nation, owes its reception to fome local or accidental aflociation of ideas. We may apply this to every cuftom and habit of life. Thus the general principles of urbanity, politenefs, or ci- vility, have been ever the fame in all na- tions; t but the mode in which they are drefled is continually varying. The ge- neral idea of Ac wing refpect is by making 7 yourfelf [ 3°5 1 yourfelf lefs ; but the manner, whether by bowing the body, kneeling, proftra- tion, pulling off the upper part of our drefs, or taking away the lower *, is a matter of habit. It would be unjuft to conclude that all ornaments, becaufe they were at firft arbitrarily contrived, are therefore undeferving of our attention ; on the contrary, he who negledts the cultivation of thofe ornaments, adts con- trarily to nature and reafon. As life would be imperfedt without its higheft ornaments the Arts, fo thefe arts them- •felves would be imperfedt without their ornaments. Though we by no means ought to rank thefe with poiitive and fubftantial. Put off thy fhoes from off thy feet ; for the place whereon thou ftandeft is holy ground. Exodus, chap. ill. 5, X beauties, I 3° 6 3 beauties, yet it mu ft be allowed that & knowledge of both is eflentially requifite towards forming a complete, whole and perfect tafte. It is in reality from the ornaments that arts receive their pecu- liar character and complexion ; we may add, that in them we find the charadte- riftical mark of a national tafte, as by throwing up a feather in the air, we know which way the wind blows, better than by a more heavy matter. The ftriking diftindtion between the works of the Roman, Bolognian and Ve- netian fchools, coniifts more in that ge- neral effedt which is produced by colours, than in the more profound excellencies of the art 5 at leaft it is from thence that each is diftinguifhed and known at firft fight. As it is the ornaments, rather than the proportions of architecture, which I t 3 °7 1 which at the firft glance diftinguiih the different orders from each other 5 the Doric is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and the Corinthian by its acanthus. What diflinguilhes oratory from a cold narration, is a more liberal, though chafte ufe of thofe ornaments which go under the name of figurative and meta- phorical expreffions ; and poetry diftin- guifhes itfelf from oratory by words and expreffions flill more ardent and glowing. What feparates and didinguiihes poetry* is more particularly the ornament of verfe : it is this which gives it its cha- racter, and is an effential without which it cannot exifl. Cuftom has appropri- ated different metre to different kinds of compoiition, in which the world is not perfedlly agreed. In England the dif- X 2 pute t 3°8 ] pute is not yet fettled, which is to be preferred, rhyme or blank verfe. But however we difagree about what thefe metrical ornaments fliall be, that fome metre is effen daily neceffary is univerfally acknowledged. In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figurative or metaphorical lan- guage may proceed, and when it begins to be affectation or befide the truth, muff be determined by tafte, though this tafte ■we mu ft never forget is regulated and formed by the prefiding feelings of man- kind, by thofe works which have ap- proved themfelves to all times and all perfons. Thus, though eloquence has un- doubtedly an effential and intrinfic ex- cellence, and immoveable principles com- mon C 3°9 ] mon to all languages, founded in the nature of our paffions and affections ; yet it has its ornaments and modes of addrefs, which are merely arbitrary. What is approved in the eaftern nations as grand and majeftip, would be con- fidered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and inflated ; and they, in return, would be thought by the Orientals to exprefs themfelves in a cold and infipid manner. We may add likewlfe to the credit of ornaments, that it is by their means that art itfelf accomplishes its purpofe. Fref- noy calls colouring, which is one of the chief ornaments of painting, lena fororis 9 that which procures lovers and admirers to the more valuable excellencies of the art. x 3 It t 3 IQ ] It appears to be the fame right turn of mind which enables a man to acquire the truth , or the juft idea of what is right in the ornaments, as in the more liable principles of art. It has ftill the fame centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a fmaller circle. To illuftrate this by the faftiion of drefs, in which there is allowed to be a good or bad tafte. The component parts of drefs are continually changing from great to little, from fhort to long; but the general form ftill remains ; it is ftill the fame general drefs which is compa- ratively fixed, though on a very {lender foundation ; but it is on this which fa- fhion mu ft reft. He who invents with the moil fuccefs, or drefles in the beft tafte, would probably, from the fame fagacity employed to greater purpofes, have [ 3 1 1 ] have difcovered equal fkill, or have formed the fame correct tafle in the higheft labours of art. I have mentioned tafte in drefs, which is certainly one of the loweft fub- je&s to which this word is applied ; yet, as I have before obferved, there is a right even here, however narrow its founda- tion refpeding the fafhion of any parti- cular nation. But we have ftill more fen- der means of determining, in regard to the different cufroms of different ages or countries, to which to give the pre- ference, fince they feem to be all equally removed from nature. If an European, when he has cut off his beard, and put falfe hair on his head, or bound up his own natural hair in re- gular hard knots, as unlike nature as he X 4 can [ 3 12 ] can poffibly make it; and.having rendered them immoveable by the help of the fat of hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a machine with the ixtmoft regularity ; if, when thus attired he ifiiies forth, he meets a Cherokee Indian, who has bellowed as much time at his toilet, and laid on with equal care and attention his yellow and red oker on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as he judges moll becoming; whoever defpifes the other for this attention to the fafliion of his country; whichever of thefe two firft feels himfelf provoked to laugh, is the barbarian. All thefe fafhions are very innocent, neither worth difquifltion, nor any en- deavour to alter them, as the change would, in all probability, be equally diftatit from nature. The only circum- fiances I [ 3 J 3 1 ftances againft which indignation may reafonably be moved, is where the ope- ration is painful or deftrudive of health, fuch as is pradifed at Otahaiti, and the ftrait lacing of the Englifh ladies ; of the laft of which, how deftrudive it mu ft be to health and long life, the profeffor of anatomy took an opportunity of pro- ving a few days iince in this Academy. It is in drefs as in things of greater confequence. Faftiions originate from thofe only who have the high and pow- erful advantages of rank, birth, and for- tune. As many of the ornaments of art, thofe at leaft for which no reafon can be given, are tranfmitted to us, are adopted, and acquire their confequence from the company in which we have been ufed to fee them. As Greece and Rome are the fountains from whence have flowed all kinds <* C 3*4 ]' kinds of excellence, to that veneration v/hich they have a right to claim for the pleafure and knowledge which they have afforded us, we voluntarily add our ap- probation of every ornament and every cuflom that belonged to them, even to the faffiion of their drefs. For it may be obferved that, not fatisfied with them in their own place, we make no difficulty of dreffing ftatues of modern heroes or fenators in the faffiion of the Roman armour or peaceful robe, we go fo far as hardly to bear a ftatue in any other drapery. The figures of the great men of thofe nations have come down to us in fculp- ture. In fculpture remain almofi: all the excellent fpecimens of ancient art. We have fo far affociated perfonal dignity to the perfons thus reprefented, and the i truth t 315 ] truth of art to their manner of repre- fentation, that it is not in our power any longer to feparate them. This is not fo in painting 3 becaufe having no excellent antient portraits, that connexion was never formed. Indeed we could no more venture to paint a general officer in a Roman military habit, than we could make a flatue in the prefent uniform. But iince we have no antient portraits, to fhew how ready we are to adopt thofe kind of prejudices, we make the beft authority among the moderns ferve the fame purpofe. The great variety of ex- cellent portraits with which Vandyke has enriched this nation, we are not content to admire for their real excellence, but extend our approbation even to the drefs which happened to be the fafhion of that age. We all very well remember how common it was a few years ago for por- traits [ 3i6 3* traits to be drawn in this Gothic drefs, and this cuftoin is not yet entirely laid alide, By this means it mud be ac- knowledged very ordinary pidures ac- quired fome thing of the air and effed of the works of Vandyke, and appeared therefore at fird fight to be better pic- tures than they really were ; they ap- peared fo, however, to thofe only who had the paeans of making this affo- elation, . for when made, it was irre- fidible. But this affociation is nature, and refers to that fecondary truth that comes from conformity to general pre- judice and opinion 5 it is therefore not merely fantaftical. Befides the preju- dice which we have in favour of antient dreffes, there may be likewife other rea- fons, amongft which we may judly rank the fimplicity of them, confiding of little more than one Tingle piece of drapery, without [ 3*7 1 without thofe whimiical capricious forms by which all other dreffes are emhar- rafled. Thus, though it is from the preju- dice we have in favour of the antients, who have taught us architecture, that we have adopted likewife their orna- ments ; and though we are fatisiied that neither nature nor reafon are the founda- tion of thofe beauties which we imagine we fee in that art, yet if any one perfuaded of this truth fhould therefore invent new orders of equal beauty, which we will fuppofe to be poffible, yet they would not pleafe, nor ought he to complain, fince the old has that great advantage of having cuftom and prejudice on its fide. In this cafe we leave what has every pre- judice in 'its favour, to take that which will have no advantage over what we have 7 left. [ 3i8 ] left, but novelty, which foon deftroys Itfelf, and at any rate is but a weak an- tagonifl: againft cuftom. These ornaments having the right of pofleflion, ought not to be removed, but to make room for not only what has higher pretenfions, but fuch pretenfions as will balance the evil and confufion which innovation always brings with it. To this we may add, even the dura- bility of the materials will often contri- bute to give a fuperiority to one object over another. Ornaments in buildings, with which tafte is principally con- cerned, are compofed of materials which laft longer than thofe of which drefs is compofed ; it therefore makes " higher pretenfions to our favour and prejudice. Some [ 3*9 ] Some attention is furely required to what we can no more get rid of than we can go out of ourfelves. We are crea- tures of prejudice ; we neither can nor ought to eradicate it j we muft only re- gulate it by reafon, which regulation by reafon is indeed little more than obliging the leffer, the local and temporary pre- judices, to give way to thofe which are more durable and Jailing. He therefore who in his practice of portrait painting wi flies to dignify his fubjedt, which we will fuppofe to be a Lady, will not paint her in the modem drefs, the familiarity of which alone is fufiicient to deftroy all dignity. He stakes care that his work fliall correfbond to thofe ideas and that imagination which he knows will regulate the judgment of others ; and therefore drefles his figure fomething [ 3^0 ] fomething with the general air of the antique for the fake of dignity, and pre- ferves fomething of the modern for the fake of likenefs. By this conduct his works correfpond with thofe prejudices which we have in favour of what we continually fee ; and the reli£h of the antique fimplicity correfponds with what we may call the more learned and fcieii- tific prejudice. There was a ftatue made not long fince of Voltaire, which the fculptor, not having that refpeCt for the prejudices of mankind which he ought to have, has made entirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the original is faid to be. The confequence is what might be ex- pected ; it has remained in the fculptor's fhop, though it was intended as a public ornament and a public honour to Vol- taire, [ 3 21 ] taire, as it was procured at the expence of his cotemporary wits and admirers. Whoever would reform a nation, fuppofing a bad tafte to prevail in it, will not accompli fli his purpofe by go- ing directly againft the ftream of their prejudices. Men's minds muft be pre- pared to receive what is new to them. Reformation is a work of time. A na- tional tafte, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once 5 we muft yield a little to the prepoffeffion which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them, if endeavoured to be introduced by ftorm. When Battiftc Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, Paul Veronefe and Tintoret, to adorn the library of St. Mark, his work, Vafari fays, gave lefs fitisfaction Y than t 3 22 ] than any of the others : the dry manner of the Roman fchool was very ill calcu- lated to pleafe eyes that had been ac- euftomed to the luxuriancy, fplendor and richnefs of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the judges of this work, probably the determination would have been juft contrary ; for in the more noble parts of the art, Battifto Franco was perhaps not inferior to any of his rivals. GENTLEMEN, I t has been the main fcope and principal end of this difcourfe to demonftrate the reality of a ftandard in tafte, as well as in corporeal beauty ; that a falfe or depraved tafte is a thing as well known, as eafily difcovered, as any thing that is deformed, mif-ihapen, or wrong in our form or outward make ; and that this [ 3 2 3 ] this knowledge is derived from the uni- formity of fentiments among mankind* from whence proceeds the knowledge of what are the general habits of nature* the refult of which is an idea of perfedt beauty. * If what has been advanced be true* that belides this beauty or truth* which is formed on the uniform, eternal and immutable laws of nature, and which of neceffity can be but one •> that befides this one immutable verity there are likewife what we have called apparent or fecon- dary truths, proceeding from local and temporary prejudices, fancies, faihions, or accidental connexion of ideas ; if it appears that thefe laft have flill their foundation, however ilender, in the ori- ginal fabric of our minds ; it follows that all thefe truths or beauties deferve Y z and [ 324 ] and require the attention of the artift, in proportion to their liability or dura- tion, or as their influence is more or lefs extenflve. And let me add, that as they ought not to pafs their juft bounds, fo neither do they, in a well-regulated tafte, at all prevent or weaken the influence of thefe general principles, which alone can give to art its true and permanent dignity* To form this juft tafte is undoubtedly in your own power, but it is to reafon and philofophy that you mu ft have re- course ; from them we muft borrow the balance by which is to be weighed and eftimated the value of every pretenfion that intrudes itfelf on your notice. The general objection which is made to the introduction of Philofophy into the S [ 3 2 5 1 the regions of tafte, is, that it checks and reftrains the flights of the imagina- tion, and gives that timidity which an over careful nefs not to err or adt con- trary to reafon is likely to produce. It is not fo. Fear is neither reafon nor philofophy. The true fpirit of phi- lofophy, by giving knowledge, gives a manly confidence, and fubllitutes ra- tional firmnefs in the place of vain pre- fumption. A man of real tafte is always a man of judgment in other refpedls ; and thofe inventions which either dif- dain or fhrink from reafon, are generally, I fear, more like the dreams of a diftem- pered brain than the exalted enthufiafm of a found and true genius. In the midft of the higheft flights of fancy or Imagination, reafon ought to prefide from firft to laft, though I admit her more powerful operation is upon reflexion. I CAN- [ 3^6 ] I cannot help adding, that fome of the greateft names of antiquity, and thofe who have moft diftinguilhed themfelves in works of genius and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical {kill. Plato, Ariftotle, Cicero and Ho- race ; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille, Pope and Dryden, are at lealt inftances of genius not being deftroyed by attention or fubjedtion to rules and fcience, I fhould hope therefore, that the natural confequence likewife of what has been faid, would be to excite in you a delire of knowing the principles and condudt of the great mailers of our art, and refpedt and veneration for them when known. FINIS. BOOKS Printed for and Sold by T. Cadell, in the Strand. T HE Hiftory of England, from the Invalion of Julius Casfar to the Revolution. A new Edi- tion, printed on fine Paper, with many Corrections and Additions ; and a complete Index. 8 Vols. Royal Paper. 7I. 7s. Another Edition on fmall Paper. 4I. 30s. The Hillary of Great Britain, from the Reflora- tion to the Acceffion of the Houfe of Hanover. By James Macpherfon, Efq; the 2d Edition; 2 Vols. with a Head of the Author. 2I. 5s. 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