Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/courseoflecturesOOcrai •Vf Sy LtmffTnan.ffurft. tPrrfu A‘2r>m'n. jo'2J . J ^ .1 '//.//a . /) V COURSE OF LECTURES ON DRAWING, PAINTING, AN’O ENGRAVING, CONSIDERED AS BRANCHES OF ELEGANT EDUCATION DELIVERED IN THE SALOON OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, IN SUCCESSIVE SEASONS, AND READ SUBSEQUENTLY AT THE RUSSELL INSTITUTION, By W. M. CRAIG, PAINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF YORK. LONDON : PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REE.S, ORME, AND BROWN, I'ATEKNOSTEll-ROW. 1821 ! Co-; K ' c$ London : Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoodc, New-Street- Square. TO THE MANAGERS, PROPRIETORS, AND SUBSCRIBERS, TO THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. MY LORDS, LADIES, AND GENT[>EMEN, The honour you did me by an unceasing and profound attention, during the deli- very of those Lectures on Art which I was requested to prepare for you, will ever hold a gratifying place in my me- mory. The solicitations of many that I A 3 IV would publish them, encreased greatly the honour conferred upon me, and I have determined to yield to such wishes. The substance of my Lectures for nine sea- sons, are here consolidated and arranged ; and I beg to ask for my publication, your kind and generous patronage, being. My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, Your very obedient and devoted servant, W. M. CRAIG. 12-t. Oxford Street, Januanj 1. 1822. INTRODUCTION. It has been frequently remarked, that scientific men write on their respective subjects, as if they were addressing each other only, and that their style is, in con- sequence, too technical or too elevated for those who wish to learn. But the duty which devolved upon me, of delivering a course of lectures to a mixed, though en- lightened auditory, rendered circumspec- tion upon this point exceedingly important. I had to address many who were already practitioners in elegant arts, yet who might VI INTRODUCTION. not have gone deeply into their principles; I had to make myself intelligible to others who had, probably, never before thought on such subjects, and who might, perhaps, be inclined to adopt them amongst the number of their pursuits, by an apparent facility in understanding ; and in addition, I had to soothe my hearers, in order to in- duce them to remain with me to the end. If in my endeavours for the attainment of these objects, I have been too familiar, it is an error on the side of usefulness ; if I have sometimes been too florid, I trust it has not been at the expence of elegance. My mind was from the first most power- fully impressed with the important con- sequences that might result, from leading such an audience to examine and imbibe, the principles on which all the practices of imitative art ought to be conducted. INTRODUCTION. vii Patronage is the proper nutriment of arts, but it should be patronage founded on solid common sense, and on feelings refined by contemplation ; or, like dele- terious food, it will excite bad habits, and unwholesome usages, in those who receive it. He, therefore, who endeavours on such subjects, to form the judgments of those, who by their rank or opulence, are destined to be the patrons of imitative art, is essentially serving its professors, he is rendering an important benefit to the country. An artist may labour for years, and without ceasing to produce works of real excellence j but it is all in vain, unless he find persons qualified to appreciate his powers ; and, on the other hand, when youthful talent begins to show its dawn- ings, the well-informed patron may greatly assist to guide and direct its course, till it arrive at meridian splendour. Vlll INTRODUCTION. These considerations led me to under- take reading a course of lectures at the Royal Institution, as was suggested to me by a distinguished nobleman, then one of the committee of managers. The suc- cess which appeared to attend my endea- vour in nine following seasons of that es- tablishment, induced me to extend the same benefit to all who may wish for it by a printed publication of those lectures. If I should be regarded by some as the advocate of a mode, respecting which there are conflicting opinions, I beg to say, that I have not become so, without first giving a most serious and devoted attention to the subject, nor without of- fering indisputable facts and demonstra- tions, as to the truth of what I have thought it my duty to assert. INTRODUCTION. IX I beg to recommend the perusal of this work to mj brother professors, though it is written principally for the information of a different class of persons, because I believe it will give them some new ideas and principles, and from other principles, which are not new to them, it will draw inferences that have probably not pre- sented themselves before. I strongly advise my brethren, to encourage the practical study of these arts, amongst the opulent dilettanti of our country, for the reasons which I have stated already, and because their superiority in general edu- cation will soon requite the professors with superabundant assistance, in the results of contemplation and knowledge. «if|; fiWirnq ')«’J {)norrjfi(oooi oi ^ . Jf/fk'jr/oHj , 8 ’JOa«j'iloKj -I'jilio’ul oj iliov/ {.ftoilBitnoldi oil) 'ioi vjhujbf 9«f/f^:xe}vi ”^o 4ff v: JBih jj i*> '.HBohi wdti offioa rnofjJ 0/1^ jli’w Jl ovoilofii'i(| ipitio mo A f>rir. sRolqioniijj L»nn v/mb ffiv.” .ti ^nioiii oJ vfL>ti ioii j'lu v ' 1 ‘ ' * r- ’ -3'K|; i(^(i vl(jBdo‘if| ovari JBfli ' I,/ feovloarcioil) , hoin>-. 3flJ f;g/i-njoonj Qj tfiTuboicI vrrr oar/bi; iagnofrui orsiU *^o ybu)?. InoiJoR'iq "oiif iot - 4 V,'iJ'mjOd ido^o Uvu>\V>V\\) JfKgajqo , * ‘ ■■ , «.■ ft ■ ••* •■ • 1 ’ ... ■ ■ ^ -ub> birjnjg fd, , 7 .U'(pi iotjua ii'jcij aa;isorxl * ' afoRadto’Kj iJcij pJidpo'i iiopa Iliv/ froiJja'j . '' oat (ib ,ooiiokia^n i»ir.bnJKl;no(jiJ 8 dtivr .oj^iiOlwpud buB alluao'r * •k' •’ € London. lUHcsfud hy Longman. Kursl.Jtees.Orme ScBrown.hm • H *• > a /• * ^ 1 > ^ -V . m Tiat4 2 r * ' ■ I - V Tlate 3 . Z<>ndan. TuMCsfud by Zonoman. Ifurst, Omu: ir 3rown. jysj . FLaZe ^ . Zan 4 ^n. Tuilisfud fy tonffTnan, Karst, Rits. Orme t'Brown. 2 Ll'XTURE I. .5 after half a century of sanguinary warfare, during which we monopolized the com- merce of the world, we shall have to contend with the revived commercial ta- lents of foreign nations ; and it, therefore, becomes a serious duty to every one amongst us, to examine what is the state of arts, and what may conduce most effec- tually to the improvement of that state. In such case, every one must do his part, and he must, and will do it, yea, zealous- ly and faithfully, if he loves his country. That which I undertake, is to discuss be- fore you the principles and practices of of drawing, painting, and engraving, so far as you are likely to engage in them, that you may qualify yourselves to be- come the judicious patrons of such as ex- ercise those arts for their subsistence, and for the glory of their native land. B 3 6 LECTURE I. The plan I propose for this morning’s lecture, is to give you a brief history of the three arts, with a view to point out, comparatively, their present state. I shall proceed, in my subsequent dis- courses, to examine the fundamental prin- ciples which each of them has in common with the others ; to distinguish the prin- ciples that are appropriate to each ; and from all these^ to deduce such rules for practice, as shall lead, if rightly pursued, to the best results that have been obtain- ed, by the most eminent practitioners, u}) to the present time. • In this pursuit, I shall be led to examine the mental quali- fications that are necessary to the profes- sors of each art, in order to ensure success. 1 shall be led to point out, what appear' to me, the mistakes of some, and the misrepresentations ol others on these LECTURE I. 7 subjects ; I shall be led, inevitably, to point out the great advantages which arise from the cultivation of these arts to the individuals who study them, to the na- tions which take them under their most solemn protection. I shall begin with Drawing, as the first in priority of existence, as the first ele- ment of the other two. Drawing, strictly speaking, is the art of representing objects by lines, which describe their contours or dimensions. It may be taken from the simple meaning of the word to draw, to pull out, or to produce in a line. The first drawings of the old masters were conso- nant to this idea, being nothing but a few lines made with a pen, or other pointed implement, to express the first concep- tions of their minds on any subject. Thus, then, our verb, to draw, coincides a 4 8 LECTURE I. with the strict signification of the Italian verb, “ desegnare,” and of the corre- sponding French verb, “ dessiner that is, to express the first sentiment, or idea, of the mind, which must be of forms only. But the French, in many things the most licentious of nations, and, in this instance, the English thoughtlessly imitating them, have allowed a latitude to this term, which extends it greatly beyond its ori- ginal and proper signification. The meaning of words, it cannot be denied, is a matter of custom and general consent ; yet if we were to fall without effort at resistance, into every deviation that can be made from first meanings, language would soon lose its standard and utility, by becoming unintelligible, except in very small circles. We will, therefore, attempt a compromise on the present oc- LECTURE I. 9 casion, allowing as much as may be con- sistently allowed, to the licence of modern diction. Drawing, then, under this allow- ance, is the art of expressing the forms of natural objects by lines, with such additional aids from crayons, water-co- lours, or other materials, as tend to complete the indications of forms, with- out intending perfect resemblance. This is tlie ground on which the term, drawing, must stand, as applied to the present times ; but, when treading on the classical ground of antiquity, we must limit it to its first signification ; which the Italians have preserved to this day. That drawing was practised before painting, or the use of colours, might be admitted, from its extreme probability, were there no facts to support the opi- nion ; but it appears, from various autho- 10 LECTURE 1. rities, that the expressing or representing objects by lines, is of the higliest anti- qnity. That tlie earliest attempts of the Greeks were mere outlines, is certain, though learned authors differ as to the first prac- titioner ; and that even at the time when their painting was said to be at its highest perfection, they considered drawing, or outline, as the most essential quality, is evident from the anecdote given by Pliny of the visit paid by Apelles to Protogencs at Rhodes. The narrator, himself, de- clares to have seen the canvass on which this trial of skill took place, and describes it as exhibiting nothing more than a few simple lines. When the arts began to revive in Italy, the practice of painting, if it may properly be so called at that time, consisted of little more than out- LF.CTURE I. 11 line. * Colours, it is true, were given to the masses of objects ; but the outline was always most laboriously preserved by narrow shadows passing along its pro- gress, and following its inflections. This manner is observable, also, at a later period, in the pictures of the Bellini, of Perugino, of Andrea del Sarto, and even in the early pictures of the incomparable Raphael Sanzio da Urbino. All these masters, too, made drawings of their first * When Giotto, the pupil of Ciniabue, was applied to for the purpose of getting liim to paint for the then reigning pope, the emissaries employed on the occasion, questioned him as to his skill, requiring a specimen. He immediately drew a perfect circle with one motion of his hand, by which they were satisfied, and engaged him. This is a fair elucidation of the contest of manual dexterity between Apelles and Protogenes, which Plogarth and others have endeavoured to swell into a discussion of abstract principle. 1^2 LECTURE I. thoughts, generally with a pen, previous to any attempt to paint a subject ; and even the large studies in distemper, which they made on combined sheets * of pa- per, for their fresco pictures, may be, with few exceptions, considered as draw- ings ; for in most of them the outline predominates, and is the first thing that strikes the eye. It has been subsequently the practice of almost every great master to accustom himself to drawing, as the proper means to acquire the true know- ledge of forms. The portfolios of the dilletanti in this country, are filled with genuine specimens of this kind, by the hands of those whose finished works we reverence ; but their several manners of process are not all suited for your adop- * They are called cartoons, from cartone, a large paper, the Ilaliaji aiigmenlalive of carta, paper. i.EcruKi-: 1. 1.3 tion ; of such as I conceive most eligible, I shall, on a future morning, offer you examples. In Britain, the practice of drawing seems to have been introduced very early, though it was probably confined to the monks, who, for many centuries, were al- most the sole possessors and preservers of every kind of knowledge. The library of the British Museum has a curious folio volume, embellished with figures and other devices, executed in the reign of the great Alfred : the figures are in general faintly tinted with transparent water colours ; but the outline, which gives all the character and expression they have, is drawn very thick and dark with a pen. From that time, the prac- tice of drawing seems to have disap- peared in Britain, with few exceptions, 14 l.KC'l'UHE 1. till the beginning of the last century. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, how- ever, we learn that Zucchero made two drawings in Indian ink, after ’^Holbein, which are now in the collection of the Honorable Mrs. Darner j and these might probably have led to the use of that material as a pigment, since become so general. The time allotted to this lecture does not permit me to notice the draw- ings of Hayman, and some others, which were produced a century or more after the period I have just mentioned : they are humble copies of the then prevailing style of the French school, which was, at best, but a bad imitation of the manner of Carlo Maratti, by no means the most eminent of Italian painters. I pass these over, because ! must hasten to notice the mode of drawing adopted and brought LECTURE I. 15 into activity, nearly sixty years ago, by Mr. Sandby. In this process, the objects were all drawn and strongly characterised with a pen and Indian ink, the shadows faintly inserted with the same material, and the objects then thinly washed over with indications of their local colours. The outline of the pen was always left evident, as the cause of expression ; and Mr. Sandby, in the precision and correct- ness of his enlightened mind, denominated this manner tinted drawing, because of the tints that were added to the outline. But as the utmost stretch of this process led to nothing more than what should be called a sketch, succeeding artists made additions to it, abandoning evident out- line for the increasing force of darker shadows and more powerful colours than had been admitted before, till the result Ui LK(’TUKE 1. lias at last astonished and delighted cverv one. But the raj)id advance, so recently made, has not allowed the public time to distinguish the necessity of applying the proper denomination to this new style. Because drawings have, .in the last two centuries, been almost universally exe- cuted on paper, and because Mr. Sand- by’s ingenuity has led gradually to the most vigorous use of water colours on the same kind of surface, it lias become a very general custom to call every thing drawing that is performed on paper with those materials, though the same persons who thus misuse the term, scruple not to apply the word jjainting to the very same process when exercised on ivory or on vellum. Let us, then, in order to avoid this error, let us keep in mind, that drawing, in its proper signification. LECTURE I. 17 means the art of representing the forms of objects by lines ; and, in its utmost lati- tude, can signify no more than the repre- sentation of objects by lines, with such additions from water colours, crayons, or other materials, as serve to complete the indication of forms, without aiming at complete imitation or deception. Painting, the most difficult, the most comprehensive, and most sublime of all arts, is that of representing the true ap- pearance of natural or possible objects by colours. The endeavour to ascertain when the art of painting was invented, or where it was first practised, is more likely to gratify the eagerness of the antiquary, to whose province it belongs, than to give information that would promote the im- provement of the art in future. As such, it is not my wish to give you more than c 18 LECTURE I. a cursory view of this part of my subject, such as it results to my mind from a com- parison of the best authorities I have been able to collect respecting it. It seems more than probable, that the existence of sculpture, even in round figures, was an- terior to that of painting ; because, as man’s disposition is decidedly imitative, it would rather occur to him to represent round objects in their real dimensions, by labour, on some practicable material that might give equal rotundity, than to at- tempt it by the display of lines and colours on a flat surface. This opinion is authorised by the fact of some rude kind of sculpture being exercised amongst the most uncivil- ised islanders of the South Sea, where the use of lines or colours appeared to be totally unknown. But the practice of sculpture may be traced, with great ap- LECTURE I. pearance of probability, to a very eariy period in the antediluvian world j and the practice of painting, if we would suffer ourselves to be misled by some learned writers, who allow too great latitude to the term picture^ might be carried up to the time of Enos, the son of Seth, and grandson of Adam. He, as learned rab- bins maintain, seeing the descendants of Cain devote themselves to idolatry, endeavoured to lead them back to the true worship by representations on tlie sides of the altars, of figures of animals and other natural objects, to which he attached certain mystical significations j and thus, while the eye was amused, took occasion to inculcate, from the figures, the most sublime doctrine. It will how- ever appear, I think, on a candid investi- gation, that the term picture was originally c 2 20 LECTURE I. employed to describe all representations of objects on a flat surface, and that the works of Enos, to which I have just al- luded, were a species of outlines sculp- tured on some plain material, and after- wards filled up with colour. This seems to have been a very general practice amongst the tribes who composed the first kingdoms of the world, as there are traces of it to be found in almost every history ; but we come to something like a dawn of light on the subject of painting, in looking on the fact, that the children of Israel, in their long journey through the wilderness, had an ensign or standard, distinguished with appropriate figures, car- ried before each tribe. It is true these figures, in their various colours, might be worked in embroidery ; but even that, to my mind, implies the previous existence LECTURE I. 21 of some species of painting, which remark may also be applied to the beautiful tapes- try which Homer describes to have been wrought by the fair hand of the bewitch- ing Helen : for, even in these times, when mechanic arts are carried to a degree of perfection unknown before, all tapestry is executed from a coloured or painted pat- tern. Leaving, however, the field of con- jecture and mere probability, we arrive at a fixed point to rest on, — though gloomy be the situation, — it is in the catacombs and sepulchres of the ancient Egyptians. The early inhabitants of that country had a practice of painting, in curious devices and figures, the coffins destined for the dead : many of these were not only painted and finished in various colours, but were also partially gilt j and all this, by means BO durable, as to continue uninjured down c 3 iECTtjRE i. 22 to mocletn times. That these were of great antiquity, cannot be doubted ; for nothing of the kind is likely to have be6li |)erformed there after the expeditibii of Cambyses into Egypt, who, according to HerddotuS, enforced the adoptioH of his own manners and customs ; to effect which mote completely, he put to dedth th'e Alible priesthood of the conquered fcdiihtry. We turn, tlifen, oiit ah:fcioiis eybs to the Greeks, who borrowed 'most bf their arH frbm Egypt, and we firtd that the first Who li^d any claims to the title ’of painter was Cleophantiis bf Corinth : he filled up the spaces inclosed by the outlines, which were generally made be- fore, with one colour. Further ad- vances were soon afterwards made by Cimon the Cleonoean, who added to the flat colour of his predecessors, a few lines LECTURE I. 23 to express the joints of the limbs and the appearance of folds in the draperies. In what century of the world these masters lived, is not at this time known ; but we learn that, about the year 750 before Christ, the paintings of the Greeks were in such estimation that Candaules, king of Lydia, gave its weight in gold for one painted by Bularchus. From this time, during a period of more than four hun- dred years, the art continued to improve under the guidance of a succession of masters down to the time of Apelles, in whom the painting of the Greeks seems to have reached its highest point of ex- cellence. In the last seventy or eighty years of this time, we find all the names of those great masters whom Pliny, and afterwards Pausanias, extolled to the ut- most extent of the powers of language, as c 4 24 LECTURE L having produced works truly incompar- able, and even miraculous. These writers, however, almost the only authorities we have on which to form an opinion of Grecian painting, these writers acquaint us, that the highly celebrated Zeuxis was generally censured for making the heads and the joints of his figures too large, as well as for not being able to give the pro- per expression and deportment to his personages ; and that Aristides, who lived contemporary with Apelles, the prince of painterSi was the first artist who found a way to express the passions of the mind in the countenances of his figures. I wish to impress these facts upon your mind, as data from which, in another lecture, we shall have occasion to draw very important conclusions. It is not necessary that I should trouble LECTURE I. 35 you with a list of artists, generally inferior, who succeeded those I have mentioned j the most worthy will be separately spoken of, most probably, hereafter, where their particular merits apply to the points in discussion. I wish at present, in this brief history, merely to bring in review before you such leading events as influ- enced the destinies of the art. The dis- sensions and quarrels which took place amongst the successors of Alexander the Great, were unfavourable to the advance- ment of painting, and finally contributed to transfer the mysteries and practices of the Greeks, in this art, to the proud capi- tal of the Roman empire ; for, after Paulus ^milius had overcome Perseus, king of Macedon, he desired the Athe- nians to send him a skilful painter to adorn his triumph, and they unanimously 26 LECTURE I. chose Metrodorus for this employment, as the most celebrated artist of his time. Rome, soon after this period^ produced some eminent paintefs, natives of hef own Soil ; ahd there can be no doubt that, Under the first emperors, the art flourished in a high degree ; for it was thought so hOhourable an employment, that several of those masters of the world took delight, as We are told, in practising it, and even e!xcelled beyond many of their professors. The tyrannies, the revolutions, the mas*- sacteS, which marked the decline of the Roman empire, were fatal to the progress of taste in letters and in the arts ; and the clouds of northern barbarism, which col- lected in succession over the venerated seats of learning and refinement, over the whole extent of the civilised world, formed a chaotic darkness, which the searching LECttiRE i. eye of history has not always been able to penetrate. The faint traces of intellectual intelligence, of any kind, discoverable in this gloom of ages, are but like the thin gliosts that glide at midnight round the receptacles of the dead, making the deso- lation more dismal. It is difficult to look on this change of the character of a great empire, from the most rehneci, the most learned, and the most voluptuous, to a state of tlie niost savage barbarism, without making serious reflections on the nature and history of man, as it furnishes a kibje’cl of deep in- vestigation to the moralist, as it exhibits an awful lesson to the rulers of kingdoms : but such reflections come not properly within the province of a lecturer on imita- tive art. The first dawn of light that beams on the history of painting, kfter tliis long 28 LECTURE I. obscurity, is in the contest between the emperors and the popes, whether pictures should or should not be admitted in churches and other places of worship. In the course of this dispute. Pope Paul the First, countenanced by the empress Irene, called together the second council of Nice, which decreed that pictures may be intro- duced in such places, and ordered the restoration of all such as had been pulled down by order of the emperor Leo Isau- rus. Some of the distinctions, on this subject, made by so learned an assembly, are exceedingly curious, and may possibly be mentioned hereafter in a lecture to which they more properly belong; but I must state to you, at present, that the general result of these discussions was to adopt painting as the same kind of auxili- ary to the Catholic religion which sculp- LECTURE I. 29 ture had been, for many ages before, to the worship of Pagan deities. The paintings, if such they should be called, of this period, and even for a long time afterwards, were all executed by Greek artists, who travel- led to different parts of Europe, when required, to exercise their calling round the altars of the true God. There is much reason to believe that these itinerant workmen had a certain set of designs, or rather patterns, handed down from gener- ation to generation, Ifom which they never ventured to deviate even in a single line. They were doubtless mcli as we see, though smaller, in the worst of the painted missals which now remain to us, and were probably much inferior to the paintings of the Chinese of this time. They were little more than flat masses of glaring colours, divided into shapes by so LECTURE I. strong lines, and were very frequently heightened on each colour with gilding. This was the state of painting in the mid- dle of the thirteenth century, when the city of Florence had the honour of giving birth to one who raised this sublime art from its degraded, mechanical state, by recurring to its true object, which is na- ture^ and he is very properly called the father of modern painting. Cimabue was of noble parents, and, being destined by them for one of the learned professions, as they are called, he received, in conse- quence, such an education as falls to the lot of few painters in these times, but which, no doubt, most powerfully aided his efforts, when allowed to indulge the prevailmg disposition of his mind, that had early manifested itself in favour of painting. He is said to have been the LECTURE I. SX inventor of painting in fresco, which he applied to decorate the outsides of houses and other buildings ; though I am inclined to think him not entitled to the praise of this discovery, for he received his know- ledge of the process of painting from some Greeks that were then employed at Flo- rence in decorating the church of Santa Maria Novella, who doubtless possessed amongst them, by regular descent, the secrets of ancient art with regard to ma- terials, though they had lost every par- ticle of the science which had before so nobly employed them. That painting in fresco was known to the ancients, I can- not hesitate to believe ; for the pictures of the Greeks were frequently executed, and, to remain in open places, exposed to the weather ; and we find that, in the reign of Augustus Caesar, one Ludius, 32 LECTURE 1. the reputed inventor of landscape paint- ing, executed various kinds of landscape scenery on the fronts of public buildings, for which purpose the nature of distemper colours, commonly used by the ancients, would have been highly improper. In fur- ther corroboration of this opinion, I have to state to you, that some of the ancient paintings, lately dug up from the ruins of Herculaneum, appear to be executed in fresco. But, returning from this digres- sion, we see the practice of painting im- proving by the exertions of successive practitioners, who pursued the path which Cimabue had pointed out, down to the time of Raphael, Corregio, and Titian, who collectively displayed, in a pre-emi- nent degree, every excellence of which this art is capable. That painting, at this period, was in a higher state of improve- LECTURE I. S3 ment than it had ever been before, I dare venture to affirm, without the fear of misleading you, though not without the risk of contradiction ; that this highly im- proved state of painting has never since been equalled, is not now denied by any one. On these points, however, I shall have occasion to speak more fully on some other morning. It is highly important, in the history of this art, to observe, that, in the time of those three great men, the practice of painting in oil colours became general, and gave to the artist some ad- vantages which he did not possess before. What was the real amount of these ad- vantao'es, must remain for future discus- sion, in a comparison of the process of painting in oil with that of painting in water-colours, as at present understood : it is a subject of very serious and im- D 34 LECTURE I. portant enquiry. From the time of Ra- phael, the art appears to have declined ; grandeur of conception, in one school, gave way to splendour of colouring ; truth of imitation, in another, made room for affected grandeur ; and the broad simpli- city, and tender outline of Corregio, dis- appeared almost every where. It is true, the declining art found a prop in the ex- ertions of the Carracci, who apj)ear great in comparison with their contemporaries, though inferior to the masters who adorned the century before them ; yet their efforts, as well as those of Reubens and Vandyke, were unavailing; and this splendid art, which was born in Greece, and regenerated in Italy, made its last struggles for continued existence in Hol- land or in England. The practice of the French painters, during any part of this LECTURE I. 35 period, I count for nothing, as they had no influence on the progress of the art : they are too insigniflcant to be mentioned in so brief a history. This dignified, this sublime art, which had hitherto been employed in recording the miracles or the sufferings of the incarnate Divinity, and which might have recovered the tem- porary depression, was stopped short in its dazzling career by the influence of puritanic fanaticism, and forced to exert its best energies in feeding the personal vanity, as it has been called, or in decorat- ing the apartments of the wealthy or the ostentatious. The inducement was thence- forth of a sordid nature, unlike the glowing enthusiasm which operated be- fore, and the direful consequences to the art were soon manifested in its decline to a state of comparative decrepitude. D 2 3d LECTURE 1. The establishment of a national school, in the capital of these kingdoms, has opened a fair prospect for a second revival of painting ; the benevolent and foster- ing care of majesty, has aided the under- taking ; and the wealth ol’ a generous and enlightened public, has been freely poured forth to second the glorious example. ^Vhat further remains for this generous public to do, towards a consummation so devoutly to be wished, it will be my duty humbly to suggest, as the occasions may arise, in the course of these lectures. The unanimous and vigorous exertions of the professors, will then only be want- ing to place the British school of paint- ing in a rank not inferior to that of any school which has yet existed in other countries. By engraving, i would be understood LECTURE I. 37 to signify that art of representing natural objects, the ultimate purpose of which is to transfer the labour of the artist to paper, or some other material, by means of pres- sure. It is performed by incision, and the medium of transfer is delivered some- times from the cavities, and sometimes from the projecting surface. Ingenious or learned men may allow a greater ex- tent to the term, in order to show their erudition, or to give a seeming value to the art by reputed antiquity ; but the ge- neral understanding of the word engrav- ing, is what I wish to meet, and not to confound it with what more properly be- longs to sculpture. At what period this art was first prac- tised is not certain : Vasari gives the first discovery to Fineguerra, a Florentine goldsmith, in the year 1460. It had D 3 38 LECTURE I. long been a practice to engrave orna- mental devices of various kinds, on pieces of plate, and also on clasps of gold and silver, for the purpose of filling the cavities with enamel, or with a different coloured metal ; and it was usual to take casts of these in earth, or in melted sul- phur, to ascertain the progress of the work, and its fitness for the purpose in- tended. Fineguerra observed on these occasions, that the parts of the cast which came out of the incisions were disco- loured and dark, and he conceived from it the possibility of taking similar impres- sions with paper. He tried, therefore, with a plate of silver, which he engraved, and to which he probably applied some additional means of colourino; the cavities. On this he laid a moist paper, and rubbed it over for some time with a LECTURE L 39 roller; so that, on taking the paper off the silver plate, it was not only embossed, but the lines appeared black, as if drawn with a pen. Such is the account given by Vasari, whose text, on the occasion, is not very perspicuous. Whether, in this case, he acted from the partiality which every man feels to the glory of his own country, or whether his knowledge on the subject was limited, we cannot now determine ; but certain it is, that we have impressions on paper, from a plate of some kind of metal, engraved in Ger- many or Flanders, in the same year which is fixed on by Vasari for the dis- covery supposed to be made by the Flo- rentine goldsmith ; and, when we consider that the practice of painting in oils, sup- posed to be invented in Holland by Van- eych, was more than forty years travelling D 4 40 LECTURE I. into Italy, we can scarcely suppose the other art should have passed over the same distance in less than as many weeks. The success of Fineguerra, induced Bal- dini, another goldsmith of the same city, to make further experiments, in which he also succeeded ; but being himself no draftsman, he procured assistance from Sandro Botticelli, whose designs he ge- nerally engraved, thus laying the first foundation for connecting the painter’s and the engraver’s arts. Polaiolo, a cele- brated anatomical draftsman of the same period, executed some plates that display a considerable improvement in the prac- tice of engraving, and which excited the attention of Andrea Mantegna, an ingeni- ous painter, then at Rome, who applied himself seriously to the new art, for the purpose of engraving his own designs. LECTURE I. 41 He carried the practice of engraving so much further than his predecessors, as to have obtained a great part of the praise which belongs to the first discovery : his plates of the triumphs of Julius Caesar, were, probably, the first engravings that were generally circulated. Germany, at the same time, produced very able com- petitors to Mantegna, in Israel Martin and II Tedesco, whose works were exe- cuted with great attention and labour, but whose greatest praise is that they communicated the practice of their art to the justly celebrated Albert Durer, to Aldegrave, and to Lucas Van Leyden, who soon became more eminent than their masters. The mind of Albert Durer seems to have been formed for the execu- tion of great designs in art, and had it not been restrained and shackled, by the 42 LECTURE I. stiff, and, as it is called. Gothic style, which at that time pervaded all the north- ern schools of painting, he might, proba- bly, have proved a powerful rival to the most eminent, in either profession. His engravings in copper are characterised by a degree of precision and truth, which is astonishing at this day, wlien every possi- ble trick in art is adopted to conceal a want of finishing ; but the labour and time they required to execute them^ proved a fatiguing restraint on Durer’s productive mind, and he took to engraving his de- signs on wood, in which mode he was, probably, the first who produced any thing worth looking on. Some of these latter performances being exposed for sale at Venice, were seen by jMark Antonio Rai- mondi, who thence resolved to make en- graving his pursuit ; and, being after- LECTURE I. 43 wards chiefly employed in engraving the works of the incomparable Raphael Sanzio, became the greatest artist of his time in that profession. It ought not, however, to be said, that he possessed higher mechan- ical powers, as an engraver, than were possessed by Durer; but having con- stantly before his eyes, as sole objects of his study, the magical and fascinating works of so sublime a painter, the spirit of his original was necessarily transfused through his mind into the copper, which thence speaks a language that it could never have derived from Mark Antonio’s unassisted efforts. From this time, the art of engraving gradually extended itself to every part of civilised Europe ; and sometimes one, and sometimes another country, could boast of the most success- ful practitioners ; but in all countries, and 44 LECTURE I. in the works of all engravers, for a century and a half, this characteristic feature is observable, that, whatever picture or drawing, or other original, were the ob- ject of imitation, the engraver copied only the outline of his model, and a dis- tinction of the different surfaces into actual light and actual shadow, never thinking to express those degrees of dark and light which arise from difference of local colour, or from recession in distance. It remained for a person of high birth to stimulate the professors of engraving to a FURTHER exertion of their powers, by a discovery which has highly benefited the the world. Prince Rupert, amidst those generous exertions in support of royalty which render his name dear to every Briton, found time to cultivate the arts, and seeing a centinel one day cleaning LECTURE I. 45 from his fusil a rust which the night-dew had formed upon it, conceived the first idea of a mode of engraving, since called mezzotinto, from its expressing the mid- dle tones or tints better than any other process. There are three prints, from plates by the hand of the prince, still to be seen, with Evelyn’s account of the dis- covery. This new mode did not, in its own operations, produce all the good ef- fects which its first admirers predicted ; but it served, by comparison, to shew the other eno;ravers what further was wanting- to their process, and even in this alone the invention was highly important by its effects. It became the study of engravers in every nation, after this time, to express the tones and texture of different objects, as arising from difference of colour and material ; but the undertaking was so 46 LECTURE I. novel, so compreliensive, and so difficult, that every one proceeded with timidity, and the progress was, therefore, gra- dual and slow. The French, even at this day, though the best engravers on the Continent, are very sparing in their en- deavours to express these tones ; and it is no extravagant panegyric to say, that the English engravers, within these fifty years, have done more in this way than has been done before by the engravers of any other age or country. I have endeavoured to be as brief as possible in this historical sketch of the three arts, and have taken only the most striking features, because I wish to im- press them strongly on your minds. A critical examination of the various pro- cesses in each, with a view to ascertain LECTURE L 47 their comparative merits, will furnish ma- terials for subsequent discussions. The influence of drawing, painting, and engraving, on the happiness and welfare of human society, is very considerable, and, perhaps, much greater than it has generally been supposed, unless by some of the most enlightened. They furnish the means of promoting, of multiplying, and of publishing mechanical inventions of every kind ; they furnish the means of conveying to the utmost limits of the habitable world, the most valuable in- formation, in any pursuit, and that too in a language which is instantly intelligible ; a language which possesses a degree of clearness and precision that words can never reach ; they may be made the sources of the most refined enjoyment, the soothers of sorrow, the monitors of 48 LECTURE I. vice^ and the records of individual affec- tion ; but, above all,, these arts have been made the splendid means of exciting the heroes of Britain to new deeds of unpa- ralleled daring, by publishing, to admiring and envying nations, their noble achieve- ments, with a truth and feeling so lively, as scarcely to be equalled by the impres- sion those achievements have left in the hearts of their grateful countrymen. Drawing, taken merely as the art of re- presenting forms by lines, is ol’ high im- portance to every class in the community. The artisan, if he have the power thus of laying down his conception, will save him- self much labour and time. The ma- chinist, if he be a skilful draftsman, may try on paper, in a few hours, the most complicated union of mechanical princi- ples, without subjecting his employers to LECTURE I. 49 those disappointments, and those losses, in which large fortunes have repeatedly been buried. The soldier and sailor will ever find a skill in drawing the most power- ful aids, for ascertaining, with correct- ness and with promptitude, the truth of geographical situation. The man of taste, who travels, will, by this art, be enabled to impress forcibly on his memory, the interesting features, the beauties of other countries, and by them to embellish his own. The art of painting, the universal lan- guage, stands on the highest pedestal in the temple of imitative arts : its oper- ations, when complete, involve the most comprehensive knowledge, and its influ- ence is great in proportion to the powers of intellect required in its performance. 1 shall not now speak of the exertions of E 50 LECTURE I. painting, when applied to portraiture, by wliiclr balm lias so often been poured into the wounded breast, and the pangs of temporary or final separation mitigated to a soothing melancholy. I will not now speak of its exertions in landscape, by which the transient effects of atmosphere, or the ever-varying beauties of the seasons, are fixed and perpetuated. I will speak of painting now, only as the means of embodying the verbal representations of past historians and poets, as the means of transmitting to future ages the noble actions of our contemporaries. The ancient Greeks employed the powers of sculpture to honour their gods, to commemorate their heroes and great men ; though this art has nothing to boast, in competition with painting, but its pro- bably greater duration. The sculptor, in LECTURE I. 51 his representations, is confined to a small compass ; in the first place, by the nature of his material ; and again, by the neces- sity he is under of representing solid forms, and actual, not apparent, dimen- sions. On the other hand, painting can extend its surface at pleasure, can multi- ply its objects without control, can repre- sent truly, almost every kind of object ; and, in apparent distance, is confined only by the probable limits of vision. The sculptor is also greatly restricted in his means of expressing passion ; he can- not even indicate the direction of the eye without violating the truth of his art ; he cannot give the pallid hue of death, the glow of indignation, or the flush that tinges the cheek of offended modesty ; whilst all these are among the least diffi- cult operations of painting. We have a E 2 52 LECTURE I. remarkable instance of the great embar- rassment which sculptors encounter, occa- sionally, in the famous pillar of Trajan. The artist was required to represent, in the series, one of the achievements of that celebrated warrior, which was performed during a violent storm of rain, and has thus endeavoured to express it : He has sculptured over the heads of the combatants, a large head with a long beard, and wide-spread, flaggy wings, which is understood to represent a Jupiter Pluvius. This, I conceive, bor- ders, as nearly as any thing can, on the burlesque in representation ; while, in the hands of a skilful painter, the circum- stance of a band of intrepid warriors, crossing a rapid river, and defeating a host of savage foes, during an elementary war, would produce one of the most sub- lime and most impressive combinations. LECTURE I. 53 Thus, then, it is evident, that sculp- ture, on a comparison with painting, has but a very limited power, when applied to the purpose of recording historical events ; and this country has, therefore, wisely given painting the preference to which it is so justly entitled. I trust, too, that a time will yet come, perhaps at no very distant period, when the cold in- animate piles of marble gods and god- desses, which have been built up in our Christian temples to honour the memo- ries of Christian heroes, will give place to the splendid, life-giving represent- ations of the pencil. The space they would occupy, would be considerably less, and they would have power to excite in the admiring spectator a more lively sympathy, a more generous emulation. I wish, most earnestly, to press this consi- E 3 54 LECTURE I. deration on the attention of those who profess themselves the anxious friends and promoters of our school of painting. But when we look on this art as the source from which the engraver must draw all his materials to work on, and take into view the extensive operation and tendency of the two arts, acting in conjunction, we must be struck, at once, with their moral and political import- ance. The British nation owes its security, its independence, its prosperity, in a great measure, to the unparalleled valour of its heroic defenders ; and a new race of heroes is continually preparing for the glorious struggle, by the narratives and the lively representations of what others have achieved before them. Painting, therefore, amongst the great, LECTURE I. 53 and engraving amongst the iiiferior classes^ will be the happy means of exciting this patriotic enthusiasm. Verbal description may do much in the statement of great events ; but it must, from its nature, take the particular circumstances successively j and, in consequence, while one is relat- ing, another, which has been previously described, is losing Its force on the mind. It requires many sentences, sometimes many pages, to relate the perils of a par- ticular achievement, and the magnani- mous resolution with which they were encountered ; but a skilful representation of such events, in picture or in engrav- ing, gives every impressive particular to the spectator in an instant, and we know that those impressions are the most lively which are conveyed to the mind in the shortest space of time. Thus, then, en- E 4 56 LECTURE L graving, as the means of multiplying and of circulating, at a comparatively small expence, those important excitements which painting has already effected at a much greater expence, must be looked on as a powerful instrument in promoting great national objects. If we take a view of engraving, in its lesser influences, we shall find them numerous, and still highly beneficial. Of these, I shall mention a few only, leaving the rest to be suggested by your deliberate reflection. Whoever wishes to form his mind to a correct taste for pictures, with the view either to make a collection of his own, or to enjoy the collections of others, will find it the best mode to begin by the study of prints. From these he will learn to know the different manners or styles that have cha- racterised different nations or schools, LECTURE I. 57 and the peculiarities that distinguish the various masters, even of the same school. This the dilletanti will be able soon to accomplish ; because a great number of prints, occupying only a small space, can be brought into comparison with each other at a single view ; and it would also be a matter of consideration to some, that a numerous collection of engravings for such purpose, may be made at an ex- pence, not, perhaps, exceeding the price of one good picture. The student in his- tory, who, unless possessed of a mind un- commonly retentive, must, necessarily, in time, lose a considerable part of what he reads, will be enabled by a well-chosen set of prints, to revive, in a few minutes, the perfect remembrance of what would cost him weeks, months, and even years, to renew by the means from which he 58 LECTURE J. first imbibed it ; and this revival, by the new association, leaves the impression stronger even than at first. Thus, then, a collection of engravings makes an im- portant part of education. The naturalist, in any department, must shut up his dis- coveries in his own bosom, or trust them to the vague and indefinite conveyance of words, were it not for the pencil and the graver ; but, aided by these' means, he conveys with undiminished accuracy, the result of his most abstruse investigations, to thousands, to millions j and the collec- tor of such engravings can hence form a complete cabinet of natural history, in so small a compass as not to be inconveni- ent to a very limited establishment. The lover of biographical reading, in accom- panying his pursuit by a collection of engraved portraits, gives a new and more LECTURE I. 59 lively interest to every progressive step ; he associates the character with the fea- tures of each individual, and they seem to form around him a circle of friends and intimate acquaintances. The man who pants for a knowledge of distant nations, but whom peculiar circumstances of situation deprive of the power to visit them, may, by a well-chosen collection of prints, possess himself, without personal risk or exertion, of all that information which the most laborious or enterprising travellers have brought from near or re- mote kingdoms and states ; he may learn the figures, the countenances, the habits, and customs of the natives ; he may view, at leisure and in safety, their various coasts, their rich plains, their extensive woods, their verdant or burning moun- tains ; and he may even enter into a 60 LECTURE I. minute examination of their numerous productions in vegetable or animated life. Such are the histories, such the pre- tensions .of those three arts, which the interest of your country now calls on you to protect, to patronise, to cherish j and I dare believe that, to the minds, to the hearts of Britons, the calls of patriotism will never be uttered in vain. LECTURE II. Drawing and painting have the same object in pursuit, with very different de- grees of power, and the one may fairly be considered as the indispensable pre- parative for the other art. This object is the imitation of natural appearances, such as have actually existed, or such as might exist, all circumstances concurring to that end. This seems so evident, tliat the en- quiring mind may be disposed to wonder that it should ever have been denied by any one, and it has been the professed 62 LECTURE 11. object of every great painter, down al- most to the present time. But since the position has been disputed, and that too, in our own country, by an artist of dis- tinction, living not many years ago, we shall do well to examine the ground on which such a negative is founded. The French, always fanciful, and often frivo- lous in arts and in sciences, first threw out such an idea in their treatises of art, but it remained for an Englishman to assert it positively in public discussions. This high authority maintained in his first discourses, that general and not indivi- dual nature is to be imitated in drawing and painting, and tliat abstract ideas are what every great master in those arts is bound to represent ; and in his final essay on this subject, he has unequivocally in- sisted that “ painting is, strictly speaking. LECTURE II. 63 no imitation at all of external nature.” There is a seeming contradiction in these assertions, but they resolve themselves into the same principle, under the inex- plicable proposal of painting ideal nature or ideal beauty. We will first examine the terms, general and abstract, which on this occasion, must be intended as syno- nymous. Abstraction, as defined by Locke, is a power of the mind to reject from its simple ideas whatever belongs to, or constitutes, a species of object or thing, and to retain what each of a kind has in common with others of the same kind. The abstract idea, therefore, of a flower, is not a rose, or a carnation, or a lily, or a hyacinth ; nor is it blue, or red, or yel- low, or inclining to any of these ; it has neither form nor colour, nor altitude nor dimensions, and yet it is a flower : again. 64 - LECTURE II. the abstract idea of a tree is neither black nor brown, nor green nor blue ; neither spreading nor perpendicular ; having fo- liage of no form or dimensions ; and hav- ing branches without form and bark, without colour or texture. I adduce these instances, in familiar objects, to show the nature of abstract ideas, which, if a power exist in the mind to form them, and it has been most ably denied by Dr. Ried and others, it is plain that such ideas are purely intellectual, and far be}’ond the cognizance of representative art. It will not escape the distinct ob- servation of an auditory like this, that whatsoever becomes an object of vi- sion or sight, becomes immediately spe- cific, and cannot be general. To be m- dcnl^ to be tangible by human sense, it must have distinct form ; it must have LECTURE II. 65 length and breadth ; and it must have colour of some kind or other ; all of which, when discernible, are no longer general or abstract. If we look for the elucidation of this impi'cicticable practice, in the works of those who have been its chief advocates, we find the result of their reasons to be, the substitution of something for nature, which is not like nature, but which they have repeated and viewed with self-complacency, till they have really believed it to be what they call a representation of general, or abstract, or ideal nature ; though perfect- ly unintelligible to all who have not been used to their school and series of arbi- trary indications. This may be compared to one who sits ruminating before the fire during the twilight of a winter’s evening ; and, fancying at last that he sees in vari- F 60 [LECTURE II. ous parts of’ the burning mass, mountains, trees, figures, and faces, calls his compa- nions to look at the discovery, and finds they can trace no such resemblance. The vicious practices in art, which have re- sulted from these notions, in our own time, are many and grievous, because their tendency is to deny the legitimate object of pursuit,’'and to leave the student to his own wild fancies, without a criterion to judge of his exertions. But if this doctrine of painting abstract ideas, be supposed a misconception of the artist’s duty to select objects, or parts of objects, for his imitation, then we may venture to treat it with more serious consideration. There are many objects in nature, that are, of themselves, unsightly and disa- greeable ; there are many parts of objects in nature, which a countless variety of LECTURE II. 67 accidents and habits may have altered from their original design ; and these cir- cumstances are to be found, almost with- out exception, in every object that can come before our sight. The student of nature, therefore, when he shall have ac- quired a perfect facility in expressing truly whatever he views, should, by close observation and constant reasoning, ac- custom himself to reject accidental de- fects, and to restore to every object its true proportion of possible beauty. In a tree, in a rock that he may chance to meet, the shape may have been dis- torted by a number of different causes ; the quantity may happen to be greater or less than he wishes it for the purposes of picturesque effect ; yet, in making addi- tions or deductions from one or the other, a strict attention to his former studies F 2 68 LECTURE II. should prevent him from representing the rock or the tree other than would be evi- dently possible to such objects, under more favourable circumstances. The ac- cidents that attend the human figure, the most important and the most difficult ob- ject of imitative arl, are infinitely more numerous than those which befal the in- animate, or the brute creation ; giving- more latitude to the artist, and requiring deeper investigation. i\Ian is not bound down by positive and unvarying laws of labour and rest, hunger and satiety, oc- curring in regular succession, and always producing the same consequences ; his reason, which gives him a boasted supe- riority over other creatures, sets him at once above tlie instinct that leads them to the constant fulfilment of their destin- ation, and makes him liable to a thousand LECTURE II. 69 chance impressions, arising from his ca- price. The passions, the dispositions, the occupations of men, have all their respec- tive influences on the countenance, the complexion, the limbs, and the general figure, often abating or increasing so much of the relative proportions of part to part, which goes a great way to consti- tute personal beauty. It may very properly be asked, what rules, what principles there are to direct us in this rejection of the defects of nature, in this search after her genuine unadulter- ated beauties ? Beauty, in visible objects, is that fitness of the parts to the end pro- posed by the whole ; that happy combin- ation of forms, that intricate and delicate association of tints, which excites in the human mind a sympathetic consciousness of its alliance to the great Author of all F 3 70 LECTURE II. perfection, of which beauty in all things is the evident sign. In proportion, there- fore, as the soul is enlightened and sub- limed, in proportion as its powers become enlarged by reflection, and purified by a love of virtue, so will be its approxim- ation to the ultimate perfection, and so its sympathetic perception of visible beau- ty. On this principle, we shall be en- abled readily to account for the variety of opinions entertained by the people of dif- ferent nations, with regard to personal beauty in men or women. The savages of Africa, and of the South Sea islands, sunk in that ignorance which makes them, in mind, little better than the brutes that howl around them, not only doat on the species of human form which their country presents to them, but even seem, in many instances, to think it still LECTURE II. 71 more admirable when maimed and dis- torted. The Chinese, though consider- ably refined beyond most nations of the East, are remarkable for many prejudices of this kind, as we may justly infer from the countenances and figures they give, in painting, to their most favourite deities. Amongst the various states of Europe, where civilization and science have made great advances, and where, of course, the human mind is raised nearer to that per- fection of which it is capable, the differ- ence of sentiment in each nation, with re- gard to personal beauty, is much dimi- nished, by all approaching the same point. On this principle may be solved also the difficulty which has puzzled some of the learned essayists on these subjects, re- specting the share that novelty has in pro- moting the pleasure we derive from the F 4 72 LECTURE II. contemplation of beauty. These essayists, in the pride of pliilosophy, attributing every thing to matter and to man, involve themselves and their followers in embar- rassments, because they will not look up for elucidations of the actions of mind, to that celestial fountain from which mind began, and by which it continues. It is certainly true, as they state, that what- ever is beautiful in itself, is beautiful in the same degree, though looked at and regarded for millions of times, if such a thing should be possible by the same in- dividual ; but it is also as true, that the most perfect objects lose a portion of their power to excite interest^ in the spectator, by being repeatedly contem- plated. This is so well known, that it is almost come to a proverb : the poet says. Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades on the eye, and palls upon the sense ; LECTURE II. 73 and if it thus lose its charm to him who has begun with doating upon it, what must be its still more transient influence on those in whose admiration passion -has no share. The kind of philosophers to whom I allude, charge this versatility on the depravity of man’s habits, on his want of cultivated mind ; but the truth appears to be, that when the 7nind is elevated to a tolerable perception of beauty, it has made so much advance towards the nature and source of its being ; and, having com- pared and examined sympathetically, such indications of divine perfection, it pants in its state of progress for new and greater demonstrations. To illustrate this, we will refer to common experience. There are some men, and many females, in this land of beauty, whose limbs, proportions, and features, are so perfect, that the most 74 - LECTURE II. judicious statuary would think himself fortunate in being able to copy them j they have, also, we will allow, all the ad- vantages of complexion ; yet these moving statues, it is known, are looked at, con- templated, admired, and forgotten j for all their properties are properties of mat- ter only, though indicating the skill and power of the great Artificer. Let us look next to others whom we know, who pos- sess no exact proportion of limb, no pe- culiar symmetry of feature, no uncommon advantage of complexion ; }^et we all have experienced that such persons, if irradi- ated by minds highly sublimated, seem lovely, seem beautiful, are followed with eagerness, are left with regret, and are always and for ever anxiously desired. It is evident that the qualities which produce such permanent effects, being qualities above matter, produce them by that al- LECTURE II. 75 liance which is immediately acknow- ledged between spiritual essences emanat- ing from the same fountain of ineffable perfection. But returning from the digression, by this perpetual selection and study of the perfect parts of individual objects, the practitioner in painting, stores his mind with perfect images of every class in na- ture, which he can draw forth for the pur- poses of his art, whenever occasion shall require it. Yet these images are not ge- neralizations of realities ; they are per- fect individuals, which might have existed in nature, though, perhaps, they never did. The fallacious theory which I have endeavoured to expose leads, on the con- trary, to a random manner of drawing and painting, decidedly abridging the art as a universal language, but which has, however, this advantage, as declared by 76 LECTURE II. one of its public advocates, that its re- sults, if they be not like what they are intended for, may easily be mistaken for something else.* But that the legitimate object of painting is to imitate external nature, we have the evident authority of all the gi'eat masters, who have lived either in ancient or modern times, with the strange exceptions I have mentioned al- ready. It will be well to review these in- stances. Apelles, the most celebrated painter of the Greeks, became enraged with his much-laboured picture of Alex- ander the Great, on his famous Bu- cephalus, because he could not express the foam from the horse’s mouth. He threw his sponge at the picture, which, happening to strike precisely on the part in which the artist had failed, produced * See Gilpin on the Wye. LECTURE II. 77 the imitation he wished for, but could not accomplish ; and the picture was finished and preserved. In the contest of com- parative talent between Zeuxis and Parr- hasius, of nearly the same period, the first brought to the trial, as a proof of his highest skill, a bunch of grapes which he had painted, and considered himself se- cure of triumph, because his imitation was so correct that birds had attempted to eat the fruit while exposed to view. Parrhasius’s tablet presented a curtain, which he declared concealed the efforts of his skill, which Zeuxis, trying to with- draw, found it was only a painted curtain, and owned himself vancpiislied. We draw two important conclusions from these circumstances. The first is, that the highest class of Grecian painters con- sidered the perfect imitation of nature as the very essence of tlieir art ; and the se- 78 LECTURE II. cond conclusion is, that all of them had not arrived at such power of imitation. I am prepared to show, in a subsequent Lecture, that the painting of the ancient Greeks never was carried beyond this point. When the judicious practices of this art, as well as of other arts, died away, perhaps, in some measure, owing to want of study, and the consequent want of knowledge in the professors, nature was gradually neglected, and at last wholly forsaken. Such, and from such causes, was the miserable state of painting amongst the Greeks, in the middle of the thirteenth century. To paint a head, or figure from the life, was, at that time, considered miraculous ; but the genius of Cimabue saw, though perhaps faintly, that painting must be an imitative art, or it can be nothing good, on which account LECTURE II. 79 he studied most of his heads, some of his whole figures, and many of his draperies, from nature ; and thus, in a short time, completely surpassed the Greeks who had first instructed him. His pupil, Giotto, carried the art many degrees further, by adopting the same principle : and, nearly two hundred years afterwards, we find the great, the learned, the incomparable Da Vinci*, proving, both by his works, and by the most philosophical discussions, that there is no way to excellence in painting, but by an incessant study of na- ture. The immortal Raphael knew so well the importance of studying and imitating nature closely, that, besides making many drawings from the natural, of any object which he meant afterwards * I recommend, most earnestly, to perusal of every one who may meet with it, the “ Trattato della pittura,” of this master. 80 LECTURE II. to paint, he frequently added the further labour of modelling his objects in clay, so as to understand every part of them before he took up the pencil. Rubens, i who shines deservedly the brightest star among the painters of the north, thougli he had seen mid studied, during some years, tlie great works of art at that time to be found in Italy, chose rather to copy the clumsy and vulgar nature, which, after his return, his own country set before him, than to run the risk of a deviation from truth, by trusting to his imagination or his memory. It is through the medium of this principle, also, that we must look at the productions of the Dutch jiainters, whose works are sought Ibr with eager- ness by every person of taste, solely on account of the exijuisite skill and truth with which the imitation of nature is ren- LECTURE II. 81 dered. You are well acquainted with those names that stand so high in the Dutch and Flemish schools for this kind of excellence, and the inference to be drawn from them is obvious. Thus, then, I trust, it appears that painting, as an imitative art, has a fixed and determinate object ; and that any at- tempt to carry its practices beyond the highest possible degree of selection, must be a romantic scheme, which leaves seri- ous judgment on the earth astonished, and carries imagination, like an air-bal- loon, out of the reach of human cogni- zance, to float, or fly, as it may please the aeronaut who inflated it. The result of these various observations will be, that, while I recommend at first, the most rigid imitation of objects, as they are pre- sented to us, for the purpose of storing G 82 LECTURE II. the mind with accurate ideas, and of ac- quiring facility of true execution in the liand, the end of such preparation will be. a disposition to reject, in your subse- quent representations, the accidents which deteriorate the perfections of natural ob- jects. You will then be aware that it is not every thing we see, or every combin- ation presented to us, that will make an interesting picture ; elegance of form may be wanting in one, contrast, or harmony of colours, in another, and, perhaps, ap- propriate light and shadow in a third ; but you will be disposed to insist, that where tbrm, colour, and breadth of sha- dow, such as an artist would wish tor his picture, are combined in the scene or group offered to his view, the artist who imitates most closely every thing in it dis- cernable, from the point at which he is LECTURE II. 83 supposed to stand, will make the best pic- ture. I trust it mav now be allowed, that I have satisfactorily shewn that painting can have no other object than to imitate nature. It is, therefore, of importance, next to ex- amine the means which we possess for ac- complishing this desirable purpose. The materials of this art are black and white pigments, as the extremes of power, with red, blue, and yellow, and their modifi- cations and combinations : these are in- tended to be applied on a flat surface, in order to represent near or distant forms, prominent objects, and cavities ; and the wanton daring of self-complacent pro- fessors, lias often employed them in the endeavour to represent luminous bodies. But we shall soon find that the powers of this art are extremely limited and de- ficient, even with a view to the contracted 84 LECTURE II. purposes to which I would confine its operations. To prove this, we will suppose a bust, or statue, of’ white marble, or plaster of Paris, to be placed in the shadowy part of a room, and a picture painted of it in the same room, with the lights as bright, and tlie shadows nearly as dark as they appear in nature : the marble or plaster being pure white, the highest lights in the pic- ture must be pure white also. Remove tire picture and the figure into strong sun- shine, and the highest lights of both will become much more brilliant ; but the darkest shadows on the fiaure will remain nearly as dark as before, while those in the picture will ap])ear much lighter ; and it will, of course, when compared with its original, seem faint and flat, though the shadows be painted as dark as art can LECTURE II. 85 make them. I will propose another case for jour consideration. We see a vener- able hermit sitting, in the full glow of noontide brightness, at the entrance of his cell, which is no more than the deep hol- low of some shattered rock ; he is holding his book full in the sun, that his aged eyes may distinguish the characters he wishes to read. You are struck with the combination, and sit down, with all your implements and materials, to paint the whole scene. You begin with the figure, and you find it necessary to employ your purest white to represent the dazzling light on his book, and the shine on his beard and silver hairs. In the whole of this, however, you succeed completely ; for your imitation receives the same in- tense light as the objects themselves. De- lighted, you proceed to represent the G 3 86 LECTURE II. impenetrable darkness of the cave behind the figure, and instantly find that you have a deficiency of power to give that appearance of depth and recession which you sen ill nature. You apjily, at last, yput positive black ; but even this will pot do ; for black, when spread on your picture, receives the same quantity of light fis the other colours, and is, there- fore, >vhen compared with tlie reality of positive darkness, almost a light colour. Having done, however, all that the means of art will allow, you will be led to carry your performance into your drawing- room or study, and you will find that all the darks that have been applied, are be- come darker by the change of situation ; but you will find also that the light parts appear less brilliant in a much greater proportion. The result of these experi- LECTURE II. 87 ments, will be a distinct conclusion in your minds, that the means which paint- ing furnishes for imitating nature, are ex- ceedingly limited on the extremes of the scale of power; that you can make nothing in painting so light, nor any thing so dark ; and you will immediately reject the dogma of some professors, who pre- tend to maintain, that there is nothing black in nature, while it is evident that the blackest object in nature has distin- guishable shadows which are still darker. O If more simple demonstration of this ' deficiency in the means of painting, on the side of dark, should be required, let the dubitant take a piece of the blackest paper, or cloth, which he can find, with- out gloss ; let him present it to the light of the sun, holding at the same time his hand or finger to obstruct the light from G 4 88 LECTURE II. a part of it, and he will find that the painter wants as much more power than he possesses, as the difference between a black object in light, and its possible shadows. You will also conclude, from these pre- mises, tliat the process of painting, what- ever it be, which furnishes the most extended scale of means on the sides of light and dark, is to be preferred for the purposes of painting, if the results, after their accomplishment, be equally per- manent. I am extremely anxious to im- press these points on the minds of mv auditors ; because they influence the rules and principles by which colours are to be imitated as well as light and shadow, and upon which some of the great difficulties in art are ameliorated. But, in these exa- minations, you will perceive immediately. LECTURE II. 89 that I have not taken into account the splendour of light transmitted to the eye in the exact angle of reflection from po- lished surfaces, or the radiance of self- luminous bodies. To represent the first of these, the art is inadequate ; and its attempts to express the latter must be attended with inevitable failure. There is, however, a picture by Claude Lorraine, in one of the finest collections of this country, in which the morning sun is in- troduced, and, together with the sur- rounding sky, painted with such rare ability, that, if the rest of the subject could have been executed with as much- truth, the picture would have been al- most an illusion ; but should the most remote objects in it have been represented as much darker than the sky as the reality would appear, and had the same scale of 90 LECTURE II. increasing dark been pursued by the artist, he would have been obliged to have re- course to positive black in the middle parts of his scene, without leaving himself power to discriminate the nearer objects. Again, pursuing the same reasoning fur- ther, what shall we say to those daring painters who venture to attempt the re- ])resentation of celestial appearances and of poetical beings ? Shall we commend and encourage their boldness ? They will tell us, in the usual strain, that it is the province of genius to aim at such repre- sentations, to take aerial flights, and to reach “ beyond the confines of this world;’’ but common sense, duly comparing the means which art or human intellect can furnish for such enterprises, sees in the visionary no other than a lunatic, who dreams and fancies himself high in other LECTURE II. 91 regions, till the chain which fixes him to his narrow cell, reminds him that he is destined to be an inhabitant of earth. ]\lany painters, either misled or impelled, have attempted to paint, for instance, the transfiguration of our blessed Saviour ; though the Evangelist says, “ his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light and others have shown a fondness for representing angels, although those agents of the Deity are always described as clothed with shining apparel, and as having a proportion of inherent brightness ; but the most suc- cessful instances of this kind have ex- liibited nothing more than beautiful men, or children, or beautiful women, because the human mind has received no higher impressions which can be again communi- cated through the san^e organs. 92 LECTURE 11 . Your education, in elegant reading, will have familiarized you to “ the purple light of love,” to “ the rosy-fingered morn,” to “ the rosy-bosomed hours un- barring the gates of light ;” and these are all beautiful in poetry, the nature of which is to illustrate by proposing one thing for another to which it is somethino; like. In painting, however, it is totally different j and I would intreat you, for the proof of this principle, to endeavour to realise in your minds the last image to which I have referred, and then consider what a picture it would be. “ The rosy-bosomed hours” will be a number of beautiful damsels, as beautiful as you please, taking a bar or bolt off a huge pair of gates. They have, however, red fingers, according to one poet, and scarlet bosoms, according to an- other. I appeal to your deliberate judg- LECTURE II. 93 ments, whether a picture so painted can be pleasing or useful ? It cannot convey to the mind the dawn of a fine morning, nor can it gratify as a representation of a company of lovely maidens. The facetious Dr. Walcot, having viewed a picture of this subject in one of our national exhibitions, has humourously called it, in his Poems for Painters, “ the brandy-faced hours.” All this, however, does not go to preclude the representations, in picture, of Jupiters, Junos, Venuses, or any other of the Satur- nian family of heathen deities ; because, if they were not really men and women, as it is most probable they really were, the poets, whose texts would be taken on these occasions, have represented them as such mere mortals, with all the vices, and with so few of the virtues of human na- 94 LECTURE II. ture, that tlie painter is at full liberty to make them subjects for his pencil. These suggestions may be carried much further, with evident advantage, and al- ways be productive of the same conclu- sions ; you will, however, I am well aware, do this for yourselves, and probably do it much better than I could. I shall there- fore proceed to state to you, some of the schemes and contrivances to which pain- ters have resorted, for the purpose of evading the inevitable deficiency in the means of art, and in order to carry it further than it was ever likely to be carried. The first ol‘ these is, to sacrifice or omit almost all the parts of objects that are rendered evitlent in nature by reflected light, thus throwing every mass of shadow LECTURE II. 95 into a flat tint, and leaving the characters of the objects to be expressed by the pen- cilling that is bestowed on their surfaces, supposed, actually in light. This scheme proceeds on the principle, which is true in itself, that a single colour, spread smooth over an extended surface, may be made darker, and yet retain an appear- ance of colour, than if it were subdivided into parts. The first instances of this kind are, I believ^e, to be found in the works, the slight works, of our country- man Wilson, so admirable in his best performances ; and, subsequently, this practice was established, as an indispens- able rule of proceeding, by the late Mr. Wright, known by his residence at Derby. His example, however, lias been exten- sively followed ; because it abridges study, it economises labour; and sometimes gives 96 LECTURE II. an appearance of grandeur to the subject wliicli does not belono; to it. We have a landscape artist, who has brought this kind of proceeding to a process so regular and certain, that he will undertake to pro- duce, from his individual pencil, a fresh landscape every quarter of an hour, for twelve or more hours successively. The next scheme of this kind, and which is generally employed for the purpose of giving brilliancy and clearness to the skies in landscape, is by making every thing in the scenery, whether stationary or adven- titious, darker than any part of the sky. There is a splendid example of this kind now in England, in the celebrated picture by Claude I.,orraine, which is nominally distinguished by the appellation of the Altieri palace, from which it was brought. With the exception of the one deviation LECTURE II. 97 from truth, which is frequent with tlie master who executed it, this picture is one of the most wonderful productions in landscape representation which the art of painting has ever achieved. Another mode of obviatino; the limited nature of the means of art, turns to the side of light, and is applicable principally to figure and other objects, usually contemplated near the eye. It consists in putting on the paint so thick, and in such quantity, that it may project considerably from the other surface of the picture; and thus, by re- ceiving the rays of light in a more direct angle than the general plane of the per- formance, give an appearance of shine and glitter. Rembrandt, if I am not mistaken, was the first who resorted to this ex- pedient, which has been so much followed by painters in oil-colours ; but the pre- II 98 lecturp: II. sent state of his works, which we have in England, would lead some, and has led, to a belief that he relied more on this contrivance than it is probable he did. It is a practice with our cleaners of old pic- tures, to begin by cleaning off the old varnish, in doing which they have also cleaned off the thin glazing which covered the projecting roughnesses in many parts of the works of this master, and seeing that it made the pictures glitter, whether right or wrong, they have left them to remain so. But, supposing a painter to have gained something by this projection ofhis colour for the representation of the shine on metallic surfaces, it is probable that the apparent gain will vanish when the picture leaves his study : for it will be placed in a different light from that in which it was executed, and the lumps of LECTURE II. 99 colour, thus throwing a contrary shadow, will defeat every intention of the painter. Besides this disadvantage, as pictures so painted grow in years, dust incorporates with the varnish, which always lodges round the interruptions to the unity of surface, and establishes a black rim to every one of them. Rejecting, then, all these expedients and subterfuges, we come to the proper definition of painting, the art of representing by means of colours, the appearances of natural objects and natural effects on an uniform plain sur- face. The practices of drawing are not liable to these considerations, or, at least, not in the same degree. Drawing, which, as I have already stated, is properly but a pre- parative for painting, employs various means, in various modes, for the purpose H 2 100 LECTURE II. of indicating natural a])pearances as far as the means and modes will allow. These means would be confined to such few as best answered the purpose intended by drawing, if every one who draws was de- termined afterwards to })aint ; but as this is not at present the case, and as many, never meaning to go further in art, wish yet for novelty in the practice, it may be well to examine here, such modes of drawing as are most deserving your no- tice. The first is an expression of forms only by simple lines, similar to the second state of imitative art amongst the early Greeks, and should be decidedly possessed before any further advances can properly be made. This is the bemnnino- common to all the processes of drawing, and is of very remote antiquity ; for we learn from ancient authorities, that the early Baby- LECTURE II. 101 lonians had a practice of tracing out vari- ous figures, with a stylus or point, on their bricks, while in a soft state, which traces were afterwards filled with a red colour, and gave a striking appearance to their buildings. This appearance on the walls of Babylon is mentioned in the sa- cred writings. The next degree of draw- ing is that which employs successive lines to represent the shadows that express the undulations of surfaces inclosed by the outline. This, as a mode of study, is per- haps the best of all modes in the art. It may be performed with a pen, but is more frequently executed with black chalk ; and when this material is applied upon coloured or stained paper, the brightest })arts of the objects are also touched with white chalk, making the colour of the paper serve as a half tint, H 3 LECTURE II. loa The only objection tliat can be urged against tlie use of chalks, in drawing, is their liability to be removed by even slight friction. A pleasant method, how- ever, may be substituted for chalk-draw- ing, which is completely permanent. It consists in giving the effect of the subject very strongly with Indian ink, on white paper, and then tinting the whole with some even colour ; after which, the lightest parts may be scraped with a sharp knife, to show, more or less, the whiteness of the paper, and the effect of chalks will be obtained, without their inconvenience. To water-colour sketches performed entirely in seppia, or bistre, or any brown colour, the most decided opposition should be made by every person friendly to the progress of art. In nature, the splendour of rich colour is to be found LECTURE II. 103 only in the effulgence of light, which is the cause of it ; and this is invariably diminished to the eye, in distant objects, by the intervention of atmosphere, and in shadows by the absence of light ; yet in the proceeding to which I object, the shadows of the fore-ground, the middle- ground, the distance, and even the sha- dows of the sky, are given with glowing browns, while the light parts are left in all the chilling purity of virgin snow. This practice has such a tendency to vitiate the eye, and to mislead the mind, that there is great difficulty in correcting its influence when once established. The utmost stretch that reason will allow to- wards such practices is, in making the foreground with brown, the middle with a neutral colour, and the distance and sky with grey. But to those who aim H 4 104 . LECTURE II. not to acquire tliat use of colours, by which the fascinating appearances of na- ture are to be indicated, and sometimes even represented, I would recommend to confine their practices to the use of Indian ink, the most practicable and most delicate material which the painter in water-colours has yet been able to ac- quire ; and for carrying this to a high desree of imitative excellence, I shall be able to furnish real philosophical grounds in a subsequent discourse. There is another method of drawing, of a fanciful nature, which I mention only because it was occasionally exercised by the late ingenious Mr. Cipriani. The practice is, to roll up pieces of writing- paper, very tight and close, and then, having set them on fire in a candle, to extinguish their flame in the melted tal- LECTURE II. 105 low, by which the points will give a brown, or even a black line, according to the degree to which the paper has been burnt. Of' tinted drawing, I have already spoken, it is a most delightful process, and I shall have the honour of explain- ing it fully in another Lecture, when I mean to recommend it to your serious attention. It will not be expected that, in such an audience as this, I should give the time to say any thing on the subject of drawing, with a red-hot poker ; be- cause it cannot be regarded as other than a mere frolic, somewhat inferior to copy- ing pictures in wool or worsted. There is, when figures are in question, an elegant manner of uniting miniature- painting with drawing, especially for the purposes of portraiture. The first exam- ples of this kind came from the tasteful 106 LECTURE II. pencil of Mr. Coswaj, now no more ; but it may be carried, with advantage, some- what further than his specimens, and I strongly recommend it you, because it may very soon be acquired. I have no doubt, that if I were now addressing an assembly of those persons who attribute every thing good in the arts, to whftt is called genius, who expect, for themselves, to arrive at sudden excel- lence by a supposed inherent aptitude, I should be accused, on this occassion, of endeavouring to lower the dignity of painting, by confining its limits to visible objects. But to you, I am convinced, it will appear that I merely endeavour to show, that the practices of painting, to be fifood, must be founded in common sense ; that they must be addressed to the rea- soning powers of the mind ; and that lecture II. 107 ! they can never be carried higher than to ^ represent truly the highest possible degree of visible created beauty, always in form, 1 sometimesj nay, frequently in colour, but P never in the full vigour of light and sha- ij O O ij dow. When this, however, shall have I been fairly and completely accomplished by any one, we may, without hesitation, permit him to go as much further as he 1 can ; but I am convinced, that whenever a circumstance, so much for the real in- I terests of the art, shall take place, the j successful operator will rest highly satis- i fled with his labours, nor complain that I his objects have been circnmscribed and easy. I would, on this occasion, wish to recal to your memories, a picture of Village Politicians, which appeared a few years since in the Exhibition of the Royal 108 LECTURE II. Academy. Tlie subject was so chosen as to include nothing beyond the fair means of painting, and it was so admirably exe- cuted, as to have continued for some weeks the principal object of attraction and conversation, to almost all classes of this great metropolis. It will be highly encouraging, further to remark to those who are now setting out in the art, that the picture, so justly celebrated, was the production of a very young man. The same judicious choice of subject produced the same happy result, though of a much higher kind, in that incomparable pic- ture, The School of Athens, by Raphael. It exhibits the most exquisite powers of composition, of expression, and of fine drawing, and yet there is not an object introduced, in so comprehensive an ar- rangement, but what might be executed LECTURE II. 109 faithfully, by such means as were in the artist’s possession. I have now to describe the different processes of painting, and their compar- ative advantao-es. o Fainting in distemper was, unquestion- ably, the first process adopted, and proba- bly consisted, in the outset, of nothing- more than a rude application of the vari- ous earths, which chance might have dis- covered to the antediluvians ; for we idU suppose them to have had various kinds of earth, though the ingenious Dr. Burnet, in his Theory, has made the antediluvian world a beautiful, smooth s})here, entirely covered with fine rich pasture land. After a few experiments in the rude way just stated, it would soon be discovered, that the colours, so applied, might easily be rubbed or washed away, and this would 110 LECTURE II. lead soon to the use of some kind of gum, or gluten, by way of size, to prevent that inconvenience. This was the state of painting in the early times of the (L*eeks, as I had the honour to show you in my first Lecture ; the forms of figures being drawn, and the whole space coloured with some kind of earth, probably red. No very great progress, however, could be made in the art, without discoverino' that tints were wanting, which the bosom of the earth could not sujiply, and the vegetable kingdom would jirobably then be resorted to ; but the thinness of the juice obtained from plants and flowers, would ill suit with the ponderous nature of earths, and would, I think, immedi- ately suggest the idea of throwing the tint on some kind of calx, for the purpose LECTURE II. Ill of giving it substance, as we find to be the case with some colours used at pre- sent. Many improvements in the process were, doubtless, made by various practi- tioners amongst the ancients ; but, as it was certainly practised, to its greatest perfection, in the beginning of the six- teenth century, at which period, also, it began to be disused, we will take Vasari’s account of it, who was a celebrated painter of that time, in all the processes then known. “ The Greeks, and after them the moderns,” says Vasari, “ used to glue a fine linen over the substance on which they meant to paint, lest it should crack or open at the joinings, and on this sur- face they spread a ground of whiting- mixed with yolk of egg. The vehicle they employed for their colours, was a 112 LECTURE II. mixture of yolk of egg, with the milky juice expressed from the young stalks of the hg-tree, except iu the case of blue, or of colours iucliuiug to blue, ou which occasion, the vehicle employed, was no other than common glue. In this pro- cess, every colour may be used that is ])i’oper for any mode of painting, 'fhe strongest size was always used in the last coating of colours.” These pictures, I am persuaded, were afterwards constantly varnished ; for we are told, that Apelles covered all his pictures with a darkish- coloured fluid to preserve them. We know that .John Van Eych made many experiments, to ascertain the best varnish for such purpose ; and we have a record in the reign of our king Henry III. which speaks of varnish, as at that time used for pictures, though it is known that they LF.CTURE II. 113 were painted in distemper. All the scene- ry and decorations in our theatres, ex- cept those that are to admit the light through them, are painted in distemper, but with no other size than a weak solu- tion of common glue. There are some very serious disadvantages inseparable from this process of painting. In the first place, the colours become stiff and impracticable soon after they are applied ; in the next place, all transparent colours must be excluded, by which one chief source of beauty is lost ; and, lastly, as all the light colours are to be made so with ivliitening^ which becomes darker by moisture, every tint dries at least a hun- dred degrees lighter than it appears when wet. On this account, the result is en- tirely a matter of calculation, and very much a matter of chance. I 114 LKX' rUKK II. Painting in I’resco, has been long dis- used, on account of its extreme difficultj ; yet, when well executed, it exhibits the m*eatness of a master more than any ^ * other process, because every part must be finished in the day in which it is be- gun, without the possibility of repairing or retouching it afterwards. It is performed on a ground of plaster, spread over a wall, or other surface, of which plaster the artist puts on only so much as he can paint over while it will naturally remain in a humid state ; for if any artificial means be used to protract the drying, the masses of colour become spotted and imperfect when dry. With regard to materials, too, the pain- ter in fresco is exceedingly limited, as he can use no pigment that will not bear the action of lime. With these disadvan- LECTURE II. 115 tages, with these restrictions to encounter, we must admire and wonder at the works which have, notwithstanding, been exe- cuted by the great masters of the Italian schools, in this process of painting ; and if it require such promptitude, such high qualities to practise it, we cannot wonder that, in these times^ it is entirely laid aside. Painting in fresco, has also the same ob- jectionable properties as painting in dis- temper, that the colours all appear opaque, and that they dry with an extreme differ- ence from their apparent tone, when first applied. It will be easy, then, to conceive the extreme joy which filled the minds of the awkward, the ignorant, and the indolent, on the promulgation of j)mnting in oil ; a process that leaves the colours in a prac- ticable state for hours, and that will allow I 2 L1':CTUKE II. IKi tlie making: of’ one alteration or correc- tion over another, until the loaded can- vass grow under the hand of the artist into an actual, not an apparent, projection. The discovery of mixing oils with the colours for painting, marks a distinct era in the history of the art. It was invented by John Van Eych of Bruges ; but the secret of his practice did not travel into Italy till the time of Antonello da Mes- sina, who spent many years in Flanders to study it. Returning to his native country, he stopped at Venice, where he communicated his knowledge to Dome- nico Venizeano, who carried it to Flo- rence, whence it spread to every part of Europe. It was soon found that colours, when mixed with oil, have a tender soft- ness, which had not been seen in any picture produced before that discovery ; LFXTURE II. 117 and the circumstance of the colours, so prepared, drying with less variation from their appearance when wet, than that which takes place either in distemper or fresco, became the cause that painting in oil was soon universally adopted. It was the custom of the first practitioners in this process, to cover the pannels of their pictures with grounds of thin plaster, which were then prepared for the colours by passing over them, four or five times, a sponge dipped in weak glue. The subject was then traced out accurately, and the colours, mixed up for use in fine linseed or sweet oil, though the latter was preferred, were applied with precision to the respective objects, the artist always working from the lightest tones to the darkest, and his white ground always sup- porting the brilliancy of his lights, because I d 118 LECTURE II. always thinly painted. llie fortunate result of this mode of proceeding is now obvious ; for the oil pictures of Raphael, of Leonardo da Vinci, of John de Ma- beuge, and others, who painted thinly over a white ground, remain, to this day, with very small variation of their original colour ; while many pictures of the Ve- netian and other schools, which were painted on red, or other grounds prepared by oil colours, have sunk into their foundation, and so far partake of the gloomy colour, that the original subject, in some, is scarcely discernible. After the first period of oil painting, the mode of practice changed considerably. The first painting, or dead colouring of a pic- ture, was now to represent the middle tones of the subject ; after which the darks were added, and then the extreme LECTURE II. 119 lights ; but, as all on this principle were painted on dark-coloured grounds, the consequence has been destruction to the picture. This may be seen particularly in many of the pictures of Giiercino, who frequently left the deep red, or black ground of the canvass, for the shadows of his objects. Rubens attempted to revive the prac- tice of the early Italian oil-painters, by executing all his pictures on white grounds ; and they remain, at this day, more brilliant than the works of all his contemporaries who adopted a different system. The inference from these remarks will be, that a white ground is of great im- portance in painting, and I wish to be- speak a place in your memories for this principle, as it connects with our siibse- I 1 LECTURE II. T20 quent eiujuiries. In the course of a few years, the first practitioners and admirers of painting in oils, discovered that they had cast off an old and faithful wife for some few defects in her nature, and had taken, without consideration, a beautiful and attractive mistress, who proved at last not to possess so many charms as had been attributed to her. It appeared that though the colours in the processes of distemper and fresco changed materially as they dried, that colours, mixed in oils, became darker after they were dry, and not only became darker, but turned to a yellowish colour, inimical to every taint that had a tendency to blue. Hence arose the custom amongst painters of mixing varnish and turpen- tine with their oils, to dilute and correct the first vehicle ; but the inconvenience has not been removed by it. LECTURE II. 121 Painting in water-colours, as now prac- tised, had its origin with Mr. Sandby, as I have stated already ; and, so far as his principle has been pursued, is founded in the soundest deductions of reason and philosophy. As the practice of painting in oils, from its superior advantages, su- perseded the other processes then in use, which were all in water-colours, so, I trust, the practice of painting in water- colours, as now understood, will, in time, make good its unrivalled pretensions, and become, finally, the current process of the painter’s art. My opinion, on this subject, may surprise many who have not consi- dered the subject before ; but I would re- mind them, that if it be right to persevere in processes of art, merely because they have been practised for centuries, we should be bound to condemn the first patrons ol’ painting in oils, which was then a novelty ; and I would solicit no- thing further for painting in water-colours than can be proved by sound reasoning, and chemical or philosophical experi- ment. I have proved to you, 1 conceive, al- ready, the im})ortancc of painting on a white ground, and the present mode of painting in water-colours cannot be exer- cised on any other. You will allow me, now, to lead you into a comparison of the two processes now chiefly employed by painters, premising that the prin- ciples by which I shall measure the re- spective powers of the two processes, considered as means of imitation, will apply equally to those of fresco and dis- temper ; and I doubt not the result will be, that painting in water-colours will LECTURE II. V23 establish superior claims over the other three. I therefore beg leave to state, that, as the powers of painting are evi- dently limited both ways, that is the best process which has the most extensive scale ; and this is to be found, unques- tionably, in the practice of transparent water-colours upon white paper. The pure surface of a fine paper, which we leave for our highest lights, is as white as the whitest paint, before being prepared for use, and may be secured from all pos- sibility of changing colour, by a vehicle perfectly without tint of any kind ; but in painting with oils, the purest vehicles that can be used degrade the white so much that a newly-painted picture, in that mode, has the highest lights at least six distinct degrees less white than the white of paper. Here, too, I take no account of LECTURE II. the inevitable tendency of all light colours mixed with oil, to become continually darker, visibly darker, even in a few weeks, and most decidedly so in a course of years. Of this last, we have striking examples in the works of Titian, of whom Vasari, the contemporary of Titian, tells us that it was then remarked, that the colouring of his fairest females was of a chalky whiteness ; and hence, I think, I .may take the liberty of suggesting for your consideration, whether this be not the cause, especially in highly-finished and smoothly-painted pictures, why the best copies, after the old masters, fall so far short of their originals. The copy takes up the original where it finds it, with the light colours considerably degraded in tone, and, having itself the same degra- dation subsequently to undergo, becomes LECTURE II. 125 so much lower in the scale. On the side of dark, in the scale of means, we have exactly the same power as in oil ; because there is no colour practicable in the one process that cannot be used with the same facility in the other. From these remarks, it should appear that our means for imitating nature, are more ample than those of the rival branch : but to this must be added, the natural result of paint- ing on a pure white ground,' by which every colour may be preserved with great, even with dazzling brightness, while, on the other hand, we have the power to make our tints as broken and subdued as our contemporary rivals. It will, I dare say, be objected, that paintings in water-colours, are, and must be, very confined in point of size ; that they are more liable to injury, and less LECTURE II. permanent, than pictures in oil. It is oi' importance to answer these objections. Tlie largest paper at present manufac- tured, does not much exceed four feet and a half, (no mean space for an artist to show his talents in,) and it be made double that size ; but there is a method, which I shall explain to you hereafter, of uniting the edges of two papers so closely in the same plane as to be imperceptible at a short distance. Therefore, by attach- ing the papers to pannel, or to canvas properly prepared, the size of our pic- tures may be extended to any given di- mensions. As to the chance of injury, the pannel or prepared canvas defends the backs of our pictures, and the faces may be secured by a covering of fine isinglass, prepared in spirit of wine, which no ordi- nary moisture will again dissolve or pe- LECTUR*E II. \T( iietrate. This covering, at the same time, gives transparency and depth to the shadows, vivifies the most brilliant co- lours, and yet leaves the highest lights as pure and untinted as before the appli- cation. I now come to the important question of permanency : and, first, I may fairly state, that the tendency in all oils to turn yellow, in a greater or less degree, Is never denied. The result of this, in the course of time, is, that the fleshy tints of the pictures painted in oil become brown and leathery, the white appears reduced to* a dingy smoke colour, the greens to a disagreeable olive, and the blues to a positive green. The acute judgments of the most eminent Dutch painters, led them to reject, as far as pos- sible, the use of positive blue, because 128 LECTURE II. they were fully aware of the consequences; and, on all occasions, they employed such broken colours as would least injure the general harmony, after the certain change which they looked for should have taken place. For the same reason, no doubt, they allowed such an excessive brownness in their shadows, as to make them some- times perfectly foxy, a deviation from the truth of nature which nothing but the wish to correct an unavoidable defect in their process could have induced them to admit. Thus, then, the painter in oils has nothing to boast for the permanence of his colours. But it is often asserted, in tlie language of untutored connoisseurs, that the hand of time fjives a mellowino- tint, which greatly improves a picture ; and, I cannot deny, that if the picture be \ a bad one, ill-contrived, and discordant i8 LECTURE II. 129 in the tones and colours, it may be so im- proved ; for the darker and less discerni- ble it is the better. Yet if a painter have skill enough to make his performance what it ought to be, before it leave his easel, every change it can subsequently experience must be for the worse. Hence the man of taste, who expends large 'sums for the encouragement of this sort of painting, must either calculate on not living to see the objects of his purchase arrived at a state of mellowness and dingy perfection, or, seeing them perfect at first, he can entertain but little hope of bequeathing the same enjoyment to his successors. The unsophisticated admirer of nature and of genuine art, when he sees the bright azure of a noonday sky turned green, or the fair skin of a lady’s arm turned to the colour of a wash-leather 130 LECTURE II. glove, will I'ecl nothing of gratitude to the hoary-headed father, Time, for these his boasted achievements. To counteract, in some degree, these effects, I am persuaded that Titian, and some others of the Venetian school, painted frequently, if not always, their skies and distances in distemper colours j and then havintj varnished the whole with a very strong size, as they had be- fore been used to do, executed the re- mainder of their pictures in oil.* On the other hand, what can be objected to pic- tures painted in transparent water-colours, on paper, as being likely to prevent their permanency ? The colours employed in them are all the same as those employed in the other process, therefore, of them- • This opinion was entertained by Sir Joshua Reynolds. LECTURE II. 1,31 selves, not more liable to change ; besides, the vehicles employed for preparing and for using them, are entirely colourless, and without any property that can operate a chano'e even in the most delicate tints. o It is true, that such ol' the reds as are manufactured from cochineal, will become somewhat paler, which they will do also in oils ; and this is, therefore, no more an objection to the one manner than to the other. To those who feel an attachment, a veneration, for the indistinctness, the o'loom that time throws over the labours o of the painter in oils, (which is the mis- fortune, not the merit of his process), to such the use of water-colours will afford a means of imitation extremely simple, and yet more certain to the copier than can be furnished even by the same pro- cess, in which the original was executed. K 2 LECTURE II. This mode of proceeding will be described to you in my next Lecture. There are, further, in the mode of painting I have now advocated, some other advantages, highly important, and that render it peculiarly suitable to such as are students of the art from motives of amusement only. In the practice of oil- painting, the apparatus is cumbersome, the preparation, which must be repeated every time of sitting down to paint, dirty and tedious j and the effluvium proceeding from the colours, if continued long, is extremely injurious to the practitioner’s health. But in water-colours, as there is no necessity for loading the intended pic- ture with pounds of paint, the materials and implements occupy but a small com- pass : they are ready in a few moments for the most active and extensive exer- tions ; they can be taken up for any LECTURE II. 133 length of time, however short, and quitted at pleasure, and there is no circumstance connected with them that can in the least degree prejudice the most delicate consti- tution. It may, perhaps, be expected that I should take some notice of painting in crayons, as being a mode of proceeding greatly admired by many, and being one to which all those objections do not attach to which pictures in oil are liable. Many of those, however, which may be urged against painting in distemper, may also be urged against this mode, though it un- questionably possesses some beauties, in the softness of appearance which it gives to the most delicate flesh, and in the dis- tant effects of atmosphere. But these beauties, unless protected with the utmost care, are transient and fleeting as the \3h LECTURE 11. flower of‘ the field. The access of’ the ex- ternal air, through even the smallest cre- vice, destroys many of’ the tints, the sun discharges others almost in a few hours, and the slightest touch is often ruinous to the whole. Recourse must therefore be had to a covering of glass, which, for a work of any considerable size, will be at- tended with enormous expense, and will likewise have the unfortunate effect of dazzling the spectator, as well as of alter- ing the tints ; for colourless glass, fit for protecting a large picture, has never yet been fabricated. To this may be added the chance that any accidental violence, destroying the glass, would most probably occasion the destruction of the perform- ances also. Those, therefore, who look beyond the mere amusement of the mo- ment ; those, whose object is to hand down the thoughts, the features, and the LECTURE II. 135 actions of men, to their distant posterity, will scarcely be induced to bestow their time on this fleetino; branch of art, which puts forth its bloom with the dawn of the morning, and is withered and lost before the decline of the evening sun. I have devoted the whole of this dis- course to the discussion of these points, because I consider them as of the highest importance ; first, as nothing is more ne- cessary in every pursuit than to know exactly the object to which we would pro- ceed ; and next, as it is highly conducive to our success to have a just consciousness of the extent and value of our means. When I have next the honour of ad- dressing you, it will ])e for the purpose of laying before you a method of proceeding, founded in philosophical reasoning, con- firmed by long experience, and such as K 4 13G LECTURE II. will make the practice of painting, to a considerable degree of excellence, not dif- ficult of acquirement. I flatter myself, therefore, that I shall be able to convert most of my present auditors into artists, in some branch or other, and that, in doing so, I shall have contributed mate- rially to the stock of individual happiness. To those who are of sedentary habits, the cultivation of this art offers the most liberal rewards ; for, in reading, the most rational of all amusements, the mind is so ' constantly kept in a state of abstraction, as to benumb its faculties by a long con- tinuance, unless in the perusal of books merely entertaining, which have a tend- ency almost as bad. But a talent for painting furnishes the most appropriate and gratifying relief from books, by en- abling the practitioner to embody those LECTURE II. 137 ideas which he had before formed only abstractedly in his mind, and thus to im- press upon it, more forcibly, every kind of knowledge. Besides, there are many ob- jects of elegant accommodation, which habit has made us require as part of our comforts, objects that a talent of this kind would enable us to embellish and aug- ment. Those ladies, whose amiable man- ners and accomplishments have drawn round them a circle of valuable friends, will find the most heartfelt pleasure in cultivating the practice of miniature paint- ing, by which they will treasure up the resemblance of each dear associate, and thus hold sentimental converse with them, even in absence. To such as travel for the purpose of seeing distant countries, or of examining our own, the practice of drawing or of painting is of infinite ad- 138 LECTURE II. vantage. Such persons are not deceived by tlie apparent distance or magnitude of objects under tlie ever-varying effects of atmosphere. They understand tlie whole, because they are accustomed to account for such effects ; they see and enjoy many beauties in nature, which escape common observers, and contemplate, even with double pleasure, those that are obvious to every one. But, above all, to such per- sons is this important consideration, that, lookino; on travel as a means of instruc- tion, this accomplishment conduces greatly to that end ; for the form will scarcely ever be forgotten that has been once de- lineated, or that has ever been looked on with a painter-like feeling. And, let it not be supposed that I am urging you to a pursuit attended with great fatigue, or insuperable difficulty ; a LECTURE II. 139 very high degree of* excellence in draw- ing and painting, is certainly within every one’s reach. Amongst the professors of these arts, few are remarkable for very close application ; and yet we see many of them eminently successful while yet in their youth. The skill of many ladies and gentlemen in painting, is also well known ; and we have a most encourao:ino: instance before us, in a gentleman of Exeter, who, notwithstanding the fatigue of a very ex- tensive practice in medicine, has sent up to our annual exhibition some of the best pictures of landscape that ever graced its walls. But there is another motive, that will, I doubt not, have its due force in your minds, to induce you to an assiduous study of painting. By that excellence, which many of you, if not all, will certainly at- 140 LECTURE 11. tain in tlic course of a short time, you will stimulate the minds of our profes- sional artists, blushing to be out-done by those, who have at the same time so many other pursuits ; and thus you will have the further pleasure of contributing to the national stability, opulence, and grandeur. But I trust you will not retire without carrying away in your minds, a complete conviction, that, in the discussion of this morning, and in the comparison that was necessarily connected with it, I have been uninfluenced by any personal consideration whatever. An ardent desire to establish the truth, and an unconquerable anxiety to serve the country at large, by promot- ing your improvement in this art, are my only motives. • If I should appear to have employed in some parts of the en- LECTURE II. 141 quiry, words of a stronger character than might have been advisable, I hope you will suspect my judgment, and not my intentions. LECTURE 111. I HAVE stated to you, in my second Lec- ture, tliat the object of painting’ is to imitate nature, that has existed, does exist, or might possibly exist. I had the honour of reminding yon, in the same morning, tliat the means for this purpose, are black and white pigments for the ex- tremes of power ; together with blue, red, yellow, and their modifications and combinations. We will now, with your ])ermission, proceed to examine some of the principles on which such materials are u-:cTUiu<: iir. 143 to be applied, so that a reasonable pro- spect of happy results may be entertained. I shall beg leave, therefore, to begin with offering definitions of the two terms. Tone and Colour, as they stand in relation to each other. The complete understanding of these terms, is essential to the particu- lar discussion of this morning, as well as to the formation of a sound judgment in the art, either for practice or for criticism. Tone, then, is the degree of dark that that any object has compared with white, independently of its kind of colour. Colour is that appearance, by which the extent of a surface is rendered distin- guishable to the eye, as distinct from a surface of any other colour, independently of its tone. Thus it will appear, that two surfaces may be exactly similar in tone, yet of very different colours; or of the 114 LECTURE III. same kind of* colour, and yet very dis- similar in tone. These definitions lead to two others. Harmony of tone is that gradual change from light to dark parts, in which continued sameness and violent contrasts are equally avoided. Harmony of colours is that arrangement of them, by which the contact of any two colours, of a distinct and opposite kind, is pre- vented by an intermediate partaking of both. I'rom these explanations, it seems to follow, that a picture may be discord- ant, at once, both in tone and in colours ; and that if a picture be harmonious in its tones, such an advantage will prevent any very violent disagreement of the colours, however ill selected. Thus, then, we shall properly give our first attention to that part of the subject which furnishes the most beneficial results in practice. LECTURE IIL 14.5 There is, perhaps, no one part of the painter’s profession that requires more sound science, or a greater proportion of mathematical knowledge in the arrange- ment of his compositions, than the proper distribution of light. This, however, for- tunately for us, is deducible from axioms and • admitted demonstrations ; and the enlightened mind feels no embarrassment in their application. But the interference of what is called taste, to a half-formed artist or connoisseur, creates, sometimes, inextricable difficulties, by seeming, for it is only seeming, to set those rules and axioms at defiance. Taste will some- times say, “ This figure should be wholly in light when optical truth rejects the dictation. The same authority will some- times say, “ This or that leg or drapery in a picture should be in shade,” when, L 146 LECTURE 111. perhaps, it can be shown by mathematical demonstration, that the thing is impossi- ble. The embryo connoisseur, just begin- ning to feel the principle, but not under- standing it, pronounces, in such cases, with vague expression, yet with decisive manner, “This figure should be more pro- minent, that leg or that drapery should be more kept down.” Hence, then, it ap- pears, there is something to reconcile, according to the practice of many artists, between taste and mathematical correct- ness in distributing the lights and darks of a picture. I trust you will not think the time misemployed in an endeavour to conciliate these seemingly opposite powers, in the hope of effecting their complete union for the future. The con- sequence of this endeavour, I hope, will be to explode a notion now beginning to LECTURE III. 147 prevail, particularly amongst the painters in water colours, that a picture should be produced by feeling only, and not by reasoning. But what is taste? what is that mathematical censor which would control taste with so much severity ? Taste is a prompt and delicate suscepti- bility, originally organic, or acquired by- continual experience, to those appearances and demonstrations in nature and in art, which may be calculated to afford gratifi- cation to the senses. I can allow taste no higher employment. Judgment, the rifforous censor in such cases, where imi- tative art is concerned, employs itself in ascertaining whether the means that have been called into operation, for gratifying the requisitions of taste, are strictly con- formable to that adherence to truth which judgment imperiously demands. The L 2 148 LECTURE III. rules and prescriptions of judgment, happily for mankind, are easily discover- ed ; the decisions of taste have not so obvious a foundation, though its leading principles may be traced and explained. Variety is one of the chief sources of our pleasure in every pursuit, in every enjoyment. This principle, the proof of which we derive from experience, and not from mathematical demonstration, pervades our commonest feelings. The sweet which we relish one day, would, if continued as our food for years, become no longer sweet ; the acid that astringes our palates when we taste the lemon or the citron, would lose that quality to our taste, if we had no other nutriment. The good Creator of all things has shown that this principle makes part of his unalter- able laws in our favour. He has clothed. 4 LECTURE III. 149 it is true, the groves, the forests, and the meadows with green, which he has constituted the most wholesome colour for our sight ; but has he made that green perpetual? Has he made any two ob- jects of the same tint in this class ? No : he has distinguished each vegetable by an appropriate tint, or by a polish of its leaves, which therefore reflect a different colour ; he has, also, ordered these veget- ables to change their colours in the rota- tion of seasons ; but, with infinite wisdom and goodness, he has ordained them to change in succession ; as, also in succes- sion, when the spring dawns, they put forth their various greens. Thus, then, variety appears to be the first principle which we can establish for examining the prescriptions of taste for the diffusion of light in a picture. If any one were to L 3 150 LECTURE III. set before us a canvass painted over with black, we should look on it with indiffer- ence ; if it were replaced by one of white, or of grey, we should still have no other feeling. Again, if such a canvass were equally divided into squares, or any other figures of black and white, would it excite a greater degree of interest in our minds? Yet it is certain, that black and white, with their intermediate modifications, may be so arranged on a surface, that the appearance, without any subject being distinctly expressed, shall afford consider- able pleasure to the eye. From this fact, many rules have been formed by different artists, of great eminence, for their suc- cessful practice, the most important of which I shall endeavour to lay before you. The first of these is, that there should be in a picture three conspicuous LECTURE III. 151 lights, differing from each other in size,^ form, and tone. The distances between these lights should also be as much varied as possible, and their situation such as to place them in an irregular kind of trian- gle. It has been next prescribed, that the largest or principal of these lights should occupy about an eighth, or even a fourth part of the picture, and should, in gene- ral, be placed not far from the centre of the subject. In this principal light, the figure, figures, or other object which con- stitutes the chief interest of the compo- sition, should invariably be placed. The figures, or other parts next in importance, as contributing to the primary object of the picture, should receive the second and third lights, amounting to another eighth part ; and the mere accessaries, or subor- dinate parts should receive, by reflection L 4 152 LECTURE III. only, the degrees of light by which they are rendered evident to the spectator. In landscape pictures, the general prac- tice has been to put this largest, or prin- cipal light, in the sky ; but an invariable adherence to such a proceeding, would tend to give the sameness of tiresome repetition to the works of any master who adopted it. But in cases, which will sometimes occur, where the principal figure or object is not of sufficient magni- tude to occupy the whole extent of the chief light, then, if the composition con- sist of moveable objects, the next in im- portance must be brought near, to form a mass with the principal, and the other lights must be thrown upon the most considerable of the accessaries. It will be important to know how far different masters have conformed to these rules, and in what degree their success has been LECTURE III. 153 owing to such an observance of them. I have had the honour of stating to you before, that, from the time of Cimabue to that of the great Raphael, the light and shadow of pictures was very little studied. Narrow shades were given along the lines of the features, the folds of the draperies, and the forms of the limbs ; and, invari- ably, where the painter supposed a mass of dark to be wanting, he obtained his end by the insertion of a dark-coloured object. The pictures, therefore, of that period, whatever they might be in point of invention, composition, and drawing, were, in their general appearance, flat, in- sipid, and uninteresting. The first prin- ciple, with regard to tones, which seems to have been perceived by the early Italian painters, was, that a light is made brighter by being opposed to a dark j and, for sometime, we find in their works a con- 1.54 LECTURE III. stant association of some portion of dark with every little bit of light, whatever be its place in the picture. Giorgione was, perhaps, the first who attempted to give simplicity to his pictures, by the intro- duction of broad shadows and contracted lights, and some of his portraits are, from this circumstance, objects of the most gra- tifying contemplation. Titian, who imi- tated his fellow-student, Giorgione, caught an idea of breadth from seeing his works, though he appears not to have understood the principle which produced them. The pictures of Titian have, therefore, fre- quently great breadth of light and dark ; but it is often very abrupt, often scattered at random, and generally produced rather by dark colours than by proper shadows. Correggio was, unquestionably, the first painter who made the success of his works LECTURE IIL 155 to depend on the combination of light and shadow ; and his most admired per- formances were fine examples of those rules which I have just described to you. But in viewing even those performances, we must take these two cautionary re- marks to assist us. The semitones, formed by the reflected lights in his pictures, ap- pear scarcely distinguishable ; and, by ne- cessary consequence, the lights show like so many insulated spots, for want of those intermediates. This defect was certainly not in those pictures in their original state : it is an inevitable effect of the con- tinual degradation of oil-colours, by which the semitones, in pictures painted with those materials, will be the first to disap- pear. With this caution, we must also remember, that Correggio has occasion- ally made inaccuracies in regard to the 156 LECTURE III. truth of his light and shadow, rather than suffer a dark part to divide what he had destined for his mass of light. This is an error in favour of taste, which a little more pains, taken with the composition, would have rendered unnecessary. In the works of Annibal Caracci, we some- times find beautiful examples for the ju- dicious combination of light and dark, though the same artist has also left us specimens, in which he has ruined his pictures, by introducing too little shadow. Both Nicolo and Gaspar Poussin are de- fective -examples in this part of the painter’s practice ; and it is somewhat re- markable that, though they painted dif- ferent kinds of subjects, the defect is in both of the same kind. Claude, com- monly called of Lorraine, was by no means a master in the skilful arrangement LECTURE III. 157 of tones : he adopted, however, the sim- plest of all combinations, and very rarely deviated from it. He made the near and middle parts of his landscapes all dark, the skies all light ; and he connected and harmonized these extremes by semitones in the distance. I believe there is no instance, at least I know of none, in which he has tried a more complex ar- rangement and been successful in it. I have no doubt this opinion will be deemed a kind of heresy, or profanation, by those enthusiastic admirers of Claude Lorraine, who have given thousands of pounds to purchase, sometimes even a single picture by his hand ; but I appear before you to assist your judgments, as far as may be in my power, not to flatter prejudices, and, therefore, I have no hesitation in adding to my observations on this master, that 158 LECTURE III. some of his finest works exhibit instances of inaccurac}’^, which one, who painted so deliberately as he did, could not have admitted had he known better. One of these inaccuracies I have had occasion to point out to you in my last lecture. Rembrandt is greatly admired by some for his combination of light and dark ; because, by adopting a contracted light, and giving a much greater proportion of dark than of light, there results an un- usual appearance of splendour on the spot that is illuminated. The blaze of brilliancy to be found sometimes in the works of this master, surrounded, as it always is, by an impenetrable obscur- ity, fixes attention immediately ; and though it may justly be said, that this is a trick to obtain so desirable an end, yet it must be allowed, in favour of the great LECTURE III. 159 artist who practised it, that, when once he had fixed his choice on the effect of light lie meant to employ for his favourite pur- pose, he imitated its peculiarities most truly. In the portraits by Rembrandt, we find the heads placed in a very strong light against a black or very dark ground, and that light rapidly dissolving into in- tense darkness as it proceeds down the figure, till the whole picture exhibits but one enlightened spot, which, in some cases, is not more than the forehead and part of the nose. It is true, the solitary appearance of such a light is now and then relieved, and the monotonous dark- ness cheered, by the introduction of a hand in the lower part of the obscurity ; but this is not sufficient to do away the characteristic of singularity by which you are enabled to say at first sight, “ This IGO LECTURE III. picture is by Rembrandt.” But his pic- tures now amongst us have an appearance of sparkle and glitter which I have al- ready shown you they had not in their original state; but which has misled many of his modern admirers. It has been esteemed and imitated by several English artists within our own time. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who constantly tried to combine the vigorous light and shadow of this master, with the splendid colouring of Rubens, tried in his backgrounds gener- ally to give this appearance of sparkling, by spreading, on stumps of trees, grounds, foliage, and even on skies, the half-dried skins of paint from his nearly exhausted palette, which he distributed about with his palette-knife, or with his pencil-stick, and then glazed them over with thin fluid colours. Mr. ^Vright, of Derby, equally LECTURE rrr. 161 deceived, endeavoured to imitate this unintended glitter of Rembrandt’s pic- tures, by using a very coarse ticking to paint on, and then dragging his brush so lightly over the surface as to catch only the highest grains of it. We could par- don these mistakes in such great men, for who is perfect ? and pass them over in silence, had the evil extended no further. But those circumstances, supported by such authorities, unfortunately became the foundation of a manner too prevalent in the British schools of painting and en- graving not long ago. Every thing was then made to glitter with nobs of paint ; and a contemporary poet, who lately wrote on landscape scenery, calls these, “ Flickering flashes of celestial light.” So much was this practice adopted, that the artist, far from seeing his mistake, em- M LECTURE IIL braced it more and more closely, and sought for reasons to justify it. The landscape painter might seem to gain his justification in the effects of dews and rains ; but the painter of figures obtained the habit from a much more delusive source. The casts after the antique sta- tues, which he studied, and which, in the original marbles, are characterised by a beautiful gradation of shadows, are com- posed of a material which grows darker by time, if light be excluded from it ; and retains its original whiteness only where it receives the light at right angles to the direction of its surface. Hence the lights on such casts are abrupt and touchy, and hence the painter who stu- died them, and them only, imbibed a mistaken notion, by which he was often induced to make flesh, draperies, and LECTURE III. Ui8 even skies, to appear as if they were formed of polished metals. I have very lately conversed with an artist, the first now in this country, whose early works, at the period to which I allude, were characterised by this appearance of splendid glitter, and there being, at the moment, one of his works of that date and class before us, he very candidly acknow- ledged that he considered such a practice as having led to one of the most objectionable properties of his juvenile performances. The beautiful vspecimens which come now from the same pencil, have nothing of this kind in them, unless the objects naturally require it, and then he is most eminently successful in the imitation. If we look to the great examples in painting which the Italian schools have left us, we shall discover nothing of this kind ; and the M 2 LFXTURE III. H)4 Judicious eye, employed in this research, will prefer the sterling ore of the great master, to the tinsel of untutored pre- tenders. Even Rubens, the most splendid of all painters, was infinitely above the artifice of attempting to shine by repre- senting his objects as if made of shining materials. Returning, however, from examples to precepts, for the distribution and manage- ment of light, we have to learn that the semitones, or those degrees of light which are occasioned by refiection, should occupy about one half of the extent of the picture, and that the positive dark should cover nearly the remaining quarter. It certainly will not be understood by this, that a pic- ture is to be formallv divided into a half and two quarters, of which the first is to be given to the semitones, and the other LECTURE III. 165 two to the extreme light and the intense dark ; but that the quantity of each of those principles, if collected together, should form so much of the surface of the picture. It has also been prescribed, that the light should never be carried close to the outside of a picture, and, in general, the rule is worthy of attentive observ- ation ; yet I have seen instances in which the light on the foreground of a landscape has been brought down to the base line with the happiest effect. If such ground be supposed to represent an eminence, and great depth or distance of view re- quired to be shown, this practice is almost indispensable ; but it requires all the skill of a consummate artist to prevent the effect being disagreeable. These are the chief rules which taste has established for the quantity, the arrangement, and the M 3 l()() LECTURE 111. modifications of’ light in pictures. They are proved by experience to be founded in the nature of our feelings, as affording that portion of variety which is necessary to pleasure. But, on the other hand, truth, rigid, mathematical truth, demands, that when the direction of light for the subject of a picture is once chosen, and the objects arranged, such and such cer- tain parts or objects shall be in shadow. Hence, then, proceeds the great practical difficulty that a painter has to encounter, and which makes his successful perform- ances almost inestimable ; for he must be able,- by continual habits of careful study, to arrange every part of his subject com- pletely in his mind, before he make an attempt to paint. He must do this, not only with reference to the truth and con- trast of forms, but also to the situation LECTURE III. IG7 and direction of those forms, compared with the direction of the intended light, that the enlightened mathematician may be able to prove every degree of light to be most correctly in its place, and yet, that the most accomplished and tasteful connoisseur shall have cause truly to say, that, in the arrangement of those lights, his most sanguine wishes, with regard to the feelings of taste, have been antici- pated. Thus, then, we are arrived at the full object of our present inquiry. For we find that taste, in the distribution of light, requires nothing incompatible with truth ; and that mathematical correctness will rather aid, than obstruct, the beautiful combinations of light and dark. It is true we see many pictures, unexceptionable in point of correctness, that excite no in- terest in the spectator j but they are the M 4 10'8 LECTURE III. works of such as would sit down to make pictures by rule and compass. It is like- wise true, that we see many pictures which please at first sight, to a high de- gree, by their happily combined tones, and afford us no gratification on reviewing O O them ; because they are the productions of such as work from feeling or taste only. To make the result such as it ought to be, both principles must unite in the oper- ator. To the painter, then, it appears, the dif- fusion of light and the harmony of tones, is of high importance, in delighting that organ by which he is to carry the senti- ment of his composition to the spectator’s heart. We will now transfer our attention from the consideration of light in its sim- ple state, to the consideration of' colours, LECTURE III. 169 which are the effects of its decomposition. Colouring is divided, as it relates to paint- ing, into two parts ; first, as it is matter of imitation, and again, as it is matter of combination and arrangement. It is on the latter of these principles that I mean to take up the subject, first, in our en- quiries of this morning. This subject, as it relates to the spectator,’ is the most sensual of all the qualities in a picture ; but, as it relates to the artist who practises it, is a study of most extreme difficulty. Here taste seems to sport almost without control, and the painter, to ensure a suc- cessful combination, must have his eye made accurately susceptible of small dif- ferences and agreements, both by the study of nature, and by the repeated in- vestigation of their works who are allowed to have excelled in this department, that 170 LECTURE III. lie may be able to understand and apply the principles which the dictates of taste may afford. It is true, however, that the same colour does not, owing to the vari- ous structure of the visual organ, afford the same pleasure to every eye ; nay, it has even been ascertained that some per- sons, who distinguish and judge of forms with accuracy, do not perceive colours at all ; and it is well known, that several of the members of a family now living, see green as if it were red. I mention these extreme cases, not because they frequently occur, but to show the probability of there being many lesser modifications of these peculiarities, which we can determine to exist only by their effects. Upon this supposition, I would account for the dif- ferent manners of colourinof which we see in the masters of various schools and LECTURE III. 171 countries ; some allowing a general tint of green to prevail in their works ; others, who are more numerous, admitting a general tint of brown into every picture, and some giving the preference to blue or lead colour. I can conceive many in- stances in which students in painting, misled by the reputation of celebrated masters, have adopted and persevered in their manner of colouring, though it pro- bably originated in a natural defect ; but we should always oppose to these in- stances, the truth of nature, in which there is no manner whatever ; and we should remember that peculiarity, like a way- ward child, becomes more unruly the more it is indulged. These remarks, how- ever, are rather digressive. Colours arc blue, yellow, orange, red, purple, violet, and green. These are di- 172 LECTURE 111. vided by the optician into primitive and compound ; and they are divided by the painter, into warm and cold. The warm are the yellow, orange, and red, together with such compounds as incline decidedly to them ; the cold colours, are the violet, blue, and green, and such mixed colours as have blue for their principle. But it will be evident, on a moment’s consider- ation, that the three compound colours, as denominated optically, may be either warm or cold, as partaking most of the red or yellow on one side, or of the blue on the other. The warm colours are un- derstood to attract, and seemingly to ap- proach the eye ; the cold colours, on the other hand, are considered as having a tendency to give the appearance of re- ceding. This 'principle is probably true to a certain extent ; but it depends on an- LECTURE III. 173 other, which will be referred to hereafter, either to enforce or counteract it. To the seven colours, have long been attached emblematical significations ; and painters, even from the infancy of the art, have adopted the association. It, therefore, be- comes necessary to speak of the circum- stance, as one that will enable us more forcibly to feel the sentiment of many pictures of the old masters. It is true that this, like all other kinds of emblem- atic representation, has no effect but on those who are previously acquainted with the means of interpreting it ; yet it may furnish ideas to future practitioners. Yel- low is understood to represent lustre and glory ; red, to represent power and love ; blue, implies divinity ; purple, authority ; violet, humility ; and green, servitude. Upon this statement and explanation, we 174 LECTURE II L are enabled to account for the. invariable practice amongst painters of pourtraying the blessed Saviour of mankind in gar- ments of red and blue : the red implies his comprehensive love to the human race, as well as his power to fulfil the dictates of that love ; and the blue signifies his divine origin. But colours, as the means of painting, are required to be brought together for various representations, and it is necessary to consider what action they have on each other, by contrast or agreement ; for it sometimes suits the painter to separate his objects by a difference of tone, or by a difference of colour, and sometimes to unite them by the concordance of one or both principles. The prismatic arrange- ment of colours, will give us the first rule to adopt for the placing of colours, where 2 LECTURE HI. 175 the subject is left to the artist entirely: in that, the primitive colours are always harmonised by means of the intermediate compounds ; as red and yellow, by orange ; blue and yellow, by green ; and red and blue, by purple or violet. But proceed- ing beyond this, we must take black and white into our list, as colours with the painter, though not with the optician. The extreme disagreements of colours are in placing the primitives near to, or upon each other, though this disagree- ment, where the association is unavoid- able, may be, in some degree, abated, by making each of nearly the same tone. Colours may be contrasted, and even beautified, by placing them on other co- lours of a compound nature, in which one element is the same as the colour to be contrasted ; and the contrast and the con- LECTURE 111. 170 sequent distinctness of the’ first colour will be greater or less, in proportion as that ele- ment is admitted or rejected. From these facts, we may deduce some practical rules. White, which exists only by contrast, suits well on any darkish-coloured ground, and with any light one, except yellow and blue, both of which lose a great part of their brightness by the vicinity. Light- yellow has much clearness and beauty on purple and green ; light-blue suits well on green, violet, and yellow, not very pale ; light-green, inclining to yellow, has a good effect on purple, violet, and blue ; but red upon red,- purple upon red, or blue upon a 'darker blue, should never be allowed, unless there be the means of contrasting the upper colour so, by some opposite one in its neighbourhood, as to restore the degree of colour it will seem LECTURE III. 177 to have lost by being placed on a darker tint of its own kind. By means of these guides we will form a combination of co- lours for a picture, which will be a perfect example where we have the choice of our materials for composing it, and will very greatly assist us where we may chance to be limited. Let it be a group of figures, or a bunch of flowers, the combination will be equally proper and beautiful. We will take, first white, then yellow, then orange or pink, then scarlet, afterwards crimson, next purple, and then blue or green, arranging these from the central light, towards the outsides of the picture, or into the dark. But though these are to be the chief masses of colour, and such their arrangement, the subject must be so contrived, that near each colour there shall be introduced some small portion of N 178 LECTURE III. its opposite, that the value and trite co- lotir of each may be made evident, with- out enforcing it so as to injure the princi- ple of harmony, which is, abUve all considerations, to be studied. Thus near the wllite must be introduced sortie small part bf dark^ Or its ivhiteness will not ap- pear } near the orartge br scarlet, some parts that have a tendency to bluCj grey, br cool greet! * near the pUrple, somewhat of a yellowish grbeii ; and hear the blUe, sbtrtething inclihihg to Orange, lawrty, br red brOwrt; All these arrartgeirtent^ must be considered as subject to the rules which have beeri discussed this morning, for the goveriirtient and distribution of tones. It is not to be understood that I am speaking of these several colours as constantly pure and unmixed ; but that such situations in a picture should be oc- LECTURE III. 179 cupied by such colours, or their modifi- cations. If the subject admit of, or require unbroken colours, then the rule is specific ; if it require tints less pure, then the rule applies generally, by breaking the surrounding colours in the same pro- portion as the first or central colour is broken. But there are many cases in which, the subject being prescribed to the artist, he is embarrassed by finding the object, which must receive his chief light, not of a colour to be made interesting to the eye, without great art in the manage- ment. On such occasions, the colour of the object must be distributed as much as possible over the picture, in all its modi- fications, and contrasted and enforced near the figure itself, by whatever colour will give it most the appearance of that which it seems to want. In subjects of N 2 180 LECTURE III. landscape, if the beautiful bloom of spring be required in the picture, the artist will find himself incumbered with the profu- sion of greens ; yet, even in these, the varieties are almost innumerable to an attentive observer ; and I know not why, unless for the difficulty, a season, so blooming and full of interest, should be almost discarded by painters. The gene- ral hue of such pictures, when executed, will be of a cool kind, broken by the vari- ous colours of earths, and enlivened by the introduction of gay and youthful figures. In representations of autumnal landscape, the artist has all the varieties of broken colours at his disposal ; and his combinations should, therefore, be of the most perfect kind in this class. It is, then, only in portrait representations, and in some subjects of still-life, that the pro- LECTURE III. 181 fessor of painting has to tremble for the success of his colouring, as a matter of combination. Yet, even in these, the principles we have examined and adopted this morning, will greatly assist to sur- mount the difficulty. The backgrounds, which make so considerable a part of portrait pictures in these times, afford great facilities in extending or concealing the forms, in dist^ributing, contrasting, and harmonising the tones and colours. In the days of Holbein, the painting of a portrait consisted of nothing more than a faithful representation of the head, placed against a flat screen of some dark-coloured velvet, on which a damask pattern of large flowers was usually painted ; but, in these days, when the practice of tliis branch of art is, in many respects, so greatly improved, we see ladies and gen- N 3 182 LECTURE III. tlemen blooming against scarlet curtains, smiling with noon-day faces against eve- ning or moonlight skies, and reclining in luxuriant arbours of fragrant flowers. With these additional materials to work on, the portrait pictures of the present British school should be, in point of com- bination, as they certainly are, superior to any that have preceded them. Colouring, as a matter of imitation, in- volves many and extensive difficulties, though none that may not certainly be surmounted, because in this part of the practice of painting, there is always a visible standard to which the perform- ance may be referred, in order to ascer- tain its degree of success or of failure. But as the success of painters, in imitat- ing the human complexion, has usually been so far considered a test of creneral O LECTURE III. skill, th;^t has given the appellation pf a good Of a jbad colourist, wg livili take this orjly fpf pur prpseflit pb^erva- tions. I shall prppose to you fir# to go thfpugfi thp polopring of a he^d ift a prp- cess of water cplours, which cpmes pearer to the philosophical principles on yvhicfi. the appearances of nature are founded, than any pther process of painting as yet knojyn. ypu will begin by considering the object ypu mean to imitate, as if it were of a pure white material. Ypp will then cpnte to one very important concln- sipn in art, that positive shadow is black, and that any lesser degrees pf it are mpr difications of black and white. You will propped therefore to represent your pb- ject in the state of appearance which it has by its light and shadow. This being accomplished, your next proceeding will N 4 184 LECTURE IIL be to insert the grey tints ; which are of two classes, the local, and the accidental. The first are those which arise from the skin, showing the larger veins through the thinness of its texture, and the latter are those which appear from the edge of the shaded surface of the solid flesh, showing through a part of the enlight- ened surface of the skin, and which de- pend for their quantity on the direction of the light and the situation of the spectator with regard to the object in view. The next proceeding will be to insert the tints which tend to red, which are all local, and ge- nerally composed of modifications of crimson and scarlet. The complexion colour will then be passed over all the other tints and shadows, and will be done in water colours, which I am now particularly recommending, with a LECTURE III. 185 mixture completely transparent, leaving the highest or shining lights untouch- ed; but in oil colours this will be per- formed with a semi-opaque mixture, and the highest lights added upon it. When brought to this state, your figure requires the reflected colours to be in- serted in the shadowed surfaces, and the last finishing of the shadows, observing always, in this part of the proceeding, to en crease the redness of the dark touches about the features, and in every other part of the figure where the light, pass- ing through the thin texture of the flesh, takes and exhibits the colour of the me- dium it has passed through. But it may happen that the quantity of the greys and reds which precede the general, or complexion colour, have not been duly given ; in which case, the defect must be corrected by careful additions, after the 186 LECTURE m. general colour, and before finishing. At this period, too, yon have the hgure in a proper state for giving to it the par- ticular hues observable in the works pf the most eminent colourists, except Ru- bens. If yon wish to convpy an idea of the manner of .Guido or Carlo Dolce, you will finish with a violet tint ; if of Rembrandt, with an olive green ; if Titian, with burnt umher ; if of Vandyke, with a purple brown. I have purposely excepted Rubens, because, though the most splendid of painters, the colouring of his complexions is an entire deyiation from the truth of nature. For a fair per- son, he takes white, or pale yellow, for his brightest light ; this is always suc- ceeded by a bright rose colour ; the rose colour by a distinct violet tint, and that by a foxy brown, glowing sometimes in LECTURE III. 187 the shadows with decided scarlet. If Rubens have occasion to introduce the swarthy, sun-burnt figure of a man, he makes the highest light yellow, the ge- neral colour of a dark tawny, the edges of the shadows of an olive green, and the dark shadows approaching to a rich coffee colour. I allude only to these most dis- tinguished masters on account of the short time allowed for the discussion, though there are many other painters of considerable estimation, to whose works similar observations may be applied. It will, however, be evident to you from these remarks, that every one displays a preference for some particular hue or tint in his figures, which constitutes what is called his manner of colouring. 1 may properly take this opportunity of recom- mending to such of you as wish to copy 188 LECTURE III. the pictures of the old masters, either for the purposes of study or in order to pre- serve faithful duplicates of them, to do it invariably in water colours. All co- lours mixed with oils of any kind, as I have shown you already, have a tendency to become very considerably darker by time. The great works of foreign schools which have been handed down to us, have all undergone this degradation of colour, and, if you copy them faithfully as they now appear, in a process which will make your work liable to the same change, the similitude will be lost in a few weeks. The process of painting in water colours, such as it is now understood and prac- tised, is the most permanent mode of painting at present known, and is the only way we now possess of perpetuating many valuable oil pictures which are ra- LECTURE III. 189 pidly advancing to that state, in which their beauties will be entirely lost to us and to posterity. Little more remains to be added, on the subject of colours, to the remarks I have made already, except to caution you against a very delusive advice given by Du Fresnoy, whose poem has, unfor- tunately, been held up as the guide to artists, and has been even more ge- nerally circulated than before, by the influence of Mr. Mason’s very elegant translation, and of Sir Joshua Reynold’s notes. He recommends, by way of pro- ducing harmony in the colouring, to make all the shadows in a picture of the same colour. In giving this advice, he proves that his observation of natural effects was extremely superficial. For it is true that the shadows in all objects do approximate to the same appearance by the absence of 190 LECTURE III. light. Light ie the cause of every kind of colour ; in the privation of light the surface of every object is black, and the modes of a coloured object in its sha- dows when it is partially enlightened, as we usually see objects, is just so much differing from the colour of its lights as the proportion of black which constitutes the degree of shadow added to the colour of the lights. Shadow, then, is one of the chief agents which nature employs in haiTTionizing her combinations ; yet it is not to be imitated by making all the sha- dows in a picture of brown> blue, green, or purple. In the harmony of colours, therefore, as it is in the harmony and dis- tribution of tones, there is much to be done, much to be understood by the artist, in order that taste and judgment may both be satisfied. If we mean to LECTURE III. 191 practise the sublime art of painting, which gives to the deliberate contemplation of the chamber and the closet, every per- fection of form which the Divinity has allowed us to imagihej let us weigh, with reverence and philosophical exactnessj the due measure and effects of that light, by which objects are made to recede or advance, by which forms are rendered in- telligible to us. If we mean, merely, to inform ourselves in this art as judges, that, by our future decisions, the art it- self may be promoted, and the interests of the state essentially benefited, let us feel that it is our duty to be correct in those opinions which we mean to en- force upon others : let us seek, anxiously, for truth, and endeavour to support it. “ Let there be light,” was one of the earliest commands imposed upon chaos. 192 LECTURE III. and the painter who shall neglect to study, and shall fail in the skilful distri- bution of it in his works, will produce such pictures, that the judicious spec- tator, in looking on them, may truly be led to say, “ Chaos is come again.” LECTURE IV. The objects that nature presents for the imitation of the pencil are infinitely va- rious, and almost as much so in the differ- ent degrees of interest they excite. But the human figure, and the numerous com- binations that may be formed from it, are, beyond all comparison, the most imjyort- ant, and will furnish ample matter for our discussion of to-day. It is by the human figure only, that the painter can excite passion, or convey sentiment. In subjects of still life, Jiowever judiciously chosen, 0 194 LECTURE IV. however finely executed, it is only the judgment of the spectator ' that is grati- fied, — the heart remains untouched ; in the finest pictures of the finest landscapes in nature, if they appear untenanted by human beings, we shrink from the joyless waste, and cling to society. With pic- tures of figures, whatever be their kind, we seem to hold a sort of intercourse, and, as they hang round our solitary apartments, we almost cease to feel our- selves alone. By representations of figures, the painter may inspire the most fervent indignation, the most thrilling horror, and he may warm the gazer’s bosom with pity, admiration, or joy. It ought not, however, to be concealed, that, if the powers of this branch of art be much greater than every other, and its exercise as much more gratifying, the acquirement LECTURE IV. 195 of it, though within every one’s reach, is attended by an equal proportion of diffi- culty. The first object of practice in this pur- suit is to draw repeatedly the most perfect human forms, till the idea of each kind be so strongly impressed upon the mind, as to enable you to draw the same forms again correctly from recollection. But a great embarrassment will arise in the mind, as to the means of procuring such forms to study. To trace out, as every painter must do, the perfection of human beauty, through the various individuals who pos- sess more or less of its constituent parts, would neither be compatible with your many other pursuits, nor with the delicacy of your feelings. Fortunately, however, the great masters of ancient sculpture have left us some incomparable examples o 2 190 LECTUKE IV. in every species of beauty that has at any time been observed, or that ought to be looked for amongst men. Of these the copies, or casts, are very numerous in this country, and are consecpiently accessible to every one. In them you will find a variety of proportions both in the structure of person, and in the length or the solidity of the limbs ; but all approaching the general standard of proportion which has, doubtless, been laid down to you by your drawing masters, or which may be found in almost every book that professes teach- ing to draw. I have endeavoured to show, in my second Lecture, by what means you may acquire an unerring conscious- ness and perception of visible beauty ; and an intimate accjuaintance with those works of Greek and Homan sculpture will greatly facilitate the acquisition. LIX rURE IV. 197 There is a very extraordinary work by Kiibeiis, on the character and beauty of the human figure, which work was in manuscript, in the late king of France’s library, with drawings to illustrate its principles, made on the margin by Ru- bens’s own hand. The leadino- idea of O it is worthy the bright mind that con- ceived it, and consists in supposing, that, as man was created at first after the image of his Maker, he must have been then infinitely beautiful ; but that as, after his fall, he became the prey and victim of his passions, his form and countenance gradually approached to a resemblance with those animals of the brute creation which are characterised by such passions as he pre-eminently indulged. The ex- amples he gives, in various drawings, to prove this, are highly ingenious ; and, o 3 198 LECTURE IV. I think, the principle seems so far founded in reason, that, if adopted with some re^ serve, it might tend greatly to assist you in giving force to individual characters in your historical compositions. This work also contains another principle truly de- serving your notice, in stating that the elementary form in the figures of men, is the square or cube ; in females, the oval or egg-shape; and in children, the circle or globe. This, -if rightly understood, will lead you a great way in making up your minds on the true forms of human figures. The difficulty of becoming per- fectly acquainted with each kind of figure, I must advise you again, is not inconsi- derable. I have stated to you, before, how little chance there is of your meet- ing, in any individual, all the various parts necessary to constitute a perfect I.ECTUHE IV. 199 example of that species ol’ beauty, what- ever it be ; and the consequent necessity of going through a long course of studies, in order to acquire this indispensable knowledge, would postpone the pleasur- able part of your practice to a distant period. However, this great difficulty, at first sight so discouraging, is obviated, as I have said before, by the beautiful speci- mens remaining to us of ancient sculp- ture. In them we find almost every different kind of human beauty thoroughly studied, and exquisitely displayed. Whe- ther some of them, reputed of Greek origin, be so or not, is of little importance on the present occasion. Mengs, in his most incomparable writings, expresses an opinion that they are not ; but they are full of truth, grace, and beauty, and those properties are the proper objects of your o 4 200 LECTURE IV. attention. Several of them, of masculine figures })articularly, it is worthy of remark, are chisseled in a manner to represent the plaiting and the granulated surface of the human skin. This circumstance appears to have escaped the notice of those artists and critics who assert, that the ancients had little or nothing of minute imitation in their figures. Those which seem to me most calculated to engage your atten- tion, are. The Piping Fawn, The Apollo of Belvedere, The Venus di Medicis, The Family of Niobe, a light and elegant figure of Mercury, with his feet across, and many busts of particular characters, of which the casts are very common amongst us. I would entreat you to add to these, correct drawings from all the casts after Frammingo, that may come in your way. As representations of children (infants LECTURE IV. $201 most of tliem), they are so exquisitely true as to become almost illusive. Yet, in prescribing the sculpture of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as models for your imitation and study, I wish, most anxiously, to impress on your minds a cau- tion that is indispensable. The perform- ers of those excellent works, admired for so many ages, appear to have been fully aware of the great expression that arises, in nature, from the dark pupils of the eyes, and from the generally dark colour of the eyebrows ; but, unable to represent colour in their sculpture, on such occa- sions, they have adopted the dangerous artifice of sinking the eyes, and of raising the thin part of the nose nearly to a level with the forehead, by which they obtained, in almost every direction of light, dark shadows about the eyes, as substitutes for 20Q LECTURE IV. that colour which they could not express. This practice, and the motives of it, are so obvious, that I should not have taken up your time to notice it, were it not for the laborious anxiety which some persons, artists as well as others, have manifested to prove that this was really the construc- tion of the ancient Grecian face. We find nothing of this defect in those heads of antique workmanship which profess to be portraits ; and I dare venture to assure you, that such a face, with the forehead and the nose in straight line, never did exist in nature ; and I am persuaded that if one ever should exist, it would be uni-, versally regarded as a deformity. It is greatly to be wished, that we had as many examples of the paintings of the Greeks and Romans as we have of their sculpture. It has been inferred by many, J8 LECTURE IV. 203 that because their statues are so tran- scendent, their works with the pencil must have been so too ; but this reason- ing appears to me founded in conjecture only, and I dissent from the conclusion for many reasons. The forms of the figures in their pictures, may have been, and doubtless were, finely imagined, and correctly drawn ; for form, at that time, appears to have been much studied, and well understood. But much more than this is requisite to make fine pictures. Composition, light, and shadow, and co- louring, are all indispensable, and these, I very much incline to think, they possessed in a very limited degree. The grouping in those specimens of ancient painting that have reached us, seems to have gone no farther than arranging all the figures in a row, nearly on the same base line. LECTURE IV. L>04 sometimes almost without varying the distances between them ; and their great- est efforts that I have seen, extend no further than sometimes brinoing: txi:o figures together, placing one in a sitting or recumbent position. These are mostly on a perfectly black ground, and have no variation of distance supposed in the ob- jects. The extravagant praise bestowed by some ancient writers on the best pic- tures of the Greeks, is not decisive in their favour. They certainly must have been greatly superior to the performances of the Egyptians, from whom they, doubt- less, received the art ; and as, therefore, they surpassed all that had gone before them, they received the highest praise that language could bestow. But the case is different in modern times : for we have none ol‘ the best specimens of the LECTURE IV. 205 Greeks remaining, and hence give them full credit for the amount of their reputed excellence, while, feeling that our own works are defective, we judge them, con- sequently, inferior. It will, doubtless, be urged, again and again, that from the exquisite skill with which sculptures were executed in ancient times, we may fairly infer that the practice of painting also was excellent. But this is merely a pre- sumption, and, I think, carries, as I have said already, little weiglit with it. The two arts are so distinct in their object and their means, depending for their success on causes so totally different, and requir- ing modes of education, in the respective professors, so unconnected with each other, that it is certainly possible for either art to riourish in a high degree wliere the other is but little practised. Tlie super- ‘200 LECTURE IV. stition, the idolatry of the ancients, led, necessarily, to the highest improvements in sculpture, while the efforts of the pencil seem to have been confined more to do- mestic purposes. If we look into the his- tory of arts in our own country, we shall sometimes find that of sculpture more ad- vanced, sometimes that of paintingmost cul- tivated and improved, and always without any appearance of a dependence on each other. It is true, some learned painters in modern times have been at great pains to fix upon the painters of ancient Greece the credit of deep and philosophical rea- sons in preparing and executing their pictures ; but these essays prove, in my mind, nothing more than the ingenuity and classical reading of their authors ; and I should certainly be disposed to arrange them with those profound com- LECTURE IV. 207 mentators on the beautiful verses of Homer, who have extorted from many passages of them, thoughts and allusions that never entered the mind of the Ionian bard. An instance to illustrate this came some time since within my own observation. An ingenious artist, who is now no longer living, had read in Pliny, or in some of the Greek writers, the de- scription of a picture, painted by a great master, of the battle of Marathon, in which description, it is said, that the figures were so exquisitely finished, that they appeared to sweat with exertion. The classical artist took this for matter of fact, though certainly no more than an ornamental expression ; and actually painted several pictures, in which he rubbed the figures over with various kinds of oils, in hopes to find some way of LECTURE IV. ^20S rivalling this reported excellence in the ancient Greek painters. But though de- prived of any assistance from the works of the ancient Greek painters, we yet possess most excellent examples per- formed nearer to our own time, in various parts of modern Europe. With these, and the casts or marbles which 1 have proposed for your consideration, you will soon be enabled to acquire a sufficient I’und of painter-like knowledge, for the purpose of imitating the animated forms of nature. But you will then feel the neces- sity of arranging into classes the various combinations of which human fimires are O capable, and, perhaps, of applying to some one of them only, as inclination shall decide. 'Eo excel in all of them has been ibund too great a task for the greatest painter that has yet existed. The great LKCTURK IV. eof) division of subjects, composed of figures, is into the sublime and the beautiful. The first of these may be subdivided into the terrific and the gt'and ; the last into the elegant and the rural, which will, I think, include every species. I shall endeavour to direct your judgments in the proper mode of treating- each of these classes, in the order in which I have named them ; but I beg permission first, to offer some remarks on the choice you should make of subjects in general : If I should appear to you to be mistaken, you will pardon me. Atatimelike the present, when we ought to look beyond our own country only for the purpose of counting our enemies, the enemies of integrity and honour, it is right, it is necessary, to emblazon,by every means we are possessed of, the heroic virtues of our countrymen, to celebrate the happiness p ‘210 LECTURE IV. and the domestic virtues that grow out of British freedom. If we look for subjects of sublimity, let us endeavour to pourtray our native ancestors, thronging to defend their shores from invading legions ; if we look for subjects of grandeur and pathetic interest, let us endeavour to represent our great, our incomparable Alfred, breaking his last loaf with the pilgrim that entreated alms at the door of his retirement, or to paint him triumphing, like a matchless warrior, over the Danish ravagers of his country ; if we wish for subjects of grace and elegance, the various history of our noble ladies will furnish ample materials in all ages ; if we wish to depict the success- ful labours of the industrious jDeasant, or the comforts of his peaceful home when at rest, where shall we find the reality but in Britain ? W e will not, then, fly to Athens or to Rome for subjects to embellish our LECTURE IV. 211 pictures, we will not seek in Arcadia for shepherds and shepherdesses that never existed but in the fancy of poets, while happy, glorious England affords, through a long course of centuries, examples of all that is lovely, good, and illustrious. The terrific, which comes first in our order of division, is perhaps the highest species of subject in our art, requiring the greatest degree of talent to insure success in attempting it. It must be drawn from the mind, and in such in- stances, the manual skill of the artist, though indispensable, is a matter of in- ferior consideration. The daring hand that aims at these great objects often steps beyond the boundaries of human nature, and in its most successful achievement has but a hair’s breadth escape of becom- ing ridiculous. An idea of danger, exhi- p 2 212 LECTURE IV. bited or implied, is, I believe, invariably necessary to the complete representation of’ such subjects, and the action implying or expressing the danger should always be in suspense, or unaccomplished, that, in the spectator’s mind, anxiety and hope may be united with terror. I know of no instance more precisely illustrative of my conception, than that of the two mothers before the sagacious King of the Jews. The imploring tenderness of the real parent, added to the appearance of an uplifted scimitar ready to fall on the des- tined child, makes the picture completely an object of sublimity and terror, capable of penetrating the deepest recesses of the spectator’s heart. But there are many who, not content to work these magical effects by the ample means which nature never denies to those that seek them, try to dash at once into sublimity, by intro- LECTURE IV. ^13 diicing ghosts and goblins into their pic- tures. I confess I have insuperable objec- tions to this sort of bombast in painting ; for a sprite or a goblin pourtrayed by those even who have devoted their whole lives to such representations, is nothing but a human figure discoloured or distorted, and on the unbiassed mind will produce no sensation but that of diso;ust. Teniers, in some of his pictures of the mock sublime, has given a most happy illustration, in representing a sprite with his nose protruded to such a length, that it is converted into an oboe on which he plays. If you > attempt this ghostly kind of sublime at all, I am persuaded you should not wish to carry it farther than it has been carried by a lady, distinguished l)y her high rank, but still more distin- guished by her excjuisite taste and skill in 211. LECTURE IV. the practice of painting in water-colours. You are, no doubt, acquainted with her elegant designs to embellish an English translation of the horrible German poem of Leonora. But I cannot consistently advise you to attempt any species of the terrific in painting. To excel in it at a//, requires a great variety of knowledge, the acquirement of which would be incon- sistent with your other pursuits, as well as with the delicacy of your feelings. You must therefore leave to professors, who cover canvas by the acre, tlie task of calling up “ spirits from the vasty deep,” or of setting immeasurable ghosts astride on the “ blue summits of streamy Dun- larvon.” These remarks, however, though intended to dissuade you from the attempt, will, perhaps, also assist your judgments in viewing the works of those who have had the boldness to make it. LECTURE IV. Q15 Our next subdivision is the grand; and here I may properly advise you to indulge your inclination, if it lead that way. In this all the parts should be broad and sim- ple, both as to the whole, taken together, and as to the composition of each figure. The nwiiber of figures should, I think, in general, be few ; though two very cele- brated painters of the Italian school have fixed the least number at twelve, and the greatest at forty. It appears to me ridicu- lous to make limitations on this point, be- cause, indisputably, many sublime effects have been produced in pictures, by the skil- ful exhibition of one or two figures only, and we have many instances in which the sublimity of a. composition has suffered nothing by being extended to fifty or a hundred. But in treating subjects of the grand kind, in which, the objects are un- p 4 21 () LECTURE IV. avoidably numerous, great art must be em- ployed so to arrange them, and so to manage the direction of light, that those figures which, though necessary, are *of lesser importance, may be melted into masses of shadow, or may contribute to extend and carry off the masses of light. I can conceive the grandest effect to be pro- duced by wild scenery displayed round the dignified, yet solitary, figure of him n:ho cried aloud in the ’wilderness ; and I can suppose an effect equally grand, in a skilful representation of the same high character, surrounded by a multitude^ to whom he de- livers his sublime doctrine. The leading events of our sacred history will afford you numerous subjects of this kind; and in advising you to attempt them, 1 conceive it no deviation at all from the advice 1 have before given you, to be guided LECTURE IV. 217 by patriotism alone in the choice of your subjects: every thing that is connected with the history of our faith, or that has contri- buted to its complete establishment, makes a part of our nearest and most important concerns. The simple, yet majestic, habili- ments of the Jews are highly favourable to the breadth of drapery, so essential to grandeur, and the great decision of cha- racter observable in the elders and chiefs of that interesting nation, becomes a powerful instrument of narration in the details of a picture. In compositions drawn from this source, we may justly be allowed to introduce su- pernatural beings; because they were often- times 'pennittedio assume human forms, for the purpose of communicating with mor- tals, and should then be characterised and distinguished only by their superior grace, ‘>18 LF.CTURE IW benignity, and sweetness. This appears to me not to admit of dispute, and I think the painter who should, in such case, adorn these disguised celestials with a pair of wings, would have no excuse to offer, but that his feeble pencil had no other means of pointing out that they were not meant for mere mortals. The angels who came to Lot, to warn him of the threatened visitation, were mistaken for beautiful young men, and the angel that attended Tobias in his journey, appeared only as a hired servant, till the time arrived when he was permitted to discover himself. I cannot help wishing to impress on your minds the opinion I entertain of the extreme impropriety, the folly, of any other attempts to represent in painting the inhabitants of the world of spirits. We can express, by this art, nothing but LECTURE IV. ‘219 what has been received into our minds through the medium of our sense of see- ing, and those materials are, of course, all of them, impressions of visible objects. We may combine those impressions dif- ferently from what we found them : we may set a man’s trunk on a horse’s shoulders ; we may give the head of a bat to the body of a grasshopper and the wings of a butterfly, in order to call it a fairy ; we may paint the figure of a tall, thin man, his outstretched arm pointing, with crooked finger, and colour it blue or green, to “ make a ghost of it but such combinations and such attempts are beneath the dignified simplicity of genuine and should, I think, be looked on as the feverish wanderings of a delirious brain. The subjects that you will find abun- LECTURE IV. clantly spread through the sacred volume, are such as may exhibit every possible modification of the grand in painting ; but those to be found in the Gospels are the most exquisite, approaching some- times to the highest point of awful grandeur, or, at others, displaying a pa- thos and feeling that penetrate and melt the heart. Yet in this sublime work, there is one subject that no artist should dare profane by the touch of his unhal- loxced peiicil : it is the sad catastrophe which finished the mortal career of the only perfect character that ever existed amongst us. The grandeur, the majestic sublimity of this heart-piercing event, are heightened in our minds by the indis- tinctness and gloom which our sorrow throws around it, and which are unavoid- ably dissipated when we see the blessed LECTURE IV. . 2^21 confirmation of our hope depicted on a few square feet of canvas, or paper. There is only another remark that I wish to make on subjects taken from Scripture-history, and that is, to point out to you the great error that painters, in general, have fallen into, in surround- ing the heads of their principal characters with a halo, or glory, and sometimes of making the figure of the infant Christ splendid with inherent light. Had these circumstances taken place in the reality, the Jews, though born to unbelief, must have been convinced by the unceasing miracle ; and, if it was not to be found in the reality, I see no better reason for al- lowing it in painting than for giving wings to disguised angels. Prolix as these observations may appear to you, as making but a part of my sub- •222 LECTURE IV. ject, you will, I fear, yet find them short and insufficient when you come to carry them into practice. I would, therefore, beg leave to direct you for further inform- ation on painting Scripture-history, to a very ingenious, learned, and entertain- ing French work, entitled * Erreur des Pehitres. Our national history, to which all must look with pride and pleasure, will furnish innumerable subjects of grandeur for your pencils. You may recal to your minds, for this purpose, the heroic Boadicea, nobly exciting her countrymen to resist and punish the oppressions of a tyrannic invader, and, at last, resolving rather to die gloriously than to live without honour * I presented a copy of this work to the Library of Reference in the Royal Institution. LECTURE IV. and freedom ; you may recollect, also, the undaunted and dio-nified courage of Ca- ractacus, struggling for the liberty of his country, and even appearing the greatest in the midst of misfortunes ; you may take up the pencil to depict the uncon- querable fortitude of Margaret, subduing, by the majesty of her deportment, the lawless freebooter of the forest ; or, you may pourtray the innocent, suffering Ca- therine, repelling, with firmness, the false charges of her interested accusers. But you will think it time that I should proceed to the next division in our ar- rangement ; that is, the elegant. And here, I doubt not, you will feel yourselves peculiarly at home; since Britain exhibits, at this time, innumerable examples of every species of personal beauty, of every modification of grace. You will have ■224 LECTURE IV. little more to do, ev^en for your repre- sentations of the events of other times, than to copy the dignified and lovely figures that surround you ; and could our ancestors, of any period, feel a conscious- ness of your efforts, they would not, I be- lieve, find themselves losers by the per- formance. Here, however, I must advise you to be active and vigilant, in your en- deavours to separate that which is fashion- able from that which is really elegant and graceful ; and here, also, it may not be improper to describe to you what I understand by grace and by elegance. Elegance, I take to signify that intricate combination and contrast of lines in the form of a figure which constitute an es- sential part of beauty : grace, I think, must be understood to signify the same kind of combination and contrast, not de- 16 LECTURE IV. 225 pending on actual conformation, but arising out of the effects of motion. Thus a form, not elegant in a quiescent state^ may become highly graceful in moving, by the influence of a superior in- tellect directing its motions ; and thus, a figure may be elegant that is not graceful. Where these properties are united, they spread round the fortunate possessor a charm, a fascination, that nothing can resist In the inventions of fashion, which make beauty subservient to promote the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country, much is to be rejected, because founded in absolute deformity, both as to figure and dress. Therefore, in representing, by your pencils, the trans- actions and events of ages far back in our history, though you may properly repre- LECTURE IV. 2 ‘ 2 () sent all the beauty, and elegance, and grace, of these polished times, you should, I think, be very cautious in introducing its fashions. I need not remark to an audience so highly educated, that every period in our history is distinguished by a variation in its modes and habits, or in its costume, with those who prefer foreign words to sterling English. This, however, becomes a matter of serious study, to such of you as shall wish to paint correctly any one of the interesting events furnished by our chronicles. Yet the sources from which you may derive this sort of knowledge are numerous, and easily accessible ; and to those who have little leisure for minute research on such points, the very elabo- rate wu-itings of Mr. Strutt will be power- ful auxiliaries. LECTURE IV. 227 But, having gone thus far, I must, pain- ful as the task may be, endeavour to warn you against that affectation of grace, splen- dour, and variety, both as to forms and colours, which pervades the works of some of the few who have, at this time, any claims to merit for painting figures in water-colours. It was justly remarked, some years ago, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that, in his time, the practice of contrast- ing the forms and limbs of figures was carried to such an excess, that he almost judged it necessary to lay the rule on the other side. Were he now to come amongst us, enlightened as he was by science and taste, and to witness the contortions, dis- tortions, and even dislocations, that are admitted, under the idea of giving grace, he would be astonished and confounded. Grace is ever simple, wholly incompatible Q 2 LECTURE IV. with over-strained action ; and colour, in the hands of a skilful and scientific prac- titioner, aims not to dazzle, but to gratify, the sight, by delicate contrasts, and im- perceptible gradations. There are some respects, I must ac- quaint you, in which compositions of the elegant kind are attended with more dif- ficulty than either the terrific or the grand ; it is when considered as matters of narration. As they are not suscepti- ble of violent emotions, or of rapid and boisterous action, they require to be marked by a more accurate delineation of countenance, by a more judicious and at- tentive selection in the accompaniments. The terrific demands the association of huge mountains, foaming torrents, or im- pending dangers; the grand calls for the accompanying aid of wild forests, massy LECTURE IV. 229 rocks, and stupenduoiis architecture ; the elegant requires to be placed in cultivated landscapes, embellished apartments, or splendid palaces. There should, besides this, be some appropriate circumstance of person or thing, to point out the event you meant to exhibit, as distinct from any other for which it might else be mis- taken. We come now to the j'ural, as the last division in our arrangement, and, though it may perhaps be truly said that subjects of this kind do not excite any of the stronger passions, it must be admitted that they are more favourable than all the rest to pictur- esque representation. The natural grace- fulness of deportment which we see in some of the rustics of this kingdom, par- ticularly those of Westmoreland and Cum- berland, the combinations that arise out of Q 3 230 LECTURE IV. their employments and pastimes, the forms of their implements, and the neatness of the style of their attire, all unite with our invariable attachment to rural life, to render such subjects a source of the most lively and unceasing interest. The short, yet elegantly pathetic, poem of Gray, writ- ten in a country church-yard, has many beautiful pictures of this kind, though perhaps none more strikingly beautiful than that of the children, who “ run to lisp their sire’s return, Or climb his knee, the envied kiss to share.” The Shepherd’s Week of Gay, and the incomparable works of Thomson, will also add greatly to your stock of ma- terials ; and you have one great advantage in subjects of this kind, that the originals are either constantly at hand, or to be easily procured. LECTURE IV. 231 My duty here compels me to point out to you a disease which has attacked this branch of art so powerful as almost to have undermined the judgments of some of our best performers, and will have no remedy, that I know of, but in your determination to discountenance it ; I mean the constant desire of making what are called pretty faces. It is not that I would offer an ob- jection to any one introducing the highest degree of possible beauty into his pictures, for to look on even the semblance of hu- man beauty is one of the greatest enjoy- ments of our life. The female rustics in our farms and villages are oftentimes lovely to a high degree, and in such com- positions as properly admit them, I would have that loveliness copied to the utmost stretch of the art ; but my objection is to setting bad imitations of Greek and Ro- Q 4 232 LECTURE IV. man faces on the shoulders of English peasants, to seeing the same set of fea- tures constantly forced on our sight in every character, and called pretty, because the eyes are large, the cheeks red, and the mouth tucked up into an unmeaning simper. Taking it, now, for granted that you have agreed to separate in your minds and in your practice the light and shadow from the colouring of your pictures and drawings, and to suppose, during the first part of your process, all the objects you mean to imitate as wholly divested of colour, your first * operation will be, to shadow the parts that are turned from the light, or from which the light is in- * This process, it is trusted, will be fully explained by the plates which accompany tliis Lecture. LECTURE IV. 233 tercepted ; your second proceeding will be, to express the different degrees of light on the surfaces that are in light ; and your third will be, to express in the shadows of the first class those darker shadows which are occasioned by reflected light. Yourper- formance is thus ready for colouring ; and I beg leave to repeat that we are now re- ferring to complexion only, or, in the technical language of painters, to the co- louring of the carnations. Your first atten- tion, then, must be directed to express the blue or grey tints, which you will do with a mixture of the finest carmine, and ge- nuine Antwerp blue : many artists employ for this purpose a composition of ultra- marine and Vermillion, which is highly objectionable, as I shall shew you at a fit opportunity. These greys must be dis- tinguished into local and accidental, ob- 234 LECTURE IV. serving that the former will be almost of a pure blue. The local greys are those made by the thinness of the skin shewing the larger veins through it ; for any dark colour, even red, when seen through a light-coloured semi-transparent medium, assumes an appearance of grey or blue ; and this effect is beautifully celebrated by Mr. Hayley, when he speaks of those daz- zling complexions, in which “ the blue meancl’ring vein Sheds a soft lustre thro’ the lucid snow.” In every face you will find the local grey invariably between the eyes and the nose, and in the passage from the outer extremity of the eye-brow across the temple to the hair : in very young per- sons the former is the most obvious ; in elderly persons, the latter becomes most LECTURE IV. 235 perceptible, encreasing greatly with ex- treme age. The accidental greys are those which are to be found in all complexions at the edges of the shadows, and which have been supposed, by most painters, to be grey only by contrast, as occupying a medium place between the vivid colour of the lights, and the grosser colour of the shadows. But this I believe to be a mis- take. The appearance of grey is actual, and arises from part of the shaded side of the solid flesh shewing through the en- lightened part of the skin. The breadth of this grey will therefore be in propor- tion to the thickness of the skin, and to the position of the spectator with regard to the direction of light. It cannot appear at all unless more be seen of the light than of the shaded side of the object. If the shadow of the flesh and of the skin 23G LECTURE I\^ coincide to the eye, then the edge of the shadow exhibits no alteration but the mere diminution of its force ; but if more he seen of the shaded than of the enlight- ened side of the object, then the edge of the shadow will be of a brighter hue than its general tint ; because part of the en- lightened surface of the flesh will shew through the shadow of the skin. To express truly these accidental greys, you will take the colours already pre- scribed, and pass the mixture along the edges of your first shadow, softening it oflT both ways, so as to become an inter- mediate gradation between that and the second, observing always that it be kept lighter than the general tone of the first shadows. Your next step will then be to give the reds or reddish tints to your sub- ject, which you will do invariably with LECTURE IV. 237 Chinese vermillion and carmine. Hav- ing thus far prepared the ground-work of your figure, you will take a mixture of carmine or of Venetian red and gamboge, of each according to the complexion of man, or woman, you have to represent, and cover the whole of the shadows, colours and all, except the balls of the eyes and the shining lights on the forehead and nose, which, on a very fine skin, will be perfectly white by the quantity of light they reflect. When this shall have been accomplished, you will add the tints of the reflex lights and colours, as described in my last Lecture, and make such fur- ther variations in the local colour as your subject, when duly examined, will suggest ; which will in general be a partial aug- mentation of the reds, and a repetition occasionally of the general colour, though 238 LECTURE IV. somewhat yellower, to serve as an inter- mediate between the general colour and the reds. This brings your work to a conclusion under the idea of a tinted drawing, as I have already defined it; and a few experiments will convince you that this mode of proceeding affords the most ample means of imitating nature truly and expeditiously ; that it is capable of great delicacy, and that it is also capable of great clearness, force, and brilliancy. If you wish to make pictures of your per- formances, you will then carry them through this process of colouring after the first and second shadows, and then add the local colour to the proper propor- tion of Indian-ink for finishing the sha- dows, adding carmine and Venetian-red to the last touches in those shadows of the third class, where the light, passing LECTURE IV. 239 through a thin part of the flesh, takes and imparts the colour of the medium. But this last circumstance should be con- sidered and treated with great caution ; for it has been the inducement to innu- merable errors amongst painters, particu- larly those of the present times. The eye-lids, the thin parts of the nose, the mouth, and even the fingers, when op- posed to a very strong light, will, from this cause, exhibit a great degree of red- ness in their respective shadows; but it never can follow from these circum- stances that we should plaister them with pure Vermillion, or that we should carry this flaming military colour into the cavi- ties of the ears, to the shadow under the throat, and indeed to the last touches in every part of the undraped human figure. I entreat you to weigh this in your minds. 240 LECTURE IV. to look around you on the various pic- tures each day will present to your ob- servation, and, when you shall have dis- covered any of these daring violations of truth, to set them down in your memories as quicksands you ought to shun. The process I have now had the ho- nour of describing to you, is founded in a close observation of Nature ; and I trust, if you give it due consideration, you will be convinced that it is calculated to lead, by the most simple means, to the happiest and most successful results. I will there- fore venture to hope that, as your subjects are chosen, your materials pointed out, and the process of using them circum- stantially described, some of you at least will put them soon in a state of active operation. • To those who wish for a process for 15 LECTURE IV . ^41 copying old pictures with certainty, I have recommended the use of water-colours. The practitioner will prepare his copy as already described, to the end of the second shadow and local colours, being more or less deep in the tones, according to the original. He will then wash the whole over with Venetian-red and gamboge, to the colour of the highest light of his model ; reinforce the local colours, where they appear too weak, and then finish the whole with a mixture of such browns, or brown and blue, as appears to have been employed in the shadows of the original picture. When finished, the copy should be four or five times covered with isin- glass, dissolved in spiritof wine *, and the * As this is difficult to prepare, I have given the receipt to Hastings, in the Haymarket, and to Barker, in Oxford-street, who have it ready for sale. LECTURE I\. ‘ 24 *^ result may be illusive. I once saw one ot the first judges in England deceived for half an hour by a copy of this kind, though he had the orioinal in his otlier hand at the same time. But after leading you through this view of the modes into which you may divide your subjects of figures, and the manner of colouring their complexions, I must call your attention to another branch of the study, which is of the highest importance ; it is expression, not merely of countenance, though certainly the most considerable, but also of gesture and deportment, as indicating the affections and movements of the human mind. This is important to make painting intellectual ; and yet we have authority to believe, that the antient Greek painters practised their art very long, and even with applause, before any attempt was made by them to give the LECTURE IV. 243 least appearance of expression to the countenances of their figures. It would require the whole of a long lecture to dis- cuss this part of my subject with that discriminating attention to which it is justly entitled; but that not being permit- ted me, I will endeavour to give you some leading principles to assist your pursuit. It cannot, I trust, be thought too much to require from those who wish to excel in this most interesting department of the painter’s art, that they should devote a short time to acquire some knowledge of the construction of the human head, and of the forms of the muscles in the human face, by which the features are moved in different directions. This knowledge being obtained and digested, daily observations on nature, and on the works of ai’t, which are so numerous in R 2 LI'X.’TUKE 1\. every part of this country, will lead you to remark what muscles are employed, and in what degree to express such or such different emotions of the mind ; and every remark so made will become a rule of future practice. But great care must be taken to distinguish between a sudden emotion and the expression of the same feeling when continued and fixed. The sudden joy that irradiates a countenance, and gives the most pleasing activity to every feature, presents, if long continued, no indications but of a settled cheerful- ness : the burst of sudden grief, the pangs of sudden despair, contract and depress the features to all the evidences of mental agony ; but the same cause continuing for a length of time, the whole face relaxes into gloomy languor and pallid stillness. You have, however, much more to con- LECTURE IV. 245 aider than all this; for, in a skilfully-exe- cuted picture, every limb, every joint of a figure should speak the same language as the features. If the emotions ex- pressed be tumultuous and violent, the action of the person will be rapid and ex- tended, and the objects which excited them, or those to which they tend, should, if possible, be introduced, except in the case of insanity, where the cause being remote, and the tendency variable and uncertain, neither can properly be ad- mitted. But to the dilettante artist, I would in oeneral recommend the choice of such O subjects as depend for their interest on the representation of the softer workings of the heart and mind, as love, tenderness, and entreaty. In delicate love, the coun- tenance is serene but glowing, the eyes R 3 quite open to gaze on the object, ami the attitude or motion graceful and gentle. In the expression of tenderness, the gaze is less ardent, and somewhat mixed with solicitude, the attitude bending towards its object, or leaning over it. In entreat- ing and beseeching, the eye is fully open, the brow a little contracted to shew anxi- ety ; the mouth apparently speaking, the figure turned towards the person ad- dressed, and the object in request should if possible be exhibited. These few rules, and their modifica- tions, will serve to remove your difficulty in very many cases ; but when you shall require to enter further into the subject, I would advise you to consult the very able Treatise by Gerarde Lairesse, which I have mentioned in a former Lecture ; and, also, a very ingenious work, pub- LECTURE IV. ‘247 lished by Mr. Bell, on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting. The next time I shall be permitted to address you, it will be for the purpose of applying the process described in my last Lecture, to the practice of drawing and painting landscape. I shall then have a new opportunity of pointing out advan- tages which painting in water-colours pos- sesses over every process as yet known. LECTURE V. In my discourse of to-day I shall have the honour to direct your attention to the consideration of landscape-painting. This branch of the art, so delightful to those who practice it, may be divided into the grand, the elegant, and the rural. The terrific, which we had occasion to consi- der not many days ago, is not within the scope of mere landscape-painting : it necessarily requires the introduction of figures to describe the impression of im- pending danger, so indispensable in this LECTURE IV. ‘ 21-9 class of subjects. From this view only, were there no other grounds for such an opinion, it will be evident, that composi- tions of figures are one degree, at least, higher in point of dignity than the finest landscapes. The grand in landscape re- quires that the forms should be large and massy, and the situation should, if possible, be so chosen as to exclude the access of a general or diffusive light. To obtain this effect, the morning or evening light should generally be selected, when even diminu- tive objects afford broad and ample sha- dows, and when the quantity of vapour, either rising or descending, by concealing or softening the minutiae of the scene, contributes much to the idea of vastness. But the sources from which you will draw the most powerful aids in subjects of this kind, are those splendid or awful effects of LECTURE V. ^350 atmosphere which are transient, nay, often momentary ; yet which can, notwithstand- ing, fill the most capacious mind with sensations of majesty and sublimity. To illustrate this part of my subject more fully, I would beg leave to refer you to the unrivalled compositions of our inimit- able Wilson : his Solitude, his Niobe, his Ceyx and Alcione, his Meleagar, all well known, at least by the engravings after them, afford perfect models for the various modes of grandeur in landscape. From these you will infer, that a principal source of grandeur, in your subjects of this class, is the introduction of such circumstances as imply rapid and violent motion, or the probable occurrence of danger. The con- vulsions of an earthquake, that cleaves huge mountains to their centre ; the howling wind, that bends or tears up every herb LECTURE V. ^>51 and tree in its progress ; the dashing tor- rent, that falls, foaming, from rock to rock down the mountain’s side, are objects from which your landscapes will derive some of their most powerful effects. The elegant in landscape includes, I conceive, all those scenes in which art has been successfully employed, or in which the happy combinations of smiling nature seem to have left nothing for taste to desire. Such subjects naturally look to architecture as the appropriate source of ornament for them. The noble mansion, that becomes the dwelling of merited opulence, or of hereditary honour ; the fragrant garden, or shrubbery, where ex- pence and taste have united to exhibit in one view, round the supposed temple of some sylvan deity, the beauties of many climates ; the ivy-covered walls and LF.CTUKK \ . Q52 iiioulderino: columns that once enclosed monastic societies ; are all fit subjects for the embellishment of elegant landscape. The sky, in general, with subjects of elegant landscape, should be open and tranquil, and, though the golden rays of the departing sun may sometimes be al- lowed to gleam through the fretted windows, or along the deserted ailes of an ecclesiastic ruin ; yet the retirements of greatness and wealth should, I think, always be shown in that splendour of full meridian light which vivifies all nature, and seems emblematic of the prosperity on which it shines. Rural landscape is more ample in its range ; and is, perhaps, most of all the three kinds suited for the dilettante artist: its subjects may be extensive or limited, either embracing the whole valley, with LEC^TURi: \'. the various cccupations and pursuits of husbandmen, swains, and village-maids, or detailing, with light but faithful hand, the broken style, the mud-built cottage, or the slender plank that forms a bridge over the willow-covered stream. In rural scenes, however, of this latter kind, com- posed of few objects, and those near at hand, it must not be forgotten, that more than half the beauty, and nearly the whole interest, arises from that truth of imitation which it has lately been very much the custom to decry, as beneath the dignity of a great artist. Each tree, each little flower, demands its appropriate touch of the pencil ; the fibrous roots, hanging over the edge of a mouldering bank, the fractures in a piece of shattered railing, the weather-beaten thatch, and even the bits of moss that enliven it, the crumblino; ■>.'54 LKCTURi: plaster that shows the rude stone of a cottage, all become sources of picturesque effect in the hands of a performer who has accustomed himself to render things in painting as they really appear, not as he thinks they ought to be. JNlany of the pictures of Ruysdale, some of those of Decker, as well as a few of the pictures of Hobbema, afford delightful specimens of such subjects as I would arrange in the most pleasing class of rural landscape. I am anxious to recommend, in the strongest manner, this style of rural landscape to your particular study; because we have, every where around us, the most ample materials for such combinations. The trees in our valleys are highly luxuriant, and the continual changes of atmosphere they experience, give them a variety of form and character, truly picturesque, and LIXJTURE V. ^55 • never to be found, except in an insular situation ; but, in addition to this, there is no country existing that exhibits a greater variety in the mode of constructing its rural dwellings than Britain. In the south, and in the midland counties, where stone is not so easily procured, the habit- ation of the peasant is formed of mud and timber ; in both nearly on the same prin- ciple; while, in the south, the mildness of the climate covers every little hut with a profusion of blooming and fragrant flowers. In the neighbourhood of- the metropolis, even where the traces of art are observ- able in the precision of almost every build- I ' ing, there are many little circumstances of ] decoration which make the lesser dwell- ings highly favourable to the represent- ation of the pencil. In some of the coun- ties of the north, where unceasing labour LECTURE V. ‘2o(i is required to counteract the unkindness of a climate that produces corn sparingly, but stone in abundance, the cottages are generally formed of irregular stones, piled on each other ; frequently without any kind of cement; but their inartificial con- struction, the various kinds of shelter they oppose to the storms that often deluge them, and their wisely chosen scite on the verdant bank of some silvery stream, ren- der them, most truly, picturesque and interesting objects. This, too, is the style of landscape, that connects itself, more than any other, with the drawing and painting of figures, the style wherein each may bear such a pro- portion in the picture, as to be necessary to the effect and understanding of the other. The figures, however, that are in- troduced, should be the genuine tenants LECTURE A. of the scene, in form, in feature, and in habiliments, characterizing the district, and even the particular county. Having thus classed the subjects for your study and practice in landscape, I would proceed to remark on the materials, which contribute to its combinations and effects. The most extensive of these, and the most difficult to understand, or to re- present truly, is air. The atmosphere which we breathe, and which is interposed between our sight and every object, is transparent, in a greater or less degree, according to the quantity of vapour with which it is loaded, or the position in which we stand with regard to the light. VVe find that glass, and even clirystal or diamonds, may be so doubled and redoubled, as not to allow the possi- bility of distinguishing objects through the s ‘^58 LECTURE V. medium; because tlie particles that compose them, though pervious to light in a very great degree, are also susceptible of a certain portion of shadow. It is even so with the atmosphere, the thinnest and most transparent of all media. That it is capable of obstructing the passage of light, we see evidently in the circumstance, that when the air is highly illuminated by the sun, and we stand with our backs to the light, distant objects of any kind are scarce- ly discernible, because we see the enlight- ened sides of the particles that compose the medium. To illustrate this, if you will lookj from the street, in a sunny day at any house on which the light strongly falls, you will find that you can see no object that may be in the rooms through the windows, unless it be placed near the glass, which is not the case with the same windows on a cloudy day. If, then, the particles of air can obstruct and reflect light, they must also be liable to have their shadows : taking, therefore, the parti- cles of lights and shadows, or of black and white, the colour of atmosphere will be grey, varying a little as the one or the other principle predominates. ’ Now, this being admitted, I have further to remark, that, as this medium, through which we see every thing, has thus in itself an ap- pearance of colour, its effect in landscape is to make lighter every thing that is dark- er than its colour, and to darken every thing that is lighter ; till, each approaching the other, the objects become so many flat skreens, and at last, from a continuance of the same cause, totally disappear. This is a point so exceeding clear in itself, and so easily demonstrated by the most simple 20O LECTURE V. experiments, tliat I could almost suppose it bad never been doubted ; yet, one of the most esteemed landscape painters this country has produced *, laid it down as a principle, and constantly practised upon it, that the interposition of the air makes all objects lighter, and that therefore the lightest part of the sky in a picture must be lighter than any object in the landscape. His mode of producing his pictures, founded in this idea, was to paint the sky first, and then, with broad flat tints of grey, to lay in the different masses of- distances, making each darker as ap- proaching nearer to the foreground. On the respective flat skreens, he then ex- pressed as much of the detail of parts as it was his custom to allow, always keeping. * This Artist is not now living. LECTURE V. ‘201 in the light objects, the same relative pro- portion of tone established by the first broad masses. This would be true, if all the objects, in all the distances, were actu- ally in shadow, because they are then darker than the colour of the atmosphere, and must consequently be made suc- cessively liohter by its interference ; but the artist, who evidently mistook a partial operation for a general principle, con- stantly made all his objects throw their respective shadows as if in the strongest sun-shine. To satisfy your minds that I am not misleading you, I beg the favour of you, in the first opportunity of a bright day, to take a piece of paper or any white object, and, standing full in the light, bring the paper in apparent contact with the whitest cloud you can find in the sky. You will perceive, in a moment, that the s 3 LKCTUKK V. pa})er is many distinct degrees winter than the cloud. This, therefore, will, I hope, be sufficient on this point, which I should have but slightly mentioned, were it not that the doctrine I have just dis- proved has many powerful followers, both in theory and in practice. I have shown you that the colour of atmosphere is grey, and the cause of it. I have now to remind you, that the vast empyrean of the sky, which we consider as blue, is so only by contrast with the vivid and powerful tones and colours, that cover the whole face of nature in a brilliant day ; it is simply an effect of white over black, producing a grey ; or of the darkness of infinite space, seen through the enlio-htened medium of the c5 O air that surrounds us. This is not diffi- cult to prove. ]\I. de Sausseure informs us, and the same testimony is given by LECTURE \\ ^63 Bourrit and otliers, that on the summits of the highest Alps, where the air is so thin as to be scarcely respirable, the sky, over-head, appears nearly black ; the ex- perience of every night convinces us that the sky is not then blue, and that it is more and more black as there is less light on the globe to give it an apparent colour by comparison. But, to give you a more convincing proof, I beg you to take anv kind of tube, of which the in- side is painted black, and apply it to the clearest part of the sky, in the clearest summer’s day. You will then perceive that, by shutting out from your sight every other object that could be the means of contrast, that which you thought blue has ceased to appear so, and seems nothing but a mixture of white and black. This examination, while it furnishes us a s 4 I.ECTUIIE V. 2 () 1 . most important fact for consideration, convinces us of tlie littleness, the insuffi- ciency of art, when compared to the great oj)erations of nature. I have stated to you before, the great deficiency of paint- ing, with regard to its powers, both of light and of dark : I have now to remind you of its wonderful incompetency in splendour of colours, when comjiared with the appearances of nature. It must be evident to you, from the remarks I have already made, that the powerful tones and vivid colours, displayed in natural landscape, make, by comparison, the black and white of the atmosphere, and the sky appear decidedly blue. The ingenuous Count llumford has proved also, the ])Os- sibility of accomplishing the same by artificial contrasts with colours ; but, to do this, he found it necessary to emplo}' LECTURE V. -265 the iitmok extent of a painter’s means, which would be totally incompatible with the beautiful gradations that appear in nature. Thus, circumscribed as to our means of operation, in endeavouring to follow the mode by which the effects we wish to imitate are produced, the only consideration that remains for us, is how best to supply the deficiency. It has ever been an object of solicitude with me, to establish, for the advancing practitioner, some mode of proceeding so nearly approaching to the philosophical effect, (the rational proceeding of nature, in producing her appearances,) that a certain degree of truth of representation should be more than probable, and that any serious deviation should be almost im- possible. These important advantages, I have long been convinced, are to be found LECTURE V. ^>()G only in the highest degree of tinted draw- ing. We will therefore proceed to con- sider that method, as applied to subjects of landscape, which I had the honour of explaining to you in my third Lecture, as applied to figures. It has been shown that positive shadow is black, that lesser degrees of shadow are modifications of black, and that the local colour of an ob- ject, in its shadowed surfaces, differs so much from the colour of its enlightened surfaces, as is equal to the degree of local colour, added to the proportion of black which constitutes the shadow. This is true to the greatest nicety, as applied to objects near the spectator, as subjects of figures are generally supposed to be ; but, in subjects of landscape, where the objects are successively removed to greater and greater distances from the eye, the interposition of atmosphere between the LECTURE V. 26 ? spectator and the objects viewed, begins bj diminishing the appearance of local colour in the shadows, compared with the appearance of the lights, till at last the colour of the objects appears in the en- lightened parts only, which also degrade, by the same cause still operating, till the most remote distance becomes a mass of neutral colour, somewhat darker than the atmosphere near it. It might be pre- sumed, therefore, from these deductions, that covering the near objects with their local colour, added to the colours occa- sioned by reflected light, and regularly diminishing the force of the local colour as the objects are meant to recede, would give the truth of natural appearances ; because shadow is grey, or a modification of black and white, and atmosphere acts on the same principle. But it has been shown, that the splendour of colours in 2G8 LECTURE V. nature converts, by comparison, this grey into positive blue or very nearly so, and we have no such power of contrast in painting. We are, therefore, reduced to the necessity of employing blue to repre- sent what in nature is only a mixture of black and white, and, from these facts, taken together, results what I now pro- pose to you. Having obtained the real, and nothing more than the real, light and shadow of your landscape with Indian ink, you will then begin to colour from the sky, the shaded parts of the clouds being pre- sumed to have been inserted with the material used for the other shadows. The clear empyrean of the sky will be given with indigo, or with Prussian blue, or with Prussian blue over indigo, accord- ing to the state of atmosphere meant to LECTURE V. f269 be represented. This same blue must be afterwards distributed over the whole of the extreme distance, and continued on the shadows of the other distances, dilut- ing the tone as the objects may be sup- posed nearer to the eye, till it disappear at that part near the foreground, where atmosphere must be considered as not having a visible effect. After this pre- paration, if the local colours and re- flected lights be given on the principle I have already described, the result will be, with a judicious practitioner, a true resemblance to the nature he means to represent, and, in the hands of one almost a novice, the production will at least be tolerable. This must be under- stood, as I have stated it, as applying it to tinted drawing, which I am persuaded should be the first mode of study for any one who wishes afterwards to paint his ‘270 LECTURE subjects, in wliatever manner or process. If you wish to make inctures in water- colours of your landscapes, then the mode of proceeding is a little different, though resting on the same philosophical reason- ing. You will, after a correct outline, begin with the blue of the sky ; you will mix Indian ink with the blue for the shadows of the clouds, and, in advancing to the foreground, you will add to a por- tion of the local colour so much Indian ink as would constitute the tone of the shadow of each object, had it been white. The local colour should then be generally distributed upon the objects, with the re- serve, as to distance, which I have just mentioned, and afterwards those colours which appear by reflection in the land- » scape, and by refraction in the sky. Ad- vanced to this state, your picture is ready 14 LECTURE V. ^271 for finish in o; from' the distance to the fore- ground, which commences bj retouching the shadows of the remote objects with the blue of the sky, and, nearer, mixing the Indian ink with each local colour for finishing the shadowed objects or surfaces till the whole be completed. I would wish, most earnestly, to recommend to your notice and adoption, this truly rational mode of proceeding, in opposition to that which is much practised at pre- sent, of taking up colours at once, and arranging them, by no other guide than the visual susceptibility of the teacher or the pupil. But if, by preference, you paint your landscapes in oil-colours, a different mode of proceeding must be resorted to, less simple and less demonstrative, as to the truth of its effects, but indispensable to LECTURE V. the kind of material. You will draw out your subject correctly on the pannel or canvass, not with chalk, but with a black-lead pencil, inserting in your out- line the figures, and other moveable ob- jects, by which you mean to embellish the scene ; and, in painting the different parts subsequently, you will recollect to paint round these objects, so that when it comes to their turn to be expressed, they may be executed on the canvass, and not on the colours of such parts as make their back ground. The reason of this I have stated before, though not as applying precisely to this case. When, in oil paint- ing, a light colour is put over a dark one, the inevitable consequence is, that, in time, the dark colour will become evident through the other, and the light object will seem to sink into the ground. The LECTURE W ^73 circumstance is perfectly well known; and we see instances of its unfortunate effects in the landscapes of some of the greatest masters, who have chosen to finish their scenery first, and then introduce the figures. You will begin with the sky, and next take the distance, both of which should, if possible, be finished at one sitting. These should be painted very thin in most parts, and no substance of colour allowed any where but in the high- est lights. I have advised you before to paint your oil-pictures invariably on a white-ground ; but, in this department, it is even of more importance to do so than in any other. For the certain change of colour, resulting from the nature of oil, will soon lower the tone of the light parts, and, if the canvass be of a dark colour, that colour will shew more and more T 274 LECrrURE through by time, greatly increasing the degradation, and totally destroying the clearness so necessary to the appearance of' air. There is no way, as yet discovered, of counteracting this unfortunate tendency O J of oils, but by painting the light parts of such pictures very thinly on a white sur- face. The middle and foregrounds of your subjects will be taken next after the distance, dividing them generally into the masses of light and dark, and leaving the extremes of each principle to be inserted in the finishing. You will mix, in the shadowed parts of the middle distance, always a certain portion of the grey, by which you have represented the effect of atmosphere in the sky and in the most remote ))arts ; and paint the foreground and near objects, excepting in the highest lights, as much as possible with thin and LECTURE V. transparent colours. This advice applies particularly to the painting of the trees, and, above all, to such parts of them as come against a light part of the sky, or as shew the effect of light, passing through the foliage. The pictures of Claude Lor- raine are painted with very thin colour in every part, except the prominent parts of the foregrounds ; the best pictures of Ruysdale are painted with transparent colours, excepting the shining lights ; the pictures of our own incomparable Gains- borough are executed nearly in the same manner ; as are also the finest works of Wilson ; and the tasteful landscapes of Mr. Abbott, of Exeter, which are almost equal to any others, owe a great part of their beauty to a similar treatment. Attempts have lately been made by an oil-painter of high celebrity, to paint land- T 2 Lia^ rUKK V. ‘ 21 (\ scape scenery in two colours, representing the light and shadow, and then glazing the objects over with their local tints ; but owinji: to the causes which I described to- you in a I’ormer I^ecture, when discussing the same practice as applied to painting figures, such attempts have not succeeded. Allow me to suggest to such of you as wish to paint landscape in oils, a mode of proceeding which will be attended with great success : it has been tried, as yet, I believe, but by one artist. Having drawn your subject correctly on a white paper, properly stretched, you will execute the sky and distance in transparent water-co- lours, finishing, as highly as possible, and then varnish the whole with isinglass var- nish. Upon this you will paint the middle parts and the foregrounds with oil colours, only observing to paint the LECTURE ‘277 extreme lights, in such parts, of a very high tone, perhaps a little above the truth, as compared to the sky and distance, be- cause the oil-colours will become darker, while those parts of the picture which have been executed in water, will remain the same. In this practice you will unite the acknowledged advantages of both kinds of painting, and I am persuaded, your satisfaction, on the result, will more than recompense the labour. There is a general defect in the practice of engraving trees, which defect is also to be found in the trees of such of our land- scape painters as pride themselves on what is called 'pencilling — it is in repre- senting all the leaves of their trees as if they were seen with the flat surface con- stantly presented to the eye ; though it is evident, without much consideration, that T 3 LECTURE *r/8 the leaves of a tree, unless when strongly blown by the wind, must be seen in an infinite variety of directions, and conse- quently appear of as many different shapes. The first material of landscape to which I would direct your attention, is the va- rious kinds of vegetation which serve to clothe the surface of the earth, without concealing its form. All this I would wish to class under the term herbage. The proper treatment of herbage in draw- ings and paintings of landscape, is by no means unimportant, though frequently little attended to ; much of the truth of representation depends upon it. In the most distant parts, a faint and even tint will generally be sufficient; as we approach nearer, stronger tints, with the proper variations of colour, will be required ; but 14 I.ECTUllE V. as we advance to the foreground, some- thing more must be done. 'Roughness then begins to appear, and must be ex- pressed, or truth will vanish, and the part, on which the roughness ought to be visi- ble, will, for the want of it, seem out of its place. Still nearer, the indications must be larger, and must take more de- cided forms, gradually changing, as they approach, into touches of determined and varied directions ; nearer still, indications of form will appear, and, on the fore- ground itself, the grass must be represent- ed by long, slender touches, so placed as to express the manner of its growth, and plants, and weeds of a larger description, must be drawn, shaded, and coloured with accuracy. I am aware that many persons may start at the idea of a process, appa- rently so tedious, for those parts ol’a pic- T 4 LECTURE V. 2SU ture which they have been used to think trivial, but it will be found, in practice, much less so than would be supposed. The truth of the effect will, in its progres- sive appearance, be amusing to the per- former, and the success of the execution, particularly in detailing the foreground, will, when duly considered, afford as much delight, as the same success in those parts which are usually deemed of more import- ance. You have, no doubt, frequently seen and observed careless pictures of lawns and fields, in which the grazing cattle, exhibit their feet entirely, even to the lowest edge of their hoof, because, if the painter were to represent, in those parts, the herbage that necessarily should cover them, he would find himself inevit- ably compelled to bestow, on every other part of his grounds, the indispensable at- LECTURE V. 281 teiition which I have now recommended to jou. To execute, with truth, a per- fectly flat country, receding from the eye, has been considered as a very difficult at- tainment in landscape-painting, and has, when attained, been universally admired. A regular diminution of the smaller de- tails that cover the surface of the country, both in their size and in their distinct- ness, will not fail to accomplish this ; as we may observe in some of the first pic- tures of Claude Lorraine, whom no artist ever surpassed in his masterly expression of such details. A similar attention to this part of pencilling, with a more rapid diminution of the parts as they recede from the eye, will express with equal cer- tainty, what cannot be expressed by any other means, the effect of a view lookin 2.3 style of painting. The professed object, on such occasions, is to conceal every ap- pearance of individual marking, on the face to be represented. Some have endea- voured to accomplish it by broad and ex- tensive shadows ; some have tried, for the same purpose, broad lights, almost with- out any shadows ; and others have had recourse to an artifice, less justifiable, in spreading a muslin or thin veil over their window, that every part of the object might be undefined and tender, as they call it, by not being distinctly seen ; but all these three sorts have invariably con- curred in rejecting every appearance of a dark shadow, in or about the face, except one under the nose. These contrivances can add nothing to the inimitable charms of youth and beauty ; and, in the portraits of age thus produced, instead of those in- - Y ^ LKCTURK \L m- dications of the progress of time whieli are so venerable, and so picturesque, we often see hollow eyes, sunken cheeks, and mouths fallen in for want of teeth, with a skin fair, sleek and blooming. We will not follow this practice. The first, and fundamental principle of portrait painting, as 1 have stated before, is resemblance ; but it must be a resemblance under the most favourable circumstances possible to the subject. These circumstances having been once assumed, or supposed, the most correct and faithful imitation of the whole should necessarily follow. The first rule that I would wish to give you is, that all figures for portraits should be placed in a broad and diffusive light, like that of the open air, admitted by one window only. Under these circumstances, the reflected lights are always strong, and the shadows ■ LECTURE VI. 3-25 never so dark as to be harsh and disagree- able. Besides, it is the kind of light in which objects are commonly seen and familiarized to us, and, therefore, to place them in artificial lights in which they perhaps never appeared but by the direc- tion of the painter, is to take so much from the effect of likeness. I will not trouble you with remarks on the thought- lessness of those artists who shut up the light of their painting rooms to about a foot square, and yet do not hesitate, in finishing the heads of persons depicted in this prison-like light, to give them back- grounds of a clear blue sky, as if they had not previously scorned the cheering rays of the sun. I have perfect confidence in laying down this rule for your guidance, as I am convinced it will greatly contri- bute to your success. Rubens, whose Y 3 LECTURE VI. portraits are amongst his finest works, certainly placed his objects in a very open light ; his window, if I may credit the assertion of those who have visited and examined his residence, being nearly equal to the whole side of his painting room. Vandyke, the finest portrait painter that ever existed, appears to me to have practised on the same principle. The next point to which I would direct your attention, is, the position of the head in a portrait, relatively with that of the body. The body and the head should, I think, never be presented in the same direction to the spectator, except in the case of very old persons, where the facility of motion is diminished by a variety of causes, and then I would advise to turn the figure about one-third from the front, and allow the eyes to look on ; that is, at LECTURE VL mi the observer. But in cases of extreme age, even this cannot be allowed without a de- viation from propriety of character. It is generally supposed, that a portrait is ren- dered more interesting when the eyes look on ; and, no doubt, the observation has much reason : yet I have seen many in- stances, in which a great appearance of dignity has been given, by putting the body in front, and turning the head and the eyes so as to look entirely out at the side of the picture. In speaking on this point, I ought not to omit pointing out to you, as a caution, the mistake very com- monly made by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Sir Peter Lely, of putting the body of a figure in front, with the head turned aside, and yet having the eyes looking on. This circumstance is also to be met with in the portraits by Jervois and by Hudson. Y 4 328 LECTURE VE In portraits of whole figures, if single, they will generally be represented stand- ing, though recumbent or sitting positions may be admitted for the purpose of fa- vouring some personal defect ; but even then the eye of the spectator should be carried up to the top of the picture, by some upright object or other ; the stumps of trees are the common, and, I may say, threadbare auxiliaries on such occasions. If more than one figure be required in the picture, they are then, as far as the grouping extends, to be governed by the LECTURE VI. ■929 rules of composition, which you will find detailed by many writers on painting ; particularly by Gerrard Lairesse, and by Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty. If the figure required to be represented, be un- graceful through excessive bulk, you will not correct it by paring the form down to the dimensions of a Niobe, or an Apollo ; thus, as is not unfrequently the case, set- ting a fat countenance on a slender body ; but you will correct the probable impres- sion of its bulk by accessory objects, art- ’ fully introduced to conceal part of its extent. If the figure of the intended portrait be thinner than is consistent with the idea of symmetry, the defect, in a fe- male, may be easily concealed, by the introduction of loose and flowing drapery, and by covering one arm entirely, and fore-shortening the other ; but if the figure 330 LECTURE \L be that of a man, and you are confined to the close dress of modern Europe, then the task is not so easy : you have perhaps no way left for concealing the defect, but that so judiciously recommended by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his notes to Mason’s translation of Du Fresnoy, the best work, in my opinion, that ever came from the pen of that distinguished painter : his ad- vice consists in introducing some object of the same colour, which you are obliged to adopt for the drapery, and placing it so that it may seem, in the general appear- ance, to be an extension of the figure. In finishing this part of my subject, I am very strongly inclined to say, that I would pre- fer almost any artifice to a deviation from truth, which nothing can justify. In the back-grounds of your portraits, which, if small, should be very simple, and, if large, LECTURE VI. SSI may perhaps consist of many objects, every thing should be subordinate to the interest of the figure ; not by making a midnight sky behind a head that seems to receive the meridian sun, or by glazing down the objects after they have received a correct light and shadow ; but by being chosen of such tones and materials, as will neces- sarily answer your purpose, without a violation of truth. For this purpose, the materials offered by nature are ample ; they are inexhaustible, without exposing you to the risk of wearing out any set of ideas. If the back-grounds of your pictures necessarily consist of distant ob- jects, they should, I think, be indistinct, and slightly executed ; even more so than the same degree of distance in pictures of landscape. For, suppose the whole com- position of the picture to be really before 35^2 LECTURE VI. you, the eye, in passing rapidly from a very near object, the figure, to a very re- mote distance, does not immediately adapt its focus to the change of circumstances, as it would be enabled to do in landscape, by passing through the intermediate dis- tances. To which may be added, that as the attention of the spectator is intended to be fixed on the figure, the focus of the eye must be supposed to be adjusted to that precise distance at which the figure stands; and, consequently, the back-ground or distance, to which that focus is not supposed to be adjusted, ought to be more indistinct. An attention to this optical effect gives wonderful relief to the por- trait. Sir Joshua Reynolds seems to have been fully aware of it, and the back- grounds of his pictures are oftentimes inimitably excellent. On back-grounds, I I8 LECTURE VI. SS3 liave only two more remarks to make at present. I must take the liberty of sug- gesting to you, if they be composed of landscape, not to repeat the common- place distance of a row of formal trees, showing between them the bright shine of a running stream. This device you must have so frequently met with, that it is impossible you should not have been struck with it. I must also beg leave to call your serious attention to the back-grounds of your portraits, with a view to their perspec- tive propriety. The horizontal line for the head of your figure, which most probably you take sitting, should be somewhere between the bottom of the nose and the middle of the throat, and in removing the subject to stand at a distance for the convenience of drawing the whole figure, if a whole length be required, LECTURE VL .‘3.S4 you must observe that tlie visual rays which touched the horizon on your sub- ject at the first station, should, by being produced, touch exactly the same points of the person as before, or you wilt see the face differently from what you have represented it, and which is consequently inconsistent with truth. Ll^CTURK \ L 3S5 • Tlie perspective horizon for your back- grounds, must never be placed lower than you observe it in this new station of the figure, which will give it you somewhere about the waist. It cannot be placed lower, without a mostflagrant departure from pro- bability and truth ; yet we often see, in the landscapes that accompany modern por- traits, the horizontal line placed as low as the feet of the figure. All these points, then, being fully weighed and considered, we will suppose the object you intend to paint is seated before you. At this mo- ment you will perceive the difficulty of the task you have undertaken, the importance and value of the branch of art in which you are engaged. The artist who paints pictures of inven- tion, whether historical or of any other kind, has so many auxiliary aids at com- LECTURE VI. • ssf) mand, by which to furnish out his compo- sition, tliat a failure in any one can arise only from want of taste, or from want of knowledge ; but in the case of portraits, where the subject is always given, fre- (piently of the most unfavourable kind, and a fine picture expected, there is, as- suredly, no one principle of the art, whether of composition, of light and shadow, or of colouring, that will not be indispensable to complete the arduous un- dertaking. But having gone through these prepa- ratory observations, and being on the point of sitting down to the delightful occupa- tion, for such I must call it, of painting a portrait, I must remind you that there is, in every set of features, in every counte- nance, a variety of changes, each having its particular power to please, and that the LECTURE VI. S37 impression vve have of any person’s face, as an acquaintance, arises from the whole of these taken together. The portrait painter, however, can represent, consist- ently, but one moment of countenance, but one position of features. This mo- ment should, therefore, be chosen of the most pleasing kind, and, once assumed, every part of the face should partake of the appropriate expression. In violation of this necessary observance, we frequently see portraits, especially in small, with the eyes languid, the brows frowning, and yet the mouths pinched up at the corners into a simper, lest the face should look grave. It next becomes necessary to determine in what process of painting you will pro- duce the intended resemblance. The first that offers itself to our notice, as being at z LKCTURE M. .‘i.38 present most general, is that of painting in oils. I have had the honour to prove to you, in a former lecture, that pictures, executed in this process, are not amongst the most permanent ; yet, as it is a prac- tice which many may wish to attempt, because it gives a facility of rudely cover- ing a large space in a short time, and as 1 would not be suspected of unjust partiality to the mode of painting, which I have advised you to prefer, I shall avail myself of this opportunity to give some remarks on the use and application of oil colours. The pigments employed in this process are the same as those made use of in water, and they are mixed up in boiled linseed oil, in nut oil, or in poppy oil ; the first for the dark colours, and the other two ibr the light colours, because they have loss tendency to (urn yollow by LECTURE VI. 339 time. That all oils had this tendency to turn yellow, was well known even in the time of Vassari, who has mentioned it in his writings upon the art. INIany artists also paint a great deal in a mixture of boiled linseed oil and mastic varnish, which makes the colours dry much sooner than oils alone. It would be difficult to lay down rules for the mode of proceed- ino;? because the use of these colours can- not be reduced to philosophical principles, as may be done with water colours, and because even the best masters have differed materially in their practice. The earliest examples we have of this kind of painting, and which, even now, appear the least discoloured by time, were certainly painted on a white distemper ground, strongly sized with glue ; so that the oils could not immediately penetrate, though they z 2 LKCTUKE \l. 3U) might be absorbed by it to a certain de- gree afterwards, and thus be prevented risino’ to the surface. The outline was O carefully and correctly drawn on this ground witli^ small point of chalk ; and the lightest colours laid in first, proceeding regularly downwards to the darkest. By this mode of proceeding, which is evident on examining the oil pictures of Da Vinci and Raphael, the lightest, or brightest parts, had least colour on them, and could not, therefore, undergo so great a change by the effect of the oils. Other painters of those times adopted the practice, which has been partially revived of late, of paint- ing their subjects in with two colours, to represent the light and shadow, as I had the honour of recommending to you in the use of water colours, and then glazed every object, or part, over with its appropriate LECTURE VI. 311 hue, made transparent by means of oils or varnish. I have stated to you before the reasons why this mode of proceeding could not succeed with oil colours, unless in cases of veiy smooth pencilling. Ru- bens, who generally used a white ground, made his outline very perfect, with some dark kind of crayon, and then laid in his shadows with terre de Cassel, rendered thin with varnish. To this he added, on the edges of the shadows, the grey tints, generally very strong, then the reds, near the high lights ; and having glazed the whole, excepting the shadows, over with a semi-transparent flesh colour, he inserted the brightest or shining light with solid colour, sometimes projecting to a degree that is highly objectionable. Vandyke, the scholar of Rubens, gave a truer colour to the shadows in his faces, 3V2 LECTURE VI. by rejecting the disagreeable browness ot the Cassel earth : he imitated his object more closely than his master ; and I have no doubt we ought to consider him as tlie best example in portrait painting that the world has produced. The present practice of portrait painting in oils, is to sketch out the subject very slightly with chalk, and then to correct the outline with a red or brownish colour. To this succeeds a dead colouring, as it is called, consisting of dark tints of red, black, and purple, which are to be neutral- ized and softened down in the next stajje of the process, by semi-transparent tints, inclining to yellow. This mode of prac- tice may, in skilful hands, produce an appearance of truth when fresh from the painter’s easel ; but the lamentable conse- quence is, that in time the dark colours LECTURE VL 31-3 underneath, appear, with increasing force, through the upper covering, and produce an effect wholly incompatible with beauty. The present appearance of almost every portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is a complete confirmation of my opinion. I have, therefore, no hesitation in recom- mending to you Vandyke, as a model in portrait painting ; for his process, if you paint in oils, and for his general truth of imitation, if your process be of any other kind. There are many persons, seemingly conversant with pictures, who will advise you to take Titian for your model, and will justify their recommendation on his acknowledged eminence ; they will tell you such, or such, is the colouring of this master, and that you should endeavour to copy it ; but, in their enthusiasm for foreign [lainters, they forget that Titian, z 4 LECTURE VI. 3H who doubtless painted most truly his ori- ginals, painted always the dark, yet clear, complexion of the Italians, which would ill suit on unsunned English faces. Van- dyke, besides being a complete master in this branch of art, was invariably employed in climates nearly like our own ; and his heads are, therefore, the best we can find to guide us in our imitation of nature. I turn, with great satisfaction, from these considerations, to the practice of painting in water colours, which is so superior in many respects, particularly in its greater permanency, that I venture to recommend it to you as the only process of painting- suited to those who paint for amusement only. Your outline being completed with black lead, minutely describing all the details of the features, you will proceetl LECTURE \ I. 31-5 to same for every mode of engraving. The copper produced in this island, either from its peculiar quality, or from the superior manner in which it is manufactured by our coppersmiths, has long been con- sidered as the best ; and, till the ambition of an insatiable conqueror led him to think of setting bounds to British com- merce, the engravers of the continent had the chief part of their plates from London. The plate being ready to receive the subject, a considerable difficulty occurred to the early engravers as to the means of transferring it to the copper with accu- racy : it was, however, generally performed thus. The plate was rubbed very thinly over with white wax, and a tracing of the subject having been made on thin paper with some kind of crayon, ihe LECTURE VIE 371 drawing was laid with its face to the wax, and by rubbing gently on the back of the paper was soon transferred and reversed. A pointed instrument was then used to trace through the wax on the lines so transferred, and to scratch the subject faintly into the copper, after which the wax was cleared away and the artist left at liberty to proceed. The great diffi- culty of deciding the direction in which the lines should be laid on the different objects, was obviated by many of the early engravers, who, with a degree of patience that is now almost incredible, made drawings with a pen to work from, in which they inserted every line that was to be afterwards introduced in their plates. The implements for this species of art are five or six engravers of various lengths and thicknesses, as many points of various B B 2 372 LECTURE VIE sizes ; a scraper, a burnisher, and an oil- rubber : to these the engravers of modem times liave added an anvil, a hammer, and a pair of calipers, by which they are en- abled to beat out and repair any part of the work that may seem to be ill done ; a convenience which in these times seems very much resorted to. The great clear- ness which a dextrous engraver can give to his lines by his steadiness in cutting them, is his highest praise as a mechanic; but the manner of distributing and dis- posing those lines, as well as of deciding their various thicknesses, is a subject that requires much science, long practice and deep thought, without which little hope can be entertained of ever arriving at excellence in this art. Indeed the diffi- culty is so great, that out of the vast numbers who have attempted it, not above one in a hundred has ever estab- LFXTUIIE Vll. 373 lislied claims to be considered as any thing better than a mere mechanic. It will, doubtless, readily occur to you in considering this art, that the steadiness and force required in urging the tool for- wards in a given direction must greatly abridge the freedom of execution, and render it almost impossible adequately to express, by such means, the appearance of rough or uneven surfaces, the light and playful foliage of trees, or the thin floating vapours of the atmosphere. You will perceive the nature and extent of this difficulty to the ’graver*, on looking at the landscapes in the plates of Albert Durer, of Martin Schon ; and particularly in those of Sadlaer after Brughel and Paul Bril. The early engravers endeavoured, though ineffectually, to remove this difficulty, by * 7'echnical, for the instrument employed. B ]? 3 LECTURE VII. working with their plate on a sand-bag, or hard cushion, by which they were en- abled to turn the plate about with the left hand to meet the point of the tool which was sometimes held firm and some- times pressed forwards with the right. The use of such a cushion has, however, been generally laid aside, since the etch- ing-needle has been employed to do that which was found so incompatible with the nature of the ’graver. The early en- gravers, as I have had occasion to state to you before, never attempted to ex- press more than the drawing and the actual light and shadow of the pictures they copied, leaving the copper untouched for the lightest part of every object, not placed in shadow, and they seem to have avoided as much as possible the frequent crossing of their lines. Some have en- I.ECTURE VII. 375 cleavoiu'ed to accomplish their works with single lines only, as we see particularly in the works of Melan, but the appearance is generally without force, and has more claim to be looked on as an affectation than as a merit. Engraving on wood was probably cotemporary with engraving in plates of metal ; but the first specimens of this kind which have reached us, deserving of notice, are in the works of Albert Durer. These are scarce, and consequently valuable; and it is usual to call them very fine, which they unquestionably are, both in composi- tion and drawing, perhaps also in expres- sion; but we must not let these properties, which belong to them as pictures, delude our judgments when considering them as engravings. If a great literary character were to write an elegant, and perspicuous B B 4 LECTURE VII. 37 () dissertation on the beauties of Christianity, and were to write it with the point of a skewer, we should not call the hand-writ- ing beautiful, because the language glowed with celestial enthusiasiTi. It is on this principle that we must look at the set of scripture subjects, engraved on wood by Durer, which, in point of mechanical ex- cellence, arc as much inferior to the en- gravings in wood, produced at this time, as Terugino was in painting to his illus- trious disciple. Engraving in wood is executed on a principle different from that of engraving on copper. In the latter, the printing ink is delivered unto the paper from the cavities made by the artist ; in the former, the lines intended to receive and deliver the ink are left standing, and the remaining surface is cut away. The early engravers of this kind performed LECTURE VII. 377 their works with various sorts oI‘ knives, which you will find described and deline- ated in an ingenious French work on this art, by Papillon : the engravers in wood of the present day, who have carried the prac- tice so much nearer to perfection, make use of no other than the common enorav- O ing tools, with the exception of a large square tool, called a scawper, with which they clear out the larger cavities for the spaces that are to appear white in the im- pression. But the mode of engraving on wood is now entirely different in principle from what it was before. At first the object seems to have been to imitate in this way the appearance of engravings on copper, and a very ingenious wood en- graver of our own time has done, perhaps, all that can be done in that way ; but even supposing it possible to equal the other 378 LECTURE VIE art, which, in point of delicacy and softness, it never can, it must cost much greater labour to achieve it, and when accomplish- ed, the great boast is no more than that it is a faithful resemblance of engraving in copper, which is an imitation of painting, which is an imitation of nature. This idea has, therefore, been wisely abandoned, and the present system of engraving in wood is to effect the intended appearance by cutting white lines and touches with black spaces, instead of giving black lines or dots with white intervals, as is done on copper. But the practitioner of this art has great disadvantages to encounter in the difficulty he finds of getting his work printed even tolerably ; and critics, not well informed on the subject, have often decried as defects, in such productions, the blackness of many parts which was en- 18 LECTUKE VIE 379 tirely owing to the clumsiness of the printers. Engraving in mezzotinto was invented by Prince Rupert. He observed one morning a centinel cleaning from the bar- rel of his musket a rust which the night dew had formed upon it, and fancied, as it became gradually bright in one part after another, that he could trace some kind of figure in the different degrees of brightness and rust. This led to the idea of making the surface of a plate rough by corrosion or other means, and then to form a figure upon it, by polishing it more or less in different parts. When this had been ac- complished, the desire to try if it would contain any kind of printing ink would follow of course. This art has claims upon your notice and protection, of a peculiar kind : it is a native of Britain, and has 3S0 LECTURE VU. never been practised successfully in any other country. The plate for this practice is first raked, notched, or punched all over, in different directions, with what is called a grounding tool, till it will yield a perfectly black im- pression in every part. The plate being thus prepared with a proper ground, the subject must be communicated to it by means of chalking the back of the paper on which it is drawn, which must be laid on the copper, and then the form traced over with a point on the drawing side. The lines which will thus be left of white chalk on the plate, must be drawn again with a black lead pencil, or Indian ink, to make them more permanent. The original black ground is then to be scraped away, and even burnished quite smooth in some parts, to represent the different LECTURK VIE 3S1 tones oftlie picture to be copied, so that nothing of the ground in its first state remains, but where it is intended to ex- press the deepest shadows. The masses of strongest light are given first, then the briglitest or white touches, and from these the artist works down to the most desrad- ed tones. When the work is somewhat advanced, he rubs the plate over with printing ink, as if an impression were about to be taken, in order to judge of the effect ; and, when it is nearly finished, he has a proof taken in the rolling press, on which he touches with white chalk to bring it nearer to the original, and then finishes his plate from the proof so corrected. This mode of enoravino- has been made the O O vehicle of conveying to the public some curious and not unimportant experiments with respect to colouring in pictures. 382 LECTURE VH. M. Le Blon, of Frankfort, entertained an idea that all colours or tints in painting may be exactly imitated by the three primitive colours, either taken separately, or mixed in various proportions. He was aware also, that any two or more colours passed over each other will produce a clearer tint than the same portions of colours mixed together and applied at once. On these data he formed his plan, and he has certainly succeeded in it to a great degree, of giving printed imitations of pictures. As his elements were the three primitive colours, blue, red, and yel- low, so he had three plates for each sub- ject. Each plate was contrived to print its appropriate colour, not only in the true tones, where it was to appear pure, but also to print,in otherparts, justsomuchof itsco- louras was required of that kind of colour. LF)CTURE VII. 383 to make the compound tints, in conjunc- tion with those proportions of the other two colours which were given, either be- fore or after, by means of the other plates. This, it must be allowed, was a matter of very difficult calculation ; but his success in the endeavour was greatly beyond ex- pectation, and I should consider it in many respects preferable to the present practice of printing various colours from the same plate ; because, in the former case, the degree of colour is determined by the artist, who is doubtless a man of some science ; and, in the latter case, it is left to the printer, who, in all probability, is a man of no science at all. The tools of the mezzotinto engraver, in addition to those of the engraver in lines, are two or three kinds of scrapers, and the grounding tools. LECTURE VII. 3S1. Etching next becomes the object of our consideration, and well does it deserve our respect and most serious attention. It has furnished to engraving the most powerful of all its auxiliaries ; it is more masterly than any other mode of o})erating upon copper ; it furnishes ample means for the bold and daring enterprizes of taste; and, thouoh less finished, it is also less media- nical than the best exertions of the engraver. Who was the inventor of this O jirocess is not at present ascertainable ; but the earliest specimen that we have of it is in a print, by Albert Durer, called, for distinction, the cannon. The prin- ciple on which it is performed, is to cover the copper plate with some kind of resinous or bituminous material, called a ground, and then to pierce that material through with some pointed instrument, in the re- LECTURE VII. SS5 required forms, so that the copper, in those parts, shall be exposed to the action of a corrosive fluid, subsequently to be applied, which will in no way touch those other parts that are covered by the ground. I shall be somewhat minute in what re- lates to_ this mode of engraving, because it is a fit practice for those ladies and gen- tlemen who may wish to have the means of multiplying their elegant conceptions for the purpose of obliging their friends. More than one accomplished female in that august family which guides the des- tiny of these kingdoms, has practised etching to a considerable extent ; and a lady of high rank has recently gratified her friends by some beautiful etchings after her own drawings, taken during a tour in Scotland. The ground commonly used for covering the plates is composed of c c Ll-:CTUHb: VII. .'3S(J Tour parts of virgin wax, two parts ot' asphaltum, one part of amber, and one gum-mastic, melted slowly together, and then poured into warm water, to harden gradualli/ as the water cools. This ground must be made up into small balls, and tied in thin silk for use. The plate to receive the ground must be heated so that the finger will not bear to touch it, and the ball of ground must be rubbed gently over it, till the heat of the plate shall have drawn so much through the silk as will cover the whole thinly. It must then be dabbed lightly over with a ball of cotton tied up in silk; to distribute the ground equally; and, when cooled, it must be smoked entirely with the flame of a large candle, till the whole is black, and yet glossy : it is then ready to receive the in- tended subject, which may be thus accom- LECTURE VIE 387 plisliecl. The engraver makes an outline witli black-lead from his original, on smooth paper, distinguishing all the small lights, and the extent of all the shadows. This being sent to the copper-plate printer, is damped and laid face downwards, on the proper part of the grounded plate ; after which, by passing it through the press, the black-lead drawing is left distinctly on the plate. I will not take up your time this morning in stating to you the great diffi- culty which the engraver, who is not a correct draftsman, encounters when his original is of a different size from that O which he is to represent it. The artist now commences his operation with the point or etching-needle, which must be of different degrees of sharpness, according: to the size of line that is intend- ed to be given in the various parts of the work ; it is even a frequent practice, in the foreground parts of large landscape subjects, to double the lines so near to each other, that they may spread into one by the subsequent action of the cor- roding medium. Oval-pointed needles have been used by many for the purpose of making broad lines, but they are liable to many objections, and are now, I believe, little employed. When the subject has been gone through by the artist, he must surround the plate by a kind of border, or wall, composed of bees’-wax, softened with Venice-turpentine, made with a sort of spout at one corner. The aquafortis is then to be applied, properly diluted with water, and must be half or three quarters of an inch deep on the plate. The exact proportion of water to the quantity of nitrous spirit, is a matter of difficulty LECTURE VII. 381 ) depending on experience. It is used dif- ferently by different engravers, and even of different strengths, by the same en- graver, for various parts of his work. The texture of one piece of copper, compared to another, will require an alteration in the power of the aquafortis, and the tem- perature of the room will also affect it considerably. When the faintest, or more delicate parts, are so coroded as to be judged sufficiently dark, the aquafortis must be poured off by the spout, the plate washed clean with water, and then dried ; after which these faint parts must be secured by a covering of turpentine-varnish and lamp black, and the spirit applied again to act upon the remaining parts of the subject. This proceeding may be repeated, to give different degrees of dark, at the option of the artist, and the mode of so 390 LECTURE VH. securing the lines or objects not agiiiii to be acted upon, is technically called slop- 2)ing out : the corroding with the aquafortis is also called biting in. The early speci- mens of this art appear to me to have been corroded alike in every part, and where there is in them a difference of force in the lines, it seems to have been made by a greater or less pressure on the point in etching. The artist, too, even for a century after the first discovery, had a much less convenient mode of applying the aquafortis than that which is used at present. He had a large tin trough, or cistern, well pitched over the inside, at the end of which the etched plate was placed, in a sloping direction. He then took his aquafortis, undiluted, in a jug or ewer, and poured it down the plate in a gradual stream, till the stock was ex- 17 LECTURE VII. 391 liausted ; after which the contents of the cistern were delivered into the jug, the plate turned with a different edge down- wards, and the former operation repeated, till the required degree of dark had been obtained. For a long time etching was looked on by those who practised it, merely as an expeditious mode of imitating the work of the engraver, and it was not till near our own times that the happy espousals of these two arts were solemnized. The beautiful progeny which they have since given to the world in different kingdoms, but par- ticularly in Britain, should make us re- o;ard the union as having conferred an inestimable blessing on human society. Etching now furnishes the indispensable preparation for every subject, and is sub- sequently finished with the graver, the c c 4 LECTURE VII. artist allowino; the one or the otlier to o prevail in different parts of his work, ac- cording as he may conceive its character- istic properties to suit the object he has to express. Respecting the proportion which the quantity of etching in a plate should bear to the quantity of engraving, artists have differed very materially in their opinions, and consequently in their practice. Some have left the flesh of their figures entirely for the graver, etch- ing a considerable part of the draperies ; some have etched also a considerable part of the flesh in their subjects, and some have left the figures wholly to be executed with the graver. Sir Robert Strange, in many respects as fine an engraver as ever existed, etched a great part of the work even in the lights of his most delicate flesh. We find, in his works, frecpiently a second LECTURE VII. 3S3 centre must be contrasted by some portion of dark, and that each mass of colour must also have, in its immediate neigh- bourhood, some indications of its opposite kind of colour. There is perhaps no instance of a more masterly management of these points, than may be found in the picture, by Nicolo Poussin, of the last supper, in the mag- nificent collection at Cleveland-house. The noble proprietor has most patriotically opened his house once a year to public in- spection ; I cannot refer you to a better school for acquiring the various excellen- cies I have described in these lectures, than you will find in those splendid gal- leries. I have said little or nothing in these lectures, on the practice of painting in crayons. The process has certainly some beauties, but its productions are so F F 434 LECTURE VIII. perishable in their nature, even by the most trifling accidents, and so fugitive in their appearance, that I have no hesitation in giving my opinion that the use of cray- ons, for producing should be posi- tively rejected by all who wish their 'per- formances to continue beyond the duration of a few weeks. I have also avoided to say much of the practice of drawing in black and white chalk upon coloured paper ; because, when carried to its ut- most perfection, it leads no further in the progress towards painting, and because, from the facility it gives of making masses of light and dark, it seems to do much, and yet gains almost nothing. I am con- vinced it ought to be rejected and pro- hibited in our national school of arts, and the plan I liave recommended, of drawing and sliading in lines, according to the per- LECTURE VI II. 48.5 spective direction of the surface, substi- tuted in its place. Till this shall have been done, the English school, I dare ven- ture to say, will never be esteemed for its correctness in the expression of forms. Having thus deliberately viewed, and slightly 7’cviewed the principles, the prac- tices, and the powers of different modes of drawing and painting, allow me to en- treat that you will now look on them, as the means of promoting your amusement, your knowledge, your happiness. If you journey through our own delightful coun- try to impress your minds patriotically with a consciousness of its unrivalled beau- ties; if you travel to foreign lands, to ex- amine their wonders, either of nature or art, you will find the practice of drawing, almost indispensable to those ends. Forms of any kind looked on, even with enthu- F F 2 LECTURE VIII. siasm, leave but a vague imjDression on the memory, and daily experience con- vinces us liow very inadequate verbal des- cription is, to convey notions of shapes and colours ; but by means of the pencil you will not only fix indelibly in your thoughts, the objects you wish to retain, but you will also supply yourselves with the delightful means of communicating to your friends, and to others, that information which probably without you^ they might never have the opportunity to procure. To such as are engaged in the military profession, prompt and accurate drawing is of the highest importance, as furnishing the means of retaining, or of conveying to others engaged in the same pursuit, the most useful intelligence, by which, in some cases, even hundreds of lives may be saved. In the practice of painting, you LECTURE VIII. iS7 will not find less gratifying rewards for your labours. If you undertake subjects of history, you will be led more closely to examine and to understand the charac- ters of the personages you introduce, and thus perhaps to draw conclusions, which would not otherwise have occurred to you ; besides the very valuable benefit of fix- ing those transactions inexpugnably in your minds. You will, also, in this pur- suit, be led to investigate the customs, the manners, and the dresses of different ages and nations, and I am persuaded that the purposes of historical and classical reading would invariably be best obtained by con- necting them, as a part of education, with the practice of drawing and painting. If you engage yourselves in the study of por- traiture, your hearts will immediately point out to you how intimately it is connected F F 3 • 1.38 LECTURE VIII. with our dearest interests, with our most gratifying sympathies. You will be able to give an additional charm to your do- mestic apartments, by hanging round them the faithful resemblances of your absent friends, and even to hold seeming converse with those whom the hand of death has snatched from you for ever. But besides these most refined gratifications to your- selves, a talent for portrait-painting, duly exerted, will afford you the further satis- faction of administeiing in the same de- gree to the enjoyment of others who have not made the same advances in art. If you devote your leisure to the painting of landscape, and in doing that will pursue the advice I have so repeatedly given, you will be enabled to enjoy for years, the pic- turesque beauties of countries and places long since visited, and will retrace with LECTURE Vni. 439 delight, each lawn, each shade, which cir- cumstances have rendered dear to memory. You will also, if proficients in landscape- painting, have the power to create round your apartments, the beauties of every clime, of every season, whatever be that which prevails without your walls. Lret me entreat such of you as are not already engaged in some of these pur- suits, and have yet leisure for them, to delay no longer taking up the pencil, the palette, or the graver. It is indispensable to comfort, it is necessary to happiness, that we should be furnished constantly with the means of such employments as will fully engage the faculties of our minds, and at the same time greatly in- terest our wishes for the result. This is to be found, perhaps, only in the practice of the imitative arts ; for in these, the most F F 4 440 LECTURE VIII. consummate master is never quite certain as to what degree of success will attend liis labours. To the youthful and gay, I w^ould recommend these studies most particularly : they furnish ' preventions lor that lassitude which so often arises amongst persons of fortune from want of employment, and thus, in many cases, they become the fortunate substitutes for dangerous dissipations. But if it should be said that such employments are suited only to the young and the cheerful, whose minds and fingers are pliant, I will an- swer, that the suggestion may hold good against taking up the practice of music at a late period, but that drawing, paint- ing, and engraving, which are chiefly eflbrts of mind, proving every step of its operations as it proceeds, the more the mind of the student is matured, the more LECTURE Vlll. Ml rapid will be his advancement. Polidoro da Caravaggio was five-and-twenty before he touched a pencil of any kind, and we know what his practice was in the ulti- mate. I would now entreat your indulgence and attention while we consider these three arts in another, and perhaps not less important, relation to our interests. This is in the influence they have, and will probably long continue to have, on the prosperity of our commerce, and conse- quently on our national strength and in- dependence. In ancient times, when sculpture flou- rished amongst the states of Greece, their superstitious worship of idols carried the efforts of the chisel to very great excellence. There could be no motive more calculated to excite enthusiastic LECTURE VIII. i'1‘2 exertion, tlian the wish adequatchj to represent the persons of supposed deities ; nor could there be any more stimulating reward than that veneration, which the multitude constantly paid to the artists who created the deities they were taught to believe omnipotent : he who could create a divinity must himself be little less than divine. In succeeding ages, after the worship of the true God had banished idols from the sacred temples of religion, the superstitions of papacy, which long overclouded the brightening hemisphere, substituted the efforts of the pencil for those of the chisel, and the same causes soon led to the same effects in favour of the other art. In this coun- try, at present, the arts of painting and sculpture are acknowledged to be in a low state compared with those former LECTURE VIII. U3 instances, nor could it well be otherwise ; since those powerful motives, those con- siderations to exertion, no longer exist. Let us then try to give to the ^professors of art an inducement equally powerful ; let us endeavour anxiously to facilitate its operation, and the result, we cannot doubt it, will be as glorious as the most sanguine could desire. The noble, the predominant feeling in the bosom of every Briton, is an ardent love of the country which gave him birth. Let it then be shown to our native artists that the wealth, the happiness, the dig- nified rank of the country, depend on their successful labours, and we shall have furnished them with a motive that must lead to the most brilliant successes. That this is a fact we shall have no arcat diffi- culty to show. Our great wealth is evi- LECTURE VIII. lU clcritly the result of our flourishing com- merce, the unexampled extent of that commerce is chiefly owing to the very great superiority of taste and design mani- fested in all our manufactures, and these (jualities are ramifications of those notions in imitative art, diffused throughout the kingdom by our national school of paint- ing and sculpture. But though this salu- tary and valuable effect has been produced to a certain degree by the establishment of the Royal Academy, its operation is necessarily circuitous and slow ; too slow under the present circumstances of the country. The advances that are made in the practice of painting and sculpture in the metropolis, being at first confined to persons of superior talents, can only reach the distant provinces by their general ac- tion on the public mind, and must con- LECTURE VTII. 445 sequently be long, even years, before tliey arrive at the seats of our principal manu- factories. I have no doubt, after this view of the subject, you will readily per- ceive that if a plan could be devised for circulating rapidly through the realm, the true principles of imitative art, and its constantly occurring improvements, the beneficial effects would be immediate and in due proportion. For this purpose it is that I venture to lay my ideas before you^ as a medium through which they may be made generally known. I would have a school or academy immediately established, for the instruction of two hundred young persons in the practice of every branch of drawing and paint- ing, and this instruction to be given without any fee or expence to the stu- dents. They should be taught these arts not only as they are complete professions of themselves, but they should likewise be taught the manner in which they connect themselves with the mechanic arts, and with manufactures. The silversmith and the chaser in metals should be enabled to acquire a knowledge of forms and decor- ations ; the cabinet-maker should there learn the possibility of connecting accom- modation and convenience with elegance ; the designer for printed calicoes, chintzes, and paper-hangings, should there be taught to substitute the beauties of natural objects for unmeaning arbitrary forms ; the engraver should acquire, under this establishment, that indispensable know- ledge of drawing so seldom found in his profession ; and the destined painter should there commence a course of studies, founded on clear demonstration. LECTURE VIII. 447 that will ensure him success in proportion to his industry. A small annual subscription from 150 to 200 patrons would defray all the ex- penses of such an establishment ; and, I am persuaded, there are many professed artists, in the different branches, who would take pleasure in giving their at- tendance and instruction gratuitously. A hundred governors, or annual sub- scribers, should be admitted, to pay two guineas each for the first year, and one guinea every year afterwards, for which they should have each the privilege of sending two students each to the school, and also that of keeping them there or changing them at pleasure. When the stu- dents, who direct their views to mechanic arts, shall have accomplished themselves, they will carry the correct principles of 448 LECTURE VIII. taste and design into all their subsequent productions ; when those, who soar to the higher distinctions of drawing and paint- ing shall have finished their studies, they should be chosen by the preference of greater merit, to fill provincial stations in different parts of the kingdom, as Drawing- masters, to form, not to mislead, the pub- lic taste j and their introduction to such stations should be enforced by every influence in the power of those who pa- tronise the establishment. In all such cases, I am persuaded, the country would receive such introduction as a favour con- ferred ; for it is lamentable to see, in some of our most opulent country towns, what miserable hands are tolerated and applied to, merely because there are no others. By proper regulations made for the pur- pose, the subscribers might take it in LECTURE VIII. 449 rotation, two at a time, to visit the estab- lishment during the hours of study ; thus preserving decorum, exciting emulation, and gratifying, at once, their own patriotic and tasteful feelings. But you will per- haps now think it time to enquire, whence is to come the instruction by which these effects are to be produced ? I answer, th at it should come from the voluntary attend- ance of the different artists of the metro- polis, who should be . invited to it for that purpose by the patrons, and their visits might be so arranged, as to become but a very small tax on the time of any one of them. I dare venture to assert, that there is no one artist of eminence in this great city who, being fully informed of the nature and intention of such an establish- ment, would hesitate a moment to give it his cordial assistance. 1*50 LECTURE Vlll. I am persuaded the most beneficial ef- fects would result from such an institution, and I trust the patriotic lovers of art will take up the subject seriously. Should such be the case, I pledge myself to assist their intentions, by furnishing a detailed plan for the purpose. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, my duty is now nearly accomplished. For seven ses- sions of this most praiseworthy institution I have had the honour to appear before you as your voluntary, and gratuitous servant, in discussing the principles and practices of drawing and painting. I was induced to this undertaking by the pleasing hope, that in leading you, through philosophical principles, to a successful cultivation of those arts, I should stimu- late the professors of them to emulation and industry, and thus contribute to the LECTURE VIII. 451 general prosperity. The only duty that remains for me to perform, is a most pleas- ing one : it is to offer you the expression of my lively gratitude for the polite at- tention with which you have constantly honoured me. THE END. London : Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New- Street- Square. snf)[f| J<