Ulrich Middeldorf 
 
PAINTING, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE FINE ARTS: 
 
 BEING THE ARTICLES UNDER THOSE HEADS CONTRIBUTED TO 
 THE SEVENTH EDITION OE THE 
 
 ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRIT ANNICA, 
 
 BY 
 
 B. R. HAYDQN, Esq. 
 
 AND 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT, Esq. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK, NORTH BRIDGE, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO HER MAJESTY. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVIII. 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 
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 UBmr 
 
FINE ARTS 
 
 Art is defined by Lord Bacon as a proper disposal of 
 the things of nature by human thought and experience, 
 so as to answer the several purposes of mankind; in 
 which sense art stands opposed to nature . 
 
 Art is principally used for a system of rules serving to 
 facilitate the performance of certain actions ; in which 
 sense it stands opposed to science , or a system of specula- 
 tive principles. 
 
 Arts are commonly divided into useful or mechanic, 
 fine or liberal. The former are those wherein the hand 
 and body are more concerned than the mind ; of which 
 kind are most of those which furnish us with the neces- 
 saries of life, and are popularly known by the name of 
 trades. The latter are such as depend more on the labour 
 of the mind than of the hand ; they are the produce of 
 imagination and taste, and their end is pleasure. 
 
 Some useful arts must be nearly coeval with the human 
 race ; for food, clothing, and habitation, even in their ori- 
 ginal simplicity, require some art. Many other arts are 
 of such antiquity as to place the inventors beyond the 
 reach of tradition. Several have gradually crept into the 
 world without an inventor. The busy mind, however, ac- 
 customed to a beginning in things, cannot rest till it finds 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 or imagines a beginning to every art. The most probable 
 conjectures of this nature the reader may see in the histo- 
 rical introductions to the different articles. Lord Karnes, in 
 his Sketches of the History of Man , has given some curious 
 illustrations of the progress of the arts. 
 
 In all countries where the people are barbarous and 
 illiterate, the progress of arts is extremely slow. It is 
 vouched by an old French poem, that the virtues of the 
 loadstone were known in France before the year 1180* 
 The mariner’s compass was exhibited at Venice anno 
 1260, by Paulus Venetus, as his own invention. John 
 Goya of Amalfi was the first who, many years afterwards, 
 used it in navigation, and also passed for being the in- 
 ventor. Though it was used in China for navigation long 
 before it was known in Europe, yet to this day it is not 
 so perfect as in Europe. Instead of suspending it in order 
 to make it act freely, it is placed upon a bed of sand, in 
 which position every motion of the ship disturbs its opera- 
 tion. Handmills, termed querns , were early used for grind- 
 ing corn ; and when corn came to be raised in greater quan- 
 tity, horse-mills succeeded. Water-mills for grinding corn 
 are described by Vitruvius. Wind-mills were known in 
 Greece and in Arabia as early as the seventh century, and 
 yet no mention is made of them in Italy till the fourteenth. 
 That they were not known in England till the reign of 
 Henry VIII. appears from a household book of an earl of 
 Northumberland, contemporary with that king, stating an 
 allowance for three mill horses, “ two to draw in the mill, 
 and one to carry stuff to and from the mill.” Water- 
 mills for corn must in England have been of a later date. 
 The ancients had mirror-glasses, and employed glass to 
 imitate crystal vases and goblets ; yet they never thought 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 3 
 
 of using it in windows. In the thirteenth century the Ve- 
 netians were the only people who had the art of making- 
 crystal glass for mirrors. A clock that strikes the hours 
 was unknown in Europe till the end of the twelfth century ; 
 and hence the custom of employing men to proclaim the 
 hours during night. Galileo was the first who conceived 
 an idea that a pendulum might be used for measuring time ; 
 and Huygens was the first who put the idea in execution, 
 by making a pendulum clock. Hooke, in the year 1660, 
 invented a spiral spring for a watch, though a watch was 
 far from being a new invention. Paper was made no ear- 
 lier than the fourteenth century ; and the invention of 
 printing was a century later. Silk manufactures were long 
 established in Greece before silk-worms were introduced 
 there. The manufacturers were provided with raw silk 
 from Persia ; but that commerce being frequently inter- 
 rupted by war, two monks, in the reign of Justinian, brought 
 eggs of the silk-work from Hindostan, and taught their 
 countrymen the method of managing them. The art of 
 reading made a very slow progress : to encourage that art 
 in England, the capital punishment for murder was remitt- 
 ed if the criminal could but read, which in law language is 
 termed benefit of clergy. One would imagine that the arts 
 must have made a very rapid progress when so greatly 
 favoured : but there is a signal proof of the contrary ; for 
 so small an edition of the Bible as 600 copies, translated 
 into English in the reign of Henry VIII., was not wholly 
 sold off in three years. 
 
 The discoveries of the Portuguese on the west coast of 
 Africa is a remarkable instance of the slow progress of 
 arts. In the beginning of the fifteenth century they were 
 totally ignorant of that coast beyond Cape Non, 28 de- 
 
4 
 
 PINE ARTS'. 
 
 grees north latitude. In 1410 the celebrated Prince 
 Henry of Portugal fitted out a fleet for discoveries, which 
 proceeded along the coast to Cape Baj adore, in 28 degrees, 
 but had not courage to double it. In 1418 Tristan Vaz 
 discovered the island Porto Santo ; and the year after the 
 island Madeira was discovered. In 1439 a Portuguese 
 captain doubled Cape Baj adore ; and the next year the 
 Portuguese reached Cape Blanco, Iat. 20 degrees. In 
 1446 Nuna Tristan doubled Cape de Verde, lat. 14. 40. 
 In 1448 Don Gonzalo Vallo took possession of the Azores. 
 In 1449 the Islands of Cape de Verde were discovered for 
 Don Henry. In 1471 Pedro d’Escovar discovered the 
 island St. Thomas and Prince’s Island. In 1484 Diego 
 Cam discovered the kingdom of Congo. In 1486 Bartho- 
 lomew Diaz, employed by John II. of Portugal, doubled the 
 Cape of Good Hope, which he called Cabo Tormentoso , 
 from the tempestuous weather he found in the passage. 
 
 The progress of art seldom fails to be rapid when a 
 people happen to be roused out of a torpid state by some 
 fortunate change of circumstances. Prosperity, contrast - 
 ed with former abasement, gives to the mind a spring, 
 which is vigorously exerted in every new pursuit. The 
 Athenians made but a mean figure under the tyranny of 
 Pisistratus, but upon regaining freedom and independ- 
 ence they were converted into heroes. Miletus, a Greek 
 city of Ionia, being destroyed by the king of Persia, and 
 the inhabitants made slaves, the Athenians, deeply affect- 
 ed with the misery of their brethren, boldly attacked the 
 king in his own dominions, and burnt the city of Sardis. 
 In less than ten years after, they gained a signal victory 
 at Marathon ; and under Themistocles, made head against 
 that prodigious army with which Xerxes threatened utter 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 5 
 
 i*uin to Greece. Such prosperity produced its usual 
 effects : arts flourished with arms, and Athens became the 
 chief theatre for sciences, as well as for fine arts. The 
 reign of Augustus Ca3sar, which put an end to the rancour 
 of civil war, and restored peace to Rome, w ith the com- 
 forts of society, proved an auspicious era for literature, 
 and produced a cloud of Latin historians, poets, and phi- 
 losophers, to whom the moderns are indebted for their taste 
 and talents. One who makes a figure rouses emulation 
 in all ; one catches fire from another, and the national 
 spirit is every where triumphant ; classical works are com- 
 posed, and useful discoveries made in every art and science. 
 With regard to Rome, it is true that the Roman govern- 
 ment under Augustus was in effect despotic ; but despotism 
 in that single instance made no obstruction to literature, it 
 having been the policy of that reign to hide power as much 
 as possible. A similar revolution happened in Tuscany 
 about three centuries ago. That country having been di- 
 vided into a number of small republics, the people, excited 
 by mutual hatred between small nations in close neigh- 
 bourhood, became ferocious and bloody, flaming with re- 
 venge for the slightest offence. These republics being 
 united under the great duke of Tuscany, enjoyed the sweets 
 of peace in a mild government. That comfortable revolu- 
 tion, which made the deeper impression by a retrospect of 
 recent calamities, roused the national spirit, and produced 
 ardent application to arts and literature. The restoration 
 of the royal family in England, which put an end to a cruel 
 and envenomed civil war, promoted improvements of every 
 kind ; arts and industry made a rapid progress among the 
 people, though left to themselves by a weak and fluctuating 
 administration. Had the nation, upon that favourable turn 
 
6 FINE ARTS. 
 
 of fortune, been blessed with a succession of able and vir- 
 tuous princes, to what a height might not arts and sciences 
 have been carried ! 
 
 Another cause of activity and animation is the being 
 engaged in some important action of doubtful issue, — a 
 struggle for liberty, the resisting a potent invader, or the 
 like. Greece, divided into small states frequently at war 
 with each other, advanced literature and the fine arts to 
 unrivalled perfection. The Corsicans, while engaged in 
 a perilous war for defence of their liberties, exerted a vigo- 
 rous national spirit ; they founded a university for arts and 
 sciences, a public library, and a public bank. After a long 
 stupor during the dark ages of Christianity, arts and litera- 
 ture revived among the turbulent states of Italy. The 
 Royal Society in London, and the Academy of Sciences 
 in Paris, were both of them instituted after civil wars that 
 had animated the people and roused their activity. 
 
 In a country thinly peopled, where even necessary arts 
 want hands, it is common to see one person exercising 
 more arts than one. In every populous country, even 
 simple arts are split into parts, and each part has an 
 artist appropriated to it. In the large towns of ancient 
 Egypt a physician was confined to a single disease. In 
 mechanic arts that method is excellent. As a hand con- 
 fined to a single operation, becomes both expert and ex- 
 peditious, a mechanic art is perfected by having its dif- 
 ferent operations distributed among the greatest number 
 of hands : many hands are employed in making a watch 
 and a still greater number in manufacturing a web of wool- 
 len cloth. Various arts or operations carried on by the same 
 man invigorate his mind, because they exercise different 
 faculties ; and as he cannot be equally expert in every art 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 7 
 
 or operation, he is frequently reduced to supply want of skill 
 by thought and invention. Constant application, on the 
 contrary, to a single operation, confines the mind to a sin- 
 gle object, and excludes all thought and invention. In such 
 a train of life the operator becomes dull and stupid, like a 
 beast of burden. The difference is visible in the manners 
 of the people. In a country where, from want of hands, 
 several occupations must be carried on by the same person, 
 the people are knowing and conversable : in a populous 
 country, where manufactures flourish, they are ignorant 
 and unsociable. The same effect is equally visible in 
 countries where an art or manufacture is confined to a cer- 
 tain class of men. It is visible in Hindostan, where the 
 people are divided into castes, which never mix even by 
 marriage, and where every man follows his father’s trade. 
 The Dutch lint-boors are a similar instance : the same 
 family carries on the trade from generation to generation, 
 and are accordingly ignorant and brutish even beyond other 
 Dutch peasants. 
 
 Useful arts pave the way to fine arts. Men upon whom 
 the former had bestowed every convenience, turned their 
 thoughts to the latter. Beauty was studied in objects of 
 sight, and men of taste attached themselves to the fine 
 arts, which multiplied their enjoyments, and improved 
 their benevolence. Sculpture and painting made an early 
 figure in Greece, which afforded plenty of beautiful ori- 
 ginals to be copied in these imitative arts. Statuary, a 
 more simple imitation than painting, was sooner brought 
 to perfection. The statue of Jupiter by Phidias, and of 
 Juno by Polycletes, though the admiration of all the 
 world, were executed long before the art of light and 
 shade was known. Apollodorus, and Zeuxis his disciple, 
 
8 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 who flourished in the 95th olympiad, were the first who 
 figured in that art. Another cause concurred to advance 
 statuary before painting in Greece, viz. a great demand 
 for statues of their gods. Architecture, as a fine art, 
 made a slower progress. Proportions, upon which its 
 elegance chiefly depends, cannot be accurately ascer- 
 tained, but by an infinity of trials in great buildings. A 
 model cannot be relied on ; for a large and a small build- 
 ing, even of the same form, require different proportions. 
 
 The term Fine Arts may be viewed as embracing all 
 those arts in which the powers of imitation or invention 
 are exerted, chiefly with a view to the production of plea- 
 sure by the immediate impression which they make on 
 the mind. But the phrase has of late, we think, been re- 
 stricted to a narrower and more technical signification ; 
 namely, to painting, sculpture, engraving, and architec- 
 ture, which appeal to the eye as the medium of pleasure ; 
 and, by way of eminence, to the two first of these arts. In 
 the following observations we shall adopt this limited 
 sense of the term ; and shall endeavour to develope the 
 principles upon which the great masters have proceeded, 
 and also to inquire, in a more particular manner, into the 
 state and probable advancement of these arts in this 
 country. 
 
 The great w T orks of art at present extant, and which 
 may be regarded as models of perfection in their several 
 kinds, are the Greek statues — the pictures of the cele- 
 brated Italian masters — those of the Dutch and Flemish 
 schools — to which we may add the comic productions of 
 our own countryman Hogarth. These all stand unrival- 
 led in the history of art ; and they owe their pre-emi- 
 
GRECIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 9 
 
 nence and perfection to one and the same principle , — the 
 immediate imitation of nature. This principle predomina- 
 ted equally in the classical forms of the antique and in 
 the grotesque figures of Hogarth : the perfection of art in 
 each arose from the truth and identity of the imitation 
 with the reality ; the difference was in the subjects — there 
 was none in the mode of imitation. Yet the advocates 
 for the ideal system of art would persuade their disciples, 
 that the difference between Hogarth and the antique does 
 not consist in the different forms of nature which they 
 imitated, but in this, that the one is like and the other 
 unlike nature. This is an error the most detrimental 
 perhaps of all others, both to the theory and practice of 
 art. As, however, the prejudice is very strong and gene- 
 ral, and supported by the highest authority, it will be ne- 
 cessary to go somewhat elaborately into the question in 
 order to produce an impression on the other side. 
 
 What has given rise to the common notion of the ideal , 
 as something quite distinct from actual nature, is proba- 
 bly the perfection of the Greek statues. Not seeing 
 among ourselves any thing to correspond in beauty and 
 grandeur, either with the features or form of the limbs in 
 these exquisite remains of antiquity, it was an obvious, 
 but a superficial conclusion, that they must have been 
 created from the idea existing in the artist’s mind, and 
 could not have been copied from any thing existing in 
 nature. The contrary, however, is the fact. The ge- 
 neral form, both of the face and figure, which we observe 
 in the old statues, is not an ideal abstraction, is not a 
 fanciful invention of the sculptor, but is as completely lo- 
 cal and national (though it happens to be more beautiful) 
 as the figures on a Chinese screen, or a copperplate en- 
 
10 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 graving of a negro chieftain in a book of travels. It will 
 not be denied that there is a difference of physiognomy 
 as well as of complexion in different races of men. The 
 Greek form appears to have been naturally beautiful, and 
 they had, besides, every advantage of climate, of dress, of 
 exercise, and modes of life to improve it. The artist had 
 also every facility afforded him in the study and know- 
 ledge of the human form ; and their religious and public 
 institutions gave him every encouragement in the prose- 
 cution of this art. All these causes contributed to the 
 perfection of these noble productions ; but we should be 
 inclined principally to attribute the superior symmetry of 
 form common to the Greek statues, in the first place, to 
 the superior symmetry of the models in nature ; and in 
 the second, to the more constant opportunities for study- 
 ing them. If we allow, also, for the superior genius of 
 the people, we shall not be wrong ; but this superiority 
 consisted in their peculiar susceptibility to the impres- 
 sions of what is beautiful and grand in nature. It may be 
 thought an objection to what has just been said, that the 
 antique figures of animals, & c., are as fine, and proceed 
 on the same principles, as their statues of gods or men. 
 But all that follows from this seems to be, that their art 
 had been perfected in the study of the human form, the 
 test and proof of power and skill ; and was then transfer- 
 red easily to the general imitation of all other objects, ac- 
 cording to their true characters, proportions, and appear- 
 ances. As a confirmation of these remarks, the antique 
 portraits of individuals were often superior even to the 
 personifications of their gods. We think that no unpre- 
 judiced spectator of real taste can hesitate for a moment 
 in preferring the head of the Antinous, for example, to 
 
GRECIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 11 
 
 that of the Apollo. And in general it may be laid down 
 as a rule, that the most perfect of the antiques are the 
 most simple, — those which affect the least action, or vio- 
 lence of passion, — which repose the most on natural 
 beauty of form, and a certain expression of sweetness and 
 dignity, that is, which remain most nearly in that state in 
 which they could be copied from nature without straining 
 the limbs or features of the individual, or racking the 
 invention of the artist. This tendency of Greek art to 
 repose has indeed been reproached with insipidity by 
 those who had not a true feeling of beauty and sentiment. 
 We, however, prefer these models of habitual grace or in- 
 ternal grandeur to the violent distortions of suffering in 
 the Laocoon, or even to the supercilious air of the Apollo. 
 The Niobe, more than any other antique head, combines 
 truth and beauty with deep passion. But here the pas- 
 sion is fixed, intense, habitual ; — it is not a sudden or vio- 
 lent gesticulation, but a settled mould of features ; the 
 grief it expresses is such as might almost turn the human 
 countenance itself into marble ! 
 
 In general, then, we would be understood to maintain, 
 that the beauty and grandeur so much admired in the 
 Greek statues were not a voluntary fiction of the brain of 
 the artist, but existed substantially in the forms from 
 which they were copied, and by which the artist was sur- 
 rounded. A striking authority in support of these obser- 
 vations, which has in some measnre been lately discover- 
 ed, is to be found in the Elgin marbles , taken from the 
 Acropolis at Athens, and supposed to be the works of the 
 celebrated Phidias. The process of fastidious refinement 
 and indefinite abstraction is certainly not visible there. 
 
 The figures have all the ease, the simplicity, and variety, 
 
12 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 of individual nature. Even the details of the subordinate 
 parts, the loose hanging folds in the skin, the veins under 
 the belly or on the sides of the horses, more or less swell- 
 ed, as the animal is more or less in action, are given with 
 scrupulous exactness. This is true nature and true art. 
 In a word, these invaluable remains of antiquity are pre- 
 cisely like casts taken from life. The ideal is not the pre- 
 ference of that which exists only in the mind to that which 
 exists in nature ; but the preference of that which is fine 
 in nature to that which is less so. There is nothing fine 
 in art but what is taken almost immediately, and as it were, 
 in the mass, from what is finer in nature. Where there 
 have been the finest models in nature, there have been the 
 finest works of art. 
 
 As the Greek statues were copied from Greek forms, so 
 Raffaelle’s expressions were taken from Italian faces ; and 
 we have heard it remarked, that the women in the streets 
 at Rome seem to have walked out of his pictures in the 
 Vatican. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds constantly refers to RafFaelle as 
 the highest example in modern times (at least with one 
 exception) of the grand or ideal style ; and yet he makes 
 the essence of that style to consist in the embodying of an 
 abstract or general idea, formed in the mind of the artist 
 by rejecting the peculiarities of individuals, and retaining 
 only what is common to the species. Nothing can be 
 more inconsistent than the style of RafFaelle with this de- 
 finition. In his Cartoons, and in his groupes in the Vati- 
 can, there is hardly a face or figure which is any thing 
 more than fine individual nature finely disposed and copied. 
 The late Mr. Barry, who could not be suspected of preju- 
 dice on this side of the question, speaks thus of them : “ In 
 
GRECIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 13 
 
 Raffaelle’s pictures (at the Vatican) of the Dispute of the 
 Sacrament , and the School of Athens , one sees all the 
 heads to be entirely copied from particular characters in 
 nature, nearly proper for the persons and situations which 
 he adapts them to ; and he seems to me only to add and 
 take away what may answer his purpose in little parts, fea- 
 tures, &c ; conceiving, while he had the head before him, 
 ideal characters and expressions, which he adapts these 
 features and peculiarities of face to. This attention to the 
 particulars which distinguish all the different faces, persons, 
 and characters, the one from the other, gives his pictures 
 quite the verity and unaffected dignity of nature, which 
 stamp the distinguishing differences betwixt one man’s face 
 and body, and another’s.” 
 
 If any thing is wanting to the conclusiveness of this tes- 
 timony, it is only to look at the pictures themselves ; par- 
 ticularly the Miracle of the Conversion , and the Assembly of 
 Saints , which are little else than a collection of divine por- 
 traits, in natural and expressive attitudes, full of the loftiest 
 thought and feeling, and as varied as they are fine. It is 
 this reliance on the power of nature which has produced 
 those masterpieces by the prince of painters, in which ex- 
 pression is all in all ; — where one spirit — that of truth — 
 pervades every part, brings down heaven to earth, mingles 
 cardinals and popes with angels and apostles, — and yet 
 blends and harmonizes the whole by the true touches and 
 intense feeling of what is beautiful and grand in nature. It 
 is no wonder that Sir Joshua, when he first saw Raffaelle’s 
 pictures in the Vatican, was at a loss to discover any great 
 excellence in them, if he w as looking out for his theory of 
 the ideal , — of neutral character and middle forms. 
 
 There is more an appearance of abstract grandeur of 
 
14 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 form in Michel Angelo. He has followed up, has en- 
 forced, and expanded, as it were, a preconceived idea, till 
 he sometimes seems to tread on the verge of caricature. 
 His forms, however, are not middle , but extreme forms, 
 massy, gigantic, supernatural. They convey the idea of 
 the greatest size and strength in the figure, and in all the 
 parts of the figure. Every muscle is swollen and turgid. 
 This tendency to exaggeration would have been avoided 
 if Michel Angelo had recurred more constantly to nature, 
 and had proceeded less on a scientific knowledge of the 
 structure of the human body ; for science gives only the 
 positive form of the different parts, which the imagination 
 may afterwards magnify as it pleases ; but it is nature alone 
 which combines them with perfect truth and delicacy, in 
 all the varieties of motion and expression. It is fortunate 
 that we can refer, in illustration of our doctrine, to the 
 admirable fragment of the Theseus at Lord Elgin’s, which 
 shows the possibility of uniting the grand and natural style 
 in the highest degree. The form of the limbs, as affected 
 by pressure or action, and the general sway of the body, 
 are preserved with the most consummate mastery. We 
 should prefer this statue as a model for forming the style 
 of the student to the Apollo, which strikes us as having 
 something of a theatrical appearance ; or to the Hercules, 
 in which there is an ostentatious and over-laboured display 
 of anatomy. This last figure is so overloaded with sinews, 
 that it has been suggested as a doubt, whether, if life could 
 be put into it, it would be able to move. Grandeur of con- 
 ception, truth of nature, and purity of taste, seem to have 
 been at their height when the masterpieces which adorned 
 the temple of Minerva at Athens, of which we have only 
 these imperfect fragments, were produced. Compared with 
 
ITALIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 15 
 
 these, the later Greek statues display a more elaborate 
 workmanship, more of the artifices of style. The several 
 parts are more uniformly balanced, made more to tally like 
 modern periods ; each muscle is more equally brought out, 
 and more highly finished as a part, but not with the same 
 subordination of each part to the whole. If some of these 
 wonderful productions have a fault, it is the want of that 
 entire and naked simplicity which pervades the whole of 
 the Elgin marbles . 
 
 Having spoken here of the Greek statues, and of the 
 works of Raffaelle and Michel Angelo, as far as relates to 
 the imitation of nature, we shall attempt to point out, to 
 the best of our ability, and as concisely as possible, what 
 we conceive to be their general and characteristic excel- 
 lences. The ancients excelled in beauty of form ; Michel 
 Angelo in grandeur of conception ; Raffaelle in expression. 
 In Raffaelle’s faces, particularly his women, the expression 
 is very superior to the form ; in the ancient statues the 
 form is the principal thing. The interest which the lat- 
 ter excite is in a manner external ; it depends on a cer- 
 tain grace and lightness of appearance, joined with exqui- 
 site symmetry and refined susceptibility to voluptuous 
 emotions ; but there is in general a want of pathos. In 
 their looks we do not read the workings of the heart ; by 
 their beauty they seem raised above the sufferings of hu- 
 manity ; by their beauty they are deified. The pathos 
 which they exhibit is rather that of present and physical 
 distress, than of deep internal sentiment. What has been 
 remarked of Leonardo da Vinci, is also true of Raffaelle, 
 that there is an angelic sweetness and tenderness in his 
 faces, in which human frailty and passion are purified by 
 
16 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 the sanctity of religion. The ancient statues are finer ob- 
 jects for the eye to contemplate ; they represent a more 
 perfect race of physical beings, but we have little sympa- 
 thy with them. In Raffaelle, all our natural sensibilities 
 are heightened and refined by the sentiments of faith and 
 hope, pointing mysteriously to the interests of another 
 world. The same intensity of passion appears also to dis- 
 tinguish Raffaelle from Michel Angelo. Michel Angelo’s 
 forms are grander, but they are not so informed with ex- 
 pression. Raffaelle’s, however ordinary in themselves, are 
 full of expression, “ even to overflowing every nerve and 
 muscle is impregnated with feeling, — bursting with mean- 
 ing. In Michel Angelo, on the contrary, the powers of 
 body and mind appear superior to any events that can 
 happen to them ; the capacity of thought and feeling is 
 never full, never strained or tasked to the extremity of 
 what it will bear. All is in a lofty repose and solitary 
 grandeur, which no human interest can shake or disturb. 
 It has been said that Michel Angelo painted man , and 
 Raffaelle men ; that the one was an epic, the other a dra- 
 matic painter. But the distinction we have stated is, per- 
 haps, truer and more intelligible, viz. that the one gave 
 greater dignity of form, and the other greater force and 
 refinement of expression. Michel Angelo, in fact, bor- 
 rowed his style from sculpture. He represented, in ge- 
 neral, only single figures (with subordinate accompani- 
 ments), and had not to express the conflicting actions and 
 passions of a multitude of persons. It is therefore a mere 
 truism to say that his compositions are not dramatic. He 
 is much more picturesque than Raffaelle. The whole 
 figure of his Jeremiah droops and hangs down like a ma- 
 
ITALIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 17 
 
 jestic tree surcharged with showers. His drawing of the 
 human form has the characteristic freedom and boldness 
 of Titian’s landscapes. 
 
 After Michel Angelo and Raffaelle, there is no doubt 
 that Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio are the two pain- 
 ters, in modern times, who have carried historical expres- 
 sion to the highest ideal perfection ; and yet it is equally 
 certain that their heads are carefully copied from faces and 
 expressions in nature. Leonardo excelled principally in 
 his women and children. We find, in his female heads, a 
 peculiar charm of expression ; a character of natural sweet- 
 ness and tender playfulness, mixed up with the pride of 
 conscious intellect and the graceful reserve of personal 
 dignity. He blends purity with voluptuousness ; and the 
 expression of his women is equally characteristic of “ the 
 mistress or the saint.” His pictures are worked up to the 
 height of the idea he had conceived, with an elaborate feli- 
 city ; but this idea w r as evidently first suggested, and after- 
 wards religiously compared with nature. This was his 
 excellence. His fault is, that his style of execution is too 
 mathematical ; that is, his pencil does not follow the grace- 
 ful variety of the details of objects, but substitutes certain 
 refined gradations, both of form and colour, producing 
 equal changes in equal distances, with a mechanical uni- 
 formity. Leonardo was a man of profound learning as well 
 as genius, and perhaps transferred too much of the formali- 
 ty of science to his favourite art. 
 
 The masterpieces of Correggio have the same identity 
 with nature, the same stamp of truth. He has indeed 
 given to his pictures the utmost softness and refinement 
 of outline and expression ; but this idea, at which he con- 
 stantly aimed, is filled up with all the details and varieties 
 
18 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 which such heads would have in nature. So far from any 
 thing like a naked abstract idea, or middle form, the indi- 
 viduality of his faces has something peculiar in it, even 
 approaching the grotesque. He has endeavoured to im- 
 press habitually on the countenance those undulating out- 
 lines which rapture or tenderness leave there, and has 
 chosen for this purpose those forms and proportions which 
 most obviously assisted his design. 
 
 As to the colouring of Correggio, it is nature itself. Not 
 only is the general tone perfectly true, but every speck 
 and particle is varied in colour, in relief, in texture, with 
 a care, a felicity, and an effect, which is almost magical. 
 His light and shade are equally admirable. No one else, 
 perhaps, ever gave the same harmony and roundness to his 
 compositions. So true are his shadows, — equally free from 
 coldness, opacity, or false glare ; — so clear, so broken, so 
 airy, and yet so deep, that if you hold your hand so as to 
 cast a shadow on any part of the flesh which is in the 
 light, this part, so shaded, will present exactly the same 
 appearance which the painter has given to the shadowed 
 part of the picture. Correggio, indeed, possessed a greater 
 variety of excellencies in the different departments of his 
 art than any other painter ; and yet it is remarkable, that 
 the impression which his pictures leave upon the mind of 
 the common spectator is monotonous and comparatively 
 feeble. His style is in some degree mannered and confin- 
 ed. For instance, he is without the force, passion, and 
 grandeur of Raffaelle, who, however, possessed his softness 
 of expression, but of expression only ; and in colour, in 
 light and shade, and other qualities, was quite inferior to 
 Correggio. We may, perhaps, solve this apparent contra- 
 diction by saying, that he applied the power of his mind 
 
ITALIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 19 
 
 to a greater variety of objects than others ; but that this 
 power w r as still of the same character ; consisting in a cer- 
 tain exquisite sense of the harmonious, the soft and grace- 
 ful in form, colour, and sentiment, but with a deficiency 
 of strength, and a tendency to effeminancy in all these. 
 
 After the names of Raffaelle and Correggio, we shall 
 mention that of Guido, whose female faces are exceeding- 
 ly beautiful and ideal, but altogether commonplace and 
 vapid compared with those of Raffaelle or Correggio ; and 
 they are so for no other reason but that the general idea 
 they convey is not enriched and strengthened by an in- 
 tense contemplation of nature. For the same reason, we 
 *can conceive nothing more unlike the antique than the 
 figures of Nicholas Poussin, except as to the preservation 
 of the costume ; and it is perhaps chiefly owing to the 
 habit of studying his art at second-hand, or by means of 
 scientific rules, that the great merits of that able painter, 
 whose understanding and genius are unquestionable, are 
 confined to his choice of subjects for his pictures, and his 
 manner of telling the story. His landscapes, which he 
 probably took from nature, are superior as paintings to his 
 historical pieces. The faces of Poussin want natural ex- 
 pression, as his figures want grace ; but the back-grounds 
 of his historical compositions can scarcely be surpassed. 
 In his Plague of Athens , the very buildings seem stiff with 
 horror. His giants, seated on the top of their fabled 
 mountains, and playing on their Pan pipes, are as familiar 
 and natural as if they were the ordinary inhabitants of the 
 scene. The finest of his landscapes is his picture of the 
 Deluge. The sun is just seen, wan and drooping in his 
 course. The sky is bowed down with a weight of waters, 
 and heaven and earth seem mingling together. 
 
20 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 Titian is at the head of the Venetian school. He is the 
 first of all colourists. In delicacy and purity Correggio is 
 equal to him, but his colouring has not the same warmth 
 and gusto in it. Titian’s flesh-colour partakes of the 
 glowing nature of the climate, and of the luxuriousness 
 of the manners of his country. He represents objects not 
 through a merely lucid medium, but as if tinged with a 
 golden light. Yet it is wonderful in how low a tone of 
 local colouring his pictures are painted, — how rigidly his 
 means are husbanded. His most gorgeous effects are pro- 
 duced, not less by keeping down than by heightening his 
 colours ; the fineness of his gradations adds to their va- 
 riety and force ; and, with him, truth is the same thing as 
 splendour. Every thing is done by the severity of his 
 eye, by the patience of his touch. He is enabled to keep 
 pace with nature by never hurrying on before her ; and 
 as he forms the broadest masses out of innumerable vary- 
 ing parts and minute strokes of the pencil, so he unites 
 and harmonizes the strongest contrasts by the most im- 
 perceptible transitions. Every distinction is relieved and 
 broken by some other intermediate distinction, like half- 
 notes in music ; and yet all this accumulation of endless 
 variety is so managed as only to produce the majestic 
 simplicity of nature, so that to a common eye there is 
 nothing extraordinary in his pictures, any more than in 
 nature itself. It is, we believe, owing to what has been 
 here stated, that Titian is, of all painters, at once the 
 easiest and the most difficult to copy. He is the most 
 difficult to copy perfectly, for the artifice of his colouring 
 and execution is hid in its apparent simplicity ; and yet 
 the knowledge of nature, and the arrangement of the 
 forms and masses in his pictures, are so masterly, that any 
 
ITALIAN ARTISTS. 
 
 21 
 
 copy made from them, even the rudest outline or sketch, 
 can hardly fail to have a look of high art. Because he 
 was the greatest colourist in the world, this, which was 
 his most prominent, has, for shortness, been considered 
 as his only excellence ; and he has been said to have been 
 ignorant of drawing. What he was, generally speaking, 
 deficient in, was invention or composition, though even 
 this appears to have been more from habit than want of 
 power ; but his drawing of actual forms, where they were 
 not to be put into momentary action, or adapted to a par- 
 ticular expression, was as fine as possible. His drawing 
 of the forms of inanimate objects is unrivalled. His trees 
 have a marked character of physiognomy of their own, 
 and exhibit an appearance of strength or flexibility, soli- 
 dity or lightness, as if they were endued with conscious 
 power and purposes. Character was another excellence 
 which Titian possessed in the highest degree. It is 
 scarcely speaking too highly of his portraits to say, that 
 they have as much expression, that is, convey as fine 
 an idea of intellect and feeling, as the historical heads 
 of RafFaelle. The chief difference appears to be, that 
 the expression in RafFaelle is more imaginary and con- 
 templative, and in Titian more personal and constitu- 
 tional. The heads of the one seem thinking more of 
 some event or subject, those of the other to be thinking 
 more of themselves. In the portraits of Titian, as might 
 be expected, the Italian character always predominates ; 
 there is a look of piercing sagacity, of commanding intel- 
 lect, of acute sensibility, which it would be in vain to seek 
 for in any other portraits. The daring spirit and irritable 
 passions of the age and country are distinctly stamped upon 
 their countenances, and can be as little mistaken as the 
 
22 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 costume which they wear. The portraits of Raffaelle, 
 though full of profound thought and feeling, have more of 
 common humanity about them. Titian’s portraits are the 
 most historical that ever were painted ; and they are so for 
 this reason, that they have most consistency of form and 
 expression. His portraits of Hippolito de Medici, and of 
 a young Neapolitan nobleman, lately in the gallery of the 
 Louvre, are a striking contrast in this respect. All the 
 lines of the face in the one, the eye-brows, the nose, the 
 corners of the mouth, the contour of the face, present the 
 same sharp*angles, the same acute, edgy, contracted, violent 
 expression. The other portrait has the finest expansion of 
 feature and outline, and conveys the most exquisite idea 
 possible of mild, thoughtful sentiment. The consistency 
 of the expression constitutes as great a charm in Titian’s 
 portraits as the harmony of the colouring. The similarity 
 sometimes objected to his heads is partly national, and 
 partly arises from the class of persons whom he painted. 
 He painted only Italians ; and in his time it rarely hap- 
 pened that any but persons of the highest rank, senators or 
 cardinals, sat for their pictures. The similarity of costume 
 of the dress, the beard, &c. also adds to the similarity of 
 their appearance. It adds at the same time to their pic- 
 turesque effect ; and the alteration in this respect is one 
 circumstance among others that has been injurious, not to 
 say fatal, to modern art. This observation is not confined 
 to portrait ; for the hired dresses with which our historical 
 painters clothe their figures, sit no more easily on the im- 
 agination of the artist, than they do gracefully on the lay- 
 figures over which they are thrown. 
 
 Giorgioni, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, and the Bassans, 
 are the remaining great names of the Venetian school. The 
 
FLEMISH PAINTERS. 
 
 23 
 
 excellence of all of them consisted in their bold, masterly, 
 and striking imitation of nature. Their want of ideal form, 
 and elevated character is, indeed, a constant subject of re- 
 proach against them. Giorgioni takes the first place among 
 them ; for he was in some measure the master of Titian, 
 whereas the others were only his disciples. The Carraccis, 
 Domenichino, and the rest of the Bolognese school, formed 
 themselves on a principle of combining the excellences of 
 the Roman and Venetian painters, in which they for a 
 while succeeded to a considerable degree ; but they de- 
 generated and dwindled away into absolute insignificance, 
 in proportion as they departed from nature, or the great 
 masters who had copied her, to mould their works on aca- 
 demic rules, and the phantoms of abstract perfection. 
 
 Rubens is the prince of the Flemish painters. Of all 
 the great painters, he is perhaps the most artificial, — the 
 one who painted most from his own imagination, — and, 
 what was almost the inevitable consequence, the most of 
 a mannerist. He had neither the Greek forms to study 
 from, nor the Roman expression, nor the high character, 
 picturesque costume, and sun-burnt hues which the Ve- 
 netian painters had immediately before them. He took, 
 however, what circumstances presented to him, — a fresher 
 and more blooming tone of complexion, arising from 
 moister air and a colder climate. To this he added the 
 congenial splendour of reflected lights and shadows cast 
 from rich drapery ; and he made what amends he could 
 for the want of expression, by the richness of his compo- 
 sitions, and the fantastic variety of his allegorical groups. 
 Both his colouring and his drawing, were, however, ideal 
 exaggerations. But both had particular qualities of the 
 highest value. He has given to his flesh greater transpa- 
 
24 
 
 FINE AETS. 
 
 rency and freshness than any other painter ; and this ex- 
 cellence he had from nature. One of the finest instances 
 will be found in his Peasant Family going to Market , in 
 which the figures have all the bloom of health upon their 
 countenances ; and the very air of the surrounding land- 
 scape strikes sharp and wholesome on the sense. Rubens 
 had another excellence ; he has given all that relates to 
 the expression of motion in his allegorical figures, in his 
 children, his animals, even in his trees, to a degree which 
 no one else has equalled, or indeed approached. His 
 drawing is often deficient in proportion, in knowledge, 
 and in elegance, but it is always picturesque. The draw- 
 ing of N. Poussin, on the contrary, which has been much 
 cried up, is merely learned and anatomical : he has a 
 knowledge of the structure and measurements of the hu- 
 man body, but very little feeling of the grand or beautiful, 
 or striking in form. All Rubens’ forms have ease, free- 
 dom, and excessive elasticity. In the grotesque style of 
 history, — as in the groups of satyrs, nymphs, bacchanals, 
 and animals, where striking contrasts of form are combined 
 with every kind of rapid and irregular movement, — he has 
 not a rival. Witness his Silenus at Blenheim, where the 
 lines seem drunk and staggering ; and his procession of 
 Cupids riding on animals at Whitehall, with that adven- 
 turous leader of the infantine crew, who, with a spear, is 
 urging a lion, on which he is mounted, over the edge of 
 the world ; for beyond we only see a precipice of clouds 
 and sky. Rubens’ power of expressing motion perhaps 
 arose from the facility of his pencil, and his habitually trust- 
 ing a good deal to memory and imagination in his com- 
 positions ;'for this quality can be given in no other way. 
 His portraits are the least valuable productions of his pen- 
 
FLEMISH PAINTERS. 
 
 25 
 
 cil. His landscapes are often delightful, and appear like 
 the work of fairy hands. 
 
 It remains to speak of Vandyke and Rembrandt, the one 
 the disciple of Rubens, the other the entire founder of his 
 own school. It is not possible for two painters to be more 
 opposite. The characteristic merits of the former are very 
 happily summed up in a single line of a poetical critic, 
 where he speaks of 
 
 The soft precision of the clear Vandyke. 
 
 The general object of this analysis of the works of the 
 great masters has been to show that their pre-eminence 
 has constantly depended, not on the creation of a fantas- 
 tic, abstract excellence, existing nowhere but in their own 
 minds, but in their selecting and embodying some one 
 view of nature, which came immediately under their ha- 
 bitual observation, and which their particular genius led 
 them to study and imitate with success. This is certainly 
 the case with Vandyke. His portraits, mostly of English 
 women, in the collection in the Louvre, have a cool re- 
 freshing air about them, a look of simplicity and modesty 
 even in the very tone, which forms a fine contrast to the 
 voluptuous glow and mellow golden lustre of Titian’s Ita- 
 lian women. There is a quality of flesh- colour in Van- 
 dyke which is to be found in no other painter, and which 
 exactly conveys the idea of the soft, smooth, sliding, con- 
 tinuous, delicately varied surface of the skin. The ob- 
 jects in his pictures have the least possible difference of 
 light and shade, and are presented to the eye without 
 passing through any indirect medium. It is this extreme 
 purity and silvery clearness of tone, together with the fa- 
 cility and precision of his particular forms, and a certain 
 
 c 
 
26 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 air of fashionable elegance, characteristic of the age in 
 which he flourished, that places Vandyke in the first rank 
 of portrait painters. 
 
 If ever there was a man of genius in the art, it was 
 Rembrandt. He might be said to have created a medium 
 of his own, through which he saw all objects. He was the 
 grossest and the least vulgar, that is to say, the least com- 
 mon-place in his grossness, of all men. He was the most 
 downright, the least fastidious of the imitators of nature. 
 He took any object, he cared not what, how mean soever 
 in form, colour, and expression ; and from the light and 
 shade which he threw upon it, it came out gorgeous from 
 his hands. As Vandyke made use of the smallest contrasts 
 of light and shade, and painted as if in the open air, Rem- 
 brandt used the most violent and abrupt contrasts in this 
 respect, and painted his objects as if in a dungeon. His 
 pictures may be said to be “ bright with excessive dark- 
 ness.” His vision had acquired a lynx-eyed sharpness 
 from the artificial obscurity to which he had accustomed 
 himself. “ Mystery and silence hung upon his pencil. 
 Yet he could pass rapidly from one extreme to another, 
 and dip his colours with equal success in the gloom of night 
 or in the blaze of the noon-day sun. In surrounding dif- 
 ferent objects with a medium of imagination, solemn or 
 dazzling, he was a true poet ; in all the rest he was a mere 
 painter, but a painter of no common stamp. The powers 
 of his hand were equal to those of his eye ; and indeed he 
 could not have attempted the subjects he did, without an 
 execution as masterly as his knowledge was profound. His 
 colours are sometimes dropped in lumps on the canvass ; 
 at other times they are laid on as smooth as glass ; and he 
 not unfrequently painted with the handle of his brush. He 
 
FLEMISH PAINTERS. 
 
 27 
 
 had an eye for all objects as far as he had seen them. His 
 history and landscapes are equally fine in their way. 
 His landscapes we could look at for ever, though there is 
 nothing in them. But “they are of the earth, earthy.” It 
 seems as if he had dug them out of nature. Every thing 
 is so true, so real, so full of all the feelings and associations 
 which the eye can suggest to the other senses, that we im- 
 mediately take as strong an affection to them as if they 
 were our home — the very place where we were brought 
 up. No length of time could add to the intensity of the 
 impression they convey. Rembrandt is the least classical 
 and the most romantic of all painters. His Jacob’s Ladder 
 is more like a dream than any other picture that ever w r as 
 painted. The figure of Jacob himself is thrown in one 
 corner of the picture like a bundle of clothes, while the 
 angels hover above the darkness in the shape of airy wings. 
 
 It would be needless to prove that the generality of the 
 Dutch painters copied from actual objects. They have 
 become almost a bye-word for carrying this principle 
 into its abuse, by copying every thing they saw, and hav- 
 ing no choice or preference of one thing to another, unless 
 that they preferred that which was most obvious and com- 
 mon. We forgive them. They perhaps did better in 
 faithfully and skilfully imitating what they had seen, than 
 in imagining what they had not seen. Their pictures at 
 least show that there is nothing in nature, however mean 
 or trivial, that has not its beauty, and some interest be- 
 longing to it, if truly represented. We prefer Vangoyen’s 
 views on the borders of a canal, the yellow- tufted bank 
 and passing sail, or Ruysdael’s woods and sparkling water- 
 falls, to the most classical or epic compositions which they 
 
28 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 could have invented out of nothing ; and we think that 
 Teniers’ boors, old women, and children, are very superior 
 to the little carved ivory Yenuses in the pictures of Van- 
 derneer ; just as we think Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode 
 is better than his Sigismunda, or, as Mr. Wilkie’s Card- 
 Players is better than his Alfred. We should not as- 
 suredly prefer a Dutch Fair by Teniers to a Cartoon by 
 RafFaelle ; but we suspect we should prefer a Dutch Fair 
 by Teniers to a Cartoon by the same master ; or we 
 should prefer truth and nature in the simplest dress, to 
 affectation and inanity in the most pompous disguise. 
 Whatever is genuine in art must proceed from the impulse 
 of nature and individual genius. 
 
 In the French school there are but two names of high 
 and established reputation, N. Poussin and Claude Lor- 
 raine. Of the former we have already spoken ; of the lat- 
 ter we shall give our opinion when we come to speak of 
 our own Wilson. We ought not to pass over the names 
 of Murillo and Velasquez, those admirable Spanish paint- 
 ers. It is difficult to characterize their peculiar excellen- 
 ces as distinct from those of the Italian and Dutch schools. 
 They may be said to hold a middle rank between the 
 painters of mind and body. They express not so much 
 thought and sentiment, nor yet the mere exterior, as the 
 life and spirit of the man. Murillo is probably at the head 
 of that class of painters who have treated subjects of com- 
 mon life. After making the colours on the canvass feel 
 and think, the next best thing is to make them breathe and 
 live. But there is in Murillo’s pictures of this kind a look 
 of real life, a cordial flow of native animal spirits, which 
 we find nowhere else. We might here refer particularly 
 
HOGARTH. 
 
 29 
 
 to his picture of the Two Spanish Beggar Bogs , in the 
 collection at Dulwich College, which cannot easily be for- 
 gotten by those who have ever seen it. 
 
 We come now to treat of the progress of art in Britain. 
 
 We shall speak first of Hogarth, both as he is the first 
 name in the order of time that we have to boast of, and as 
 he is the greatest comic painter of any age or country. 
 His pictures are not imitations of still life, or mere tran- 
 scripts of incidental scenes or customs ; but powerful moral 
 satires, exposing vice and folly in their most ludicrous 
 points of view, and, with a profound insight into the weak 
 sides of character and manners, in all their tendencies, 
 combinations, and contrasts. There is not a single picture 
 of his, containing a representation of merely natural or 
 domestic scenery. His object is not so much “ to hold the 
 mirror up to nature,” as u to show vice her own feature, 
 scorn her own image,” Folly is there seen at the height 
 — the moon is at the full — it is the very error of the time. 
 There is a perpetual collision of eccentricities, a tilt and 
 tournament of absurdities, pampered into all sorts of affec- 
 tation, airy, extravagant, and ostentatious ! Yet he is as 
 little a caricaturist as he is a painter of still life. Criticism 
 has not done him justice, though public opinion has. His 
 works have received a sanction which it would be vain to 
 dispute, in the universal delight and admiration with which 
 they have been regarded, from their first appearance to the 
 present moment. If the quantity of amusement, or of 
 matter for reflection, which they have afforded, is that by 
 which we are to judge of precedence among the intellec- 
 tual benefactors of mankind, there are perhaps few persons 
 who can put in a stronger claim to our gratitude than 
 Hogarth. The wonderful knowledge which he possessed 
 
30 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 of human life and manners is only to be surpassed (if it 
 can be) by the powers of invention with which he has ar- 
 ranged his materials, and by the mastery of execution with 
 which he has embodied and made tangible the very 
 thoughts and'passing movements of the mind. Some per- 
 sons object to the style of Hogarth’s pictures, or the class 
 to which they belong. First, Hogarth belongs to no class, 
 or, if he belongs to any, it is to the same class as Fielding, 
 Smollett, Vanbrugh, and Moliere. Besides, the merit of 
 his pictures does not depend on the nature of his subjects, 
 but on the knowledge displayed of them, on the number of 
 ideas, on the fund of observation and amusement contained 
 in them. Make what deductions you please for the vul- 
 garity of the subjects — yet in the research, the profundity, 
 the absolute truth and precision of the delineation of cha- 
 racter, — in the invention of incident, in wit and humour, 
 in life and motion, in everlasting variety and originality, — 
 they never have been, and probably will never be, surpassed. 
 They stimulate the faculties, as well as amuse them. 
 “ Other pictures we see, Hogarth’s we read !” 1 
 
 There is one error which has been frequently entertain- 
 ed on this subject, and which we wish to correct ; namely, 
 that Hogarth’s genius was confined to the imitation of the 
 coarse humours and broad farce of the lowest life. But he 
 excelled quite as much in exhibiting the vices, the folly, 
 and frivolity of the fashionable manners of his time. His 
 fine ladies do not yield the palm of ridicule to his waiting- 
 maids, and his lords and his porters are on a very respect- 
 able footing of equality. He is quite at home, either in 
 
 1 See an admirable essay on the genius of Hogarth, by Charles 
 Lamb, in a periodical work called The Reflector. 
 
WILSON. 
 
 31 
 
 St. Giles's or St. James's. There is no want, for example, 
 in his Marriage a la Mode , or his Taste in High Life , of 
 affectation verging into idiocy, or of languid sensibility that 
 might 
 
 Die of a rose in aromatic pain. 
 
 Many of Hogarth’s characters would form admirable illus- 
 trations of Pope's Satires, who was contemporary with him. 
 In short, Hogarth was a painter of real, not of low life. He 
 was, as we have said, a satirist, and consequently his pencil 
 did not dwell on the grand and beautiful, but it glanced 
 with equal success at the absurdities and peculiarities of 
 high or low life, “ of the great vulgar and the small.” 
 
 To this it must be added, that he was as great a master 
 of passion as of humour. He succeeded in low tragedy as 
 much as in low or genteel comedy, and had an absolute 
 power in moving the affections and rending the hearts of 
 the spectators, by depicting the effects of the most dreadful 
 calamities of human life on common minds and common 
 countenances. Of this the Hake's Progress , particularly 
 the bedlam scene, and many others, are unanswerable proofs. 
 Hogarth's merits as a mere artist are not confined to his 
 prints. In general, indeed, this is the case. But when he 
 chose to take pains, he could add the delicacies of execu- 
 tion and colouring in the highest degree to those of charac- 
 ter and composition ; as is evident in his series of pictures, 
 all equally well painted, of the Marriage a la Mode. 
 
 We shall next speak of Wilson, whose pictures may be 
 divided into three classes, — his Italian landscapes, or imi- 
 tations of the manner of Claude, — his copies of English 
 scenery, — and his historical compositions. The first of 
 these are, in our opinion, by much the best ; and we ap- 
 peal, in support of this opinion, to the Apollo and the Sea- 
 
32 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 sons , and to the Phaeton. The figures are of course out 
 of the question (these being as uncouth and slovenly, as 
 Claude’s are insipid and finical) ; but the landscape in both 
 pictures is delightful. In looking at them we breathe the 
 air which the scene inspires, and feel the genius of the place 
 present to us. In the first there is the cool freshness of a 
 misty spring morning ; the sky, the water, the dim horizon, 
 all convey the same feeling. The fine grey tone, and vary- 
 ing outline of the hills ; the graceful form of the retiring 
 lake, broken still more by the hazy shadows of the objects 
 that repose on its bosom ; the light trees that expand their 
 branches in the air ; and the dark stone figure and moul- 
 dering temple, that contrast strongly with the broad clear 
 light of the rising day, — give a charm, a truth, a force and 
 harmony to this composition, which produce the greater 
 pleasure the longer it is dwelt on. The distribution of 
 light and shade resembles the effect of light on a globe. 
 The Phaeton has the dazzling fervid appearance of an 
 autumnal evening ; the golden radiance streams in solid 
 masses from behind the flickering clouds ; every object is 
 baked in the sun ; — the brown fore-ground, the thick foli- 
 age of the trees, the streams, shrunk and stealing along 
 behind the dark high banks, — combine to produce that 
 richness and characteristic unity of effect which is to be 
 found only in nature, or in art derived from the study and 
 imitation of nature. These two pictures, as they have the 
 greatest general effect, are also more carefully finished than 
 any other pictures we have seen of his. 
 
 In general, Wilson’s views of English scenery want al- 
 most every thing that ought to recommend therm The 
 subjects he has chosen are not well fitted for the landscape 
 painter, and there is nothing in the execution to redeem 
 
WILSON. 
 
 33 
 
 them. Ill-shaped mountains, or great heaps of earth, — 
 trees that grow against them without character or elegance, 
 — motionless waterfalls, — a want of relief, of transparency, 
 and distance, without the imposing grandeur of real mag- 
 nitude, (which it is scarcely within the province of art to 
 give,) — are the chief features and defects of this class of 
 his pictures. In more confined scenes the effect must 
 depend almost entirely on the difference in the execution 
 and the details ; for the difference of colour alone is not 
 sufficient to give relief to objects placed at a small distance 
 from the eye- But in Wilson there are commonly no 
 details, — all is loose and general; and this very circum- 
 stance, which might assist him in giving the massy con- 
 trasts of light and shade, deprived his pencil of all force 
 and precision within a limited space. In general, air is 
 necessary to the landscape painter ; and, for this reason, 
 the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland afford few 
 subjects for landscape painting. However stupendous the 
 scenery of that country is, and however powerful and last- 
 ing the impression which it must always make on the 
 imagination, yet the effect is not produced merely through 
 the medium of the eye, but arises chiefly from collateral 
 and associated feelings. There is the knowledge of the 
 physical magnitude of the objects in the midst of which 
 we are placed, — the slow, improgressiye motion which we 
 make in traversing them ; — there is the abrupt precipice, 
 the torrent’s roar, the boundless expanse of the prospect 
 from the highest mountains, — the difficulty of their as- 
 cent, their loneliness and silence ; — in short, there is a 
 constant sense and superstitious awe of the collective 
 power of matter, of the gigantic and eternal forms of 
 nature, on which, from the beginning of time, the hand of 
 
34 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 man has made no impression, and which, by the lofty 
 reflections they excite in us, give a sort of intellectual 
 sublimity even to our sense of physical weakness. But 
 there is little in all these circumstances that can be trans- 
 lated into the picturesque, which makes its appeal imme- 
 diately to the 0ye. 
 
 Wilson’s historical landscapes, his Niohe , Celadon , and 
 AmeUa^l&c., do not, in our estimation, display either true 
 taste or fine imagination, but are affected and violent 
 exaggerations of clumsy common nature. They are made 
 up mechanically of the same stock of materials, — an over- 
 hanging rock, bare shattered trees, black rolling clouds, 
 and forked lightning. The figures in the most celebrated 
 of these are not, like the children of Niobe, punished by 
 the gods, but like a group of rustics crouching from a 
 hail-storm. We agree with Sir Joshua Reynolds, that 
 Wilson’s mind was not, like N. Poussin’s, sufficiently im- 
 bued with the knowledge of antiquity, to transport the 
 imagination three thousand years back, to give natural 
 objects a sympathy with preternatural events, and to in- 
 form rocks, and trees, and mountains with the presence 
 of a God. To sum up his general character, we may 
 observe that, besides his excellence in aerial perspective, 
 Wilson had great truth, harmony, and depth of local 
 colouring. He had a fine feeling of the proportions and 
 conduct of light and shade, and also an eye for graceful 
 form, as far as regards the bold and varying outlines of 
 indefinite objects, as may be seen in his foregrounds, & c., 
 where the artist is not tied down to an imitation of cha- 
 racteristic and articulate forms. In his figures, trees, 
 cattle, and in everything having a determinate and regu- 
 lar form, his pencil was not only deficient in accuracy of 
 
WILSON. 
 
 35 
 
 outline, but even in perspective and actual relief. His 
 trees, in particular, frequently seem pasted on the canvass, 
 like botanical specimens. In fine, we cannot subscribe to 
 the opinion of those who assert that Wilson was superior 
 to Claude as a man of genius ; nor can we discern any 
 other grounds for this opinion than what would lead to 
 the general conclusion, — that the more slovenly the per- 
 formance the finer the picture, and that that which is 
 imperfect is superior to that which is perfect. It might 
 be said, on the same principle, that the coarsest sign- 
 painting is better than the reflection of a landscape in a 
 mirror ; and the objection that is sometimes made to the 
 mere imitation of nature cannot be made to the landscapes 
 of Claude, for in them the graces themselves have, with 
 their own hands, assisted in selecting and disposing every 
 object. Is the general effect in his pictures injured by 
 the details ? Is the truth inconsistent with the beauty 
 of the imitation ? Does the perpetual profusion of objects 
 and scenery, all perfect in themselves, interfere with the 
 simple grandeur and comprehensive magnificence of the 
 whole ? Does the precision with which a plant is mark- 
 ed in the fore-ground take away from the air-drawn 
 distinctions of the blue glimmering horizon ? Is there any 
 want of that endless airy space, where the eye wanders 
 at liberty under the open sky, explores distant objects, 
 and returns back as from a delightful journey? There is 
 no comparison between Claude and Wilson. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds used to say that there would be another Raf- 
 faelle before there would be another Claude. His land- 
 scapes have all that is exquisite and refined in art and 
 nature. Every thing is moulded into grace and harmony ; 
 and, at the touch of his pencil, shepherds with their flocks, 
 
36 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 temples and groves, and winding glades and scattered 
 hamlets, rise up^ in never-ending succession, under the 
 azure sky and the resplendent sun, while 
 
 Universal Pan, 
 
 Knit with the graces, and the hours in dance, 
 
 Leads on the eternal spring. — — 
 
 Michel Angelo has left, in one of his sonnets, a fine 
 apostrophe to the earliest poet of Italy : 
 
 Fain would I, to be what our Dante was, 
 
 Forego the happiest fortunes of mankind. 
 
 What landscape-painter does not feel this of Claude . 1 
 
 We have heard an anecdote connected with the repu- 
 tation of Gainsborough’s pictures, which rests on pretty 
 good authority. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the aca- 
 demy dinners, speaking of Gainsborough, said to a friend, 
 “ He is undoubtedly the best English landscape painter.” 
 44 No,” said Wilson, wh(M)verheard the conversation, “ he 
 is not the best landscape painter, but he is the best por- 
 trait painter in England.” They were both wrong ; but 
 the story is creditable to the versatility of Gainsborough’s 
 talents. 
 
 Those of his portraits which w T e have seen are not in 
 the first rank. They are, in good measure, imitations of 
 Vandyke, and have more an air of gentility than of nature. 
 His landscapes are of two classes or periods, his early and 
 his later pictures. The former are minute imitations of 
 nature, or of painters who imitated nature, such as Ruys- 
 dael, & c., some of which have great truth and clearness. 
 
 1 This painter’s book of studies from nature, commonly called 
 Liber Veritaiis , disproves the truth of the general opinion, that his 
 landscapes are mere artificial compositions ; for the finished pictures 
 are nearly fac-similes of the original sketches. 
 
GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 37 
 
 His later pictures are flimsy caricatures of Rubens, who 
 himself carried inattention to the details to the utmost 
 limit that it would bear. Many of Gainsborough’s later 
 landscapes may be compared to bad water-colour drawings, 
 washed in by mechanical movements of the hand, without any 
 communication with the eye. The truth seems to be, that 
 Gainsborough found there was something wanting in his 
 early manner , that is, something beyond the literal imita- 
 tion of the details of natural objects ; and he appears to 
 have concluded rather hastily, that the way to arrive at that 
 something more was to discard truth and nature altogether. 
 His fame rests principally, at present, on his fancy pieces, 
 cottage children, shepherd boys, &c. These have often 
 great truth, great sweetness, and the subjects are often 
 chosen with great felicity. We too often find, however, 
 even in his happiest efforts, a consciousness in the turn of 
 the limbs, and a pensive languor in the expression, which 
 is not taken from nature. We think the gloss of art is 
 never so ill bestowed as on such subjects, the essence of 
 which is simplicity. It is, perhaps, the general fault of 
 Gainsborough, that he presents us with an ideal common 
 life, of which we have had a surfeit in poetry and romance. 
 His subjects are softened and sentamentalized too much ; 
 it is not simple unaffected nature that we see, but nature 
 sitting for her picture. Our artist, we suspect, led the 
 way to that masquerade style, which piques itself on giving 
 the air of an Adonis to the driver of a hay cart, and models 
 the features of a milk-maid on the principles of the antique. 
 His Woodman’s Head is admirable. Nor can too much 
 praise be given to his Shepherd Boy in a Storm , in which 
 the unconscious simplicity of the boy’s expression, looking 
 up with his hands folded and with timid wonder, — the 
 
38 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 noisy chattering of a magpie perched above, — and the rust- 
 ling of the coming storm in the branches of the trees, — 
 produce a most delightful and romantic impression on the 
 mind. 
 
 Gainsborough was to be considered, perhaps, rather as 
 a man of delicate taste, and of an elegant and feeling 
 mind, than as a man of genius ; as a lover of the art ra- 
 ther than an artist. He devoted himself to it, with a view 
 to amuse and soothe his mind, with the ease of a gentle- 
 man, not with the severity of a professional student. He 
 wished to make his pictures, like himself, amiable ; but a 
 too constant desire to please almost unavoidably leads to 
 affectation and effeminacy. He wanted that vigour of in- 
 tellect which perceives the beauty of truth ; and thought 
 that painting was to be gained, like other mistresses, by 
 flattery and smiles. It was an error which we are disposed 
 to forgive in one, around whose memory, both as an artist 
 and a man, many fond recollections, many vain regrets, 
 must always linger . 1 
 
 The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds, both from his 
 example and instructions, has had, and still continues to 
 have, a considerable influence on the state of art in this 
 country. That influence has been, on the whole, unques- 
 tionably beneficial in itself, as well as highly creditable to 
 the rare talents and elegant mind of Sir Joshua ; for it has 
 raised the art of painting from the lowest state of degrada- 
 tion, — of dry, meagre, lifeless, inanity, — to something at 
 least respectable, and bearing an affinity to the rough 
 
 1 The idea of the necessity of improving upon nature, and giving 
 what was called a flattering likeness, was universal in this country 
 fifty years ago, so that Gainsborough is not to be so much blamed 
 for tampering with his subjects. 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 39 
 
 strength and bold spirit of the national character. Whe- 
 ther the same implicit deference to his authority, which 
 has helped to advance the art thus far, may not, among 
 other causes, limit and retard its future progress, — whether 
 there are not certain original errors, both in his principles 
 and practice, which the farther they are proceeded in, the 
 farther they will lead us from the truth, — whether there is 
 not a systematic bias from the right line, by which alone 
 we can arrive at the goal of the highest perfection, — are 
 questions well worth considering. 
 
 We shall begin with Sir Joshua’s merits as an artist. 
 There is one error which we wish £o correct at setting out, 
 because we think it important. There is not a greater or 
 more unaccountable mistake than the supposition that Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds owed his success or excellence in his pro- 
 fession to his having been the first who introduced into this 
 country more general principles of the art, and w r ho raised 
 portrait to the dignity of history, from the low drudgery of 
 copying the peculiarities, meannesses, and details of indi- 
 vidual nature, which was all that had been attempted by 
 his immediate predecessors. This is so far from being true, 
 that the very reverse is the fact. If Sir Joshua did not 
 give these details and peculiarities so much as might be 
 wished, those who went before him did not give them at 
 all. Those pretended general principles of the art, v/hich, 
 it is said, “ alone give value and dignity to it,” had been 
 pushed to their extremest absurdity before his time ; and 
 it was in getting rid of the mechanical systematic monotony 
 and middle forms , by the help of which, Lely, Kneller, 
 Hudson, the French painters, and others, carried on their 
 manufactories of history and face painting, and in return- 
 ing (as far as he did return) to the truth and force of indi- 
 
40 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 vidual nature, that the secret both of his fame and fortune 
 lay. The pedantic servile race of artists whom Reynolds 
 superseded, had carried the abstract principle of improving 
 on nature to such a degree of refinement, that they left it 
 out altogether, and confounded all the varieties and irregu- 
 larities of form, feature, character, expression, cr attitude, 
 in the same artificial mould of fancied grace and fashion- 
 able insipidity. The portraits of Kneller, for example, 
 seem all to have been turned in a machine ; the eye- brows 
 are arched as if by a compass, the mouth curled, and the 
 chin dimpled ; the head turned on one side, and the hands 
 placed in the same affected position. The portraits of this 
 mannerist, therefore, are as like one another as the dresses 
 which were then in fashion, and have the same “ dignity 
 and value” as the full bottomed wigs which graced their 
 originals. The superiority of Reynolds consisted in his 
 being varied and natural, instead of being artificial and 
 uniform. The spirit, grace, or dignity which he added to 
 his portraits, he borrowed from nature, and not from the 
 ambiguous quackery of rules. His feeling of truth and 
 nature was too strong to permit him to adopt the unmean- 
 ing style of Kneller and Hudson ; but his logical acuteness 
 was not such as to enable him to detect the verbal fallacies 
 and speculative absurdities which he had learned from 
 Richardson and Coypel ; and from some defects in his own 
 practice, he was led to confound negligence with grandeur. 
 But of this hereafter. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds owed his vast superiority over his 
 contemporaries to incessant practice and habitual attention 
 to nature, to quick organic sensibility, to considerable power 
 of observation, and still greater taste in perceiving and 
 availing himself of those excellences of others which lay 
 
 — 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS* 
 
 41 
 
 within his own walk of art. We can by no means look 
 upon Sir Joshua as having a claim to the first rank of 
 genius. He would hardly have been a great painter if 
 other great painters had not lived before him. He would 
 not have given a first impulse to the art ; nor did he ad- 
 vance any part of it beyond the point where he found it. 
 He did not present any new view of nature, nor is he to 
 be placed in the same class with those who did. Even in 
 colour, his pallet was spread for him by the old masters ; 
 and his eye imbibed its full perception of depth and har- 
 mony of tone from the Dutch and Venetian schools rather 
 than from nature. His early pictures are poor and flimsy. 
 He indeed learned to see the finer qualities of nature 
 through the works of art, which he, perhaps, might never 
 have discovered in nature itself. He became rich by the 
 accumulation of borrowed wealth, and his genius was the 
 offspring of taste. He combined and applied the materials 
 of others to his own purpose with admirable success ; he 
 was an industrious compiler or skilful translator, not an 
 original inventor in art. The art would remain, in alf its 
 essential elements, just where it is, if Sir Joshua had never 
 lived. He has supplied the industry of future plagiarists 
 with no new materials. But it has been well observed, 
 that the value of every work of art, as well as the genius 
 of the artist, depends not more on the degree of excellence 
 than on the degree of originality displayed in it. Sir 
 Joshua, however, was perhaps the most original imitator 
 that ever appeared in the world ; and the reason of this, in 
 a great measure, was, that he was compelled to combine 
 what he saw in art with what he saw in nature, which was 
 constantly before him. The portrait painter is, in this 
 respect, much less liable than the historical painter to de- 
 
42 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 viate into the extremes of manner and affectation ; for he 
 cannot discard nature altogether under the excuse that she 
 only puts him out. He must meet her face to face; and 
 if he is not incorrigible, he will see something there that 
 cannot fail to be of service to him. Another circumstance 
 which must have been favourable to Sir Joshua was, that 
 though not the originator in point of time , he was the first 
 Englishman who transplanted the higher excellences of his 
 profession into his own country, and had the merit, if not 
 of an inventor, of a reformer of the art. His mode of 
 painting had the graces of novelty in the age and country 
 in which he lived ; and he had, therefore, all the stimulus 
 to exertion which arose from the enthusiastic applause of 
 his contemporaries, and from a desire to expand and refine 
 the taste of the public. 
 
 To an eye for colour and for effects of light and shade, 
 Sir Joshua united a strong perception of individual cha- 
 racter, — a lively feeling of the quaint and grotesque in ex- 
 pression, and great mastery of execution. He had com- 
 paratively little knowledge of drawing, either as it regarded 
 proportion or form. The beauty of some of his female 
 faces and, figures arises almost entirely from their softness 
 and fleshiness. His pencil wanted firmness and precision. 
 The expression, even of his best portraits, seldom implies 
 either lofty or impassioned intellect or delicate sensibility. 
 He also wanted grace, if grace requires simplicity. The 
 mere negation of stiffness and formality is not grace ; for 
 looseness and distortion are not grace. His favourite atti- 
 tudes are not easy and natural, but the affectation of ease 
 and nature. They are violent deviations from a right line. 
 Many of the figures in his fancy pieces are placed in pos- 
 tures in which they could not remain for an instant without 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 43 
 
 extreme difficulty and awkwardness. We might instance the 
 Girl drawing with a Pencil , and some others. His por- 
 traits are his best pictures, and of these his portraits of men 
 are the best ; his pictures of children are the next in value. 
 He had fine subjects for the former, from the masculine 
 sense and originality of character of many of the persons 
 whom he painted ; and he had also a great advantage, as 
 far as practice went, in painting a number of persons of 
 every rank and description. Some of the finest and most 
 interesting are those of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith (which is, 
 however, too much a mere sketch), Baretti, Dr. Burney, 
 John Hunter, and the inimitable portrait of Bishop New- 
 ton. The elegant simplicity of character, expression, and 
 drawing, preserved throughout the last picture, even to the 
 attitude and mode of handling, discover the true genius of 
 a painter. We also remember to have seen a print of 
 Thomas Wharton, than which nothing could be more cha- 
 racteristic or more natural; These were all Reynolds’ in- 
 timate acquaintances, and it could not be said of them that 
 they were men of “ no mark or likelihood.” Their traits 
 had probably sunk deep into the artist’s mind ; he painted 
 them as pure studies from nature, copying the real image 
 existing before him, with all its known characteristic pe- 
 culiarities ; and, with as much wisdom as good-nature, 
 sacrificing the graces on the altar of friendship. They are 
 downright portraits and nothing more, and they are valu- r 
 able in proportion. In his portraits of women, on the con- 
 trary, with very few exceptions, Sir Joshua appears to have 
 consulted either the vanity of his employers or his own fan- 
 ciful theory. They have not the look of individual nature, 
 nor have they, to compensate the want of this, either pe- 
 culiar elegance of form, refinement of expression, delicacy 
 
44 
 
 FINE AETS. 
 
 of complexion, or gracefulness of manner. Vandyke’s at- 
 titudes have been complained of as stiff and confined. 
 Reynolds, to avoid this defect, has fallen into the contrary 
 extreme of negligence and contortion. His female figures, 
 which aim at gentility, are twisted into that serpentine line, 
 the idea of which he ridiculed so much in Hogarth. In- 
 deed, Sir Joshua, in his Discourses (see his account of Cor- 
 reggio), speaks of grace as if it were nearly allied to affec- 
 tation. Grace signifies that which is pleasing and natural 
 in the posture and motions of the human form, as beauty 
 is more properly applied to the form itself. That which is 
 stiff, inanimate, and without motion, cannot, therefore, be 
 graceful ; but to suppose that a figure, to be graceful, need 
 only be put into some languishing or extravagant posture, 
 is to mistake flutter and affectation for ease and elegance. 
 
 Sir Joshua’s children, as we have said above, are among 
 his chef d’ oeuvres. The faces of children have in general 
 that want of precision of outline, that prominence of relief, 
 and strong contrast of colour, which were peculiarly adapt- 
 ed to his style of painting. The arch simplicity of expres- 
 sion, and the grotesque character which he has given to 
 the heads of his children, w r ere, however, borrowed from 
 Correggio. His Puck is the most masterly of all these ; 
 and the colouring, execution, and character, are alike ex- 
 quisite. The single figure of the Infant Hercules is also 
 % admirable. Many of those to which his friends have sug- 
 gested historical titles are mere common portraits or casual 
 studies. Thus the Infant Samuel is an innocent little 
 child saying its prayers at the bed’s feet : it has nothing 
 to do with the story of the Hebrew prophet. The same 
 objection will apply to many of his fancy pieces and his- 
 torical compositions. There is often no connection be- 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 45 
 
 tween the picture and the subject but the name. Even 
 his celebrated Xphigenia, beautiful as she is, and prodigal of 
 charms, does not answer to the idea of the story. In draw- 
 ing the naked figure, Sir Joshua’s want of truth and firm- 
 ness of outline became more apparent ; and his mode of 
 laying on his colours, which in the face and extremities 
 was relieved and broken by the abrupt inequalities of sur- 
 face and variety of tints in each part, produced a degree 
 of heaviness and opacity in the larger masses of flesh- 
 colour, which can indeed only be avoided by extreme de- 
 licacy or extreme lightness of execution. 
 
 Shall we speak the truth at once ? In our opinion, Sir 
 Joshua did not possess either that high imagination, or 
 those strong feelings, without which no painter can be- 
 come a poet in his art. His larger historical compositions 
 have been generally allowed to be most liable to objec- 
 tion in a critical point of view. We shall not attempt to 
 judge them by scientific or technical rules, but make one 
 or two observations on the character and feeling displayed 
 in them. The highest subject which Sir Joshua has at- 
 tempted was the Count Ugolino , and it was, as might be 
 expected from the circumstances, a total failure. He had, 
 it seems, painted a study of an old beggar-man’s head ; 
 and some person, who must have known as little of paint- 
 ing as of poetry, persuaded the unsuspecting artist that it 
 was the exact expression of Dante’s Count Ugolino, one 
 of the most grand, terrific, and appalling characters in 
 modern fiction. Reynolds, who knew nothing of the mat- 
 ter but what he was told, took his good fortune for grant- 
 ed, and or^y extended his canvass to admit the rest of the 
 figures. The attitude and expression of Count Ugolino 
 himself are what the artist intended them to be, till they 
 
46 
 
 PINE ARTS. 
 
 were pampered into something else by the officious vanity 
 of friends — those of a common mendicant at the corner of 
 a street, waiting patiently for some charitable donation. 
 The imagination of the painter took refuge in a parish 
 work-house, instead of ascending the steps of the Tower 
 of Famine. The hero of Dante is a lofty, high-minded, 
 and unprincipled Italian nobleman, who had betrayed his 
 country to the enemy, and who, as a punishment for his 
 crime, is shut up with his four sons in the dungeon of the 
 citadel, where he shortly finds the doors barred against 
 him, and food withheld. He in vain watches with eager 
 feverish eye the opening of the door at the accustomed 
 hour, and his looks turn to stone ; his children one by one 
 drop down dead at his feet ; he is seized with blindness, 
 and, in the agony of his despair, he gropes on his knees 
 after them, 
 
 Calling each by name 
 
 For three days after they were dead. 
 
 Even in the other world he is represented with the same 
 fierce, dauntless, unrelenting character, “ gnawing the 
 skull of his adversary, his fell repast.” The subject of the 
 Laocoon is scarcely equal to that described by Dante. 
 The horror there is physical and momentary ; in the other, 
 the imagination fills up the long, obscure, dreary void of 
 despair, and joins its unutterable pangs to the loud cries of 
 nature. What is there in the picture to convey the ghast- 
 ly horrors of the scene, or the mighty energy of soul with 
 which they are borne ? His picture of Macbeth is full of 
 wild and grotesque images ; and the apparatus of the wit- 
 ches contains a very elaborate and well-arranged^inventory 
 of dreadful objects. His Cardinal Beaufort is a fine dis- 
 play of rich mellow colouring ; and there is something 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 47 
 
 gentlemanly and Shakespearian in the king and attendant 
 nobleman. At the same time we think the expression of 
 the cardinal himself is too much one of physical horror, a 
 canine gnashing of the teeth, like a man strangled. This 
 is not the best style of history. Mrs. Siddons as the Tra- 
 gic Muse is neither the tragic muse nor Mrs. Siddons ; and 
 we have still stronger objections to Garrick between Tra- 
 gedy and Comedy . 
 
 There is a striking similarity between Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds’ theory and his practice ; and as each of these has 
 been appealed to in support of the other, it is necessary 
 that we should examine both. Sir Joshua’s practice was 
 generally confined to the illustration of that part of his 
 theory which relates to the more immediate imitation of 
 nature ; and it is to what he says on this subject that we 
 shall chiefly direct our observations at present. 
 
 He lays it down as a general and invariable rule, that 
 “ the great style in art , and the most perfect imitation 
 of nature; consists in avoiding the details and peculiari- 
 ties of particular objects .” This sweeping principle he ap- 
 plies almost indiscriminately to portrait , history , and land- 
 scape ; and he appears to have been led to the conclusion 
 itself, from supposing the imitation of particulars to be in- 
 consistent with general rule and effect. It appears to us 
 that the highest perfection of the art depends, not on se- 
 parating, but on uniting general truth and effect with in- 
 dividual distinctness and accuracy. 
 
 First , It is said that the great style in painting, as it 
 relates to the immediate imitation of external nature, con- 
 sists in avoiding the details of particular objects; it con- 
 sists neither in giving nor avoiding them, but in something 
 quite different from both. Any one may avoid the details. 
 
48 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 So far there is no difference between the Cartoons and a 
 common sign-painting. Greatness consists in giving the 
 larger masses and proportions with truth ; — this does not 
 prevent giving the smaller ones too. The utmost gran- 
 deur of outline, and the broadest masses of light and shade, 
 are perfectly compatible with the utmost minuteness and 
 delicacy of detail, as may be seen in nature. It is not, 
 indeed, common to see both qualities combined in the imi- 
 tations of nature, any more than the combination of other 
 excellences ; nor are we here saying to which the princi- 
 cipal attention of the artist should be directed ; but we 
 deny that, considered in themselves, the absence of the one 
 quality is necessary or sufficient to the production of the 
 other. 
 
 If, for example, the form of the eye-brow is correctly 
 given, it will be perfectly indifferent to the truth or gran- 
 deur of the design, whether it consists of one broad mark, 
 or is composed of a number of hair-lines arranged in the 
 same order. So, if the lights and shades are disposed in 
 fine and large masses, the breadth of the picture, as it is 
 called, cannot possibly be affected by the filling up of 
 those masses with the details, that is, with the subordi- 
 nate distinctions which appear in nature. The anatomical 
 details in Michel Angelo, the ever -varying outline of Raf- 
 faelle, the perfect execution of the Greek statues, do not 
 destroy their symmetry or dignity of form ; and in the 
 finest specimens of the composition of colour we may ob- 
 serve the largest masses combined with the greatest va- 
 riety in the parts of which those masses are composed. 
 
 The gross style consists in giving no details, the finical 
 in giving nothing else. Nature contains both large and 
 
 small parts, both masses and details ; and the same may 
 
 8 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 49 
 
 be said of the most perfect works of art. The union of both 
 kinds of excellence, of strength with delicacy, as far as the li- 
 mits of human capacity and the shortness of human life would 
 permit, is that which has established the reputation of the most 
 successful imitators of nature. Farther, their most finished 
 works are their best. The predominance, indeed, of either 
 excellence in the best masters has varied according to their 
 opinion of the relative value of these qualities, — the labour 
 they had the time or the patience to bestow on their works, 
 — the skill of the artist, — or the nature and extent of his 
 subject. But if the rule here objected to, that the careful 
 imitation of the parts injures the effect of the whole, be 
 once admitted, slovenliness would become another name 
 for genius, and the most unfinished performance be the best. 
 That such has been the confused impression left on the 
 mind by the perusal of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Discourses , 
 is evident from the practice as well as conversation of 
 many (even eminent) artists. The late Mr. Opie pro- 
 ceeded entirely on this principle. He left many admir- 
 able studies of portraits, particularly in what relates to 
 the disposition and effect of light and shade ; but he never 
 finished any of the parts, thinking them beneath the at- 
 tention of a great artist. He went over the whole head 
 the second day as he had done the first, and therefore 
 made no progress. The picture at last, having neither 
 the lightness of a sketch nor the accuracy of a finished 
 work, looked coarse, laboured, and heavy. Titian is the 
 most perfect example of high finishing. In him the de- 
 tails are engrafted on the most profound knowledge of 
 effect, and attention to the character of what he repre- 
 sented. His pictures have the exact look of nature, the 
 
 very tone and texture of flesh. The variety of his tints 
 
 D 
 
is blended into the greatest simplicity. There is a proper 
 degree both of solidity and transparency. All the parts 
 hang together ; every stroke tells, and adds to the effect 
 of the rest. Sir Joshua seems to deny that Titian finished 
 much, and says that he produced, by two or three strokes 
 of his pencil, effects which the most laborious copyist 
 w r ould in vain attempt to equal. It is true, he availed 
 himself in some degree of what is called execution , to fa- 
 cilitate his imitation of the details and peculiarities of na- 
 ture ; but it was to facilitate, not to supersede it. There 
 can be nothing more distinct than execution and daub- 
 ing. Titian, however, made a very moderate, though a 
 very admirable, use of this pow T er ; and those who copy his 
 pictures will find that the simplicity is in the results, not 
 in the details. To conclude our observations on this head, 
 we will only add, that while the artist thinks there is any 
 thing to be done, either to the whole or to the parts of his 
 picture, which can give it still more the look of nature, if 
 he is willing to proceed, we would not advise him to desist. 
 This rule is the more necessary to the young student, for 
 he will relax in his attention as he grows older. And 
 again, with respect to the subordinate parts of a picture, 
 there is no danger that he w r ill bestow a disproportionate 
 degree of labour upon them, because he will not feel the 
 same interest in copying them, and because a much less 
 degree of accuracy will serve every purpose of deception. 
 
 Secondly , With regard to the imitation of expression, we 
 can hardly agree with Sir Joshua, that “ the perfection of 
 portrait painting consists in giving the general idea or cha- 
 racter without the individual peculiarities.” No doubt, if we 
 were to choose between the general character and the pe- 
 culiarities of feature we ought to prefer the former. But 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 51 
 
 they are so far from being incompatible with, that they are 
 not without some difficulty distinguishable from, each other. 
 There is a general look of the face, a predominant expres- 
 sion arising from the correspondence and connexion of the 
 different parts, which it is of the first and last importance 
 to give, and without which no elaboration of detached parts, 
 or marking of the peculiarities of single features, is worth . 
 any thing ; but which, at the same time, is not destroyed, 
 but assisted, by the careful finishing, and still more by giv- 
 ing the exact outline, of each part. 
 
 It is on this point that the modern French and English 
 schools differ, and, in our opinion, are both wrong. The 
 English seem generally to suppose, that if they only leave 
 out the subordinate parts, they are sure of the general re- 
 sult. The French, on the contrary, as erroneously ima- 
 gine, that, by attending successively to each separate part, 
 they must infallibly arrive at a correct whole ; not con- 
 sidering that, besides the parts, there is their relation to 
 each other, and the general expression stamped upon them 
 by the character of the individual, which to be seen must 
 be felt ; for it is demonstrable that all character and ex- 
 pression, to be adequately represented, must be perceived 
 by the mind and not by the eye only. The French paint- 
 ers give only lines and precise differences, the English only 
 general masses and strong effects. Hence the two nations 
 reproach one another with the difference of their styles of 
 art, — the one, as dry, hard, and minute,— the other as 
 gross, gothic, and unfinished ; and they will probably re- 
 main for ever satisfied with each other’s defects, as they 
 afford a very tolerable fund of consolation on either side. 
 
 Much has been said of historical 'portrait ; and we have 
 no objection to this phrase, if properly understood. The giv- 
 
52 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 ing historical truth to a portrait means, then, the represent- 
 ing the individual under one consistent, probable, and strik- 
 ing view ; or showing the different features, muscles, & c. 
 in one action, and modified by one principle. A portrait 
 thus painted may be said to be historical ; that is, it car- 
 ries internal evidence of truth and propriety with it ; and 
 the number of individual peculiarities, as long as they are 
 true to nature, cannot lessen, but must add to, the strength 
 of the general impression. 
 
 It might be shown, if there were room in this place, that 
 Sir Joshua has constructed his theory of the ideal in art upon 
 the same mistaken principle of the negation or abstraction 
 of particular nature . The ideal is not a negative but a 
 positive thing. The leaving out the details or peculiarities 
 of an individual face does not make it one jot more ideal. 
 To paint history, is to paint nature as answering to a gene- 
 ral, predominant, or preconceived idea in the mind, of 
 strength, beauty, action, passion, thought, &c. : but the 
 way to do this, is not to leave out the details, but to incor- 
 porate the general idea with the details ; that is, to show 
 the same expression actuating and modifying every move- 
 ment of the muscles, and the same character preserved con- 
 sistently through every part of the body. Grandeur does 
 not consist in omitting the parts, but in connecting all the 
 parts into a whole, and in giving their combined and varied 
 action ; abstract truth or ideal perfection does not consist 
 in rejecting the peculiarities of form, but in rejecting all 
 those which are not consistent with the character intended 
 to be given, and in following up the same general idea of 
 softness, voluptuousness, strength, activity, or any combin- 
 ation of these, through every ramification of the frame. 
 But these modifications of form or expression can only be 
 
BRITISH ART. 
 
 53 
 
 learned from nature, and therefore the perfection of art 
 must always be sought in nature. The ideal properly ap- 
 plies as much to the idea of ugliness, weakness, folly, mean- 
 ness, vice, as of beauty, strength, wisdom, magnanimity, or 
 virtue. The antique heads of fauns and satyrs, of Pan or 
 Silenus, are quite as ideal as those of the Apollo or Bacchus ; 
 and Hogarth adhered to an idea of humour in his faces, as 
 Raffaelle did to an idea of sentiment. But RafFaelle found 
 the character of sentiment in nature as much as Hogarth 
 did that of humour, otherwise neither of them would have 
 given one or the other with such perfect truth, purity, force, 
 and keeping. Sir Joshua Reynold’s ideal , as consisting in 
 a mere negation of individuality, bears just the same rela- 
 tion to real beauty or grandeur as caricature does to true 
 comic character. 
 
 It is owing either to a mistaken theory of elevated art, 
 or to the want of models in nature, that the English are 
 hitherto without any painter of serious historical subjects, 
 who can be placed in the first rank of genius. Many of 
 the pictures of modern artists have shewn a capacity for 
 correct and happy delineation of actual objects and domes- 
 tic incidents only inferior to the masterpieces of the Dutch 
 School. We might here mention the names of Wilkie, 
 Collins, Heaphy, and many others. We have portrait- 
 painters^who have attained to a very high degree of excel- 
 lence in all the branches of their art. In landscape, Turner 
 has shewn a knowledge of the effects of air, and of power- 
 ful relief in objects, which was never surpassed. But in 
 the highest walk of art — in giving the movements of the 
 finer or loftier passions of the mind, this country has not 
 produced a single painter who has made even a faint pa- 
 
54 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 proach to the excellence of the great Italian painters. We 
 have, indeed, a good number of specimens of the clay- 
 figure, the anatomical mechanism, the regular proportions 
 measured by a two-foot rule ; — large canvasses, covered 
 with stiff figures, arranged in deliberate order, with the 
 characters and story correctly expressed by uplifted eyes 
 or hands, according to old receipt-books for the passions ; 
 and with all the hardness and inflexibility of figures carved 
 in wood, and painted over in good strong body colours, 
 that look “ as if some of nature’s journeymen had made 
 them, and not made them well.” But we still want a Pro- 
 metheus to give life to the cumbrous mass, — to throw an 
 intellectual light over the opaque image, — to embody the 
 inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye, — to lay 
 bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of little com- 
 parative value which can be completely translated into 
 another language, — of which the description in a common 
 catalogue conveys all that is expressed by the picture it- 
 self ; for it is the excellence of every art to give what can 
 be given by no other in the same degree. Much less is 
 that picture to be esteemed which only injures and defaces 
 the idea already existing in the mind’s eye, — which does 
 not come up to the conception which the imagination forms 
 of the subject, and substitutes a dull reality for high senti- 
 ment ; for the art is in this case an incumbrance not an 
 assistance, and interferes with, instead of adding to, the 
 stock of our pleasurable sensations. But we should be at 
 a loss to point out, we will not say any English picture, but 
 certainly any English painter, who, in heroic and classical 
 composition, has risen to the height of his subject, and 
 answered the expectation of the well-informed spectator, 
 or excited the same impression by visible means as had 
 
BRITISH ART. 
 
 55 
 
 been excited by words or by reflection . 1 That this inferi- 
 ority in English art is not owing to a deficiency of genius, 
 imagination, or passion, is proved sufficiently by the works 
 of our poets and dramatic writers, which, in loftiness and 
 force, are not surpassed by those of any other nation. But 
 whatever may be the depth of internal thought and feeling 
 in the English character, it seems to be more internal ; 
 and, whether this is owing to habit or physical constitution, 
 to have comparatively a less immediate and powerful com- 
 munication with the organic expression of passion, — which 
 exhibits the thoughts and feelings in the countenance, and 
 furnishes matter for the historic muse of painting. The 
 English artist is instantly sensible that the flutter, grimace, 
 and extravagance of the French physiognomy, are incom- 
 patible with high history ; and we are at no loss to explain 
 in this way, that is, from the defect of living models, how 
 it is that the productions of the French school are marked 
 with all the affectation of national caricature, or sink into 
 tame and lifeless imitations of the antique. May we not 
 account satisfactorily for the general defects of our own 
 historic productions in a similar way, — from a certain in- 
 ertness and constitutional phlegm, which does not habitu- 
 ally impress the workings of the mind in correspondent 
 traces on the countenance, and which may also render us 
 less sensible of these outward and visible signs of passion, 
 even when they are so impressed there ? The irregularity 
 of proportion and want of symmetry in the structure of the 
 national features, though it certainly enhances the difficulty 
 of infusing natural grace and grandeur into the works of 
 
 1 If we were to make any qualification of this censure, it would 
 be in favour of some of Mr. Northcote’s compositions from early 
 English history. 
 
56 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 art, rather accounts for our not having been able to attain 
 the exquisite refinements of Grecian sculpture, than for our 
 not having rivalled the Italian painters in expression. 
 
 Mr. West formed no exception to, but a confirmation of, 
 these general observations. His pictures have all that can 
 be required in what relates to the composition of the sub- 
 ject; to the regular arrangement of the groups; the ana- 
 tomical proportions of the human body ; and the technical 
 knowledge of expression, — as far as expression is reducible 
 to abstract rules, and is merely a vehicle for the telling of 
 a story ; so that anger, wonder, sorrow, pity, &c. have each 
 their appropriate and well-known designations. These, 
 however, are but the instrumental parts of the art, the 
 means, not the end ; but beyond these Mr. West’s pictures 
 do not go. They never “ snatch a grace beyond the reach 
 of art.” They exhibit the mask, not the soul of expression. 
 We doubt, whether, in the entire range of Mr. West’s pro- 
 ductions, meritorious and admirable as the design and com- 
 position often are, there is to be found one truly fine head. 
 They display a total want of gusto. In Raffaelle, the same 
 divine spirit breathes through every part ; it either agitates 
 the inmost frame, or plays in gentle undulations on the 
 trembling surface. Whether we see his figures bending 
 with all the blandishments of maternal love, or standing in 
 the motionless silence of thought, or hurried into the tu- 
 mult of action, the whole is under the impulse of deep pas- 
 sion. But Mr. West saw hardly any thing in the human 
 face but bones and cartilages ; or, if he availed himself of 
 the more flexible machinery of nerves and muscles, it was 
 only by rule and method. The effect is not that which the 
 soul of passion impresses on the countenance, and which 
 the soul of genius alone can seize ; but such as might, in a 
 
FINE ARTS. 
 
 57 
 
 good measure, be given to wooden puppets or pasteboard 
 figures, pulled by wires, and taught to open the mouth, or 
 knit the forehead, or raise the eyes in a very scientific 
 manner. In fact, there is no want of art or learning in his 
 pictures, but of nature and feeling. 
 
 It is not long ago since an opinion was very general, that 
 all that was wanting to the highest splendour and perfec- 
 tion of the arts in this country might be supplied by aca- 
 demies and public institutions. There are three ways in 
 which academies and public institutions may be supposed 
 to promote the fine arts ; either by furnishing the best 
 models to the student, or by holding out immediate emolu- 
 ment and patronage, or by improving the public taste. We 
 shall bestow a short consideration on the influence of each. 
 
 First, a constant reference to the best models of art 
 necessarily tends to enervate the mind, to intercept our 
 view of nature, and to distract the attention by a variety of 
 unattainable excellence. An intimate acquaintance with 
 the works of the celebrated masters may indeed add to the 
 indolent refinements of taste, but will never produce one 
 work of original genius, one great artist. In proof of the 
 general truth of this observation, we might cite the history 
 of the progress and decay of art in all countries where it 
 has flourished. It is a little extraordinary, that if the real 
 sources of perfection are to be sought in schools, in models, 
 and public institutions, that wherever schools, models, and 
 public institutions have existed, there the arts should re- 
 gularly disappear, — that the effect should never follow from 
 the cause. 
 
 The Greek statues remain to this day unrivalled, — the 
 undisputed standard of the most perfect symmetry of form. 
 In Italy the art of painting has had the same fate. After 
 
58 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 its long and painful struggles in the time of the earlier 
 artists, Cimabue, Ghirlandaio, Massaccio, and others, it burst 
 out with a light almost too dazzling to behold, in the works 
 of Titian, Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, and Correggio ; which 
 was reflected with diminished lustre in the productions of 
 their immediate disciples, lingered for a while with the 
 school of the Carraccis, and expired with Guido Reni. 
 From that period painting sunk to so low a state in Italy 
 as to excite only pity or contempt. There is not a single 
 name to redeem its faded glory from utter oblivion. Yet 
 this has not been owing to any want of Dilettanti and Della 
 Cruscan societies, — of academies of Florence, of Bologna, 
 of Parma, and Pisa, — of honorary members and foreign 
 correspondents — of pupils and teachers, professors and 
 patrons, and the whole busy tribe of critics and connois- 
 seurs. 
 
 What is become of the successors of Rubens, Rem- 
 brandt, and Vandyke ? What have the French academi- 
 cians done for the arts ; or what will they ever do, but add 
 intolerable affectation and grimace to centos of heads from 
 the antique, and caricature Greek forms by putting them 
 into opera attitudes ? Nicholas Poussin is the only exam- 
 ple on record in favour of the contrary theory, and we 
 have already sufficiently noticed his defects. What extra- 
 ordinary advances have we made in our own country in 
 consequence of the establishment of the royal academy ? 
 What greater names has the English school to boast than 
 those of Hogarth, Reynolds, and Wilson, who created it ? 
 
 Again, we might cite, in support of our assertion, the 
 works of Carlo Maratti, of Raphael Mengs, or of any of 
 the effeminate school of critics and copyists, who have at- 
 tempted to blend the borrowed beauties of others in a per- 
 
FINE ARTS. 
 
 59 
 
 feet whole. What do they contain, but a negation of every 
 excellence which they pretend to combine ? The assidu- 
 ous imitator, in his attempts to grasp all, loses his hold of 
 that which was placed within his reach ; and, from aspiring 
 at universal excellence, sinks into uniform mediocrity. The 
 student who has models of every kind of excellence con- 
 stantly before him, is not only diverted from that particu- 
 lar walk of art in which, by patient exertion, he might have 
 obtained ultimate success, but, from having his imagina- 
 tion habitually raised to an overstrained standard of refine- 
 ment, by the sight of the most exquisite examples in art, 
 he becomes impatient and dissatisfied with his own at- 
 tempts, determines to reach the same perfection all at 
 once, or throws down his pencil in despair. Thus the 
 young enthusiast, whose genius and energy were to rival 
 the great masters of antiquity, or create a new era in the 
 art itself, baffled in his first sanguine expectations, reposes 
 in indolence on what others have done, — wonders how 
 such perfection could have been achieved, — grows familiar 
 with the minutest peculiarities of the different schools, — 
 flutters between the splendour of Rubens and the grace of 
 Raffaelle, and ends in nothing. Such was not Correggio. 
 He saw and felt for himself ; he was of no school, but had 
 his own world of art to create. That image of truth and 
 beauty which existed in his mind he was forced to construct 
 for himself, without rules or models. As it had arisen 
 in his mind from the contemplation of nature, so he could 
 only hope to embody it to others by the imitation of nature. 
 We can conceive the work growing under his hands by 
 slow and patient touches, approaching nearer to perfection, 
 softened into finer grace, gaining strength from delicacy, 
 and at last reflecting the pure image of nature on the can- 
 
60 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 vass. Such is always the true progress of art ; such are the 
 necessary means by which the greatest works of every 
 kind have been produced. They have been the effect of 
 power gathering strength from exercise, and warmth from 
 its own impulse — stimulated to fresh efforts by conscious 
 success, and by the surprise and strangeness of a new 
 world of beauty opening to the delighted imagination. 
 The triumphs of art were victories over the difficulties of 
 art ; the prodigies of genius, the result of that strength 
 which had grappled with nature. Titian copied even a 
 plant or a piece of common drapery from the objects them- 
 selves ; and Raffaelle is known to have made elaborate 
 studies of the principal heads in his pictures. All the 
 great painters of this period were thoroughly grounded in 
 the first principles of their art ; had learned to copy a face, 
 a hand, or an eye, and had acquired patience to finish a 
 single figure before they undertook to paint extensive com- 
 positions. They knew that though fame is represented with 
 her head above the clouds, her feet rest upon the earth. 
 Genius can only have its full scope where, though much 
 may have been done, more remains to do ; where models 
 exist chiefly to show the deficiencies of art, and where the 
 perfect idea is left to be filled up in the painter’s imagina- 
 tion. When once the stimulus of novelty and of original 
 exertion is wanting, generations repose on what has been 
 done for them by their predecessors, as individuals, after a 
 certain period, rest satisfied with the knowledge they have 
 already acquired. 
 
 With regard to the pecuniary advantages arising from 
 the public patronage of the arts, the plan unfortunately 
 defeats itself ; for it multiplies its objects faster than it can 
 satisfy their claims, and raises up a swarm of competitors 
 
FINE ARTS. 
 
 61 
 
 for the prize of genius from the dregs of idleness and dull- 
 ness. The real patron is anxious to reward merit, not to 
 encourage gratuitous pretensions to it ; to see that the man 
 of genius takes no detriment , that another Wilson is not 
 left to parish for want ; — not to propagate the breed of 
 embryo candidates for fame. Offers of public and promis- 
 cuous patronage can in general be little better than a spe- 
 cies of intellectual seduction, administering provocatives to 
 vanity and avarice, and leading astray the youth of the 
 nation by fallacious hopes, which can scarcely ever be re- 
 alized. At the same time, the good that might be done 
 by private taste and benevolence is in a great measure de- 
 feated. The moment that a few individuals of discern- 
 ment and liberal spirit become members of a public body, 
 they are no longer anything more than parts of a machine, 
 which is usually wielded at will by some officious over- 
 weening pretender ; their good sense and good nature are 
 lost in a mass of ignorance and presumption ; their names 
 only serve to reflect credit on proceedings in w r hich they 
 have no share, and which are determined on by a majority 
 of persons who have no interest in the arts but what arises 
 from the importance attached to them by regular organi- 
 zation, and no opinions but what are dictated to them by 
 some self- constituted judge. As far as we have had an 
 opportunity of observing the conduct of such bodies of 
 men, instead of taking the lead of public opinion, of giving 
 a firm, manly, and independent tone to that opinion, they 
 make it their business to watch all its caprices, and follow 
 it in every casual turning. They dare not give their sanc- 
 tion to sterling merit struggling with difficulties, but take 
 advantage of its success to reflect credit on their own re- 
 putation for sagacity. Their taste is a servile dependent 
 
62 
 
 FINE ARTS. 
 
 on their vanity, and their patronage has an air of pauper- 
 ism about it. Perhaps the only public patronage which 
 was ever really useful to the arts, or worthy of them, was 
 that which they received first in Greece, and afterwards in 
 Italy, from the religious institutions of the country ; when 
 the artist felt himself, as it were, a servant at the altar ; 
 when his hand gave a visible form to gods or heroes, angels 
 or apostles ; and when the enthusiasm of genius was ex- 
 alted by mingling with the flame of national devotion. 
 The artist was not here degraded by being made the de- 
 pendent on the caprice of wealth or fashion, but felt at 
 once the servant and the benefactor of the public. He had 
 to embody, by the highest efforts of his art, subjects which 
 were sacred to the imagination and feelings of the specta- 
 tors ; there was a common link, a mutual sympathy, be- 
 tween them in their common faith. Every other mode of 
 patronage but that which arises either from the general 
 institutions and manners of a people, or from the real un- 
 affected taste of individuals, must, we conceive, be illegiti- 
 mate, corrupted in its source, and either ineffectual or in- 
 jurious to its professed object. 
 
 Lastly , Academies and institutions may be supposed to 
 assist the progress of the fine arts, by promoting a wider 
 taste for them. 
 
 In general, it must happen in the first stages of the arts, 
 that as none but those who had a natural genius for them 
 w r ould attempt to practise them, so none but those who 
 had a natural taste for them would pretend to judge of or 
 criticise them. This must be an incalculable advantage 
 to the man of true genius ; for it is no other than the pri- 
 vilege of being tried by his peers. In an age when con- 
 noisseurship had not become a fashion, — when religion, 
 
FINE ARTS. 
 
 63 
 
 war, and intrigue, occupied the time and thoughts of the 
 great, — only those minds of superior refinement would be 
 led to notice the works of art, who had a real sense of their 
 excellence ; and, in giving way to the powerful bent of his 
 own genius, the painter was most likely to consult the taste 
 of his judges. He had not to deal with pretenders to taste, 
 through vanity, affectation, and idleness. He had to ap- 
 peal to the higher faculties of the souk — to that deep and 
 innate sensibility to truth and beauty, which required only 
 fit objects to have its enthusiasm excited, — and to that in- 
 dependent strength of mind, which, in the midst of igno- 
 rance and barbarism, hailed and fostered genius wherever 
 it met with it. Titian was patronized by Charles V. 
 Count Castiglione was the friend of RafFaelle. These were 
 true patrons and true critics ; and, as there were no others, 
 (for the world, in general, merely looked on and wondered), 
 there can be little doubt, that such a period of dearth of 
 factitious patronage would be most favourable to the full 
 development of the greatest talents, and to the attainment 
 of the highest excellence. 
 
 By means of public institutions, the number of candi- 
 dates for fame and pretenders to criticism is increased be- 
 yond all calculation, while the quantity of genius and feel- 
 ing remains much the same as before ; with these disad- 
 vantages, that the man of original genius is often lost 
 among the crowd of competitors who would never have 
 become such but from encouragement and example, and 
 that the voice of the few whom nature intended for judges 
 is apt to be drowned in the noisy and forward suffrages of 
 shallow smatterers in taste. 
 
PAINTING, 
 
 BY 
 
 B. R. HAYDON, Esq. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 69, note 1, for Bristol read British. 
 
 91, line 7, for fabulous read tabular. 
 
 128, ... 27, for before that time, read about. 
 
 132, ... 10, for Donatelo, read Donatello. 
 
 136, ... 11, for Ceronino Cininni, read Cennino 
 Cennini. 
 
 141, ... 27, for Fountainbleau, read Fontainebleau. 
 153, ... 29, for Athens read Olympia. 
 
 155, ... 28, for long figure read lay. 
 
 159, ... 8, for he proved read who. 
 
 166, ... 4, for affection read affectation. 
 
 169, ... 18, for PompioBattone, rardPompeo Battoni. 
 179, ... 27, for J\Iontegua read Montegna. 
 
 204, ... 9, for Edward IV. read Edward VI. 
 
 204, ... 14, for not breaking, read breaking. 
 
PAINTING 
 
 Painting is the art of conveying thought by the imitation 
 of things through the medium of form and colour, light and 
 shadow. Colour, and light and shadow, can by themselves 
 do little more than excite sensations of harmony and senti- 
 ment, independently of action, passion, or story; but if 
 founded upon form, thoughts become clear, expressions of 
 passion intelligible, and actions, gestures, and motions of the 
 human frame defined and decided. Form therefore is the 
 basis of painting, sculpture, architecture, and design of every 
 description. 
 
 Any school of painting, therefore, which is established 
 upon a principle different from this, or which makes the sub- 
 ordinate parts of colour, light, and shadow the principal law 
 of its practice instead of a component part, is in opposition 
 to the most celebrated schools in the world ; for the most 
 eminent both in Greece and in Italy, were indebted for their 
 celebrity and renown to the strict observance of the doctrine 
 here enunciated. In Greece, the schools of Sicyon, Corinth, 
 Athens and Rhodes, and in Italy, those of Pisa, Florence, 
 Rome, and Bologna, were the most important, the most use^ 
 
66 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ful, and the most intellectual ; and in all these form consti- 
 tuted the great and fundamental law of their practice. But 
 in Venice, colour took the lead ; it predominated too in Hol- 
 land and Flanders ; and it has always reigned, to the sacri- 
 fice of common sense, in Britain. Yet for sound and philo- 
 sophical views of art, as a vehicle of passion or of moral nation- 
 al influence, neither of these schools can be referred to, with 
 the same conviction or confidence with which all nations can 
 refer to the former great sources of sense, principle, and 
 genius. 
 
 In what country Painting first originated, is nearly as dif- 
 ficult to discover, as it is to find a country where it never ex- 
 isted at all. Design, the basis of painting, must have begun 
 with the very first instrument of necessity which man required. 
 The origin of any art, science, or discovery, is not so much ow- 
 ing to the particular accident which happened to the individual 
 concerned, as to the intellectual adaptation of that individual 
 to receive impressions of a peculiar nature from the particu- 
 lar circumstance which occurred. Thus whether Music was 
 invented by the man, who, listening to the sound of an anvil, 
 instantly composed notes ; or whether Painting was disco- 
 vered by the lovely girl, who, watching the shadow of her 
 lover, as he sat silent at the prospect of parting, traced it 
 upon the wall as a memento of their mutual affection ; whe- 
 ther it originated with Philocles in Egypt, or Cleanthes in 
 Corinth, or long before Egypt or Greece were habitable ; 
 the principle is the same. Without an inherent suscepti- 
 bility to the impressions of sound, in preference to all other 
 impressions, in the man, or an inherent susceptibility to the 
 impressions of form equally intense in the girl, the intellec- 
 tual faculties of either would have never been excited to 
 compose notes, or to define figures. The art originated with 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 [ 67 
 
 the first man who was born with such acute sensibility to the 
 beauty of form, colour, and light and shadow, as to be im- 
 pelled to convey his thoughts by positive imitation. 
 
 When the Spaniards landed in South America, the mode 
 by which the natives conveyed intelligence of their arrival to 
 king Montezuma was by painting the clothes of the strangers, 
 their looks, their dress, and their ships. This certainly must 
 have been the most ancient, because the most simple and ob- 
 vious mode in the world of conveying thought, after oral com- 
 munication. But independently of all theory, there cannot 
 be a doubt of the extreme antiquity of painting. The walls of 
 Babylon were painted after nature with different species of 
 animals, hunting expeditions, and combats. Simiramis was 
 represented on horseback striking a leopard with a dart, and 
 her husband Ninus wounding a lion. “ And I went in and 
 saw, and behold every form of creeping things, and abomi- 
 nable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pour- 
 tray ed on the wall round about” (Ezek. viii. 18.) } “ She / 3 
 saw men pourtrayed upon the wall , the images of the Chal- 
 deans pourtrayed in vermilion , girded with girdles upon 
 their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of 
 them princes to look at, after the manner of the Babylo- 
 nians and Chaldeans.” (chap, xxiii. 14, 15.) It is inferred 
 from a passage of Diodorus Siculus, that these figures were 
 painted first on the brick before burning, and then vitrified 
 by fire. 1 But before this was done, experience must have 
 been acquired of the liability to decay of painting upon ex- 
 ternal walls ; and considering, too, that great statues were 
 erected in Babylon, the arts must have existed amongst the 
 Babylonians long before the period here referred to. 
 
 1 Barry’s Lectures. 
 
68 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 But a great revolution has taken place in our ideas on this 
 subject, from the decyphering of hieroglyphics, and we are 
 now assured of the extreme antiquity of art, in ages hitherto 
 deemed almost entirely fabulous. From Asiatic art we have 
 been accustomed to turn to that of the Egyptians ; but it is 
 no longer considered as a matter of speculation that the Ethio- 
 pians preceded the latter in knowledge, and that from this 
 ancientpeople the Egyptians received gradually a knowledge 
 of art. The course of civilisation probably descended from 
 Ethiopia to Egypt; and yet we have evidence of the existence 
 of Egyptian painting and sculpture more than eighteen centur- 
 ies before Christ, and even then the arts were in the highest 
 condition that the Egyptian school ever attained. From the 
 most ancient records of the Jewish and Greek historians, 
 in which Egyptian and Ethiopian monarchs are mentioned, 
 and their actions narrated, we can now turn to correspond- 
 ing traces of their existence and exploits commemorated up- 
 on the durable materials of the temples, tombs, and palaces 
 which still remain. When therefore it is found that this me- 
 thod of interpreting hieroglyphics has proved to be correct, 
 in all that we know of the Caesars and the Ptolemies, or see 
 casually alluded to respecting the Pharaohs, we have no right 
 at all to dispute the truth of the same mode of interpretation 
 when it indicates a still higher antiquity, though we have not 
 the means of confirming it by collateral reference. Eighty 
 miles above Dongola, Lord Prudhoe discovered the remains 
 of a magnificent city, which he conceives to have been the 
 capital of Tirhakah mentioned in the Bible ; and amongst 
 these ruins he observed two nobly executed lions, specimens 
 of Ethiopian skill. On the shoulders of one is the name of 
 Amenoph III., who was called Memnon by Greek historians. 
 The style and execution of these great works are evidence 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 69 
 
 of the talent of this people . 1 It is now certain that as early 
 as the nineteenth century before Christ, the walls and 
 temples of Thebes were decorated with paintings and sculp - 
 ture, commemorating personal and historical events ; and 
 certainly in comparing the designs on these temples with 
 those of a later period, we must conclude that the Egyptian 
 school of painting never exceeded their merit . 2 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn is, that at this time the Egyp- 
 tian priesthood had not interfered with art or artists ; but 
 that the painters were left freely to commemorate the great 
 actions of their employers, to study nature, and to do as they 
 liked. Many of these actions are delineated in a natural man- 
 ner, and there is a great deal of dignity in the figure of the 
 hero ; the sea fights are also well grouped, and there are many 
 of the Trajan-column figures, and not more gross perspec- 
 tive is visible. The colour is a mere illumination, and the 
 composition as a whole infantine ; but there is proportion, 
 and not absolute ignorance of the component parts . 3 After 
 this period, artbecame a mere tool in the hands of the priests ; 
 and as the law compelled the son to follow the profession of 
 his father, it may be supposed that painting degenerated 
 into the mere fac-simileof prescribed forms of gods, godesses, 
 and men, and that in the time of the Ptolemies it was little 
 better than an illuminated hieroglyphic. 
 
 The Egyptians appear to have done every thing with re- 
 ference to form. Their painting was at best but coloured 
 sculpture. They seem to have been aware of the mortality 
 of colours, and to have said, “ As colours must go, let us cut 
 out the designs in stone, so that at least form may remain 
 
 Now in the Bristol Museum. 
 
 See last vol. of Sculpture, (Dilletanti.J 
 See the French national work on Egypt. 
 
70 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 in our granite sculpture, and defy every thing but the con- 
 vulsion of the earth.” First the designer drew the outline in 
 red, then the master artist corrected it, then the sculptor cut 
 it, then the painter coloured it, gods blue, goddesses yel- 
 low, men red, and draperies green and black ; and such is the 
 extreme dryness of the climate, that a traveller says, he saw 
 in Nubia, a bas-relief half cut, with the red outline left for 
 the rest, and that he wetted his finger and put it up, and 
 immediately obliterated a part of the red chalk. 
 
 The Egyptians would seem to have been a severe people, 
 as hard as their own granite . 1 They had an awful feeling of 
 respect for the wisdom of their ancestors ; they hated re- 
 form ; no physician dared to prescribe a new medicine, and 
 no painter dared to invent a new thought. Plato says, that 
 the pictures of his day in Egypt were just the same as from 
 ages immemorial ; 2 and, according to Winkelman, another 
 cause of their inferiority in painting, was the little estima- 
 tion in which painters were held, and their extreme igno- 
 rance. Not a single painter of eminence has reached us, 
 and but one sculptor, viz. Memnon, author of three statues 
 at the entrance of the great temple at Thebes. In the know- 
 ledge of the figure it is impossible they could be great ; for 
 there is proof that they dared not touch the dead body for dis- 
 section, and even the embalmers risked their lives from the 
 hatred of the populace. 
 
 Winkelman divides Egyptian design into three periods : 
 First, from the earliest times to the conquest of Cambyses ; 
 secondly, from the conquest of Cambyses to the subjugation 
 of the Persian and the establishment of the Greek dynasty 
 in Egypt ; and, thirdly, from that period to the time of Ha- 
 
 1 Odyss. lib. xvii. v. 448. 
 
 2 De Legibus , lib. 2. 
 
FAINTING. 
 
 71 
 
 drianJ When the paintings at Thebes were executed is 
 not known. But they were upon the walls at the expulsion 
 of the Shepherd Kings , 1 2 and this was the first period of their 
 art, and before Moses. The Egyptians never, in either art, 
 reached the power of making men, as Aristotle said of Po- 
 lygnotus, better than they were ; in other words, they never at- 
 tained the true ideal beauty, founded on nature, yet above it. 
 Their figures are debased transcripts of what they had about 
 them, and therefore, so far authentic as to character. The 
 Egyptian female heads are far from displeasing ; they have a 
 sleepy voluptuous eye , 3 a full and pleasant mouth, high cheek 
 bones, dark brows, and there is something by no means dis- 
 agreeable in the silent lazy look of their expression. But the 
 very want of ideal beauty gives an assurance that the figures 
 are Egyptian nature, and that every habit, public, private, 
 civil and religious, is laid open to us, by the wonderful disco- 
 veries of Belzoni and his followers: it is almost as impossible 
 now for an artist to be incorrect in painting an Egyptian sub- 
 ject, as it would be to err in painting a British one. In a tomb 
 laid open by Belzoni, the characters of the procession were ad- 
 mirably distinguished; the Jew, the Egyptian, the Negro, and 
 the Chaldaean, were as little liable to be confounded as if they 
 had been before us. In their sculpture, however, there is more 
 of science than in their painting. Sculpture was practised 
 by the priesthood, and sculptors were called sacred stone- 
 cutters. The great head of Memnon in the British Museum, 
 is beautifully cut, the nose and mouth especially ; and, con- 
 sidering its remote antiquity, it is really a great wonder. 
 
 Upon the whole, it is impossible to believe that the art 
 
 1 Wink. lib. ii. chap. 2. 
 
 2 See 2d vol. of Ancient Sculpture , (Dilletanti.) 
 
 3 See Description de I'Egypte, tom. i. plates. 
 
72 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 of painting, amongst other nations, owed much to the Egyp- 
 tians ; they had no colour, and no light and shadow, but only 
 some form, some expression, and some character. The groups 
 of the ruins of Elythia shew a great deal of nature and sim- 
 plicity ; the animals are varied, and the cows are lowing and 
 gamboling ; yet it is after all but childish work, and as the 
 paintings at Thebes are the best, those of Elythia have not 
 much to boast of. 
 
 Whether the Greeks owe their beginnings to Egypt, is 
 more than doubtful, from the simple fact of the early Greek 
 painters using no blue , whilst it was the constant practice 
 of Egyptian painters to use blue in every thing . 1 Athens 
 was founded by an Egyptian colony, and painters might be 
 amongst the emigrants, as well as masons and sculptors ; yet 
 in the early state of things, painters were not an article of 
 necessity, and it is problematical if in this alleged emigration, 
 there were any persons of that class. The beginning of art 
 was the same in all nations. They might improve each 
 other ; but we do not believe that painting was ever origin- 
 ally brought into one nation by another, or that there ever 
 existed any, where it has not always been more or less known 
 from the remotest period of their history. 
 
 After Ethiopian, and Egyptian art, that of the Hebrew 
 people must next be examined. That they had sculptors 
 and chasers, is evident ; but it is not so certain that painting 
 was practised. Though the cunning work of the curtains in 
 Exodus means tapestry, and for any cunning work of the kind, 
 designs coloured must have been executed ; yet there is 
 
 1 Col. Leake says there is a remnant of blue on the temple of 
 Theseus ; but that may be as applied to architecture. The question 
 is, whether the great painters used it in their art. Pliny says no, and 
 Quintilian confirms him by applying to them the expression simplex 
 color. No colour is simplex where pure blue is used. 
 
 8 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 73 
 
 no proof in any part of the Bible that painting as an art was 
 ever practised by them ; and even the designs alluded to, 
 were exclusively applied for the purposes of religion. “ More- 
 over, thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine 
 twined linen, with blue, and purple, and scarlet ; with cheru- 
 bim of cunning work shalt thou make them.” (Exodus xxvi. 1 .) 
 “ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called 
 by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe 
 of Judah ; and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in 
 wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all 
 manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work 
 in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, 
 to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner 
 of workmanship? (Exod. xxxi. 1 — 5.) Yet when Solomon 
 wanted artists, he sent to Tyre, which is presumptive evi- 
 dence of a deficiency of skill at Jerusalem. No allusion is 
 made to the existence of the art of painting amongst the He- 
 brews ; yet it is hardly possible to suppose a people working 
 in stone, and silver, and gold, and timber, designing and 
 weaving a cunning work of cherubims on curtains and bor- 
 ders for garments, and having been so long amongst the 
 Egyptians, to have been ignorant of painting ; but it is the 
 opinion of one of the greatest living authorities in the church, 
 that the representation of any object by painting was not 
 permitted to the Hebrews. 
 
 With respect to the painting of the Phoenicians, Persians, 
 Indians, and Chinese, it was in the earliest ages, and has 
 ever since been, miserable and wretched. Although the 
 Indians and Persians have always been celebrated for their 
 tapestry, yet it is more for the excellence of the material 
 than the purity of their designs. You may know a tiger 
 from an elephant, though scarcely from a monkey, in their 
 
 E 
 
74 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 tapestry, shawls, and carpets ; but in their utter ignorance 
 of the naked figure, their long, barbarous, and cumbersome 
 garments, and their want of science, are so grossly palpable, 
 that they have never been, and never will be, referred to 
 by any nation as authority in design. In their coins, how- 
 ever, the ancient Phoenicians shewed more knowledge of the 
 form than the Persians, the Chinese, or the Indians. 
 
 From the painting of these Eastern nations, we may now 
 justifiably[approach a people, whose origin, history, and sci- 
 ence, have puzzled historians more than perhaps the Atlan- 
 tides themselves. Who the Etruscans were nobody knows ; 
 but all agree that they were not aborigines, and this is es- 
 tablishing something. Yet it can scarcely be questioned that 
 in their most remote, as well as their more refined periods, 
 they were indebted for their arts, their language, and their re- 
 ligion, principally to the Grecians. The time when the Etrus- 
 cans had commercial relations with Egypt and Greece, is 
 hardly known j 1 but as their early style of art is a little Egyptian 
 and their subj ects Grecian, they were no doubt connected with 
 both, even before the Greeks had settled in Italy. It is not 
 yet decided where they came from, and who they were, and 
 if one consults all who have written on the subject from He- 
 rodotus to M. Raoul-Rochette, he is likely to be as open to 
 a new theory as when he began. Their early works prove 
 nothing, These are like the early works of almost all bar- 
 barous nations. The gods of the Etruscans are, in point of art, 
 the gods of the Peruvians, the Sandwich Islanders, or the Es- 
 quimaux. Idols are idols, in early nations all over the world ; 
 and the bandy-legged Apollos, squinting Pans, and DU in- 
 dig erieies^ sixteen heads high, of this mysterious people, would 
 
 i B.C. 1556. 
 
TAINTING. 
 
 75 
 
 do as well for any of the gods of the South Seas, as the early 
 barbarians of the Mediterranean. 1 When commerce brought 
 them in contact with Greece and Egypt, traces of the art of 
 both nations become apparent ; but this is no evidence that 
 they came exclusively from one nation or from the other. 
 
 Winkelman is a person of great genius, and always touches 
 art as if he saw the whole ground. He divides Etruscan 
 art into three epochs, Heyne into five ; 2 he goes to leading 
 points, Heyne enters into details. The first epoch was 
 gross ; the second exhibited traces of Greek or Pelasgic art ; 
 the third had a taint of ^Egyptian ; the fourth was better ; 
 the fifth produced ideal beauty and Greek mythology ; and 
 this completes the period till decay. Campania was colo- 
 nized 801 b.c. ; but the Eubasans had founded Cuma 1550 
 b.c. This neighbourhood brought the Etruscans in contact 
 with Greek art, when about the ninth or eleventh Olympiad 
 Greek colonies were established in Sicily ; and the intercourse 
 being reciprocal and complete, it cannot be wondered, that 
 the more ignorant of the two nations became fascinated and 
 inoculated by the superior one, and thus rendered Etruscan 
 so like Greek art, that it has ever since produced doubt and 
 confusion. j 
 
 According to Pliny, the arrival of Demaratus with Clean- 
 thes from Corinth, first brought art into Etruria about 650 
 B.c. ; yet, he says, there were beautiful pictures at Ardea and 
 Lanuvium, which were older than Rome, and Rome was 
 founded 754 b.c. Heyne says, that before Rome was built, 
 casting of metal, sculpture, and painting existed in Etruria 
 anterior to any connection of the Etruscans with Greece ; 
 according to Winkelman the Etruscans were advanced in 
 
 1 See Gorius. 
 
 2 See Heyne’s Notes on Winkelman, vol. i. 
 
76 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 art before the Greeks, and it was a tradition of the remote 
 ages, that Daedalus flying from Minos settled in Etruria and 
 first sowed the seeds of design. When Etruria became a 
 Roman province, Marcus Flavius Flaccus besieged Volsi- 
 nium, the etymological meaning of which is, “ The town of 
 artists,” and brought away two thousand statues from that 
 city alone. An able writer, in the “ Newcastle Transac- 
 tions” contends, that it is doubtful if the Etruscans had any 
 art before the arrival of the Greeks. 1 No historian of 
 this nation has reached us ; their inscriptions are not yet 
 thoroughly decyphered ; and as the Romans destroyed every 
 monument of surrounding nations, there is no fixing their 
 antiquity. It is clear, however, that painting flourished in 
 Italy before it did in Greece ; such at least is the opinion 
 of Tiraboschi. 2 Pliny says nothing about it before the 1 8th 
 Olympiad in Greece, whereas in the 16th there were paint- 
 ings in the above towns in Italy, and works too shewing 
 great refinement ; which the Romans admired in their days 
 of splendour, and which their emperors wished to remove, 
 surrounded as they were by the finest productions of Grecian 
 art. Their civil and religious rites not being the same as 
 the Egyptians, and there being no traces of embalming, it 
 may thence be concluded that they were not of Egyptian 
 origin. 
 
 All hopes of discovering any of their paintings, any impor- 
 tant work which should give us evidence of their talents in 
 art, were given up, till in 1 760 Pacciaudi discovered at Tar- 
 quinia, tombs decorated with designs; andin 1837 fac-similes 
 of pictural decorations of other tombs were exhibited in Lon- 
 
 1 This is a most able article, and the reader is referred to it for 
 more extensive information on the Etruscans. 
 
 8 Storia della Letteratura Italiana . 
 
TAINTING. 
 
 77 
 
 don, with the monumental statues themselves, and in parts 
 were extremely beautiful in taste, design, expression, and 
 drapery. The extremities were correctly and sweetly drawn ; 
 and the expression and character of the head, which were 
 very interesting, would not have disgraced any period of 
 Greek or Italian design, though they would not have ho- 
 noured the finest. It is impossible to judge of the colour 
 of the Etruscan school from these specimens, or from the 
 vases called Etruscan. Fresco, stucco, or distemper are adapt- 
 ed neither for depth nor for tone ; oil or encaustic is the only 
 vehicle fit for harmony, and oil or encaustic was never prac- 
 tised by them. With respect to the painted vases called 
 Etruscan, because they are found in Etruria, we might just 
 as well assert, if one discovered in the middle of Yorkshire, 
 a mass of china, that it must be of English manufacture be- 
 cause it was found in Yorkshire. After the Greeks had 
 settled in the south, their vases might be and no doubt were 
 an article of commerce ; of course they were imitated, but 
 surely the design and origin are wholly Grecian, whatever the 
 Etruscans might after long intercourse do in the way of imita- 
 tion. The principles of design and proportion in these beauti- 
 ful productions, are the same as in the finest works of Greek 
 sculpture, with an occasional but trifling variation. Raffaelle 
 himself could not have exceeded the purity of form expressed 
 by line, in drapery or figure. In the finest vases the artists 
 seem to have been perfect masters of the figure, and to have 
 gone right round with the stylus, till the contour of the part 
 was completely expressed. Nor is there any thing wonder- 
 ful in this, considering the manner in which Greek artists 
 and manufacturers began, proceeded, and concluded their 
 studies. According to Plato, a perfect mastery of the forms 
 
78 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 of man and animal was the basis of all instruction in de- 
 sign . 1 
 
 We have thus brought down the history of the art to a 
 period, when our information, though imperfect, is more cer- 
 tain ; but we can never sufficiently estimate the loss of all 
 the ancient treatises on art, though we ought to be very 
 grateful for what we possess in Plato and Aristotle, Pliny 
 and Quintilian, and other ancient writers, Greek and Ro- 
 man, down to the middle ages, and till the subject was taken 
 up by Vasari and Lanzi. The continued existence of this 
 glorious art, can always be proved, more or less subject of 
 course, like everything human, to those alternations of splen- 
 dour and calamity, triumph and misfortune, which are the 
 lot of every thing here below. 
 
 The superiority of the Greeks in art is always attributed 
 to the secondary causes of climate and government, forget- 
 ting the one important requisite, without which the influence 
 of the most genial climate, or the patronage of the most per- 
 fect government could avail little ; we mean natural and in- 
 herent genius. If the Athenians, the Rhodians, the Corin- 
 thians, and the Sicyonians owed their excellence in art to 
 the climate, why did not the same climate produce equal per- 
 fection in the Spartans and Arcadians ? If climate be the 
 secret, why are not all people under the same latitude equally 
 gifted and equally refined ? Climate may be more or less 
 favourable to intellectual development, but is never the 
 cause of its existence. Government may elicit genius by 
 fostering and reward, but can never create it. All the la- 
 
 1 See a beautiful passage DeLegibus, lib. ii. p. 669 — If every scho- 
 lar would mark and transcribe every passage relating to art, a code 
 might soon be made out. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 79 
 
 mentation about the climate of England, Scotland, or Flan- 
 ders, did not prevent Hogarth’s appearance in the first, 
 Wilkie’s in the second, or Rubens’ in the last of these coun- 
 tries ; nor could all the beauty of climate in Greece or Italy, 
 ever have made Mengs a Raffaelle, or David the Titian of 
 modern times. It would be absurd to deny altogether the in- 
 fluence of climate in the extremes. It is not impossible but 
 that genius might melt to indolence under the line, or freeze 
 to apathy within the arctic circle ; but even genius there 
 would assert its superiority in something or in some way. 
 What we contend for is, that Winkelman’s theory of limit- 
 ing the gifts of God, intellectual or corporeal, to latitude or 
 longitude, is not borne out by facts, the great test of all theo- 
 retical principles. 
 
 The Greeks were idolaters, and their love of beauty was 
 a principle of their religion. The more beautiful a face or 
 form could be rendered in painting or sculpture, the better 
 chance had the artist of the blessing of the gods here, and 
 their immortal rewards hereafter. As beauty was so much 
 prized by this highly-endowed people, those who ^ere gifted 
 with it became ambitious of making it known to great ar- 
 tists, and by them to the world. Artists fixed the fame of 
 beauty in man or woman, and even children who gave pro- 
 mise of being beautiful were allowed to contest for a prize, 
 and the child who won it had a statue erected to him. Many 
 people were complimented by being named from the beauty 
 of any particular part, and Winkelman quotes an instance, 
 where one was called XapiroftXefjxipos that is, “ having eye- 
 lids where the graces sat.” There were games instituted near 
 the river Alphseus, where prizes were adjudged to the most 
 beautiful; and the Lacedaemonian women in their bed-rooms 
 kept continually before their eyes the finest statues. Still, this 
 
80 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 admiration of beauty was but a secondary cause ; for though 
 the Lacedaemonians showed this love of beauty, they did 
 not produce great artists. The Greeks had a strong sen- 
 sibility to beauty and an intense acuteness of understand- 
 ing. Every artist was a philosopher, and every philosopher 
 relished art, and understood it. The artists began by the 
 study of geometry and of form ; they analyzed the peculiari- 
 ties of the form of man, by contrasting it with that of the 
 brutes, and they settled the principles of beauty in that form 
 and figure. The philosophers recommended to all classes 
 the study of art, as a refined mode of elevating their percep- 
 tion of beauty ; and the government seconded the recom- 
 mendation of the philosophers. The priests found the reli- 
 gious feeling rendered more acute by painting and sculpture ; 
 and the authorities discovered, that the emotions of patriotism 
 were doubled by the commemoration of great national events, 
 in temples and in public halls. Now, add climate as adapt- 
 ed for such productions and their preservation, and genius, 
 the gift of God, as the first cause, and no one surely need 
 wonder that all these causes mutually acting on each other 
 produced the miracles of perfection in art, which the world 
 has gazed at ever since with an incredulous and bewilder- 
 ed astonishment. 
 
 The passion for the beautiful in poetry, painting, music, 
 and nature, led them to abhor the bloody amusements of 
 the Romans. To contest for glory by pictures, poems, or 
 music, to race for the prize of swiftness, or wrestle for the 
 crown of strength, were the innocent and delightful objects 
 of their Olympic games ; and during those noble comme- 
 morations, war ceased, and all Greece assembled in happi- 
 ness and joy. Even the harsh Spartans signed a truce of 
 fifty days with the Messenians, that they might keep a fete 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 81 
 
 in honour of Hyacinthus. The greatest men disdained not 
 these contests. Plato appeared amongst the wrestlers at Co- 
 rinth, and Pythagoras carried off the prize at Elis. What 
 must have been the effect of all this upon a people of strong 
 susceptibilities and of high natural genius ? 
 
 Consider the respect which must have been paid to great 
 artists, when such a man as Socrates pronounced them the 
 only wise men. ^Esop took the greatest pleasure in loung- 
 ing in their painting-rooms ; Marcus Aurelius took lessons 
 in philosophy from an artist, and always said that the latter 
 first taught him to distinguish the true from the false ; and 
 when Paulus iEmilius sent to the Athenians for one of their 
 ablest philosophers to educate his children, they selected Me- 
 trodorus the painter, and, let it be remembered, that amongst 
 the children placed under his care, was one of the Scipios. 
 What must have been the effect on the rising youth of Greece 
 when the Amphictyonic council decreed that Polygnotus, 
 their greatest monumental painter, should be maintained 
 at the public expense wherever he went, as a mark of the na- 
 tional admiration for his greatest work, the Hall at Delphi. 
 The glory and the fortune of a great painter did not de- 
 pend, as now, upon the caprice of individuals ; he was the 
 property of the nation ; he was employed by countries and 
 by cities; andhis rewards were considered as a just portion of 
 the national expenditure. The educated and the high-born 
 were brought up with a conviction of the propriety and jus- 
 tice of this principle ; and when they became members of 
 the government, considered this as useful a method of pub- 
 lic expenditure, as squandering thousands on matters merely 
 diplomatic, or in vain shows, mummings, and pageants. And 
 such will yet be the system of our own country, when the 
 
82 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 people become fully instructed, and are made sensible of 
 the moral and commercial influence of painting. 
 
 When we reflect upon the money spent in England by 
 the government, and the consequences which so often attend 
 that expenditure, and when we find in Greece the different 
 results of the same interference on the part of the state, and 
 that the works there produced have been canons of beauty 
 to the world ever since ; it is natural to inquire, what was 
 the system by means of which genius was so successfully re- 
 warded ? The secondary causes must have been, the com- 
 petence of the tribunals to which poets, painters, musicians, 
 sculptors, historians, wrestlers, boxers, and philosophers with 
 such confidence appealed. It must have been the taste and 
 knowledge of the members which composed the judgment- 
 boards, and their sincere conviction of the importance of their 
 office. One has only to sift for a moment the nature of their 
 greatest tribunal, that of the Olympian games ; one has only 
 to reflect on the deep feeling, the solemn sincerity, the awful 
 piety of their conviction, that what they had to do involved 
 the future prospects of the rising youth of Greece, and that 
 on their moral honesty depended the glory of their country, 
 and that of its painters, sculptors, architects, philosophers, 
 poets, and heroes. Before proceeding to detail the rise 
 and progress of Greek art, and Greek artists, as the paint- 
 ing of every nation is connected with its civil, religious, and 
 scientific institutions, (though more must always depend on 
 highly-gifted individual effort to advance the knowledge of 
 mankind, than any given assemblage of inferior individuals ;) 
 a rapid examination of the principles which guided the de- 
 cision of one of their most important tribunals, composed 
 of the greatest men the world has seen, ought to form a por- 
 tion of every history of the art. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 83 
 
 Aristotle in his Politics ,* as quoted by Mr. Hamilton in his 
 pamphlet on the Houses of Parliament, observes : “ All were 
 taught ypappara or literature, gymnastics, and music, and 
 many ttjv ypacjn^v, or the art of design , as being abundantly 
 useful for the purposes of life, but mainly because it enables 
 us to appreciate the merits of distinguished artists, and car- 
 ries us to the contemplation of real beauty ; as letters, which 
 are the elements of calculation, terminate in the contempla- 
 tion of truth.” A people thus educated, to understand the 
 basis of beauty in art, and to believe that their decisions, 
 when they became judges of genius, involved their own 
 intellectual taste and repute, and who gave their decisions 
 in the presence of kings, philosophers, and people, were as 
 little likely to be biassed by unjust predeliction as human 
 nature could be ; though, of course, in the corrupt times of 
 Nero and the emperors, great abuses took place. But in the 
 Marathonian period, if ever partiality was banished from hu- 
 man honours, it was banished from the Olympic games, in 
 those immortal days of glory and patriotism. At this extra- 
 ordinary assemblage, kings entered the lists, and nations re- 
 spected the judgment, or if they refused to abide by the deci- 
 sion of a just tribunal, they were excluded by vote till they 
 paid the fine and acknowledged their error. And what was 
 the result ? The highest honours were obtained in these con- 
 tests, because every one gifted in art, poetry, music, or phy- 
 sical strength, knew that if he deserved the olive-crown, no 
 partiality, no nephew of the judge’s sister, or first cousin of 
 the judge’s wife, would deprive him of his due. Every be- 
 ing did his best, and if that best failed, he had a consoling con- 
 scious conviction that he had been honourably, and honestly, 
 
 1 Lib. viii. c. 31. 
 
84 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 and nobly beaten by a better. It is astonishing, if once en- 
 tire confidence exist between judge and competitor, to what 
 a degree this confidence affects both ; what a spring it gives 
 to mind and body, and how honestly every thing is done : 
 And if confidence be, from repeated experience, withheld, 
 it is wonderful how half the faculties of the mind, and the 
 powers of the body and soul, sink under the impression. Na- 
 poleon used to say, “ that if the moral feeling of an army was 
 in favour of a campaign, it was equal to 40,000 men.” If mo- 
 ral confidence be lost in such cases, disgust is generated, and 
 apathy, indifference, and failure are the result. 
 
 In order to understand the Greek character thoroughly, 
 the system of excitement that was worked on, and the mate- 
 rials that were used to rouse the energies of competitors, it will 
 conduce to the understanding of the secondary causes of their 
 perfection, if the nature of the Olympic games be examined. 1 
 They are universally acknowledged to have subsisted before 
 the rise of chronological dates and records ; and the record of 
 the Olympic conquerors after their restoration, is the first 
 known chronological date. Pausanias says they were cele- 
 brated every five years, that is, they were celebrated on the 
 fifth year after the fourth had passed; and Sir Isaac Newton is 
 of opinion that they were originally instituted in celebration 
 of victories. Why the Olympic games had always the pre- 
 ference, there is no knowing; but the grand statue of Jupiter 
 at Elis, must no doubt have had considerable influence. 
 
 The privilege of presiding at the Olympic games was at- 
 tended with such dignity and power, that the Eleans who 
 had been in possession of it from the earliest times, were 
 more than once obliged to maintain their right by force of 
 
 1 See West’s Pindar. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 85 
 
 arms. After various disputes about the number of presidents 
 or hellenadicks, they remained at the original number of ten ; 
 and Pausanias says, that for ten months preceding the 
 games, they dwelt together in a house appointed for them, 
 and called from them, hellanodiceum. By the most scru- 
 pulous attention, they did every thing to qualify themselves 
 for being deservedly the judges of all Greece ; to which 
 end they were patiently instructed by officers called guar- 
 dians of the laws, and they attended every day in the gym- 
 nasium, upon the preparatory exercises of all those who were 
 admitted as candidates, and who entered their names also 
 ten months before, and exercised during apart, not the whole, 
 of this time, in preparing themselves for the combat. Being 
 exposed to the severest scrutiny, the judges had by these 
 means frequent opportunities of trying the skill of the com- 
 batants, and also of exercising their own judgment; and both 
 prepared themselves for the praise or censure of an awful 
 tribunal, and a numerous assembly, whose censure could only 
 be escaped by the most exact impartiality on the part of the 
 judges, and the mostsincere and earnest efforts for superiority 
 on that of the competitors. In addition, the judges sw r ore 
 a solemn oath before the statue of Jupiter, upon their finish- 
 ing the examination, to act according to the strictest equity ; 
 and to all these precautions against human frailty, liberty of 
 appeal to the senate at Elis was allowed to any one who felt 
 aggrieved. The judges had also the power of excommunicat- 
 ing whole nations. Once an Athenian found guilty of corrup- 
 tion was fined, and refused to pay. The Athenians sanc- 
 tioned his refusal, and were instantly excluded from all the 
 games, till they repented and paid the penalty. When the La- 
 r cedaemonians were impertinent, other nations took up arms, 
 
86 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 and compelled them to submission. Such power had a wonder- 
 ful effect on all the nations of Greece. 
 
 As the time approached, the candidates were rigorously 
 examined as to their virtuous descent, and their own moral 
 life ; and when they passed in public review down the sta- 
 dium, a herald demanded with a loud voice, “ Is there any 
 one who can accuse this man of any crime ? is he a rob- 
 ber ? is he a slave ? is he wicked or in any way de- 
 praved ?” Themistocles once stood up at the ceremony 
 and objected to Hiero, king of Syracuse, because he was a 
 tyrant , a name odious to the democracies of Greece ; and 
 there could not be a stronger evidence of their utter de- 
 testation of the name, than refusing to admit a king to con- 
 tend because he was a tyrant; thus placing him upon a level 
 with a slave, who could not by law be admitted. The can- 
 didates having passed in public review with honour, were 
 then sworn, that they had done all which was required by 
 law ; and marching to the stadium, attended by their friends, 
 connexions, and families, who encouraged them to do their 
 best, and appealed to the gods to smile on their exertions, 
 they were left for the fight. And being thus thought worr 
 thy of the contest, even defeat was considered by them as 
 an evidence of their honour. The olive crowns and palm 
 branches were placed before their eyes on beautiful tripods, 
 to excite their utmost exertions, and when victorious it was 
 announced by proclamation ; they were crowned by the he- 
 ralds, and then led along, preceded by trumpets, their names 
 being shouted aloud throughout the vast assembly ; and on 
 their return to their native city, they entered through a 
 breach in the wall, drawn in a chariot. And such was the 
 high feeling engendered by these judicious excitements, that 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 87 
 
 even Alexander himself was refused permission to contend, 
 because he was a barbarian, nor was he allowed until he had 
 proved his ancient descent at Argolis . 1 “ In the republic 
 of the fine arts,” says the catalogue to the designs for a Na- 
 tional Gallery, “ competition is the great source of excel- 
 lence ; but so to frame institutions, and invite competition 
 as to secure all the attainable talent, and so to form a tribu- 
 nal as to derive all benefit for the public, and to do justice 
 to the competitor, have been matters of great difficulty in 
 all ages and all countries.” 
 
 The whole history of ancient art shews the estimation in 
 which the unsophisticated judgment of the public was held. 
 Aristotle 2 says, “ The multitude is the surest judge of the 
 productions of art ;” “ If you do not get the applause of the 
 public,” says some one else, “what celebrity can you attain?” 
 and Cicero 3 makes the public the supreme judge. Thus then, 
 no one ought to wonder at the perfection of Greek genius in 
 every thing, stimulated as it was by these secondary causes, 
 and the one acting upon the other, in a climate adapted in 
 every way for comfort, for health, and for convenience. The 
 Greeks were men like ourselves, not larger as their arms prove, 
 and not handsomer, for there exist as fine forms in either 
 sex, in Great Britain, as ever graced the atelier of Zeuxis ; 
 indeed Cicero complains of the plainness of the Athenians. 
 When genius and secondary causes unite, as they sometimes 
 do, then such men as Pericles and Alexander, and Polyg- 
 notus, Zeuxis, and Apelles, are the result ; for all the Olym- 
 pic games, and Greek tribunals, could never have made Hud- 
 son Apelles, nor Caligula the benevolent Howard. “ If any 
 
 1 See Notes on West's Pindar . _j 
 
 2 De Republics. , iii. c. 7. 
 
 3 De Oratore , c. 49. 
 
88 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 thing were wanting,” says Flaxman, “ to convince us of the 
 high estimation painting was held in by the Greeks, the 
 facts alone, viz. that Plato studied it, and Socrates was a 
 sculptor by profession, are enough. But nothing is want- 
 ing.” 
 
 In ancient painting, we certainly owe more to Pliny than 
 to any other author; though in point of exquisite tact for hit- 
 ting at once the characters of the great geniuses in art, he 
 is not to be compared to Quintilian. There is more dis- 
 crimination in the short account Quintilian gives of the paint- 
 ers and sculptors, than in all the delightful connoisseur chit- 
 chat for which Pliny must ever be the leading favourite. Yet 
 certainly his gossip and anecdotes are sometimes underrated 
 by learned critics ; for in two instances of gossip, about the 
 partridges and grapes of Zeuxis and Protogenes, and the con- 
 test of Apelles and Protogenes very deep principles of Greek 
 form and Greek imitation may be settled. Painting is said 
 by Pliny to have existed before the foundation of Rome in 
 Italy, as illustrated by designs on the walls at Ardea, Lanu- 
 vium, and Ccere. This is always mentioned with a sort of 
 doubt by antiquarians, who suspect that to the arrival of De- 
 maratus from Corinth, the father of Tarquin, king of Rome, 
 Italy owes her first knowledge of painting ; but it has been 
 shewn that this cannot be so, if pictures were executed in 
 Italy before Rome was founded. Pliny sneers at the Egyp- 
 tians for boasting of the antiquity of their painting ; whereas 
 the Greeks equally deserve asneer for believing that they had 
 invented design. 
 
 The Greeks painted tabular pictures on wood, and mu- 
 ral pictures on walls. The materials were either encaustic 
 or wax painting, and distemper or glue-painting. In en- 
 caustic on wood, they painted with a metal point called sty- 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 89 
 
 lus ; in distemper they painted with brushes, and in encaustic 
 on walls they also used brushes. Tabular pictures were pre- 
 pared with a ground of wax, and the composition was drawn 
 in with a stylus or point as we draw upon an etching ground 
 with a needle. At a sale of antiquities in London there was 
 a regular Greek tablet with a wax ground, a stylus attach- 
 ed to it as boys hang slate-pencils to their slates, and a sen- 
 tence of Greek actually half-cut. The word ypaejico being 
 used for painting, design, or writing, makes the instrument 
 the same in either case. This tablet w as like a slate ; the 
 middle had been planed smooth, and the frame was left 
 round it. The progress of the Greeks is very interesting, 
 and shews how the mind gradually advances to the imitation 
 of reality, and rests impatiently on mere outline, as a repre- 
 sentation of nature. After a certain time, the early ar- 
 tists, when they had drawn an outline, ventured to colour 
 it inside with black. This mode of imitation was called 
 a-Kiaypacfna, and the paintings a-Kiaypappara, or skiagrams, 
 from arKia shade, and ypacfxo to draw\ Our black profiles 
 and whole figures seen in shop windows, are the skiagrams 
 of the ancient Greeks. This was hailed as a great step, and 
 the painter who could fill up a face or a figure with black 
 was regarded as a man eminent in art. After a little came 
 the genius with more extended views, who invented the po- 
 voypappa or monogram from povos only, and ypacpco, to draw ; 
 that is, to define by line only , an outline without a shade. 
 Next came the man who had the nerve to try a positive co- 
 lour. Pliny has preserved his name, Cleophantus of Corinth ; 
 he ground up a red brick , 1 and therefore the Greeks claim- 
 ed the invention of colour, although the Chaldaeans had paint- 
 
 1 Testa, ut ferunt, trita, Plin. lib. xxxv. 
 
90 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ed men red on the walls of Babylon, and so had the Egyp- 
 tians on their tombs, nearly a thousand years before them. 
 This discovery was called govaxpcoga , or monochrom, single- 
 coloured, from povos alone and colour, and this was 
 
 their first attempt at imitating flesh. 1 Next came the white 
 ground (the gesso of the Italians and lime and plaster of the 
 Egyptians) covered with wax. From one colour, naturally 
 enough came the others ; for if brick produced red, earths, 
 burned or natural, would produce other colours, and poly- 
 chrom, from rroXvs many, and XP 03 / 101 colour, was formed. 
 
 The art having now discovered its materials, soon ad- 
 vanced steadily and gloriously to excellence. “ How long 
 the brush assisted only the cestrum, and when it super- 
 seded it,” says Fuzeli, 2 “cannot be ascertained; it’cannot 
 be proved, that it ever entirely superseded it, and there is 
 every reason to believe they were always combined.” It 
 has been contested that painting was not known in Homer’s 
 time, because he speaks not of art ; but what would be said 
 of any man who argued that painting was not known in Mil- 
 ton’s time, because he did not speak of it. Homer speaks 
 of painting ships , and Milton alludes to “the painted stoa 
 but colouring and design must have been known from the 
 shield of Achilles, and the tapestries of Helen and Andro- 
 mache, if the walls of Thebes and those of Babylon, had not 
 settled the question. Troy was taken 1184 before Christ ; 
 but painting flourished in Egypt 1900 years before our era, 
 that is, 716 years before Troy was taken, and 993 years be- 
 fore the era of Homer. 
 
 The nature of distemper and encaustic painting amongst 
 the Greeks involves one or two questions interesting to 
 
 1 "Nlovox^upoirov dictum, ibid. 
 
 2 Fuzeli, Lecture first. 
 
TAINTING. 
 
 91 
 
 artists. Their distemper was our tempera, and consisted 
 in dissolving colour in water, and mixing it with glue ; 
 and though in Pliny, glue is only mentioned once, and that 
 in conjunction with (lector es) plasterers, it is evidently 
 to be inferred from the brushes used in its practice, that 
 tempera intensely varnished was the general practice of 
 rthe fabulous painters, and encaustics the exception. On all 
 encaustic pictures, the Greeks put ( iveKavaev ) “ burnt in 
 and what justified them in doing so ? Merely the general 
 application of fire to melt wax, or a particular mode of prac- 
 tice. Was the cestrum or stylus heated, whilst finishing the 
 work, after the wax had been laid on ? or was any actual 
 heat applied to amalgamate the colour in the conclusion, 
 which justified such a term ? or was the wax actually melted 
 and used whilst boiling ? Pliny says, that there were cer- 
 tain colours which would not stand without varnish ; and that 
 after they were laid on walls and dry, they were varnished 
 with a mixture of warm punic wax and oil. Every Greek 
 artist had his chafing-dish or Kavrrjpiov ; and when the var- 
 nish was dry, it was heated by fire from the chafing-dish 
 “ usque ad sudorem,” until it sweated , when it was rubbed 
 with wax candles, and polished with white napkins. This 
 method the Greeks called Kavais 1 or the burning mode ; and 
 why might it not be applied as well to encaustic pictures, 
 when finished either on wood, copper, walls, or stone, thus 
 harmonizing and judiciously amalgamating fierce execution 
 or distinct touches, and authorising the word eWicavo-e v being 
 put after the artist’s name ? 
 
 All the artists in Europe know well how often they use a 
 
 1 It is clear that fire was always an important part in an encaus- 
 tic painting, because Philiscus painted a painter’s room (atelier) with 
 a little boy blowing the fire. Pliny, xxxv. 
 
92 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 vehicle 1 for a varnish, and a varnish fora vehicle in practice; 
 and hence it is too absurd to doubt for a moment, that any 
 Greek painter who had once used oil and wax as a varnish, 
 would not use it as a vehicle at the first opportunity. Pliny 
 infers, that “ ceris pingere,” to paint with waxes (coloured) 
 and “ picturam inurere,” to burn in the picture, were the 
 same methods. “ There were anciently,” he adds, “ two me- 
 thods, one cerd , with wax, and another on ivory with a ces- 
 trum ; then came a third, boiling the wax and painting ships 
 at once with it, which was a lasting mode, so that neither sea, 
 wind, nor sun destroyed it.” It appears from another pas- 
 sage, that the ships were painted in the same way 2 as pic- 
 tures which were burnt in. “ Waxes are tinted with these 
 colours for pictures which are burnt in ; a different manner 
 of painting from that employed on walls, but like that (of 
 waxes tinted) employed for painting ships.” Were tinted 
 waxes applied hot ? From this it may be inferred that they 
 were. 
 
 Encaustic painting may be divided into four methods : 
 1st, mixing the colours with wax, and thinning them at the 
 moment of painting with a liquid ; 2d, placing wax in co- 
 lours on the ivory, distinctly like mosaic, and uniting them 
 by working them over with a heated cestrum ; 3d, boiling 
 the wax and using it hot ; and, 4thly, softening the whole 
 picture after completion, by heating it with a chaffing-dish 
 or cauterium. Both Pliny and Vitruvius describe this last 
 method of varnishing ; and it is curious to contrast their re- 
 
 1 Vehicle, as distinct from varnish, means the liquid you paint 
 with ; varnish, the liquid you put over the work, when done, to pre- 
 serve it. 
 
 2 “ Cerae tinguntur iisdem coloribus, ad eas picturas, quae inurun- 
 tur ; alieno parietibus genere, sed classibus familiari.” 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 93 
 
 lative descriptions. Pliny is rapid, careless, general, desul- 
 tory, as if talking at a party ; Vitruvius, accurate, mathe- 
 matical, careful, and architectural, as if every word was a 
 brick, that must be poised and balanced. Pliny says you 
 must liquefy punic wax with oil , 1 and rub it with a candle 
 and napkins. Vitruvius says, after your wall is dry and 
 smooth, liquefy punic wax, paulo , a little by fire, then tem- 
 per it with oil. In Pliny the paulo is left out, and so is the 
 fire ; but Vitruvius guides you to the degree , which is every 
 thing in the practice of the art of painting. The paulo> there- 
 fore, is invaluable ; do not boil, but heat your wax, then liquefy 
 it, then varnish, then when dry heat it with a chaffing-dish 
 and rub it smooth. To artists this practice is beautiful, and 
 though oil-painting was supposed to be unknown to the 
 Greeks, this was very near the point, and if used by Polyg- 
 notus at Delphi or Thespiae, would have justified the term 
 burnt in , without the use of the cestrum. 
 
 It is not settled by Pliny who first discovered encaustic 
 painting ; it is not known, he says, whether Aristides may 
 have invented it, or Praxiteles completed it. But there ex- 
 isted on the walls encaustic paintings by the old painters 
 Polygnotus and Nicanor ; Lysippus at Angina put his name 
 to his tabular works with iveKavaev ; Pamphilus the great 
 master of Pausias, did not practise it exclusively ; and Pausias 
 was the first in this art. Pausias, Pliny adds, repaired the walls 
 of Thespiae, painted by Polygnotus, but being obliged to use 
 the brush, failed, because he handled an instrument which he 
 was not accustomed to. It appears, however, that the w r alls of 
 Thespiae were painted in encaustic by Polygnotus, and with 
 the brush ; or Pausias, the greatest encaustic painter, would not 
 
 1 That Reynolds introduced wax into British art from this pas- 
 sage, there is no doubt. 
 
94 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 have been employed to repair them, nor would he have gone 
 out of the way to use the brush, if Polygnotus had used the 
 cestrum. But Pausias failed, because the brush was not his 
 instrument; therefore encaustic on walls was not worked with 
 the cestrum, as it was on tablets, and the burning in on tab- 
 lets was not of the same nature as that on walls. That the 
 brush and the cestrum were totally different in practice there 
 is no doubt ; but that there was ever a time when the brush 
 was not used in painting is absurd ; and Pliny is evidently 
 wrong in saying it was the last method. 
 
 It stands to reason that to paint ships was the earliest ne- 
 cessity of navigation. The ark was pitched inside and outside 
 (Gen.vii. 14). Pitch melted is in fact like wax or oil ; and 
 how was it to be equally spread over so vast a surface except 
 by brushes ? In fact, amongst the Egyptian antiquities im- 
 ported of late years, brushes have been abundant. Thus 
 the Greeks painted on walls, wood, stone, ivory, copper, and 
 canvass ; on walls it was mural painting , and on either of the 
 other materials, tabular 'painting , L 
 
 1 At this moment there is a dispute raging in France and Germany 
 whether tabular painting was or was not the principal practice of the 
 ancients, and whether mural painting was ever practised to any great 
 extent. Letronne says cloth was not used anciently to paint on, and that 
 Pliny thinks the man mad who painted Nero on cloth one hundred and 
 twenty feet high ; but the madness insinuated does not apply to the 
 doth or canvass, but to the absurdity of a portrait one hundred and 
 twenty feet high in cloth. Why should canvass be only once used 
 in antiquity, and never before or after till the middle ages ? Is this 
 likely ? As a curious specimen of the blind violence of party, the 
 friends of one of the combatants, Letronne, have written him from 
 Athens, that in the temple of Theseus they have discovered by can- 
 dle-light round the upper part of the wall, actual contours of the works 
 of Polygnotus cut in on the plaster with the cestrum , the colours having 
 been picked out by the early Christians ; thusjaroving that Letron- 
 ne is decidedly right as to his theory of painting on walls. Yet 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 05 
 
 There is another question which remains to be settled be- 
 fore touching on the great artists and their works : Did the 
 Greeks paint in fresco ? The belief has been that they did. 
 Vasari affirms it; but Letronne certainly establishes the sus- 
 picion that they did not, except in a few ornamental parts of 
 architecture, and that stucco was more in practice. In 
 fresco the colours are placed on wet mortar, and become a 
 part of it. In stucco the colours do not become a part, and 
 can be separated. Certain colours are destroyed by con- 
 tact with lime, and yet those colours which fresco would 
 have ruined, are always fouyid on ancient painted walls. 
 Letronne says, that there does not exist a well authenticated 
 evidence of fresco, except as mere ornament in ceilings. 
 
 Having thus laid before the reader the different modes 
 of Greek practice, without which no subsequent account 
 of their arts or artists would have been intelligible, it is 
 time to say something of the artists themselves, who practised 
 these various modes of imitating nature. Of their different 
 methods, their white grounds descended to them from the 
 
 would it be believed, that the friends of his opponent, Raoul- Ro- 
 chette, have also written him that they do not see a single contour cut in, 
 but that they have discovered a sinking in of the plaster as if fitted to 
 receive tabular works which were let into the walis ; and thus the 
 theory of Raoul-Rochette, viz. that pictures were scarcely ever paint- 
 ed on walls, but nearly always on wood, is right , whilst the former gen- 
 tlemen assert that there are contours or. the walls. But the theory of 
 M. Letronne is also right ; for the ancients painted on walls as well 
 as wood ; and though Pliny says that the greatest glory was obtained 
 by easel pictures, he affirms that there were also pictures on walls, 
 because in giving one of his reasons for preferring tabular pictures, 
 he says pictures on walls cannot be saved in case of fire, f ex incendiis 
 rapi nonpossuntj, and that he prefers tabular pictures. If pictures 
 had not been painted on walls as well as on wood, how could he have 
 illustrated his preference ? 
 
96 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 eastern nations, and have come to us through the middle 
 ages. Some of their colours we use now, and for some we 
 have substitutes as good. If their principles were as easily 
 attainable as their colours, we should have very little to de- 
 sire. 
 
 In the earliest state of Greek art, Philocles from Egypt, 
 and Cleanthes from Corinth, were the inventors of outline, 
 and Ardicesfrom Corinth, and Telephanes from Sicyon, the 
 first who put it in practice, without any colour. To this 
 early period may be applied the accusation of iElian , 1 that 
 the artists were obliged to write underneath their wretched 
 illustrations, “ This is a bull, this is a horse, this is a tree.” 
 The next were single-colour painters, or monochromatists, 
 as Hygiomon and others. Now the sexes began to be dis- 
 tinguished, when Cimon theCleonean had energy to attempt 
 the imitation of every thing. He it was who invented fore- 
 shortening, and drawing things at an angle . 2 He it was who 
 had courage to vary the characters and forms of heads, to 
 
 1 iElian, lib. x. chap. xii. 
 
 2 Catagrapha invenit, hoc est, obliquas imagines et varie formare 
 voltus, respicientesque, suspicientes vel despicientes. Fuzeli says 
 catagrapha means profiles ; but how could he invent profiles when 
 profiles are the characteristics of the earliest art? At first all art is 
 profile ; but Cimon was a reformer. To draw downwards he in- 
 vented oblique views, and varied the views of the head and face, 
 looking behind, looking up, and looking down. Fuzeli says catagra- 
 pha means profile ; but profiles are not oblique representations but 
 sections of the figure and face, in the same sense as architectural 
 sections, that is, equal halves. The “ obliquae imagines, 1 ’ are angular 
 views , seeing things at an angle ; the passage is directly illustrated by 
 the circumstances, that he made his heads looking behind, &c. ; and 
 how can ahead looking behind be a profile? In some places it may 
 mean so ; in Pausanias, nunx. in radical meaning is downwards , as if 
 the eye looked at the top of the head to the feet, which is fore-short - 
 ening. 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 97 
 
 make them looking up, looking down, and looking behind; he 
 articulated his joints, shewed the veins and muscles, and gave 
 undulation and folds to his draperies. Panoenus, Phidias’s 
 brother, painted the shield of Minerva at Elis, and also the 
 battle of Marathon ; and so much had the knowledge of co- 
 lour and art advanced, that portraits of the great leaders, 
 Miltiades, Callimachus, and Cynegyras, on the part of the 
 Greeks, and of Datis and Artaphernes, on that of the bar- 
 barians, were introduced, and known by the spectators. It 
 was at this period that the glorious contests for victory in 
 art were begun at Corinth and Delphi ; and Panaenus was 
 conquered by Timagoras of Chalcis, who commemorated his 
 victory by a poem ; “though I doubt not,” says Pliny, “ there 
 is some chronological error.” 
 
 The Greek national and monumental painter Polygnotus, 
 flourished at this period or before it. He seems to have 
 been really a great man, and to have possessed a mighty soul. 
 He was born in Thasos, an island in the Aegean Sea ; and his 
 works seem all to have been national, votive offerings of cities 
 and his country. He was worthy of the finest period of 
 Greece, and met his noble patrons by a suitable return ; he 
 was one of those beings who are born for the time or be- 
 yond it, and of whom the time is in want, or for whom it is 
 not enough advanced. He first clothed lovely women in 
 light and floating draperies, adorned their beautiful heads 
 with rich turbans, and thus advanced the art immense- 
 ly. In expression of face he ventured to make the mouth 
 of beauty smile, and thus softened, by shewing the teeth, the 
 ancient rigidity of his predecessors. He painted gratuitously 
 the Hall at Delphi, and the Portico at Athens, called UoiklXtj , 
 thus offering a contrast to Micon who was paid. Such con- 
 duct was immediately judged worthy to be commemorated 
 
 F 
 
98 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 by the highest authority in Greece, the Amphictyonic Coun- 
 cil, who ordered that Polygnotus should henceforth be main- 
 tained at the expence of Greece. Pliny has certainly not 
 said enough of Polygnotus, whose great work at Delphi, de- 
 scribed by Pausanias, proves him to have had colour in a 
 high degree, imagination in the highest, and all which, accord- 
 ing to Aristotle, forms the most important requisite in the 
 language of painting. His work at Delphi was executed by 
 order of the Cnidians, who had a treasure there, and had also 
 built a stadium. Besides this building, they employed Po- 
 lygnotus to adorn the great Hall, leaving him the choice of 
 subjects ; and as Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, was mur- 
 dered and had a tomb near the spot, these subjects related 
 to the Trojan war. 
 
 It is supposed that because Pausanias describes one thing 
 as above another, composition was little known, and that there 
 were several subjects in one plane. But any one might de- 
 scribe the Cartoons at Hampton Court in the same way, 
 and make a reader, who had never seen them, believe that 
 one figure was above another, and several subjects too. 
 Might not one say, “ Above Pythagoras in Raffaelle’s School 
 of Athens , is Alcibiades listening to Socrates but because 
 they are above one another, that is no proof that they do 
 not retire. Aristotle settles his high rank better than Pliny 
 or Quintilian. “Polygnotus,” says he, “made men better Ama 
 they are, Pauson worse than they are, and Dionysius the 
 same as they are.” 1 Polygnotus, therefore, expressed the 
 leading points of the species man, and cleared the acciden- 
 tal from the superfluous. Cimabue did not do this, nor Mas- 
 saccio, nor Giotto ; but Raffaelle and Michel Angelo did ; 
 
 1 Aristotle, Poetics. 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 99 
 
 and when this is done, in painting or sculpture, the com- 
 ponent parts of art must be equally advanced. Besides, when 
 did Polygnotus flourish? Between the 84th and 90th Olym- 
 piad. The Parthenon must have been built ; the beauties 
 of Phidias’s immortal hand must have been executed, such 
 as we see them in the Theseus, Ilyssus, metopes and friese 
 of the Elgin marbles. And could any painter be a Goth in 
 composition, when such knowledge of the art is visible in 
 these perfect wonders ? Polygnotus put the names to many 
 of his figures ; Annibale Caracci put “ genus unde Latinum” 
 to Venus and Anchises ; Raffaelle gilded his glories ; but 
 what argument is that against the genius of either ? The 
 power of Polygnotus in painting the daemon Eurynome, with 
 a skin the colour of a blue-bottle fly, shews the truth of his 
 imagination, as well as his power of observation and imitation. 
 Polygnotus was a great genius, worthy of his age ; and the 
 “ simplex color,” applied by Quintilian to his works, only 
 proves the purity of his taste in using it. 1 
 
 Simplicity is not barbarism, any more than gorgeous- 
 ness is true taste. About the 90th Olympiad the light be- 
 gan to dawn and to give promise of a glorious sunrise. Agla- 
 ophon, Cephissodonus, Phrylus, and Evenor, the father of 
 Parrhasius, and preceptor of the greatest painters, appeared. 
 These were all celebrated in their day ; but one of the most 
 
 1 Hardouin’s Pliny , lib. xii. c. 10, p. 893. Clari Pictores fuisse 
 dicuntur Polygnotus, atque Aglaophon ; quorum simplex color tarn sui 
 studiosus adhuc habet,” etc. Now the simplex color of Polygnotus 
 and Aglaophon was not one colour, like monochroms, but modesty in 
 the arrangement of the three colours, red, yellow, and black, without 
 blue. How then could the monochrom apply to Polygnotus, whose 
 works at Thespiai, Delphi, and the Poikile at Athens, were painted 
 in all the variety these three colours could produce, and not confined 
 to one colour ? 
 
100 
 
 / 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 important reformers was Apollodorus the Athenian, who flou- 
 rished in the 93d Olympiad. He was the first, according to 
 Pliny, who expressed the species ; and he was also the first who 
 did honour to the glory of the pencil. But, after Phidias, Pa- 
 noenus, Micon, and Polygnotus, one is inclined to question 
 whether he was the first who expressed the species. Phidias, 
 in the opinion of the ancients, was the greatest artist in sculp- 
 ture. Plato says that Phidias was “ skilled in beauty but 
 to be skilful in beauty, argues the power of expressing the 
 species, and a perfect knowledge of the construction ; for 
 beauty is the last operation, and is based upon the first. How 
 then Apollodorus could have expressed the species better than 
 Phidias or Polygnotus, it would perhaps have puzzled Pliny 
 to explain. However, let us take what the gods have spared, 
 and be grateful. “ Plis, is the adoring priest,” says Pliny, 
 “and Ajax defying the lightning at Pergamus ; nor was any 
 tablet worth looking at before ” That may be. The pre- 
 vious works were monumental, national, or mural, painted 
 with brushes, and bold in execution. Tabular painting 
 may have been a more delicate workmanship ; but it is not 
 to be compared with the true epic, any more than the highly- 
 wrought easel pictures of Raffaelle, are to be compared with 
 his frescos. 
 
 “ The doors,” says Pliny, “ that Apollodorus had opened, 
 Zeuxis boldly marched through, about the 95th Olympiad ; 
 daring every thing the pencil could do, and carrying it to 
 the greatest glory.” Some place him in the 89th Olympiad ; 
 but this is a mistake. Hemophilus or Naseas was his mas- 
 ter. Apollodorus became envious of Zeuxis, because the lat- 
 ter improved upon the style he had introduced, and wrote a 
 lampoon. Zeuxis became very rich, grew very haughty, and 
 always appeared at the Olympic games in a purple robe, 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 101 
 
 with his name in gold letters on the border. So high was 
 his opinion of his own pictures, that, thinking no money could 
 equal their value, he gave them away. From this feeling, 
 he presented an Alcmena to the Agrigentines, and a Pan to 
 Archelaus ; he also painted a Penelope, in which her moral 
 beauty of character was visible, and an athlete, so much to 
 his own delight, that be wrote underneath, “ It is easier to 
 criticise than to execute.” His great works were Jupiter and 
 all the gods, and Hercules strangling the serpents. He was 
 censured for large heads and violent markings, but otherwise 
 he was strictly correct. Pliny varies his history with current 
 stories, and we can almost get at the principles of Greek art 
 from them as well as from the account of the art itself. Current 
 stories and proverbs should never be disregarded ; for, if not 
 true, they may be taken as inventions characteristic of the 
 parties, or they would never have been believed. The Agri- 
 gentines, says Pliny, ordered a picture for a temple of Juno 
 Lucinia, and they allowed the painter to select the finest girls 
 as models. Cicero 1 says it was the Crotoniates who employed 
 him ; and as Zeuxis always studied nature, the most beautiful 
 girls were ordered by government to come to him, and having 
 selected five, he then painted his Helen. Zeuxis made his 
 sketches in black and white {pinxit etmonochromataex albo) 
 or of a single colour heightened by white. His contempora- 
 ries and rivals were Timanthes, Androcydes, Eupompus, and 
 Parrhasius. The contest of the last with Zeuxis, in which 
 the one deceived the birds by grapes, and Parrhasius Zeuxis 
 himself by his curtain, contains the great principle of Greek 
 art, viz. That the most perfect imitation of reality ivas not 
 incompatible with the highest style . Antiquaries are dis- 
 
 De Invent, lib. 2, cap. x. 
 
102 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 posed to laugh at these stories as beneath the dignity of 
 belief ; but artists knowwell enough, that, so far from being 
 unworthy of credit, all the stories of Pliny and ./Elian tend 
 more or less to illustrate a principle. Zeuxis painted a boy 
 and grapes, and the birds flew at the fruit ; but his rival ob- 
 served that, if the boy had been equal to the grapes, the birds 
 would have been frightened. Zeuxis was a great painter 
 and discovered the principles of light and shadow. 
 
 After Zeuxis came Parrhasius, “liquidis ille coloribus,” 1 
 who was born at Ephesus, and celebrated for great excellence. 
 He first gave correct proportions to painting ; airs to the 
 head, elegance to the hair, and beauty to the countenance. 
 By the acknowledgment of all artists, the manner in which 
 he lost the contours of his forms, was exquisite. Many peo- 
 ple can execute the parts of which the middle of things is 
 composed ; but few can finish the boundaries of objects as 
 if the substance was round, and did not end with the con- 
 tour which defined it ; thus giving one an idea as if some- 
 thing was concealed, and exciting the imagination to con- 
 ceive what the eye did not see. This excellence Xenocra- 
 tes, and Antigonus, who wrote on painting, conceded to Parr- 
 hasius ; and not this excellence alone, but also many others. 
 The best idea that can be given to the moderns of the 
 works of Parrhasius, is by referring them to the pictures of 
 Corregio, of which this is the great excellence. Parrha- 
 sius appears also to have had the same defect ; for he sof- 
 tened the centres of his figures, and gave them too much 
 pulpiness for the heroic. There remained, in Pliny’s time, 
 sketches of subjects, and of hands and feet, from which ar- 
 tists learned a great deal. He contrived in a picture to 
 
 1 Horace. 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 103 
 
 paint the people of Athens, and to give a true idea of their 
 variable character; humble yet vain-glorious, timid yet 
 ferocious ; — and all these contrasts he expressed with great 
 power. But Parrhasius disgraced his genius by yielding to 
 what Johnson calls “ the frigid villany of studied lewdness,” 
 and sacrificed his noble art to pander to the beastly appetites of 
 the debauched ; in fact, Tiberius kept one of his licenti- 
 ous pictures in his bed-room, namely, that of Meleager and 
 Atalanta. But whatever may have been the habits of an- 
 tiquity, and however indecencies may have been connected 
 with religion, it is clear the greatest men did not approve of 
 such prostitution of talent. Aristotle censures the practice, 
 and warns tutors to guard their pupils from such corruptions. 
 
 Timanthes followed, the great painter of the sacrifice of 
 Iphigeniain Aulis. No picture had more reputation for touch- 
 ing art and delicacy than this. After exhausting expression 
 in all the principal agents, the artist covered the face of the 
 father, not daring to trust his hand to attempt imitation, and 
 leaving every spectator to imagine an agony of his owm. As 
 Euripides has the same incident, Fuzeli thinks the honour of 
 being the first inventor is due to Timanthes. In the death 
 of Germanicus, Poussin hid the face of his wife. Timanthes 
 seems to have been ingenious in his inventions ; to give the 
 idea of great size to a sleeping Cyclops, he introduced two 
 satyrs trying to span his thumb. Pliny adds, that there was 
 a head painted by him in the Temple of Peace at Rome, and 
 which was a perfect specimen of art. 
 
 Euxenides taught Aristides, the great master of expres- 
 sion, and Eupompus taught Pamphilus, who was the master 
 of Apelles, a name synonymous with perfection in finish, but 
 not for invention like Zeuxis, monumental commemorations 
 like Poly gnotus, composition like Amphion, or expression like 
 
104 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Aristides. No ; Apelles was the deity of tabular pictures, 
 the greatest glory of the art in Pliny's mind, but not in the 
 minds of those who see beyond the range of a dining-par- 
 lour. Eupompus painted a victor with a palm branch in his 
 hand ; and such was his influence in Greece, that he was al- 
 lowed to divide painting into three schools, viz. the Ionian, 
 Sicyonian, and Athenian. Pamphilus was a Macedonian, 
 who combined literature with painting and made it a prin- 
 ciple of tuition, that no man could be great in either who 
 was not a mathematician ; for he denied that without geo- 
 metry art could be perfected. He taught nobody under a 
 talent, which both Apelles and Melanthus paid. So great 
 was the influence of this distinguished man, that first at Si- 
 cyon, and afterwards in all Greece, he got it established as 
 a principle of education, that all clever boys should be taught 
 on tablets the art of delineating, which is the foundation of 
 painting. He considered this art as the first that should be 
 taught in a liberal education. Slaves were prohibited the 
 exercise of design ; which was an absurd law, because in 
 literature it would have prevented iEsop or Terence from de- 
 veloping their genius. What right have any creatures, who 
 are obliged to eat and sleep like the meanest slave, to pass a 
 law to prohibit the exercise of any natural talent, if the Al- 
 mighty has not disdained to think one worthy of being so gift- 
 ed ? The consequence of this was, that no slave ever dis- 
 tinguished himself in the arts. 
 
 About the 107th Olympiad, after Echion and Therami- 
 chus, came the god of high finish and grace, Apelles. His 
 style is always the precursor of decay. First came a race 
 in art, amongst whom invention, expression, form, colour, and 
 execution, in a series of pictures intended to illustrate a princi - 
 pie were enough, provided the principle was expressed. These 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 105 
 
 were the monumental geniuses . But when the art becomes 
 national and glorious, the noble and the opulent become am- 
 bitious to share the glory with their country ; and the art sinks 
 to the humble office of adorning apartments. As is the de- 
 mand, such will be the supply ; and the genius of a country is 
 thus turned from national objects and public commemorations 
 to private sympathies and domestic pleasures. At this period 
 of Greek taste appeared Apelles ; refined, accomplished, de- 
 licate, devoting his whole soul to single perfections equally 
 adapted for a temple or a palace, and patronised equally by 
 his sovereign and the people. Educated by Pamphilus, he 
 was grounded to the very foundation, and consequently drew, 
 as Burke says to Barry, with “ the last degree of perfection.” 
 Apelles, Aristides, Nichomachus, and Protogenes, were the 
 most distinguished artists of Alexander’s time. 
 
 Apelles wrote copiously on his art, and explained its prin- 
 ciples. His treatises were extant in Pliny’s time, and even in 
 that of Suidas , 1 who speaks of them ; and as they were pro- 
 bably illustrated with designs, the loss is much to be deplor- 
 ed. Beauty was the leading feature of his style, as well as 
 of that of the greatest painters of the same period. In grace 
 he defied competition ; and this explains the secret of his tri- 
 umph. “ I know when to leave off,” said he, “ which is a 
 great art; Protogenes does not. Over-working is injurious.” 
 He was a very generous man, and acknowledged when 
 others were superior to him ; observing that Amphion 2 was 
 a better composer, and Asclepiadorus more correct in propor- 
 tion. Amongst all the stories of Pliny, the most delightful is 
 
 1 About the year 1 1 CO of our era. 
 
 2 Junius (de Pictura Veterum) only finds Amphion mentioned 
 twice in ancient authors, and it is hence supposed that Echion 
 would be a better reading. 
 
106 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 that of Apelles and Protogenes, which seems to be an au- 
 thentic fact ; and even if it were not, it would illustrate the 
 principles of Grecian art. Protogenes lived at Rhodes and 
 Apelles sailed to see him. Having landed, he called, and found 
 the artist “not at home.” Being shewn by an old woman 
 into his painting-room, he found a tablet with its wax ground 
 ready for a picture, and taking up a brush, drew an exquisite 
 line in colour down the tablet. Protogenes having return- 
 ed, was shewn what had happened ; and, contemplating the 
 beauty of the form, he said it must be Apelles, as nobody else 
 could draw so perfect a work. He then took the brush and 
 drew another still more refined, saying, if the stranger call 
 again, shew him this, and say that that is what he is seeking. 
 Apelles returned, and blushing to see himself outdone, again 
 took a brush and drew a third, leaving nothing to be exceed- 
 ed in refinement, ( nullum relinquens amplius subtilitati lo- 
 cum.) Protogenes when he saw this immediately sought his 
 visitor, saying that he could carry the line no further. The 
 tablet with these lines upon it, was considered by all the 
 Greek artists as a miracle of drawing. After the death of 
 Apelles and Protogenes, and the conquest of the Romans, it 
 was preserved in the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine 
 hill, where it was seen by Pliny containing nothing but three 
 fleeting lines, ( tres lineas effugientes ) and yet superior to all 
 that was to be found in the finest works. Unfortunately it 
 was burned at the destruction of the palace. 
 
 Now comes the question, what were these lines which 
 could thus speak to artists who had never seen each other, 
 the common language of a common code of law for design. 
 “ Secuit lineas ” does not mean actually to cut the lines in 
 two, but in the technical idiom of English artists, to strike 
 a line. It was not the metal cestrum, but the hair brush, 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 107 
 
 and therefore cut in this sense could not have been meant. 
 To cut with a brush means to design with an air of power. 
 Three lines varied in shape would mean nothing, if nothing 
 was expressed ; but if some known contour of the body was 
 taken in repose, three variations of its position without al- 
 teration would be as much as could be expected in the 
 contour. Suppose that Apelles drew a line from the clavi- 
 cle A to the pubis B of a body in profile, shaping all the parts 
 as he went correctly like fig. 1. Next, suppose that Proto- 
 genes having come in saw the line, and knew that in finely- 
 formed men, the stomach, from great exercise and temper- 
 ate living, becomes small ; the contour would curve in at C, 
 so that that portion of the rectus muscle would retire, as in 
 many of the Greek statues. He would then take the same 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
108 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 contour, draw it again on the wax tablet, and make this vari- 
 ation. Again, suppose that Apelles returned and on see- 
 ing himself vanquished, took the brush and drew the same 
 contour, allowing the variation of Protogenes, but remem- 
 bering that in powerful men, the pyramidalis D, fig. 3, aris- 
 ing from the pubis and going into the rectus, makes another 
 and the last variation. Then Protogenes returning, and 
 seeing that nothing more could be done unless the body was 
 altered in position, he would acknowledge the line to be com- 
 pleted. 
 
 In Conduces Five Dialogues, it is stated that Michel An- 
 gelo thought it must have been a contour of some part of 
 the body. Now, this singular contest would be felt by all 
 artists as one of the greatest utility. It would be wondered 
 at by connoisseurs, and would illustrate a great principle ; 
 namely, that a knowledge of construction was the basis of cor- 
 rect design and the foundation of all beauty. 
 
 It was the continual practice of this eminent man to do 
 something every day, whatever happened ; and hence the 
 proverb, “ No day without a line.” If artists were to write 
 this over their painting-room doors, it would not be without 
 advantage. Rubens rose at four, and was in his painting till 
 five in the afternoon, with occasional variations. All the 
 greatest men of antiquity and of modern art, have been the 
 most diligent and the most industrious. And here is th e most 
 celebrated of the tabular painters of antiquity afraid to let a 
 day pass without the use of the pencil. Apelles used also to 
 hide himself behind his works to hear the remarks of the pub- 
 lic. This deference to the public voice evinced by sculptors', 
 painters, and statesmen, is a beautiful proof of the sense and 
 understanding of the time. Nothing was done in defiance 
 of public taste, but every thing in conformity to its dictates ; 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 10<J 
 
 and though this does and often did lead to great injustice in 
 political matters, in art the maxim is infallible. 
 
 Apelles of Cons excited envy enough, and notwithstand- 
 ing his graceful manners, his tender heart, and his accom- 
 plished mind, when driven by stress of weather into Alexan- 
 dria, the courtiers of Ptolemy, hating his superiority, and 
 fearing his probable fortune, sent him a pretended invitation 
 to sup with the king. Apelles went ; the king felt astonished 
 at the liberty, and sending to demand explanation, discover- 
 ed the imposition. On inquiring if Apelles knew the person 
 who had given him the invitation, he immediately sketched his 
 face on the wall, and the king recognised the culprit. Courts, 
 kings, and people can only judge of results. The infinite num- 
 ber of repeated acts, the nulla dies sine lined , the failures, the 
 recoveries, the musings, the thinkings, that had taken }>lace 
 with the “ cestrum cum lumine,” they had not witnessed ; 
 therefore, knowing their utter incapacity to do as Apelles did, 
 they concluded that he was a wonder, and he of course be- 
 came a favourite. As an evidence of that peculiar tact by 
 which such men are sure to please kings and nobility, namely, 
 by the power of seizing the most agreeable expression of any 
 sitter’s face, however ugly, and rendering his very defects a 
 cause of elegant concealment; he painted Antigonus, who 
 had lost one eye, in profile, concealed his defective eye, and 
 made him as graceful as if he were Alexander. This was 
 the great secret of his fortunes, as it was that of Titian’s, Van- 
 dyke’s Rnd Reynold’s ; and though not to be compared in 
 point of taste or knowledge of the art, this was also the se- 
 cret of the popularity of Lawrence, mere portrait painter as 
 he was, and nothing more. 
 
 Polygnotus, Pausias, Aristides, Timanthes, Zeuxis, Parr- 
 
 hasius, Pamphilus, Euphranor, and Timomachus did not so 
 
 8 
 
110 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 completely gratify the vanity of their contemporaries, and 
 were not such personal favourites as Apelles ; for there is no 
 gratitude equal to the gratitude of being successfully painted. 
 Kings bow to the unknown power of having their momen- 
 tary expressions observed, seized, transferred, and fixed for 
 ages, and whilst colours and canvass last, carried on, for the 
 admiration of a distant age, when the existing one is past and 
 forgotten. What can equal the gratitude of a woman to have 
 her beauty preserved, whilst she is in her bloom, for the ad- 
 miration of her children when age has shrivelled her form, 
 or misfortune destroyed her happiness? The world may be 
 elevated, excited, roused, by the commemoration of the great 
 deeds of ancestors or heroes ; but no sympathy is ever ex- 
 cited, and no personal vanities are ever so happily gratified 
 by any class of painters, as by the great portrait-painter. The 
 degree of imagination required is not of that irresistible kind 
 which forces him to leave the model before him, using it only 
 to realise his own burning conceptions, so that all likeness of 
 the individual is lost ; he requires no more than to retain in 
 his mind the best expression of the individual before him to 
 identify it upon canvass. But it must be exactly like, or it is 
 nothing. After the likeness is completed, the sitter will have 
 no objection to the highest degree of embellishment. There 
 the great portrait-painter shews the degree of fancy wanted, 
 and he that embellishes most, without losing resemblance, will 
 be the most welcomed, as Apelles was, by the world. 
 
 To put Apelles in comparison with Polygnotus is out of 
 the question. Highly-wrought individual figures, little more 
 than portraits of beautiful nature, cannot rank so high in the 
 judgment, though they may in the delicate sympathies of 
 the world. But that single terrific conception of' the demon 
 Eurynome, for which no prototype in nature could be found, 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 that momentary blush which crimsoned his Cassandra , 1 Aris- 
 totle’s praise that he made men better than they were, and 
 Plato’s ranking him with Phidias, settles the question of his 
 greatness ; and as a portrait expression must be seen before 
 it can be done, and must be like or it is nothing, there is 
 an end of the highest quality of human genius, invention. 
 Indeed, whatever the vanity of the world may be inclined to 
 feel, the greatest portrait painter is but an inferior artist. 
 
 The age of Polygnotus and Phidias was the meridian age 
 of Greek art ; and that of Apelles was the setting glory. 
 From the latter period it sunk gradually as if nature had been 
 exhausted by the previous effort. Such ages have never 
 since been seen ; such perfection had never been realized 
 before, and never will be again ; for in order to become such 
 sculptors and painters, men must also become idolaters. 
 But to return and conclude the notice of Apelles, this court- 
 favourite of antiquity. Notwithstanding the education of 
 Alexander by Aristotle, notwithstanding that f] ypa<pLKrj was a 
 portion of his education, Alexander was little more than a glo- 
 rious barbarian in art. He talked so absurdly in the painting- 
 room of Apelles, that the artist was obliged to request that his 
 majesty w T ould be cautious, lest the boys should laugh as they 
 ground their colours. Apelles may be considered as the 
 Titian of Greek art, with the addition of all that vast know- 
 ledge of form, which every painter and every school was ob- 
 liged to master. But the disposition to perfect single figures, 
 and the acknowledgment that others exceeded him in compo- 
 sition, clearly point out the extent of his fertility. Though 
 Pliny describes many beautiful pictures, his greatest are sin- 
 gle figures. His Venus Anadyomene was the most celebrat- 
 
 1 Lucian. 
 
112 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ed of all his works ; but being painted upon wood, it was des- 
 troyed by insects in the time of Augustus. He began ano- 
 ther, and having completed it as far as the bosom, died ; but 
 although the contours were completed for finishing, nobody 
 would venture to touch it, such was the extreme veneration 
 entertained for him. By this description we see the nature 
 of the Greek process ; first, the ground, then the drawing in, 
 next the impasto preparation, and then the completion part 
 by part. He had got the picture finished as far as the bosom ; 
 and therefore to finish highly by degrees was his system. He 
 was not deficient in expression, for he painted persons dying 
 with great power. His imitation must have been perfect, 
 for his painted horses are said to have made real horses neigh ; 
 and his colour must have been exquisite, for he glazed like 
 the Venetian school. Pliny mentions him as one of those 
 who painted with four colours ; but this is a mistake ; for it 
 was in the age of Polygnotus that blue was not used. From 
 a passage in Cicero , 1 it appears that that age was famous for 
 “ form and contour whereas, according to the same writer, 
 all things were perfect in the works of Protogenes, Nicho- 
 machus, Echion, and Apelles. 
 
 Pliny is therefore right in saying that pictures which con- 
 stituted the opulence of towns, were painted with four colours 
 only ; but he is not as clear as usual in regard to the period 
 to which this observation applies. Quintilian, calling the 
 colour of Polygnotus “ simplex color,” seems to indicate the 
 absence of blue ; whilst red, yellow, black, and white did not 
 produce such gorgeous splendour as in the age of Apelles. 
 Thus Quintilian, as well as Cicero, collaterally proves Pliny 
 to be in part right. It is extraordinary that Reynolds did not 
 
 1 Brutus , c. 18. 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 113 
 
 allude to the absence of blue in the enumeration of Pliny. 
 Great depth, fine tone, simplicity, and modesty, can be ob- 
 tainedjwithout blue, but never that tremendous magnificence 
 produced by the contrast of the deep and awful azures of Titian. 
 Though Polygnotusdid not use blue, his black was made from 
 vine-stalks and wine-lees . 1 which render blackmoreblue than 
 the ivory black of Apelles, which was discovered by him, 
 and is used to this hour in Europe. There were several of 
 the "same name, but Apelles Cous distinguishes the great 
 Apelles, as Aristides Tliebanus does the great Aristides. 
 
 After this long account of the courtly, accomplished, and 
 highly-wrought Apelles, there may be something interest- 
 ing to allude to Aristides the “ great master of expression,” 
 as Fuzeli calls him. He was the first who painted deep 
 human emotions, fierce passions, and distressing perturba- 
 tions ; but he was hard in colour, says Pliny, and not so har- 
 monious as Apelles, probably like RafFaelle, the great Italian 
 master of expression, in comparison with Titian. His finest 
 picture was that of a mother dying from a wound which she 
 had received in the sacking of her native city. Her infant 
 was trying to reach the nipple with its boneless gums, whilst 
 the mother, faint and exhausted, appeared struggling to save 
 it from sucking, lest blood might mingle with its nourishment; 
 a tender and affecting thought. Alexander w 7 as so touched 
 by this picture at Thebes, when the city was taken, that 
 he sent it to Pella . 2 * 
 
 1 See Pliny, lib. xxxv. The sea in the Venus Anadyomene is 
 quoted as a proof that blue must have been used. But where is there 
 any blue in Vandervelde ? We do not think that a picture exists with 
 blue in his sea. 
 
 2 RafFaelle imitated this in his plague, where a fine youth is put- 
 
 ting away an infant from a dying mother’s bosom ; but the utter want 
 
114 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Protogenes was another of the great men of this time. 
 It is indeed extraordinary to reflect how genius in art and 
 literature seems always to come in clusters in every coun- 
 try. He was born at a small town on the coast of Asia Minor, 
 subject to the Rhodians ; and he got his living till he was 
 fifty years old, in great poverty, painting beautiful ornaments 
 for the prows of ships. He was not a man of fertile inven- 
 tion, and spent years over single works, which induced Apel- 
 les to say that he never knew when he had finished. His 
 celebrated work was Talissus, which occupied him seven 
 years. Titian took eight to paint the Pietro Martyre, and 
 seven to finish the Last Supper for Charles V. j 1 and yet 
 in Titian’s works there is no appearance of over diligence. 
 Pliny says he painted his pictures four times over, so that 
 if one picture was destroyed another might be ready. No- 
 thing shews so completely the exact degree of knowledge 
 which Pliny had of art as this absurd conclusion from an 
 admirable practice Protogenes proceeded with his works 
 as Titian did, by stages ; and each stage was a separate im- 
 pasto of colour, which helped the next till completed. Of 
 this artist the story is told of his flinging his sponge at a 
 dog’s mouth in a rage, because he had vainly tried to hit 
 breath coming out of it, and by that accident succeeding ; 
 a circumstance which shews that it was tempera painting, 
 for a sponge would not have done for wax. Such a habit of 
 daily application had Protogenes, that when Demetrius be- 
 sieged Rhodes, he would not leave his painting-room, but 
 proceeded daily in his studies amidst the noise of battering 
 rams and catapultae. The king came often to visit him ; 
 
 of taste in making the boy hold his nose for fear of infection, renders 
 the sentiment not pathetic but at once disgusting and ridiculous. 
 
 1 See, in Ridolphi, Titian’s letter to the emperor. 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 115 
 
 and that part of the town where he worked was spared, and 
 the picture thus finished was said to have been done at the 
 point of the sword. Protogenes painted the mother of Aris- 
 totle ; and the philosopher urged him to execute the battles 
 of Alexander ; but he was not a man of rapid conception or 
 fertile invention for a series, and could not be moved. 
 
 It is curious to reflect, that all the great painters painted 
 portraits ; which proves that they thought it essential to that 
 truth which was the foundation of their ideal beauty. Indeed, 
 every great painter should paint a portrait a month ; and 
 if, like the Greeks, he has always nature for his works, he 
 never can degenerate into manner. 
 
 Of the other painters, Asclepiodorus was celebrated for pro- 
 portion ; Nicomachus for rapidity of hand, and Theon for wild 
 conceptions, “ quas Grgeci vocant tfiavracnas” Pliny places 
 Theon amongst the herd, whilst Quintilian and iElian place 
 him amongst the illustrious, where he ought to be. He paint- 
 ed a single warrior dashing forward on the spectators ; and 
 collecting the public, he kept the picture behind a curtain, 
 when in the midst of a blast of trumpets, the curtain was 
 dropped, and the wonderful figure terrified the people. He 
 also painted Orestes, distracted and insane, and proved him- 
 self a great and wild inventor. The three remaining great 
 men of the fine period, were Pausias, Euphranor, and Timo- 
 machus. No passage has excited so much discussion as the 
 well known one in Pliny, where he says, “ nulla gloria artifi- 
 cum est, nisiqui tabulas pinxere,” as if he meant that the only 
 glory in art consisted in tabular pictures, “ n ivaKes” on wood, 
 and that there was but little in monumental and mural efforts. 
 Pliny, however, does not here contrast the tabular pictures 
 of Apelles with the mural paintings of Polygnotus, but with 
 the works of one Ludius, a Roman, a mere ornamental 
 
116 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 landscape-painter upon walls, like our Bond Street paper 
 painters. This was much the fashion in Pliny’s time, which 
 he laments ; and many examples of the same species may 
 now be seen in Pompeii. 
 
 Having thus described the fancies and caprices by which 
 the art had been degraded, Pliny turns to the highly beau- 
 tiful tabular works of Apelles, and observes naturally enough; 
 “ This is not the thing ; the glory of art and of artists con- 
 sists in the Venus of Apelles, the mother of Aristides, the 
 Ialysus of Protogenes, and not in this mechanical whim, 
 which is not the glory and the end of painting.” This, per- 
 haps, is the explanation which he would give if he were alive 
 and able to answer us. Is it not unjust then to take up such 
 ground as M. Raoul- Rochette has done in France, and Payne 
 Knight in England, and infer that there was no real glory in 
 any other mode of painting ? The ancients estimated mural 
 painting at Delphi, as the Italians do in the Vatican. But 
 they did not undervalue tabular painting, small pictures, en- 
 caustic, landscapes, or humour ; they painted in every style 
 and they excelled in all. 
 
 Pliny now proceeds to the encaustic painters, of whom 
 Pausias and Euphranor appear to have been the greatest. 
 Pausias was a master of foreshortening, as we learn from 
 Pliny’s description of a bull which he painted in front 
 and projecting beyond the tablet. After Pausias came the 
 Isthmian Euphranor, who wrote on symmetry and colour, 
 painted great and small works, and delineated statues and 
 animals. He said of his Theseus, that “ it was real flesh, 
 whilst that of Parrhasius had fed on roses.” Then came 
 Nicias who painted women beautifully, understood light and 
 shadow, and was another pillar of art. Metrodoruswas both 
 a philosopher and a painter ; and when the victorious Paulus 
 
GREEK SCHOOL. 
 
 117 
 
 desired Perseus to send him a philosopher to educate his 
 children, and a painter to arrange his triumph, Metrodorus 
 was despatched as a person capable of executing both tasks. 
 Timomachus is the last of this splendid list whom it is neces- 
 sary to mention. He died, like Apelles, leaving an important 
 work unfinished. 
 
 Such were the most illustrious men of the three finest 
 periods of Greek painting. The first period of Greek art 
 was that before Pericles ; the second, or that of Pericles 
 himself, was the finest, the highest, and the purest in paint- 
 ing, sculpture, and architecture ; the third was the epoch 
 of Alexander, the most refined, but prophetic of the cor- 
 ruption followed ; then came the subjugation of the Ro- 
 mans, when the noblest works of the Greeks were seized 
 as tribute, or matters of right, and Italy was inundated by 
 the productions of Greek talent. 
 
 This influx of foreign productions entirely suffocated 
 native Italian genius. Greek productions became matters of 
 property "; and dealers sprung up who manufactured originals 
 to supply the market of the rich collector. Galleries were 
 formed to produce genius, which had sprung up from na- 
 tional demand without a single gallery or a single collec- 
 tion of any works, except the productions of their native soil. 
 The most celebrated works were copied and re-copied by 
 the Greeks in ail parts of the Mediterranean. Horace al- 
 ludes to this ; and there can be no doubt whatever that the 
 effect was to render all native attempts of the Romans and 
 Etruscans no longer available. For not one great artist is 
 named during the whole period of progressive decay from the 
 Caesars to Constantine ; and the Romans or Latins never pro- 
 duced_any talent worth consideration till the revival of art in 
 Italy, after so many ages, in the fifteenth century. Then, the 
 
118 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 same principle operating, and the church and state demand- 
 ing art as an assistant, outpoured an abundance of native ta- 
 lent, because there was a vent, as there had been before, in 
 Greece, Egypt, and Chaldaea ; and the genius of Rome, Flo- 
 rence, Pisa, and Venice, vindicated their long suppressed 
 claims to originality. Amongst the illustrious Romans, 
 Julius Caesar seems to have been a magnificent collector ; 
 but whether, like Napoleon, he was also a magnificent patron 
 of the talent of his time is not known. He bought Greek 
 pictures, and presented them to Roman temples ; but one 
 work of native art, produced by native patronage, is more 
 honour both to patron and to artist than a gallery of foreign 
 pictures be they ever so divine. 
 
 Upon the whole, before tracing art from its decay to its 
 revival, we cannot but acknowledge as evident, that a period 
 of dearth in genius has generally succeeded in the world to 
 one of prolific production. In painting and sculpture, second- 
 ary causes, such as the nature of the government, or the circum- 
 stances of the two arts being required for political purposes, 
 may considerably facilitate the development of genius. But 
 it is not so with the poet. He can give vent to his immortal 
 thoughts in poverty or wretchedness, independently of the 
 taste of the times, or the patronage of the state. Milton, in 
 obscurity and blindness, wrote Paradise Lost; and Savage, in 
 poverty and wretchedness, composed his Bastard in the 
 streets, begging bits of paper as he walked, when he had 
 more thoughts than his mind could contain, and thus, as effec- 
 tually preserved them as if he had been bred in a palace, or 
 had sheets of the finest hot-pressed to receive his lucubra- 
 tions . 1 
 
 1 See Johnson’s Lives of the Poets , art. Savage. 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 119 
 
 After the conquest of Greece, and the removal of art and 
 artists to Rome, the genius of painting seems to have left 
 the world. The Roman school of painting and sculpture 
 is scarcely worth a single thought. In the last years of the 
 republic the art sunk rapidly. Augustus tried to revive it ; 
 but though the pupils and descendants of the illustrious 
 dead attempted to second his views, and though the writ- 
 ings of Apelles, Euphranor, and Pamphilus, were all in ex- 
 istence, and their principles known and acted upon, genius 
 was nowhere to be found. That divine spark with its at- 
 tendant whisper, unseen but not unheard, which ever at- 
 tends the gifted who are born for great objects, whether it 
 supported Columbus amidst the storms of the Atlantic, Alex- 
 ander as he plunged into Asia, Napoleon as he rushed into 
 Italy, Wellington at Waterloo, Michel Angelo when he 
 painted the Sistine Chapel, Raffaelle when he entered the 
 Vatican, or Phidias when he adorned the Parthenon ; that 
 supernatural, incomprehensible something, which inspires 
 hope, “when the whole world seems adverse to desert,” was 
 gone from the earth like the glory which had blazed in the 
 temple. All that the savage, splendid, imperial Romans 
 could do, all the honours and riches they had to confer, were 
 bestowed in vain. Architecture suited their savage vastness 
 of mind better than painting; therefore architecture flourish- 
 ed, and Augustus was said “ to have found Rome thatched, 
 and left it marbled.” 
 
 Not Babylon 
 
 Nor great A1 Cairo, such magnificence 
 Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine 
 Belus or Serapis 1 their gods, or seat 
 Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 
 In wealth and luxury. 
 
 1 In this beautiful passage, the immortal author has made the 
 
120 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Claudius built a superb aqueduct, and Nero burned 1 and 
 rebuilt a golden palace ; but he could not replace the lines 
 of Apelles and Protogenes, or the miracles of Timanthes 
 and Aristides, which perished in the conflagration. Galba, 
 Otho, and Yetellius were hurried through life and empire 
 too rapidly for art ; whilst Vespasian and Titus bewildered 
 the Romans with their Cyclopean masses. Hadrian, him- 
 self an artist, endeavoured to recover art by indiscriminately 
 encouraging Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans ; “ but such a 
 medley of principle as their works displayed,” says Agin- 
 court , 2 “ hastened the decay of art, and rendered the emper- 
 or hopeless of reviving it.” The art thus went floundering 
 on until Dioclesian, with all the gorgeous splendour of an 
 eastern monarch, mingled together Roman, Greek, and ori- 
 ental art, and corrupting all taste led to its extinction. It was 
 between the reign of Commodus and that of Constantine, 
 that those causes were generated which undermined the em- 
 pire, and brought art, science, and literature into the chasm. 
 Of forty emperors who, from the second to the fourth cen- 
 tury had struggled for the diadem and obtained it, twenty 
 had been murdered by the army and the people. “ Ainsi” 
 says Montesquieu “ comme la grandeur de la republique, fut 
 fatale au gouvernement republicain, la grandeur de l’em- 
 pire le fut a la vie des empereurs .” 3 Constantine’s remo- 
 val of the seat of empire did not so much begin the destruc- 
 tion of art as complete it ; for previous causes, domestic and 
 political, had been preparing the ruin for centuries before. 
 
 penult syllable of Serapis short, whereas it is in reality long, Sera- 
 pis ; an error which could scarcely have been expected in one who 
 was a great scholar as well as a great poet. 
 
 1 Tacitus does not seem altogether to believe it. 
 
 Agincourt, Histoire de l' Art, tom. i. 3 Decadence des Homains. 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 121 
 
 Agincourt thinks that as far as art is concerned, too much 
 has been attributed to this removal of the empire. But yet 
 the first epoch of what may be called modern art in oppo- 
 sition to ancient , must date from the introduction of Christ- 
 ianity as a state religion, when the whole moral feelings of 
 Greeks and Romans took another turn in painting and sculp- 
 ture. Although Constantine only grafted Christianity on 
 Paganism, and founded more Catholicism than Christianity, 
 by meeting and uniting the prejudices of both Pagans and 
 Christians ; yet surely if genius could ever be created by 
 patronage, the age of Constantine, and those of Charle- 
 magne, and Louis XIV. ought to have rivalled those of Pe- 
 ricles and Julius. Such was the rage for splendour in this 
 reign, that the quarries of Phrygian marble and of the isle 
 of Proconnesus, were almost destroyed to furnish palaces 
 for the emperor, his sons, and his ministers. Temples, 
 palaces, forums, triumphal arches, colossal statues, an hip- 
 podrome, and eight public baths were built and adorned at 
 once ; and in addition, splendid commissions were given to 
 the painters for pictures of Christ, the Virgin, the prophets, 
 and the apostles. Rome, Naples, Capua, Antioch, Tyre, 
 Jerusalem, and even Bethlehem, felt the effects of this mag- 
 nificent employment ; but what were the results to paint- 
 ing ? Nothing, absolutely nothing, to guide anybody except 
 the antiquary ; and if any evidence were wanting to show 
 that the genius and the patron must exist together, or the 
 result will be nothing, the end of Constantine’s splendour 
 would abundantly supply it. 
 
 The moral character of ancient Greece was gone ; the 
 instinct of public glory was passed ; their olive crowns/ the 
 adequate reward of talent on a great principle, were sneered 
 
 at ; and “ Lucian,” (as the author of the Discours Histor- 
 
 G 
 
122 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ique observes) “ had already ridiculed this tribunal,” which 
 had listened with rapture to Herodotus, and crowned Aetion 
 for a fine picture, and which in its days of Marathonian glory, 
 had done more than ever was done before or since in rous- 
 ing human effort, mental and bodily, to its highest pitch of 
 excellence. Luxury, indolence, vice, fanaticism, cant, so- 
 phistry, intrigue, and imposture, had supplanted the pure as- 
 pirations of patriotism and glory. “ The great and the 
 opulent,” says Pliny and Vitruvius, “ were fonder of gold 
 and glitter than purity of design or pathos of expression, or 
 perfection of form ; overwhelmed with colours from all the 
 countries of the earth, with double the advantages of Polyg- 
 notus, and Zeuxis, and Aristides,” who painted with four 
 only, “ nulla nobilis pictura est.” Of course, this is al- 
 ways the end, when the moral and national importance of 
 painting is undervalued. When native art is despised, and 
 spurious foreign productions are preferred ; when connois- 
 seurs of what is past abound, and connoisseurs of what is 
 passing exist not ; when painting is considered as a bauble 
 or a bit of furniture, and painters share dignity with upholster- 
 ers and gilders, what wonder if “ nulla pictura? is the cry ? 
 
 Gold and vermillion being thus introduced upon the walls 
 of palaces and preferred to beautiful art, in came arabes- 
 ques. Claudius had before introduced Indian patterns and 
 mosaic pictures, which had hitherto been kept for pave- 
 ments, till Commodus, for the sake of a new sensation, had 
 a portrait in his palace of Piscennius Niger , 1 painted in 
 mosaic, which may be considered as the first picture of this 
 description. When painting was in this staggering condi- 
 tion, Justinian gave it a final blow by ordering encaustic 
 
 Spartian, In Vita Pise. Nig. cap. 6. 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 123 
 
 and distemper designs, as vulgar, to be banished from ceil- 
 ings and walls, and mosaic, marble, and gold, to be pre- 
 ferred. Though mosaic was perhaps one of the means of 
 preserving art and of introducing it into Italy, yet it should 
 only be used in pavements, or to preserve the works of great 
 masters. The anti-pagan zeal of the early Christians is 
 well known. They used to put ropes round the necks of 
 Apollos and Yenuses to try them publicly, like criminals, 
 find them guilty, and pound them to dust. But human na- 
 ture is always the same. A thousand years afterwards a 
 similar scene was acted in Scotland by John Knox and the 
 reformers, nor had England escaped the fury of iconoclasm. 
 Eusebius 1 informs us that in the empire whole towns ros'e 
 and destroyed the temples in which they had just worshipped. 
 The air echoed with the noise of hammers, the crashing of 
 pediments, the breaking of pillars, and the shouts of a mad- 
 dened and frenzied populace. The finest works of Phidias, 
 Scopas, Polycletus, and Praxiteles, and all that was left of 
 Polygnotus, Apelles, Zeuxis, or Euphranor, were demolished 
 Gr burned, like wretches who had infected religion, and their 
 ashes were danced on with fanatical exultation. So great in- 
 deed had been the destruction, that when Arcadius and 
 Honorius issued a fresh edict to go on destroying, they 
 added, as well they might, “ Si qua etiam nunc in templis 
 fanisque consistent, “ If any pictures or statues are still left.” 
 During this frenzy was introduced into art, painting with - 
 out nature , and after producing a race of monsters down to 
 Golzius and Spranger, there began the cant of “ nature put- 
 ting an artist out.” What Zeuxis did not dare to do, what 
 Apelles never thought of, what Phidias never permitted to 
 
 1 Montesq. Decadence des Bomains, 133, 
 
124 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 be mentioned in his school, a parcel of painters brought into 
 practice by the very mysticism of their impossible theories. 
 Man was corrupt, being born in sin and vicious in practice ; 
 to take him as a model therefore when painting holy subjects, 
 was to act under the influence of Satan. Man was banished, 
 and so was woman, and nature in every thing ; till at last all 
 painters painted in one way, and in came manner into the great 
 art of nature, and like a “ leperous distillment” stained her 
 garment and poisoned her beauty. Y et the traditional maxims 
 of the ancient fathers, on beauty and art, give one a very 
 good idea of what were the maxims of the finer Pagan peri- 
 ods. “ Art is nothing but an imitation of nature,” says St. 
 Athanasius, (Or at. contr. Gent. c. xviii. p. 18.) “Ancient 
 artists sought to surpass each other by faithful imitation,” 
 (Arnob. Advers. Gent, lib.vi. fol. 68) “ Nature is the arche- 
 type, art the image ; every image has a model, and painters 
 imitate what they see,” (Theodoret.) “ Imitation is the 
 merit of painting ; be not seduced by an illusion,” (St. Cle- 
 ment.) “ When begging the people not to be seduced by 
 pictures and statues as if they were gods, tell them that pic- 
 tures and statues are imitations of nature, and therefore 
 cannot be gods.” These maxims of the fourth century had 
 clearly descended from a nobler era. Besides the treatises 
 of Apelles, Euphranor, and Pamphilus, were all in existence, 
 and were read by the educated and accomplished ; and we 
 see how skilfully the fathers of the church tried to save fine 
 works from destruction, by assuring the people that they 
 were mere imitations of life , for such was the principle of 
 artists. Are not these quotations then collateral evidences of 
 the practice of the Greeks, if we had known nothing of the 
 girls of Crotona sitting to Zeuxis ? 
 
 But Christianity was at first the ruin of art, by making 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 125 
 
 purity of heart every thing, and physical ugliness, or defor- 
 mity, nothing ; by teaching that as all beautiful works of art 
 were remnants of idolatry, they ought to be destroyed ; and 
 by inculcating that mankind being corrupt and born in sin, 
 no Christian painter ought to look at the naked figure whilst 
 he was painting it. Add to these prejudices, the predilec- 
 tion of eastern notions for gold and silver, the preference of 
 eastern dresses to the simplicity of Greek clothing, the con- 
 troversies which took place as to whether our Saviour was 
 ugly or handsome, and the vehemence with which Pagans 
 and Christians both entered into them ; and no one can won- 
 der at the state into which painting declined. 
 
 The division of opinion about the person of Christ, and 
 the dread of the early Fathers to expose the cross to Pa- 
 gans, who, familiar with golden-locked Apollos and perfum- 
 ed Venuses, could not comprehend that suffering and ma- 
 jestic pains were founded upon a higher philosophy, so em- 
 barrassed the painters, that to avoid collision they painted 
 Christ as an allegory thus lingering with their Greek feel- 
 ings about the form of beauty and of grace. It must be 
 interesting to all readers thus to trace the progress of feeling 
 relating to the head of Christ . 1 In the fourth, fifth, and sixth 
 centuries, beauty and youth still predominated ; and he is 
 painted youthful and handsome, crushing the lion under 
 his feet, or as a young shepherd with his flock. With alle- 
 gory the beauty of our Saviour ended, whilst the Fathers of 
 the church, like the priests of Egypt, interfered, and issued 
 an edict ordering him to be represented in agony on the 
 
 1 St. Augustin declares that in his time no faces of Christ or the 
 Virgin were known, and that no pictures were painted of them be- 
 fore the council of Ephesus ; yet there are seven reported originals, 
 four of which are by St. Luke’s own hand, now in Rome. 
 
126 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 cross. But here the order was evaded. The Greeks still 
 struggled for the beautiful, and as if it were the never-dying 
 principle of their souls, painted our blessed Saviour dying 
 upon the cross, but smiling with triumphant glory as if re- 
 joicing in his sacrifice. In whatever the Greeks were com- 
 pelled to do, beauty seemed still to be the basis of their art. 
 By degrees, however, the poor descendants of Apelles and 
 Polygnotus finding no employment except on the conditions 
 prescribed, the person of Christ became gradually degraded 
 in art ; and at the separation of the Latin church, to paint 
 him ugly, bloody and agonized, was the settled principle of 
 representation, and has more or less influenced his repre- 
 sentation ever since. There seems to be some doubt as to the 
 extent of the devastation committed by the Goths. Alaric staid 
 butthree days in Rome, and Attilahad himself painted in one 
 of his Milan palaces seated on a throne, and receiving the 
 homage of a Roman emperor . 1 Theodoric seems to have 
 had a very good feeling for art. He laments, in a letter to 
 Symmachus, the ruins of works of genius, begs their preser- 
 vation, and concludes with observing that Rome has still a 
 j •population of statues with herds of bronze horses. The ex- 
 pulsion of the Goths and the invasion of the Lombards, again 
 afflicted the art ; but it had found its way into France, and 
 the churches of Paris, Tours, Bordeaux and Clermont, were 
 ornamented by native painters. 
 
 Though the popes had begun to adorn the churches, and 
 art in the earliest times had been kept alive with consider- 
 able talent in the catacombs in Rome ; though Europe had 
 been astonished by the splendour of the ecclesiastical patron- 
 age of painters ; yet the next great epoch after Constantine 
 
 1 Suidas. 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 121 
 
 originates in the efforts of the illustrious Charlemagne. He 
 formed theplan of renovating art, science and literature; and 
 he would have accomplished his object, if the genius of the 
 age had been worthy of the emperor. The ancient practice 
 of painting churches, kept alive by previous popes, he con- 
 firmed by a law ; and agents every year visited the provin- 
 ces to see that the law was observed. If a royal church was to 
 be painted, the bishops and abbots were responsible. If, in the 
 midst of a campaign, an order was issued for a church, one 
 to paint the walls was included ; and no church was con- 
 sidered as finished till that was done, the object of the em- 
 peror being to obliterate the remembrance of the splendid 
 altars of the Pagans, by still more magnificent Christian or- 
 naments. “ Repair your church,” says the archbishop of 
 Treves ; “ you know the decision of the emperor.” 
 
 Two monkish painters of the time are celebrated ; and 
 France and Britain began even at this early period, to take 
 an interest in the arts. Biscop, abbot of Weremouth, had 
 brought pictures from Italy. Charlemagne had invited king 
 Offra to protect painting, with but little effect ; yet though 
 the walls of English churches were whitewashed, the English 
 began to adorn the ceilings and the windows, and hung ta- 
 pestry upon the walls . 1 
 
 In Spain, the Arabians had introduced their art, such as it 
 could be, under the prohibition of Mahommed ; and minia- 
 tures or manuscripts were so eagerly bought all over Eu- 
 rope, that the artists in France, Germany and Italy, devoted 
 themselves to this production ; though here again it was 
 acknowledged by all, that they were beaten by the Greeks. 
 In spite of all this, the art continued to decay; and at the se- 
 
 1 William of Malmsbury. 
 
128 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 cond Council of Nice the members gave evidence of the state 
 to which monks and bishops had reduced it. “ How can 
 painters be blamed?” say they ; “the painter invents nothing. 
 Invention and composition belong to the Fathers the art 
 alone is the painters’.” Inadvertently, too, the emperor in- 
 jured the art by altering the dress of his cavalry and foot. 
 The women as usual followed the example, and having re- 
 linquished the pure taste of the Greeks, dress has in conse- 
 quence become an annual novelty and change. The Paladin 
 and his horse were covered with iron and mail ; angles and 
 straight lines predominated ; the naked form was more than 
 ever concealed, and the artist deprived of his materials. 
 
 Though the art suffered at the death of Charlemagne, yet 
 it was kept alive by monks and by bishops. At Rome, at 
 Palermo, andat Milan, religious painters preserved it from de- 
 cay ; they sprung up all over Europe, and even St. Dunstan, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, is spoken of as a skilful painter 
 and maker of instruments. 
 
 It is curious, after all that has been written about oil 
 painting, and the discovery made by John Van Eyk, to find a 
 writer of this period called Eraclius, in a treatise on painting, 
 speaking of oil painting : “ De omnibus coloribus cum oleo 
 distemperatis.” Another monk wrote a treatise, in which 
 he says, “ he will tell the world how the Greeks mixed 
 their colours.” Now, as according to Suidas, the writings of 
 Apelles and Euphranor were in existence in the tenth cen- 
 tury, and these people lived before that time, there is reason 
 to believe that they were aware of oil painting having been 
 practised in ancient Greece, and that subsequent discove- 
 ries were but different revivals. 
 
 1 Concil. Nic. ii. act. vi. tom. iv. ed. 1714. 
 
ANCIENT ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 129 
 
 Whilst the art feebly struggled on in the west, the court 
 of Constantine Porphyrogenitus was the rendezvous of artists, 
 and in 997 St. Mark was built at Venice by Greeks. In 
 contrasting Greek with Roman art at this time, the Greek is 
 still superior. The Greek composition did not want dignity, 
 whilst in the Roman, all sound principle seemed dead. The 
 most ignorant Greeks shewed taste in their draperies, and their 
 heads have character, and in the arrangement of hairy they 
 remind one of the Panathenaic procession ; whilst the Ro- 
 mans, with their large heads and long limbs, evince a gross 
 ignorance of beauty. 
 
 In the tenth century, tapestry for a time superseded 
 painting ; though in Germany, France, Italy and England, 
 many painters flourished. In England, historical comme- 
 morations were in fashion, and the Duchess of Northum- 
 berland adorned Ely Cathedral with a series of pictures 
 illustrating the deeds of her distinguished lord. 1 When 
 William the Conqueror came, he introduced a new style of 
 architecture ; but both at York and Canterbury, paintings 
 then adorned the walls. In 1013, a head of Christ was exe- 
 cuted in mosaic, and is still considered as the wonder of the 
 middle ages. 
 
 After so many vicissitudes of fortune, painting now began 
 to shew symptoms of revival. Frescos had been executed in 
 Rome in 498, and in795; and there was a head of Christ paint- 
 ed in St. John Lateran, and still to be there seen, which 
 gave evidence of great feeling. But the grand impulse was 
 given in the year 1066, when St.Didier sent for Greek artists 
 to adorn Monte Casino at Subiaco. The example was fol- 
 lowed. Pisa, Venice, Amalfi, Genoa, and Milan, all muni- 
 
 Strutt. 
 
130 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 cipal corporations rivalled each other ; and when Pisa sent 
 to Greece to collect as many splendid remains of art as could 
 be obtained to adorn the dome of the city, Buschetto, a cele- 
 brated Greek architect, was engaged to superintend their 
 embarcation, to accompany them during the voyage, and to 
 land them safely for the purchasers. Buschetto was received 
 with so much enthusiasm, that he founded a school of sculp- 
 ture, - *which existed for two hundred years ; and ultimately 
 out of this very Greek school, came the great artist Nicolo 
 Pisano, the head of the Italico-Pisan school. From this 
 moment art, after having sunk to the lowest barbarism, went 
 on improving till the taking of Constantinople by Mahom- 
 med II., an event which scattered the Greeks collected at 
 that court all over Europe. Hundreds went to Italy as paint- 
 ers, sculptors, chasers, and mosaic painters ; and by their 
 struggles for existence, inoculated Italian artists with some 
 remnant of their taste for beauty, decayed as it was. Cima- 
 bue was their pupil, and Giotto was his. The Catholic church 
 wanted artists, and genius again began to shew itself. One 
 man of genius appeared after another, till Michel Angelo, 
 Leonardo, RafFaelle, Titian, and Corregio, were the glorious 
 results. And though it cannot be denied that the high as- 
 pirations of Christianity, by placing every thing human on 
 its proper level on earth, in comparison with eternal happi- 
 ness, had justly prostrated the splendid beauty of Pagan 
 art, by exposing its idolatrous tendencies ; though the suf- 
 ferings, and the agonies of its founder and its martyrs had 
 revived its pathos with higher objects than mere beauty of 
 form or face, and saved painting and sculpture from ex- 
 tinction ; yet it must be acknowledged, that the beauty of 
 Christian art has never rivalled the indisputable perfection 
 of the Pagans. To their enthusiastic overestimate of the 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 131 
 
 religious value of physical, as emblematic of moral beauty, 
 is their perfection attributable ; but if it can only be revived 
 by some similar delusion, the result will in our opinion more 
 than atone for any thing that seems doubtful or questionable 
 in the principle. 
 
 The most eminent pictures of the middle ages, setting aside 
 the cemeteries or catacombs, which cannot legitimately be 
 referred to the middle ages, but to the earliest ages of 
 Christianity, are to be found in Rome. The greatest works 
 of the middle ages are the series of Popes, begun in the fifth 
 century, and continued down to the present time. The next, 
 which was executed in the year 1011, is the painting of the 
 church of St. Urbano, where some of the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles are represented on the walls. Though the mosaics of 
 St. Mark’s, executed by Greeks, were earlier, and kept art 
 alive, yet, according to Lanzi, nothing in reality appeared 
 which gave symptoms of the approach of any thing extraor- 
 dinary, till about the thirteenth century ; and this revolu- 
 tion of style was entirely owing to sculpture . 
 
 The glory of this art belongs partly to the Tuscans, the le- 
 gitimate descendants of the ancient Etruscans, but most es- 
 pecially to the Pisans, who first had the courage to burst the 
 yoke which Greek art in its fallen state had imposed upon 
 them, and to go at once to the antique ; and this glory be- 
 longs to Nicolo Pisano, a pupil of the school originallyfound- 
 ed by the Greek Buschetto. There were in Pisa several 
 ancient sarcophagi, but especially one, containing the body 
 of Beatrice, mother oPthe Countess Matilda, with a bas-re- 
 lief in good style, which served as the model of Nicolo ; on 
 this he formed his style, in which there is something of the 
 antique, especially in his heads and draperies. Many artists 
 who had not done so before, immediately devoted them- 
 
132 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 selves to sculpture ; and Nicolo Pisano must be considered 
 as the first Italian, who opened the eyes of his contemporaries 
 to the true principle of using the antique, that is, keeping 
 nature in view at the moment of practice. In 1231 he cut 
 an urn in Bologna, whence he was called “ Nicolo of the 
 urn and he produced two stories of the last judgment at 
 Orvieto, and another work at Pisa, which convinced the 
 world that he was born to found an epoch. He executed 
 other great works, and was really the head of the illustrious 
 school which produced Orcagna, Donatelo, and the famous 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti, who made the beautiful bronze doors of 
 which Michel Angelo said, that they were worthy to be the 
 gates of paradise. 
 
 Many other eminent men came from his school. All Italy » 
 was more or less affected by Pisano’s genius ; and though a 
 sculptor, his effect on design was so great, that he must 
 be considered as having had a material influence on paint- 
 ing. Painting remained behind sculpture, and even mo- 
 saic ; and Vasari exaggerates the effect of Cimabue’s ap- 
 pearance in the year 1240 ; for Lanzi proves that there were 
 Pisan painters of talent before that period, and that the 
 early art does not in the first instance owe so much to the 
 Florentines as Vasari has asserted. At Assisi there is a 
 crucifixion by Guinta Pisano, who, according to an inscrip- 
 tion, learned his art from the Greeks in 1210. This was be- 
 fore Cimabue ; but Lanzi says that the work is not inferior 
 to Cimabue, and in drapery, colour, light, and shadow, com- 
 position and expression, very like the contemporary Greeks. 
 Guinta disappeared and died, nobody knows where or how. 
 Guido di Sienna was another name of this early period. In 
 the Louvre there were some exquisite heads of angels with 
 gilt glories, full of beauty and expression, executed by this 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 133 
 
 artist. Then followed Margaritone, who painted on canvass 
 covered with size and plaster for a ground ; which the Egyp- 
 tians, Greeks, and Romans, had done long before his time. 
 
 During the time that the neighbouring cities had found- 
 ed a new style, Florence had no painters ; but when the au- 
 thorities called in some Greeks in 1250, it is asserted that 
 there was a painter called Bartolomeo. Vasari wishes of 
 course to infer that Cimabue was the first Italian painter 
 who gave the impulse ; but Lanzi proves the contrary. 
 Although there is no city we owe so much to as Florence, 
 yet the Florentines ought not to be allowed to deprive their 
 old enemies of the honour of having produced earlier pain- 
 ters, besides Pisano. 
 
 Cimabue, who was both architect and painter, was honour- 
 ably descended. That he might have been the scholar of 
 Guinta is probable, because the Italians knew more than the 
 Greeks of that time ; but there is every reason to believe 
 that he learnt of those Greeks who had been called to Flo- 
 rence, and w hom, according to Vasari, he stood whole days, 
 when a boy, watching as they painted in Santa Maria No- 
 vella. From this moment indeed may be dated the excite- 
 ment which impelled him to become a painter. At As- 
 sisi his genius seems to have been put forth with most power. 
 Lanzi concludes the notice of him by saying, that Cimabue 
 was the Michel Angelo, and Giotto the Raffaelle of his age. 
 In the Louvre there were one or two large examples of Vir- 
 gins, staring and Gothic, and which the French, still more 
 Gothic, were absolutelyrepainting. 1 Vigorous in his colour, 
 
 1 The writer of this article, who saw a Frenchman solidlyrepaint- 
 ing a large picture of Cimabue in the private rooms of the Lou- 
 vre, where he was admitted by Denon, asked the Frenchman who it 
 was by: “Monsieur,” said he, “ je ne suis pas peintre, je suis restau- 
 rateur.” 
 
134 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 and colossal but ill-proportioned in his figures, Cimabue first 
 gave indications of attempting something new in painting ; 
 indeed, his watching the Greeks all day is so like an infatu- 
 ated youth, that it bears truth on the face of it. Florence 
 was often in commotion when his works appeared ; and 
 although he was not actually the oldest painter, he was the 
 first of that series which ended in Raffaelle. His style was 
 meagre, his drapery sharp, and his colour a species of illu- 
 mination ; but though he had no light and shadow or per- 
 spective, he was a great man for his time ; and in some of 
 his heads there are both character and expression. 
 
 Men of genius assist to call forth men of genius. In the 
 neighbourhood of Florence, Cimabue accidentally found a 
 youth tending sheep, and trying to draw one upon a slate. 
 After some conversation with the boy, finding the youth am- 
 bitious to become an artist, he consulted his father, took 
 him immediately under his own tuition, and advanced him 
 rapidly. Cimabue was amply repaid for his generous con- 
 duct, as the innocent youth w r as Giotto, afterwards one of 
 the great men of the time. No man can judge of Giotto’s 
 genius in England, because fragments of single heads or bits 
 of altar pieces, are no fair criteria of a genius like his. His 
 series of pictures in the Campo Santo are admirable, if allow- 
 ance be made for the taste and simplicity of the age; but there 
 are many actions and positions of Giotto, as fine as can be con- 
 ceived, and which other artists by aggrandising in form, have 
 rendered models of imitation. He was the friend of Dante, 
 and painted the portrait of the great poet. He seems to 
 have been a facetious and amiable man as well as a genius, 
 and w T as indisputably the greatest painter till Massacio. He 
 went about Italy scattering seeds every where, and wdien 
 the Papal See was moved to Avignon, he went wdth the court. 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 135 
 
 Giotto was the greatest of the Florentine school. He w$as 
 the father of painting, as Boccaccio was the father of liter- 
 ature. He was sought for at Ravenna, and at all the great 
 towns of Italy, and was patronised by all the first families. 
 He was an object of study and admiration, until the time 
 of Raffaelle, and that of the Caraccis, and is so even at the 
 present time. There are in Giotto instances of pathos and 
 expression, which would do honour to any period. Thus 
 the greater part of the merit belongs to the Florentines, but 
 not the whole. Giotto died in 1336, when painters had in- 
 creased immensely. In 1290, the first society of artists in 
 Venice was established, under the protection of St. Luke. 
 They were not academies, but associations of artists, com- 
 posed of engravers, painters, sculptors, and orefici. Their 
 object was to advance design in all arts ; and had they 
 always continued to act on this honest and simple principle, 
 we should not now have had to lament in Europe a race 
 who are synonymous with every thing weak, mannered, and 
 absurd in art. 
 
 The next distinguished artist was Buffalmaco. Although 
 totally independent of Giotto, he was also intimate with 
 Boccaccio. He was very capricious, and worked only when 
 he liked, yet he was inferior to no one. He painted the 
 Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Creation of the 
 World in the Campo Santo ; in fact, the Campo Santo seems 
 to have been a receptacle for all the distinguished geniuses 
 as they appeared in that age. In it there are things as fine 
 in conception as were ever imagined ; and the foundation of 
 some of Raffaelle’s best compositions in the Vatican may be 
 there found. Vasari’s life of Buffalmaco is exceedingly en- 
 tertaining, as indeed all his lives are. 
 
 The two Orcagnas, Andrea and Bernardo, were the next 
 
136 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 artists of this early school. Andrea, painted the Judgment 
 and the Inferno, in the Campo Santo. He was full of in- 
 vention, but not equal to the Giotto school, though he first 
 gave evidence of perspective. Lanzi thinks that the art did 
 not advance so quickly after Giotto’s death as it ought to 
 have done. Taddeo Gaddi, his best pupil, was to him 
 what Julio Romano was to RafFaelle. Vasari, who saw his 
 pictures in good condition, says, that he excelled his master 
 in fleshiness and colour. Agnolo Gaddi the son of Taddeo, 
 was a humble imitator of Giotto and his father, and had as 
 his pupil Ceronino Cininni, whose treatise on the mechanical 
 preparations of the art is very valuable. Fortunate would 
 it have been had the treatises of Apelles and Euphranor 
 also reached us. 
 
 Pisa now began to decline, and the Florentines took pos- 
 session of that city in 1406. Hated and detested by their 
 conquerors, the spirit of the citizens sunk into the greatest 
 depression ; the artists left the city, and the school entirely 
 decayed. The Florentines now rose in the ascendant. 
 The Medici began to appear. Cosimo, the father of his 
 country and the protector of genius, gave fresh energy to 
 art, science, and public affairs. Lorenzo followed, and their 
 house became the refuge and resort of all who were cele- 
 brated in painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, and 
 philosophy. Massaccio, the two Piselli, the two Lippi, 
 Binozzo, Sandro, and Ghirlandaio, received from the Me- 
 dici protection and employment. The pictures of the time 
 have perpetual portraits of the Medici. The citizens be- 
 came animated with the same spirit ; frescoes covered the 
 churches, and smaller works filled the houses. Up sprung, 
 too, that host of painters, marble-cutters, bronze-casters, 
 and chasers, by which the principles of design passed from 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 137 
 
 Pisa to Florence ; and out blazed before the world Dona- 
 tello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti. The most exquisite produc- 
 tions of sculpture, marble, and bronze followed. The youth 
 became inoculated ; sound design became the first necessity 
 of manufacture ; and though the finest works of Italy at this 
 or any period cannot be compared to the finest works of 
 Greece, yet a good style of design was established, but un- 
 equal to those refined forms of beauty, so palpable in the merest 
 fragments of the works of the school of Phidias, which have 
 all the look of life without any of its vulgarities, all the es- 
 sential details, without a single superfluous one. This can- 
 not be said of the naked figures of the period in question, or 
 of any period of Italian art, not even of the art of Michel 
 Angelo and RafFaelle. There was a want which Greek forms 
 only supplied ; there was an absence of refinement, and a 
 want of something which the Greeks possessed. Michel An- 
 gelo and RafFaelle were educated without system. There 
 was no school in Italy like the schools of Sicyon and Rhodes, 
 Athens, and Corinth, where all the hidden secrets of perfect 
 form were taught, that is, the secret of beauty. Michel An- 
 gelo and RafFaelle owed their greatness to their own genius ; 
 and their art died with them. There has been nothing in 
 the world like the art ofPhidias, except the poetry of Shakes- 
 peare. The intellectual powers and perceptive senses of 
 the Greeks must have been several degrees more refined 
 than those of all preceding or subsequent nations. 
 
 The followers of Giotto had advanced the art from infancy 
 in colour, composition, and expression ; but in perspective, 
 and light and shadow, they left it as they found it. Uccello 
 had given symptoms of perspective, and Massolino da Pani- 
 cale of light and shadow, until the appearance of Masso di 
 S. Giovanni, a youth so immersed in study, so utterly ab- 
 
138 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 sorbed in bis divine art, that he neglected dress, health, food, 
 sleep, and seemed only to be conscious of life when he touch- 
 ed a pencil. For this entire neglect of the humanities and 
 comforts of life, the Italians, whose satirical turn is ever ap- 
 parent, added accio to Masso, ( accio affixed to any word ex- 
 citing associations of dirt or * ugliness,) so that Massamo 
 meant a dirty and neglectful man. Neglectful as he was, 
 however, he was the immediate precursor of Raffaelle ; and 
 all the great subsequent painters studied him. Raffaelle bor- 
 rowed frpm him Paul in Elymas, the Adam and the Eve in 
 the Loggia, and other entire figures. Like Apollodorus, he 
 opened the doors ; and Raffaelle having passed through, 
 never forgot his obligations. Ghiberti and Donatello form- 
 ed his style ; from Brunaleschi he learnt proportion ; and 
 though the finest antiques were not known in his time, he 
 improved him self by studying such as were in existence. The 
 airs of his heads are Haffaellesque , says Mengs ; yet, would 
 it not be more just to say, that Raffaelle’s heads are Mas - 
 saciesque ? Raffaelle died the favourite of a court, loved, 
 lamented, and in competence. Massaccio so excited the 
 envy of his inferiors, that it is suspected he w T as poisoned 
 at the age of twenty-eight, before he had fairly taken his 
 ground. Surely, then, when Massaccio is praised for what 
 must have been his own, it is not quite fair to term his ex- 
 cellence, that of a man who came after him, and perhaps 
 owed it to him. His works are at S. Ambrogio, and del 
 Carmine in Florence, and St. Catherine in Rome. His heads 
 are full of character, his drapery is beautifully composed, and 
 his composition is unaffected, but his knowledge of the naked 
 form is feeble and vulgar. Some of the heads of del Car- 
 mine are full of character like Holbein, with the same look 
 of rigidity in expression ; but he was a true genius, bene- 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 139 
 
 firing by his predecessors, going beyond them, and enabling 
 those who studied him to carry the art to the highest point 
 it ever reached in Italy. Pietro Perrugino, Leonardo, Raf- 
 faelle, and Michel Angelo, all studied and all were benefit- 
 ed by him. In the Palazzo Pitti there is a portrait of a 
 young man who looks alive. 
 
 After several names of great merit, w^e reach one who ad- 
 vanced tow r ards the great era ; we mean Domenicho Ghir- 
 landaio, the master of Michel Angelo, a circumstance which 
 alone is a passport to immortality. Fuseli says, that he w T as 
 the first Florentine who added truth to composition by truth 
 of perspective. The addition of gold fringes in drapery may 
 be dated from him ; though his historical figures are little 
 more than portraits well-selected. The last important name 
 of the first epoch of Italian art was that of Luca Signorelli, 
 who had glimpses of real grandeur. His dome at Orvieto, 
 where he painted the Last Judgment, has bold fore-shorten- 
 ing, with absurdities of an earlier date mixed up in it ; but 
 Michel Angelo adopted many of his ideas, as w T ell as Dante’s; 
 and certainly the absurd assertion that he “disdained to look 
 abroad for foreign help,” 1 is successfully refuted by this fact. 
 
 One can see how gradually art sunk after its decay into 
 Gothicism ; how gradually it advanced again to nature and 
 common sense, and from common sense to elevation. Dur- 
 ing this first period the approaches to ideal beauty, imperfect 
 as it was in Italian art, were gradual, and would have been 
 longer in coming had not the discovery of the Apollo, and 
 other ancient w T orks, opened the eyes of all the great men 
 living, and a spring taken place from Perrugino, Ghirlandaio, 
 and the Bellinis, which was soon visible in the works of Raft 
 
 1 Reynold’s note. 
 
140 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 faelle and Michel Angelo. Leonardo seems not to have been 
 smitten by the ancients to the same degree as the other two 
 were. There is less obligation to any nation in him ; 
 and unquestionably few as are left of the effusions of his 
 genius, they are more original than the Vatican or Sistine 
 Chapel. What was there in the world to put us in mind of 
 the Standard struggle or Last Supper of Da Vinci ? 
 
 But before proceeding, it may be as well to allude to the 
 question of oil painting. It was long a supposition that Van 
 Eyk discovered it, and that it was not known before ; where- 
 as, it was used in England in 1230, long before the time of 
 Van Eyk. Cennino Cennini wrote % treatise on the techni- 
 cal practice of the Italian painters ; he was a pupil of Ag- 
 nolo Gaddi, who was a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, who was a 
 pupil of Giotto, who was a pupil of Cimabue, who was a pupil 
 of the Greeks. There can be no question that from the 
 mixture of oil with punic wax 1 as a varnish, the use of oil 
 was known to the ancient Greeks, and that it was carried 
 on to the tenth century, when the monk Theophilus 2 wrote 
 his treatise. He positively describes how to mix the colour 
 with oil instead of water, and how to boil the oil ; and then 
 we can prove its existence by actual documents in the rolls 
 of the Exchequer in England (1239); and by the 23d of 
 Henry III., wherein the king issues an order to “ our trea- 
 surer Odo the goldsmith and his son, to be paid 117 shill- 
 ings for oil, varnish, and colors bought, and for pictures 
 made in the chamber of our Queen at Westminster,” 3 nearly 
 
 1 Pliny, lib- xxxv. Cera punica cum oleo liquefacta. 
 
 2 Lib. i. c. 18. Accipe semen lini et exsicca illud in sartagine 
 super ignem sine aqua, &c. Again, “ cum hoc oleo tere minium, 
 super lapidem and again, “accipe colores quos impone volvens, 
 texens eos diligenter cum oleo lini.” (De omni Scientia Artis Pingendi.J 
 
 3 Rot. Claus. 23d Henry III. Walpole’s Works , vol. iii. p. 16. 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 141 
 
 two hundred years before Van Eyk. There can be no 
 doubt that oil painting has never been unknown, even to 
 the Egyptians ; it has been forgotten and revived, but none 
 of the periods of revivals are entitled to the honour of dis- 
 covery. “ Chaque nation a ses avantages, et ses desavan- 
 tages,” said a Frenchman to us, whilst shrugging his shoul- 
 ders as a spout of water from a roof drenched him to the 
 skin in Paris ; and “ Ogni nazione ha le sue virtu, ha i suoi 
 vizi,” says Lanzi. Every nation which confesses its vices, 
 is sure to have justice done to its virtues. There is no Ital- 
 ian school, however good, which has not its errors, and none 
 which has not its excellencies as well as its mistakes. 
 
 Florence was distinguished for fresco more than for oil 
 painting. The Florentine style of design, in its best days, 
 was always peculiar ; the figures were long in proportion, 
 their feet were small, and so were their knees ; there was 
 always a look, in Florentine design, as if the muscles of the 
 body were suffering from a temporary knotted cramp ; they 
 were, in design, too circular, too elliptical, or too angular, 
 and never seemed to have hit the exact medium between 
 all three, like Phidias. Their colour was not rich, like the 
 Venetians ; their draperies clung too closely to the limb as 
 if they were wet ; they made an ostentatious display of the 
 limb underneath ; in fact their system degenerated into 
 manner, and beauty seems not to have been a primary ob- 
 ject in the Florentine school, any more than in that of their 
 ancestors the Etruscans. At Fountainbleau, though the 
 designs of Primaticcio were full of talent, yet they gave a 
 very good idea of the excess of the Florentine manner . 1 
 The two great luminaries of Florence were Da Vinci and 
 
 1 In 1814, the writer saw the remains. There was a naked youth over 
 one of the gateways, which had all the peculiarities of this school. 
 
 8 
 
142 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Michel Angelo. Da Vinci was less cf a mannerist than the 
 other great man. He was, in fact, the link between the 
 meagerness of the first period of design, and the vulgar 
 swing of the second. 
 
 Leonardo was born in 1452. He was a natural son, and 
 had all the eccentricity, sloth and fire, weakness and energy, 
 idleness and diligence of that class. A poet, a musician, a 
 mathematician, an hydraulist, a mechanic, a modeller, and 
 a painter; he excelled in all. Keen, eager, minute, search- 
 ing and indefatigable, handsome in face, beautiful in per- 
 son, tall in figure, athletic and skilled in manly exercises, a 
 graceful dancer, a splendid horseman, and an harmonious 
 singer ; he equally delighted the people, infatuated the 
 women, and bewitched the sovereign. And yet with all 
 this vast power, the gift of his Creator, he was so deficient 
 in concentration of mind, that he seemed to have no power 
 of collecting its rays sufficiently long to make discoveries 
 in any thing. He was the scholar of Verocchio, by whom 
 he was infected with a lazy love of design in preference to 
 the vigorous energy of using the brush. He passionately 
 loved geometry, horses, and soldiers ; and in his horses he 
 never left nature like Raffaelle, Julio Romano, or Michel 
 Angelo, but gave them their natural characteristics of fleshy 
 nostrils and projecting eyes. 
 
 His two greatest works are his Last Supper, and his Rat- 
 tle of the Standard. The beautiful humility of Christ, the 
 tender amiability of St. John, the powerful expressions of all 
 the apostles waving to and fro in their attitudes, as if disturb- 
 ed in their feelings, by the remark of Christ, that “ one of 
 them should betray him,” prove the extent of his genius, and 
 the depth of his perceptions. But even here, the bane of 
 his existence, that disposition to experiment, has ruined the 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 143 
 
 work, more from the consequences of his own preparations, 
 than either time or damp. Such men are never regarded 
 as steady lights by posterity ; painting was only a portion 
 of his occupations, and not the end of his life. One quarter 
 of the lives of such men is spent in experiments ; another 
 quarter in putting them in practice ; a third in lamenting 
 their failure ; and the last amidst the bitterest remorse, de- 
 voting themselves to their real pursuit, to satisfy the crav- 
 ings of conscience and the reproach of the world. What has 
 Leonardo left us in all his various pursuits to compensate us 
 for the loss which accrued to painting ? Geometry was as 
 much a caprice of his extraordinary mind, as any other 
 science. What has he left us in poetry, which poets could 
 look up to ? What in mechanics, that Watt could have 
 founded on ? What in music, that would have benefitted 
 Mozart ? What in hydraulics, that would improve our 
 shares in canals ? The genius that composed such works 
 as the Standard and Last Supper, need not to have shrunk 
 from competition with Michel Angelo, young as he was. 
 There is no doubt the world is always delighted to pull 
 down an established artist by pushing up a younger rival 
 in his face ; but if you become irritable, and desert yOur 
 country from disgust, men only laugh ; whereas the sound 
 principle is, Laugh at the world, stay in your country, and 
 work harder than ever. 
 
 The fact is, that such men as Leonardo are great geniuses, 
 but not the greatest. The evidence of superior genius is 
 the power of intellectual concentration. Such powers had 
 Newton, Milton, Bacon, Locke, Watt, Michel Angelo, Na- 
 poleon, RafFaelle, Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, and our own 
 Reynolds. Such men only are examples, and not beacons ; 
 such men only are blessings to their species. As a sped- 
 
144 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 men of his extraordinary caprice of character, his want of 
 perseverance, and his notions of the most elaborate finish 
 were at least equal ; he took four years in painting one face, 
 and then said it was not done. His children are exquisite ; 
 but his women have an air of modesty to conceal meritrici- 
 ousness, and his oil-works are far from models of excell- 
 ence, the over-wrought finish being hard. There is always 
 in his expressions an air as if they were set in enamel, and 
 could not relax. The picture, in our national gallery, of 
 Christ and the Doctors, is a celebrated work ; but why 
 should Christ, who disputed with the doctors at twelve years 
 of age, be larger in person and head than the doctors who 
 are sixty? And why should Christ be like a woman in 
 men’s clothes, and look out of the picture, and talk with his 
 fingers to the spectators, instead of being, as he w r as, a fine 
 boy of twelve years old, handsome, intellectual and angelic ? 
 We should like to have heard Leonardo’s reasons, if he had 
 any, for such an apparent absurdity. 
 
 In design, and tempera or fresco-painting, Da Vinci was 
 great ; but in oil pictures he is false in taste, petty in exe- 
 cution, and unskilful in backgrounds. By his depth of 
 light and shade, and also of colour, which gave an impulse 
 to all Italian art, he had a sense of beauty which greater 
 steadiness might have brought out to perfection. But when 
 a man flies off from painting to make a lion, which will walk 
 by machinery, to meet the king of France who approached 
 Milan, to stand upon his hind legs without human help, to 
 open his own belly, and show the king of France his arms inside 
 it, what could be expected from his talents, great as they w ere ? 
 Nowhere does his character show itself more conspicuously 
 than in his treatise on painting ; in fact it is not a treatise, 
 but a collection of separate disjointed thoughts, like the re- 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 145 
 
 cipes of a cookery book. It is very easy to put down your 
 thoughts as they occur without arrangement ; but the dif- 
 ficulty is, to collect them for the illustration of a principle 
 like Fuseli or Reynolds. Every man can put down sepa- 
 rate thoughts, but every man has not the power so to ar- 
 range them as to throw light upon an art. Leonardo dis- 
 sected and drew finely ; but there was a meagre common- 
 model style in his figures, a want of perfect construction, as 
 if men had never worn clothes. On the whole, this illus- 
 trious man cannot be referred to as the head of an epoch. 
 He was a component part of it, but not like Michel An- 
 gelo or Raffaelle the great engineer. What he did in paint- 
 ing made one lament that he had not done more. “ An ar- 
 tist,” says Reynolds in his letter to Barry, “ should bring his 
 mind to bear on painting, from the moment he rises till he 
 goes to bed ; and if his mind be calm and undisturbed by 
 other objects, he will find it quite enough to fill up life, if 
 it was longer than it is.” 
 
 No man could be more opposite to Leonardo, than his 
 great successor Michel Angelo, patient, laborious, virtuous 
 and indefatigable, painter, architect and sculptor ; he left a 
 work in each art that advanced the rank of his country. To 
 turn to such a character, is a relief and a blessing. In him 
 the aspiring youth contemplates the result of conduct totally 
 the reverse of that we have been considering. Solitary, 
 and highly gifted, despising the subterfuges of society, he 
 lived alone ; and in addition to his genius he was a great 
 moral being. Brought up by the liberality of Lorenzo de 
 Medici, admitted freely at his table with the illustrious men 
 of the day, Michel Angelo had every advantage in early edu- 
 cation. He came, too, when he was wanted ; when ancient 
 literature and ancient art were breaking through the obscu- 
 
 H 
 
146 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 rity which had overwhelmed them, and the discovery of 
 printing was scattering their beauties throughout Europe. 
 Men’s minds were roused up with wonder and delight at 
 every fresh discovery. Painting, architecture, poetry, and 
 science were hailed with a gusto which nothing can account 
 for but the misery of the ages that had passed. 
 
 Michel Angelo, after his day’s study in the gardens which 
 Lorenzo had opened for the youth of Florence, retired to 
 the coins, cameos, and fragments of the palace. With his 
 acuteness, energy, and perception, it is not wonderful that 
 he soon perceived the inferiority of the forms of his master, 
 in comparison with the full beauty of the form, the result 
 of perfect construction in the antique. He corrected with 
 his boyish hand the narrow meagreness of Ghirlandio ; and 
 announced, thus early, that self-will and vigorous decision, 
 which enabled him subsequently to accomplish whatever 
 he undertook. Here was the germ of that mighty power 
 which placed the Pantheon in the air, as he predicted and 
 realized in the dome of St. Peter’s. Here was the embryo 
 fearlessness, that brought him through the vast ceiling of 
 the Sistine Chapel in fresco, though when he began it, he 
 had never painted in fresco before. Michel Angelo was 
 one of those rare beings who are wanted when they come, 
 and have opportunities put in their way adequate to deve- 
 lope the powers with which they are gifted. Julius II. was 
 as wonderful a man as Michel Angelo ; and they mutually 
 inspired each other. What Julius willed, Michel Angelo 
 was as ready to perform ; and what the inspirations of 
 Michel Angelo’s genius suggested, the vigorous pope, whose 
 fine old venerable head a helmet would have suited better 
 than a tiara, had comprehension to value. They were both 
 fierce, both self-willed, both proud and haughty, both inde-. 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 147 
 
 pendent and ungovernable. If Julius wished what Michel 
 Angelo was in no humour to do, he would not do it ; and 
 if Michel Angelo wanted to execute, on sound principles of 
 art, what the aged pontiff did not comprehend, he would do 
 it, in spite of denunciations of banishment, or threats of 
 displeasure. They were made for each other, they under- 
 stood each other, and they were attached to each other; they 
 quarrelled, became friends, and quarrelled again. “ When 
 will the ceiling be finished ?” said Julius, as he trod on the 
 scaffolding with a stamp that made the boards tremble, af- 
 ter climbing to the top, where the great artist lay on his 
 back on a mattress, hard at woj^c, painting with vigour. 
 “ When I can,” said Michel Angelo, irritated at the inter- 
 ruption. “ When thou canst,” thundered out the pope ; 
 “ Art thou minded to be hanged ?” 
 
 This was the man for Michel Angelo. Conscious of hiS 
 age, conscious that death followed him wherever he went, 
 he began, proceeded with, and finished all he undertook, as 
 if he had not an hour to live. By his perpetual watching, he 
 hurried Michel Angelo through the ceiling of the chapel in 
 twenty months, a time by no means equal to that which ought 
 to have been devoted to it. The hurry is visible in the fierce, 
 rapid execution ; and that which was entirely owing to the 
 impetuosity of his old patron, has been attributed as a merit 
 and a principle to the great painter. Such is the infatua- 
 tion of praise when a man is really great Of this astonish- 
 ing work, it seems that enough can never be said ; though 
 language has been exhausted to do it justice. Fuseli was 
 the first who cleared up the mystery of the composition, 
 in a style that places the commentator on a level with the 
 inventor. “ It exhibits,” he says, “ the origin, the progress, 
 and the final dispensation of theocracy.” But Fuseli’s cha- 
 
148 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 racter of Michel Angelo is overdone. It is an effort to ex- 
 press the deepest feelings in the strongest language ; and 
 in all such efforts the language invariably becomes inflated 
 and turgid. 
 
 In comparing this illustrious sovereign of modern de- 
 sign with Phidias, or the Greeks generally, in the naked 
 figure, he must unquestionably yield to them the palm. Mi- 
 chel Angelo often perplexed his limbs with useless anatomy ; 
 it must not be denied, and cannot be refuted, that he did 
 not always clear the accidental from the superfluous. If 
 the principle be a sound one, namely, “ that any two parts 
 of a body bearing comparison must keep a consistency 
 throughout, similar in essence and similar in development,” 
 then is Michel Angelo grossly inconsistent ; because if the 
 spine of the ilium in front be covered fully by the muscles 
 around it, so ought the spine of the scapula behind to be 
 equally covered. If the former be, and the latter be not, 
 then the figure is inharmonious and inconsistent, and what 
 Phidias would never have tolerated. Now the figure of 
 Michel Angelo’s Christ standing with a cross, has the spine 
 of the scapula prominent and bony, and all the muscles 
 shrinking from it, the characteristics of a thin man ; whilst 
 the spine of the ilium of the same figure in front, is entirely 
 covered by the muscles around it, the marks of a muscular 
 and fleshy man. What authority had Michel Angelo in 
 nature or antiquity for such inconsistency ? These are the 
 excesses which bring dissection into contempt, and which 
 induce anatomists to doubt whether the Greeks dissected 
 or not, because they were never guilty of such absurdities, 
 and because they had too much self-control to make that 
 an end of art which was but a means of the perfection of 
 art. And yet Vasari calls it “ mirabilissima.” This figure 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 149 
 
 and the Lazarus in Piombo’s, as well as several figures in the 
 Last Judgment, are justifiable grounds for asserting he was 
 not equal to the Greeks in the naked figure ; though in the 
 conception and arrangement of a vast whole to illustrate a 
 grand principle, he approaches but does not surpass the Par- 
 thenon in its glories. In the form he must not be compared 
 to the Greeks ; gigantic as he is, he was decidedly inferior. 
 
 Michel Angelo’s line isby no means “uniformly grand;” and 
 his women may be “ moulds of generation,” but certainly not 
 of love. His infants may “ teem with the man,” but they 
 have nothing of the infant. His men may be a “ race of 
 giants,” but they are brutal in expression, fierce in action, 
 and distorted in position. It is useless in a rapid and ge- 
 neral view of art to go over ground which has been so of- 
 ten gone over before ; to talk about the prophets and si- 
 byls, after three hundred years’ enthusiasm, is worse than 
 useless. Europe knows the awful grandeur of one or two 
 of them, looking like beings to whom God has spoken, and 
 who have never since ceased meditating on the awful voice. 
 
 The style of Michel Angelo has been called the style of 
 the gods; but if majesty without pretension, humility with- 
 out feebleness, power without exertion, and an awful pre- 
 sence without vulgar assumption, be the characteristics of 
 a god, what figure of Michel Angelo’s deserves that appel- 
 lation ? Is it in the bullying defiance of Moses ? the twist- 
 ed tortures of Jonah ? the cramped agonies of the sleep- 
 ing Adam ? or the galvanized violence of the ornamental 
 figures at the tombs ? It must be admitted, that the Pen - 
 sosO'Duca is majestic and silent; but this is an exception, 
 not an habitual characteristic. “ Michel Angelo’s mind,” 
 says Reynolds, “ was so original that he disdained to look 
 abroad for foreign help.” Disdained! Why there is not a 
 
150 
 
 PAINTING, 
 
 prophet, a sibyl, or a naked figure in the whole chapel 
 where the torso cannot be traced. And what are the works 
 of both Michel Angelo and Raffaelle, but improved comple- 
 tions of all that their predecessors had done for a thousand 
 years in barbarism and obscurity ? Shakespeare’s plots are 
 all borrowed ; Lady Macbeth is not his own ; that hideous 
 expression “ know Macduff was from his mother’s womb un- 
 timely ripped,” is Hollingshed’s. But what of that ? It is 
 the new thoughts he puts into them, which give him claim 
 to the sympathy of the world. Phidias and Raffaelle have 
 one great and decided beauty in their works ; their figures, 
 whether in action or expression, always look as the uncon- 
 scious agents of an impulsion they cannot help. You are 
 never drawn aside from what they are doing by any ap- 
 pearance in them, as if they wished to make you consider 
 how very grand they were, or how very gracefully they 
 were moving. They seem impelled by something they can- 
 not controul ; their heads, hands, feet, and bodies imme- 
 diately put themselves into positions the best adapted to 
 execute the intentions wanted ; whereas often in Michel 
 Angelo, and always in his imitators, there is a conscious- 
 ness as it were in his arms and limbs, which destroys all 
 idea, as if his figures were the unconscious agents of an 
 impulsion they could not help, and which acted by means 
 of the will on the muscular system. 
 
 It is an inherent principle of life never to disturb itself 
 for grace, or for any other object either in action or repose, 
 not immediately the natural consequence of the impulsion 
 which moved the body. Style in design is a result and 
 not a cause. Whatever object is represented in painting 
 or sculpture, the intentions of God in its bodily formation 
 should be ascertained ; the means which God has bestow- 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 151 
 
 ed on it to enable it to execute its only will or gratify its 
 own instincts, should be investigated ; and then the aberra- 
 tions produced by time, accident or disease, or other causes, 
 will be clearly known, so that he who takes upon himself 
 to represent any object in painting, will be able to distin- 
 guish accident from essence, and shew the object in its es- 
 sential properties of body as God first created it. The ex- 
 ternal form in that body will then be essential , and the re- 
 sult of its completion in art will be style in design. There 
 are certain inherent principles of our common nature to 
 which all bodies must yield, viz. that compression and ex- 
 tension must have different effects, and so must repose and 
 action. If a great artist represents a figure and makes its 
 parts the same in either case, he must be ignorant of nature 
 or above its simplicity. No doubt, the conception of an 
 idea may be so grand, the beauty of a character may be 
 so angelic, the pathos of an expression may be so deep, 
 that errors or inadequacy in the mode of representation 
 may be overlooked or forgiven ; but in order to bring the 
 art to the perfection to which the Greeks brought it, 
 there must be nothing to forgive or to overlook. An idea or 
 conception being the nobler part of the art, we may, in our 
 common conviction of human frailty, overlook any inade- 
 quacy in the means of imitation ; but the very admission 
 proves there must be something to be overlooked and some- 
 thing which, we have a notion, has not been adequately re- 
 presented. 
 
 An art the modes of which to convey thoughts, being the 
 imitation essentially of natural objects, ought surely to have 
 the imitation perfect, because the imperfection of the means 
 has always detracted from the impressions of the thought. 
 Poets are not endured if their grammar is bad, or their lan- 
 
152 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 guage defective ; and why should drawing, form, colour, or 
 light, shadow, and surface, the grammar of art, be excused 
 more than the poets’ ? Because the simplest imitation is at 
 once recognised as the imitation of the prototype, why 
 should facility of imitation be any excuse for defect ? Ah, 
 but its the grand style. Yes, the grand style of Europe 
 for the last three hundred years ; but was it the grand style 
 of the Greeks ? Certainly not ; their grand style was nature 
 elevated not violated, with none of her inherent bases of 
 life altered a hair’s point, none of her essential details 
 omitted, and none of her essential principles overwhelmed 
 by useless detail. 
 
 When you see an outline like iron, that is the grand style. 
 When hands were twisted, heads distorted, one leg up, and 
 the other so far removed from the body, that you may ques- 
 tion if it will return, that is the grand, style. All this absur- 
 dity originated with Michel Angelo ; anu though he is not 
 answerable for the excesses of his admirers, there must be 
 something erroneous if every imitator has led to such ex- 
 travagance from Goltzius downwards. Michel Angelo was 
 a tremendous genius, and his effect on the art was vital ; but 
 he did not like the Greeks suffer the unalterable principles of 
 life to keep in check his anatomical knowledge. This was 
 an error, because we can imagine no beings, and no world 
 where malleable matter is not influenced by the common 
 principles of the solar system, or where any creatures com- 
 posed of bones, muscles, tendons, and skin, must not yield 
 to the laws which God instituted for their government when 
 he created them. 
 
 Thus Michel Angelo often overstepped the modesty of 
 truth, and gave a swaggering air to his figures. Every fi- 
 gure of his looks as if he was insulted and preparing to re- 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 153 
 
 turn a blow. If they sleep they seem as if they would 
 kick ; if they move when they are awake, they seem as if 
 all their muscles were cracking. We allude particularly 
 to the naked figures; Jeremiah and the Duke are exceptions, 
 but they are only exceptions. Fuseli observed that Michel 
 Angelo was the salt of art; but it would have been more just 
 to have called him the pepper, because very little indeed 
 will do for a seasoning. In poetry of sentiment the Me- 
 dici tombs w T ould perhaps have competed with Phidias ; 
 for Michel Angelo being a painter as well as Phidias, he 
 combined in his sculpture a knowledge of effect. In selec- 
 tion of subject and daring execution of hand, perhaps the 
 Sistine Chapel might equal the great works of painting 
 amongst the ancients ; but in naked representations it cannot 
 be compared to it. The Elgin marbles had not then enlight- 
 ened the world. The due subordination of all science to na- 
 ture had not then been so exquisitely seen ; the due combi- 
 nation of life without meanness, and of abstraction without 
 losing sight of life, were not so apparent in the great works of 
 ancient art which were found before this period. Had Michel 
 Angelo seen the Theseus and Ilyssus, Jupiter’s breast and 
 horse’s head, he would have felt the difference between the 
 muscular swing of a blacksmith, and a hero naturally born 
 powerful, without his muscles being distorted by manual 
 labour; and that a hero might be elevated and yet simple, 
 fleshy without fatness, and muscular without being skinny. 
 Michel Angelo has been called the Deity of design ; but he 
 was rather the Devil. One can imagine the consternation 
 of Phidias and his pupils, if suddenly at Athens the galva- 
 nized figures of the tombs had been let down through the 
 roof, whilst they were preparing the Olympian Jupiter, with 
 his quiet, solemn, steady, thinking, peaceful, awful look. 
 
154 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Reynolds says be prepared the way for the sweeping out- 
 line of Rubens ; but how many thousands has he ruined ? 
 What is the excellence of the Last Judgment ? Is there any 
 evidence of power in arranging a whole, like Rubens, Ti- 
 tian, or Tintoretto ? Is there any application of any prin- 
 ciple of our nature by the due combination of variety and 
 repose ? Is it not a mass of separate groups, vulgar in de- 
 sign, academic in action, and demoniac in expression ? Is 
 the Christ worthy of Goltzius ? Surely it would have dis- 
 graced him, and then what devils ! Are these the fallen 
 angels of heaven ? they are the legitimate offspring of hell. 
 Are these the beings whose glory was obscured, not extin- 
 guished ? whose majestic forms existed, though in ruin ? 
 whose beauty was only disturbed by passions, not destroy- 
 ed ? who were the same grand, heroic, terrific beings as 
 ever, but scathed by lightning, singed by fire, dingy from 
 darkness, lacerated by thunder, their splendour sparkling 
 through the horrid obscurity, in which they meditated re- 
 venge ? To give them mouths like wolves, ears like asses, 
 noses like pug-dogs, and tails like monkeys, with feet clo- 
 ven and misshapen, was not to represent a fallen angel, but 
 a deformed monster. Though evil, they were beautiful. 
 
 * c Their forms had not yet lost 
 
 All their original brightness.” 
 
 “ What matter where, if still I be the same ?” says Satan. 
 Could such a sentiment have ever been uttered by the wretch 
 who is dragging a figure down to the bottomless pit, in a 
 way delicacy forbids one even to think of, much more to 
 write or to paint ? Michel Angelo’s demons would not only 
 torture the damned, but feed upon their bodies. 
 
 It is clear, however, that there was a time when he was 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 155 
 
 not so exaggerated. The holy Family, in sculpture, brought 
 by Sir George Beaumont from Italy, is playful, natural, sim- 
 ple, and beautiful ; it is in fact a divine work. Perhaps the 
 violence of Julius in hurrying him through the Sistine Cha- 
 pel, and the necessity of painting with tremendous exagge- 
 ration, on so large a space, got his hand into a fierce power 
 that it never lost. Painting on grand ceilings is like talk- 
 ing in large theatres. He never entirely finished any thing ; 
 he left no grand pupils, like RafFaelle ; he assisted the hum- 
 ble, but never instructed the gifted. The figure of Laza- 
 rus in our national picture, especially the hand and thumb 
 that press the shoulder of the attendant on the left side, is 
 certainly by him ; and if it be compared to the timid paint- 
 ing of the Christ, the spectator will be convinced of it. In 
 fine, Michel Angelo was a great genius ; but let the students 
 of Europe be assured that his style has been grossly over- 
 rated ; let them banish his works from their eyes, and sub- 
 stitute the Theseus and Ilyssus, and the real grand natural 
 style of Phidias will soon exclude the Satanic Etruscan, and 
 violent anatomical distortions of Michel Angelo. He may 
 be and was a giant in art ; but Ralfaelle was an angel, and 
 Phidias a god. 
 
 The next Florentine of power was the monk Bartolomeo. 
 He studied under Rosselli, and Leonardo aroused and ex- 
 cited him ; he was grand in colour, light and shadow, and 
 execution, surface, and character. In the Louvre there were 
 works worthy of any hand, any competitor, or any genius. He 
 had the honour of advancing RafFaelle ; he invented the teg 
 figure, and made the proper use of it ; he never put drapery 
 on it till he had drawn the naked figure first, so that the 
 naked parts affected the forms of his folds ; he had great 
 depth, grandeur, and a certain wildness of air ; he drew 
 
156 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 finely, and his tones were solemn and elevated. Wilkie 
 speaks with the highest enthusiasm of his Assumption of the 
 Virgin. It is impossible not to feel the deepest interest in 
 Bartolomeo, and not to be astonished that he did not found 
 a school, and head an epoch. Such things, however, are 
 never done by the mere influence of talent ; the character 
 of the man is principally though not wholly the cause. He 
 painted a S. Sebastiano, which was so beautiful, that it be- 
 came a favourite of Italian ladies. He was ordered to adorn 
 the great hall of council at Florence, as Da Vinci and Mi- 
 chel Angelo had done before ; but as if a fatality attended 
 that hall, he died without going further than the designs. 
 This is curious. Da Vinci designed the Standard struggle ; 
 Michel Angelo the group of soldiers alarmed by the trum- 
 pet, and dressing themselves ; and now Bartolomeo began 
 his designs, and died in 1517, without completing them. 
 Bartolomeo was a great artist. His method was first to draw 
 the naked figure, then clothe it, then paint the whole pic- 
 ture in light and shade in oil, and then tone and colour, 
 guided by the tremendous depth of his first impasto painting. 
 
 Andrea Del Sarto is another name enthusiastically over- 
 rated by Vasari. He might be called Andrea senza errori ; 
 but what geniuo “ senza errori,” ever enchanted the world ? 
 Give us the vigour of Michel Angelo, with all his violence, 
 the dash of Tintoretto with all his caprice, the colour of 
 Titian with his want of drawing at first, the sweetness of 
 Corregio with his namby-pamby men, the composition of 
 Rubens with his flabby women,, the expression of Raffaelle 
 with his hardness of effect ; but spare us from that poet, 
 painter, musician, or moral character, who is so perfect that 
 he must be admired without the gusto of finding fault ; 
 above all, spare us from the Grandisons of art. Andrea was 
 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 157 
 
 one of those to whom talent is more applicable than genius ; 
 whatever excellence he attained, he would have never at- 
 tained to that degree, but for the existence of his superiors. 
 The greater part of the works attributed to him in England, 
 are copies by his pupils which he retouched. 
 
 After these great men, it would be useless to detail the 
 decay of the Florentine school ; it yielded to the circumstan- 
 ces of the time, and the misfortunes of the Medici. The 
 continual political squabbles turned men’s minds from art as 
 in ancient Greece ; but the great want of course was the 
 want of genius, which no efforts have since been able to 
 rear. Though the style of the Florentine school was not so 
 pure as that of the Roman, it led the way in a noble manner, 
 and kept side by side with it ; they benefited each other. 
 Leonardo gave an impulse to art ; and though from the cap- 
 rice of his character, he did not complete the impulse he had 
 given, and was more the cause of greatness in others, than the 
 man who established his own, yet the art is indebted to this 
 highly-gifted man, who had an effect on Georgione, Barto- 
 lomeo, Raffaelle, and Michel Angelo himself; and gratitude is 
 due to his genius. This great school was brought to utter 
 ruin by what Lanzi calls the Cortoneschi, or pupils of Cor- 
 tona, where art had degenerated into mechanism, and thought- 
 less, endless, and sprawling groups. The descendants of the 
 Medici breed had more disposition than power to patronise, 
 till Leopold reigned in 1765. The academy was renovated 
 in 1785, and once more in 1804 ; but these renovations end 
 in nothing. The great men were passed without these con- 
 ventional distinctions ; the little ones who came after, live 
 only by their embellishment. Boys are educated to draw 
 tolerably well, to colour with tolerable harmony, to invent 
 tolerably insipidly, to become intolerable painters, accom- 
 
158 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 plished academicians, to die, be buried, and decay ; and- 
 thus leave room for another race as intolerably imbecile in 
 art, as their illustrious performers before them. It is quite 
 absurd to read in Lanzi, always at the end of the epochs of 
 a school, “ Decadenza dell’ arte, efondazione dell ” academia 
 per avivvarla “ decay of art, and foundation of an academy, 
 to give it life.” But after a few galvanic twitches it stretches 
 out its feeble legs, gasps with an expiring quickness, gives 
 a trembling of its eyelids, which it opens once more, stares 
 with a fixed look, sighs deeply, and drops its jaw for ever. 
 Then come the vain efforts to restore circulation, then the de- 
 lusive assurances that it is still living; then doctors and 
 nurses dress up its helpless head with laurel, and put some 
 abracadabra on its cold breast ; but all won’t do for it’s gone 
 and there is no hope. Such have been the results of the 
 academies. Genius fled at their foundation, and left them 
 useless bodies without soul, life, or circulation. The sove- 
 reigns of Europe will at last find out that no academies 
 should go further than schools ; and till they do, the end of 
 art will be forgotten, in a vain contemptible struggle for its 
 conventional distinctions. 
 
 The three leading lights of art as schools, are the Floren- 
 tine, the Roman, and the Venetian. The Parman must in 
 spite of all the beauty of Corregio, be considered as the be- 
 ginning of corruption. The other schools, the Modenese, 
 the Cremonese, the Ferarrese, Genoese, and the Piedmon- 
 tese, are but different branches. 
 
 The glory of Italian art is Raffaelle. Had he been born 
 in Greece, and qualified by a Greek education, he would have 
 been as great in painting as Phidias was in sculpture ; but 
 the education of all the Italian artists was imperfect, and 
 they seemed to be grounding themselves, (even Raffaelle 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 159 
 
 himself,) on the meagre style of the early painters. The dis- 
 covery of ancient statues in some degree opened their eyes, 
 but they were not, like the ancients, gradually prepared for 
 such perfection, nor was RafFaelle himself ever skilled in 
 those perfect principles of beauty, as applied to the naked 
 figure, which distinguished the Greeks. Wonderful, ami- 
 able, and gentle creature as he was, the reverse of Michel 
 Angelo in every way, he proved himself decidedly the in- 
 ferior man. In all his endless inventions, a single repetition 
 of himself, even in the folds of a drapery, is not to be found ; 
 he was not like Titian, an exquisite colourist, but his colour 
 is always agreeable, though not distinguished for light and 
 shade ; and his groups are never obtrusive, though not re- 
 markabl e for aerial perspective. Every obj ect keeps its place ; 
 though no face of his can compete with the beauty of the an- 
 cients, his women always enchant ; his great power was cha- 
 racter and expression, and telling a story by human passions 
 and actions ; in these he was unrivalled in modern art, and 
 not surpassed by the ancients. His father being a painter, 
 he was bred up in the art ; and his master Perrugino, was a 
 great man in his way, though somewhat of a Goth. In style, 
 therefore, RafFaelle lost time with him ; but could he have 
 gone in early life to such a school as Sicyon, there is no 
 knowing to what a pitch of perfection he might have carried 
 the art. His latter excellence is entirely owing to his own 
 sense, based on the antique ; for most of what he learnt from 
 Perrugino he had afterwards to unlearn. He entered the 
 Vatican at twenty-five, and died at thirty-seven. What then 
 must have been his diligence, his devotion, and his genius ! 
 In any history of painting, at this time of day, to talk of the 
 subjects of the Vatican, or the Madonnas, so often copied, so 
 often engraved, so often seen, so often praised, would betres- 
 
160 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 passing on the temper of the reader. His character, as well 
 as that of his art, was the very converse of Michel Angelo. 
 Michel Angelo envied his equals, was kind to his inferiors, 
 and always insulting to his superiors ; whilst RafFaelle was 
 kind to all,- and the idol of the society in which he moved. 
 Michel Angelo associated with no men but admirers. The 
 consequence was that his life was written by his flatterers 
 Condivi and Vasari, a great portion, perhaps, delicately in- 
 sinuated by himself ; and, as might be expected, they have 
 sacrificed RafFaelle to the Dagon of their idolatry. Vasari 
 insinuated that RafFaelle was greatly indebted to Michel An- 
 gelo ; and Reynolds following Vasari and Condivi, goes far- 
 ther than either, asserting that RafFaelle owed his existence 
 % to Michel Angelo. Was there ever such gratuitous assump- 
 tion ? If it means any thing, it means that but for Michel 
 Angelo, his genius would never have been developed. Is 
 such an absurdity worthy of Reynold’s understanding ? Surely 
 not, and in fact it can be made clear that RafFaelle did not 
 owe his existence to Michel Angelo. If he owed any thing 
 to that great artist, he owed the corruption of his own pure 
 style. After the Capella Sistina was opened, RafFaelle, bit 
 like every body else by its heavy, cumbrous, vulgar, broad, 
 and circular design, immediately tried it ; but it did not suit 
 his beautiful nature any more than it would have suited the 
 elliptical beauty of the heroic forms of Greece. 
 
 What does Reynolds mean when he says, that “ RafFaelle 
 had more taste and fancy, Michel Angelo more genius and 
 imagination ?” If genius be nothing more than the ordinary 
 faculties of men carried to a greater pitch of intensity than 
 ordinary men possess them, wherein had Michel Angelo 
 more genius than RafFaelle ? Their geniuses were both 
 equal ; but the road which each took for the exercise of his 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 161 
 
 genius was different. Raffaelle excelled in expressing the 
 passions ; Michel Angelo in sublimity of character, inde- 
 pendently of all passion and emotion. Though the mate- 
 rials of Raffaelle’s art are generally borrowed, are they more 
 so than Michel Angelo’s ? Is not Michel Angelo as much 
 indebted to Luca Signorelli and the Campo Santo, for his 
 choice of subjects in the Sistine, as Raffaelle is in the Va- 
 tican ? This does not invalidate their genius ; whilst their 
 predecessors were the root, the stem, the leaves, and the 
 bud, they were the full blown flower. Michel Angelo was 
 a great genius, and so was Raffaelle ; but each owed his 
 genius to a power totally independent of the other. Their 
 geniuses were equal, their temperaments different. Raffaelle 
 was at the mercy of pleasure ; Michel Angelo disdained it : 
 Raffaelle was made for society ; Michel Angelo despised it. 
 In Raffaelle’s works there is a geniality of soul with which 
 every man’s and woman’s heart beats in sympathy ; whilst 
 we have no sympathy with the characters of Michel Angelo, 
 who overwhelms our imaginations, but never touches our 
 hearts. We are awed by his Sibyls, but we could never 
 think of loving them ; and his demons are surely unworthy 
 of the fiery solitudes of hell. How could Ariosto say of 
 him, 
 
 “ Michel, piu che raortel, 
 
 Angel divino 
 
 and then herd up Raffaelle with Sebastian and inferior men ; 
 Michel Angelo was perhaps the more moral man of the two, 
 but not the greater painter. 
 
 Vasari and Condi vi would never have been allowed to 
 publish their falsehoods, as Lanzi says, had Raffaelle been 
 living ; but where were Julio Romano, Luca Penni, and 
 
162 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Polidoro, whom Raffaelle had raised from a mason’s boy to 
 a great painter ? Where were they ? where w ere his “ dear 
 pupils ?” “ Let no man,” says Johnson, “ look for influence 
 
 beyond his grave.” Vasari asserts that Michel Angelo, in 
 flying to Florence, when he quarrelled with Pope Julius II., 
 left the keys of the Sistine Chapel, which he was then painting, 
 to Bramante, Raffaelle’s uncle, who dishonourably let in Raf- 
 faelle ; and that the latter, on seeing the grand design of the 
 prophets, changed his whole style. This absurdity w T as 
 current in Europe for two hundred and fifty years, till Lan- 
 zi, with his usual acuteness, opened the eyes of the world. 
 Would any one believe, that when Michel Angelo fled to 
 Florence, it was in 1506, years before Raffaelle ever enter- 
 ed Rome, and four or five before the chapel was ever be- 
 gun or painted ? It may be presumed that Raffaelle did 
 not surreptitiously derive any advantage from works four 
 years before they were conceived or painted ; and we con- 
 ceive that Bramante could not give Raffaelle the keys to 
 open a door which was never locked, especially as Michel 
 Angelo did not leave any keys, if ever he left them at all, 
 till four years after the time Vasari dates as the period. 
 The prophet Esaias which Vasari says shewed an alteration 
 of style in consequence of the stolen views of works which 
 were not in existence, was painted one or two years before 
 Michel Angelo touched this very chapel. So much for 
 Vasari’s sacrifice of Raffaelle to the great Dagon of his ido- 
 latry ; and so much for Reynold’s absurd and unthinking 
 assertion, that “but for Michel Angelo, Raffaelle would never 
 have existed.” Vasari’s is a delightful book, and all his 
 principles of art are sound, for they are the result of con- 
 versations with the greatest men; he was most intimate 
 with Michel Angelo, and Titian, and all the great artists 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 163 
 
 of the day, and constantly in their painting-rooms, at their 
 tables, and in their society. 
 
 In the first years of Raffaelle, his feeling was so com- 
 pletely Perrugino’s, that it was almost impossible to distin- 
 guish their works ; though there is a difference in feeling, 
 and that difference is in favour of the pupil. In the Louvre 
 were three of his early works of cabinet size. The Annun- 
 ciation was one of these ; and more grace, innocence, or 
 sweetness, were never put on canvass. Raffaelle’s pencil 
 seemed always to melt when he approached a woman or an 
 angel. What an age of genius this was, and how nearly all 
 the great men seemed to come together. Da Vinci was 
 born in 1452, Bartolemeo in 1469, Michel Angelo in 1474, 
 Titian in 1480, and Raffaelle in 1483. 
 
 In a rapid and concise history of art to detail the inferior 
 names, who gradually by little and little, conduce to the 
 ultimate expansion of genius, is impossible. A historian of 
 this description has only time for leading points, or head- 
 lands in the voyage ; he has not leisure to dive into every 
 little cape, bay, and projection, which by degrees, push the 
 mainland into the ocean. The older painters of the Roman 
 school will not add much to the interest of the art ; and a 
 fair estimation of Raffaelle and his glorious school, is much 
 more likely to benefit the student, and instruct the general 
 reader. It is not, on the whole, morally just ; but many 
 eminent men become thus swallowed up in the blaze of 
 their successors. As Shakespeare nearly deadens all feeling 
 for previous excellence, so does Raffaelle, though Shake- 
 speare, Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, and Titian were all in- 
 debted to their predecessors. 
 
 If Julius was adapted for Michel Angelo, Leo X. was 
 peculiarly so for Raffaelle ; though Mengs says that the hon- 
 
164 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ours and indulgences he received from Leo, made him lux- 
 urious and idle, and that he was not so industrious as dur- 
 ing the short reign of his first patron Julius. Yet his rapid 
 advance from the first picture he painted in the Vatican, to 
 the Heliodorus, is extraordinary ; and, as according to Va- 
 sari, he sent artists to draw for him in Greece, there is no 
 doubt that he had a sketch of the pediment of the Parthe- 
 non, before it was blown up, and that the Heliodorus is but 
 a skilful adaptation of the Ilyssus. He was so much over- 
 whelmed by employment and honours, that his latter works 
 in the Vatican were wholly placed in the hands of his pu- 
 pils, and carried on with the spirit of a manufactory. He 
 was then appointed architect to St. Peter’s at the death of 
 St. Gallo, which distracted his thoughts. Incessant appli- 
 cation, and incessant thinking of course weakened his deli- 
 cate frame, nor did the capricious and harrassing attend- 
 ances on such a court increase his strength ; added to which 
 the maddening love of women for one so highly gifted and 
 so handsome, his own devoted passion for Fornarina, and 
 the endless demands on his brain, brought him to the grave 
 at thirty-seven, absolutely borne down, like Byron, by ex- 
 citement of every description, nervous, bodily and mental. 
 This is the way with the world ; they kill a favourite by 
 kindness, and an offender by cruelty. 
 
 In some life of him an attempt was made to prove that 
 he caught cold by hurrying from his work to the palace at 
 the Pope’s order, and standing while in a profuse perspiration 
 in a draught. But that is no refutation of the previous causes ; 
 the question is, what prepared him to be killed by such a 
 cause ? Incessant work and dissipation ; no painter can do 
 both. Of course princes must be obeyed at any expense ; 
 they seem to feel little for their dependants, as if in revenge 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 165 
 
 for Joeing themselves deprived of so many enjoyments by 
 ceremony and etiquette. Napoleon used to take great de- 
 light in never suffering old German maids of honour with 
 fifty quarters in their arms to sit in his presence. 
 
 His last work, according toMengs, was his Transfiguration 
 in oil, a w T ork deficient in masterly execution, and having a 
 aboured look of smoothness. In drapery, in character, and 
 in expression it was fine ; but in the Louvre it looked small. 
 By the side of Corregio, it seemed hard ; by that of Titian, 
 raw ; by that of Tintoretto, tame ; and the Christ’s head was 
 not equal to Corregio’s at the National Gallery. It was not 
 an example to hold forth to a young man as faultless. The 
 Cartoons at Hampton are finer in point of execution alone ; 
 they are his finest works for all the requisites of art. He was 
 not restrained by designing for tapestry ; his genius was put 
 forth with a Venetian power of brush ; and there are heads 
 equal to any, especially the frightened woman’s head in the 
 Ananias, in these wonderful works. 
 
 In beauty he was far inferior to the Greeks ; in form he 
 could not approach them ; in composition he was perfect ; 
 in expression, deep ; and in telling a story, without a ri- 
 val. Taking into consideration all the great men in modern 
 art, this young man, not highly educated like Rubens, must 
 be placed on the throne, till one arises who shall have what 
 he had not, in addition to his own perfections ; and that 
 young man will probably arise in Britain. He was an ex- 
 traordinary creature ; modest, timid, and amiable ; affec- 
 tionate to his equals, and gentle to the highly-born, his 
 premature death gave a shock to Rome, which those only 
 can estimate, who know the depth of Italian sensibilities. 
 But did he die too young ? Not at all. He might have 
 decayed, or he might have become more luxurious and more 
 
166 PAINTING. 
 
 neglectful. No man dies too young who dies with all the 
 sympathies of the world unexhausted about him. The fu- 
 ror Raphaelis is the best species of fury that can seize a 
 young student. He has no manner, no affection, no vice, 
 no grand style ; all is simple, natural, and unaffected. His 
 women are creatures of gentleness and love, though none 
 are perfectly handsome. Perhaps he was more adapted 
 for the characteristic heads of apostles than the naked forms 
 of Greece ; in fact he was a great Christian painter, and seem- 
 ed born to extend the influence of Christianity by his art. 
 
 His father being a painter, he began early of course, and 
 at sixteen, had painted a picture at Gastello, the composition 
 of which was in advance of the age. At seventeen he 
 painted another of the Virgin and child. In the Sacristy, at 
 Sienna, he assisted Pinturichio with designs ; in 1504, he 
 went to Florence, where Michel Angelo and Da Vinci were 
 making a great noise with their cartoons for the hall ; he stu- 
 died both, and improved his perspective and colour, in con- 
 nexion with Bartolomeo. When Bramante, his uncle, who 
 was architect to the Pope, advised his Holiness to send for 
 Raffaelle, the pope consented ; and in April 1508, Raffaelle 
 entered Rome, and was admitted into the Vatican. 
 
 From the continual occupations of Raffaelle in his art 
 from boyhood upwards, he could not have had a classical 
 education to any great extent. He knew a little Latin, as 
 all Catholics did ; but he was intimate with Bembo, Castig- 
 lione, Ariosto, and Aretino ; and these men must have 
 helped him in historical or philosophical knowledge, or mo- 
 ral allegory, for the completion of his great w^orks. Raffaelle 
 left a noble school ; and as soon as grief for the loss of their 
 master had subsided, his pupils set about completing the 
 works he left unfinished. The battle of Constantine was 
 
 
 t 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 167 
 
 done by Julio Romano and Perino del Vaga. As Raffaelle 
 lay in state, the Transfiguration was placed at the head of 
 his coffin. 
 
 Julio Romano was the most eminent of his pupils. With 
 vast poetry of mind, he did things in a style of execution, 
 which renders him the purest poet in his art. His sun set- 
 ting, and moon rising over our heads, in the Palazzo del T, 
 is nowhere equalled or approached. Though he put forth 
 his genius at Mantua, he was a Roman in practice, and to 
 Raffaelle owed the elements of his art. His colour was crude 
 and his execution harsh ; yet no one can fail to see in his 
 works, the real poetry of painting. Polidoro was another 
 great man of the same school. He was originally a mason’s 
 boy, and used to prepare the walls for fresco ; but he got 
 interested in seeing the young men at work, tried to draw 
 himself, and Raffaelle having assisted him, he became an 
 eminent painter. 
 
 It is interesting to reflect on the affection with which 
 Raffaelle was surrounded. He never went to court without 
 being attended by fifty gallant artists. Little must he have 
 made others feel his superiority; and for once a man of genius 
 seems to have made envy smile. Though there is an in- 
 stinct in the world, the moment a man of genius appears, yet 
 it depends upon himself whether he is received as a blessing 
 or an annoyance. Mankind will assault the man who at- 
 tempts to command by superiority, instead of leading by cour- 
 tesy ; but they will hail him let his superiority be what it 
 may, who seems willing to help his inferiors with kindness, 
 or supply their want of knowledge, as if they were doing him 
 a favour to listen. The whole of this is based on goodness 
 of heart, tender sympathies, and a consciousness without the 
 appearance of conceit. 
 
168 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 The glory seems to have gone from the Eternal City after 
 Raffaelle’s death. In 1527, Rome was stormed and taken 
 by foreign soldiers. The savages bivouacked in the Vatican, 
 and injured the frescoes by their smoking and fires. Se- 
 bastian del Piombo attempted to repair them after the sol- 
 diers were;gone ; and Titian, when in Rome, notknowing Se- 
 bastian, actually asked him who had been spoiling those beau- 
 tiful heads ? The art went on sinking rapidly till 1595. Raf- 
 faelle had been dead seventy-five years ; Giorgione, eighty- 
 four ; Corregio, sixty ; Michel Angelo, thirty ; and Titian, 
 nineteen. When the usual apprehensions of getting on a 
 lee-shore seized the patrons and the artists, and the usual 
 signal of distress was hoisted, Muziano, a pupil of Titian, 
 founded St. Luke’s Academy in order to raise a new batch 
 of Raffaelles and Corregios, and save the noble vessel. The 
 only man who since dazzled for a moment, was Michel An- 
 gelo Caravaggio. He had great and original talent, though 
 founded on common nature, without any abstract notion of 
 form, any conception of beauty of women, or any refinement in 
 anything. With a sledge-hammer for a pencil, he seemed 
 resolved to batter down all opposition ; and by fierce ex- 
 tremes of light and shade, bearded men, dead Christs, and 
 Transteverine beggars for apostles, he founded a school, got 
 a character, and raised a name, which cannot be forgotten 
 in the art of Europe. 
 
 Lanzi seems to class in the Roman school every body 
 who practised there for the last three hundred years, but 
 that is not fair. On this principle, all the Flemings, Dutch, 
 Germans, Russians, Spaniards, and English, may be of the 
 school, because they studied there ; and Rubens, Vandyke, 
 Velasquez, the Caracci and their pupils, as well as our Rey- 
 nolds, were, on the same principle, of the Roman school. 
 
 8 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 169 
 
 About the seventeenth century, this eminent school, in spite 
 of the academy of St. Luke, went on declining. Birth, de- 
 struction, and reproduction seems to be the principle of every 
 thing physical, but not of moral or mental powers. Lanzi 
 attributes this decay to any cause but the right one ; namely, 
 the absence of genius , the great primary cause, and which 
 no academy can ever supply. 
 
 Cortona, Bernini, and Sacchi,were the heroes of this day; 
 and at a later period appeared Carlo Maratta. Ralfaelle be- 
 came to him a substitute for nature ; though in 1689? he gave 
 sufficient tone to art, to induce Clement XI. to employ him. 
 But here, as well as elsewhere, genius was wanting. Carlo 
 was as heavy as the lumbering folds of his own drapery ; and 
 so insipid are his large pictures, that it is a question whether 
 they did not generate in Europe a contempt for large scrip- 
 ture subjects, which has lasted ever since. However, im- 
 becility had not done spawning ; and in a faint struggle for 
 offspring against nature, out came Pompio Battone, and Ra- 
 phael Mengs. To complete the farce, academies began to 
 be founded in France and in the rest of Europe ; and Pom- 
 pio Battone, and Raphael Mengs may be looked upon as a 
 very fair sample of what academies can produce, have pro- 
 duced, and will probably produce to the end of time. Mengs 
 was every thing but a man of genius. He was a bad painter 
 and a deep critic ; and his predicting that we had not the 
 works which the ancients esteemed the most, was verified, in 
 a most astonishing manner, by the discovery of the Elgin 
 marbles. The prediction does honour to the sagacity of 
 Mengs. Thus end two great schools of form, conception, 
 expression and composition ; the Florentine and the Roman. 
 But of these the Roman was unquestionably the greater. 
 
 We now come to the Venetian, a great school of colour, 
 
 i 
 
170 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 light and shadow, impasto, and execution, completing the 
 imitation of reality ; and in summing up the character of 
 Italian and Greek art, we shall see that these components of 
 imitation, each of which characterised an Italian school, were 
 combined in all schools, as a necessary requisite in the per- 
 fection of Grecian imitation. 
 
 The most ancient work of Venetian art known, is in Ve- 
 rona, in the cellar of a monastery, (Santi Nazario a Celso). It 
 is inaccessible to the public, but can be seen in the wood- 
 cuts of Dionisi. In the part which formed the oratorio of the 
 faithful, has been painted the mystery of redemption ; it is a 
 work of 1070, when the Doge Silvo invited Grecian mosaic 
 painters to adorn St. Mark ; men who though rude in art, 
 could nevertheless paint. Thus commenced the art in Ve- 
 nice, whither, after Constantinople was taken by the V enetians 
 in 1204, Greek painters and sculptors, as well as orefici, flock- 
 ed in crowds. 
 
 In the thirteenth century, painters had increased so much, 
 that a company was formed, like the English constituent 
 body to which Hogarth belonged, and laws and constitutions 
 were made. Things were proceeding in this train when 
 Giotto, returning from Avignon, painted at Verona and Pa- 
 dua. Nothing of his, however, is left in Verona ; but at Padua 
 the remains of his works are still quite fresh in fresco, and 
 full of grace and vigour. Such was the early beginning of 
 this great school, in which it will be seen that Greeks, as 
 usual, had the firsthand. Various names sprung up in this 
 period, but the Bellinis are the most important. One of 
 them was engaged by Mahommed II, and by his talents up- 
 held the honour of the Venetian name ; another was the 
 master of Titian and Giorgione, two of the greatest names, 
 of the Venetian school. 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 171 
 
 Giorgione was a great genius ; and his execution was en- 
 tirely above vulgar prejudices. He saw and seized the lead- 
 ing points of leading objects, and hit them with a touch and 
 an impasto, of which he had no previous example even in 
 Leonardo. His breadth and tone were beautiful ; and he 
 first opened the eyes of Titian to the superior value of breadth 
 and touch, as compared with over- wrought labour and smooth 
 finish. Giorgione died in the vigour of his life- to the great loss 
 of the art ; for there is no knowing how much farther he would 
 have carried hisprinciples, or how successfully he would have 
 disputed the crown with Titian. Lord Carlisle has a small pic- 
 ture by this eminent man, of a youth buckling on the armour 
 of a knight, which is exquisite in tone, brilliancy, depth, and 
 feeling ; and had he not been cut off by the plague, there 
 is no knowing how far he might have gone. He certainly 
 first opened Titian’s eyes to the value of breadth, and that 
 comprehension of mind required to seize the leading cha- 
 racteristics of objects by a touch, leaving the atmosphere 
 to finish at a given distance. After his death, Titian was 
 without a rival. This great painterbegan, of course, like all 
 Venetians, to paint directly from nature, without having pre- 
 viously dissected or drawn ; nor was he sensible of this error 
 of the Venetian school, till coming to Rome and seeing the 
 works of Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, and the antique, he, like 
 a great genius, set about remedying his deficiency ; and 
 the perfection of this union of form and colour is seen in his 
 greatest work, Pietro Martyre, any attempt to move which 
 from Venice, the Venetian senate decreed should be punished 
 with death. This picture occupied him eight years ; and 
 eight years were well spent in such a production. The ter- 
 rific gasping energy of the assassin, who has cut down the 
 monk ; the awful prostration of the monk, wounded, and im- 
 
172 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ploring heaven; the flight of his companion, striding away in 
 terror, with his dark mantle against a blue sky ; the tower- 
 ing and waving trees, the entrance, as it were, to a dreadful 
 forest ; the embrowned tone of the whole picture, with its 
 dark azure and evening sky, the distant mountains below, and 
 splendid glory above, contrasting with the gloomy horrors of 
 the murder ; its perfect, though not refined drawing, its su- 
 blime expression, dreadful light and shadow, and exquisite 
 colour ; all united, render this the most perfect picture in 
 Italian art. Why does not one perfect work entitle a man 
 to rank as highly as a series of imperfect works, like the 
 Capella Sistina ? The answer is, because there is greater 
 range of capacity shewn in a series of conceptions to illus- 
 trate a theory, than in the completion of one work alone, 
 although all the component parts may be perfect ; and Raf- 
 faelle, and Michel Angelo, will ever rank higher than Titian, 
 as Polygnotus will rank higher than Protogenes or Apelles. 
 Prolific thinking, is surely of more value than intensity of 
 imitation, though intensity of imitation must be added to 
 realize the idea of a perfect painter. 
 
 Titian began in the style of his master Bellini, with the 
 most minute finish ; a capital basis for future practice, if a 
 man have comprehension to know when to leave it, as Ti- 
 tian did. To shew the young artist that it is never too late 
 to improve, let him compare the Bacchus and Ariadne in 
 our National Gallery, when he could not draw finely, with 
 the Pietro Martyre when he could. In modern art, he was 
 the only painter who hit the characteristic of flesh. Every 
 great painter’s flesh is paint ; Titian’s had real circulation of 
 blood under the skin. On comparing the Ganymede, in our 
 National Gallery, fine as it came from Titian’s pencil, with the 
 Theodosius by Vandyke, wdiich is close to it, as fine a spe- 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 173 
 
 cimen of Vandyke’s fire of brush as can be seen, the heavy 
 leathern look of Vandyke’s colour excited astonishment. In 
 the flesh of Ganymede, colour, oil, brush, and canvass, were 
 all entirely forgotten ; it quivered, it moved with the action 
 of the limbs. In Vandyke, the materials of art are upper- 
 most ; you think of them, you wonder at the touch, you for- 
 get the subject, the expressions as it were scenting of the 
 painter’s room and the easel. And so you do with all the 
 Flemings, but never with Titian. Though we have fine 
 Titians in England, the Dianabeing at Lord Egerton’s, and a 
 head at the Duke of Sutherland’s ; yet it must be confessed, 
 that the Louvre possesses Titians more perfect, especially 
 the entombing of Christ. In Josephine’s collection at Mal- 
 maison, there were a Venus and Cupid, as perfect as our 
 Ganymede, and not injured by restoring , the fatal propensity 
 of the French. In Titian whenever you see the blues sober 
 and in harmony, the picture is uninjured ; whenever you see 
 them harsh and too brilliant, they have been rubbed, and 
 the last tone has been taken off. 
 
 In colour, he was never equalled ; in execution of the brush, 
 he was quite perfect; and in character and expression of por- 
 trait he was like Reynolds elevated and sublime ; but the dull- 
 ness which portrait, if perpetually practised, engenders in 
 the capacity to idealise and elevate, rendered his conception 
 of poetical characters defective. Nothing can exceed his 
 Aretino, his senators, and his popes ; nothing can exceed 
 Sir Joshua’s Lord Heathfield and Mrs. Siddons ; but no- 
 thing can be meaner than some of Titian’s attempts, like 
 Raffaelle, at high poetical expression, except some of Rey- 
 nold’s heads in the Beaufort. The nerve and beauty of the 
 colour in Diana and Acteon are so touching, that one can 
 almost fancy one hears the water ripple and the leaves wave. 
 
174 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Glazing was the great feature in his tone, as it was in that 
 of Apelles ; and there is no perfect colour without it. 
 
 The first requisite in fine colour is the ground or prepa- 
 ration spread over the canvass to receive the colours. It is 
 either of a nature to absorb the oil, or to resist the absorp- 
 tion. If it resist the absorption of the oil out of the colour 
 put on it, it is an oil-ground ; if it absorb the oil, it is a wa- 
 ter-ground. And it has long been an interesting question, 
 whether the Venetians used an oil-ground or an absorbent 
 ground ; whether, like the Greeks, they worked in tempera, 
 and varnished out, or whether they judiciously mingled 
 both oil and tempera together. One would think that Va- 
 sari, living as he did with all the great painters, could not 
 be ignorant of their various methods of practice. In 1567 
 or 1568, he called on Titian, saw him, staid with him, was in 
 his painting-room, and must have talked on art, and per- 
 haps dined or supped with him. 1 But Vasari distinctly says, 
 in a sort of recipe-introduction to his lives, (edition 1568) 
 “ that the ground on wood was gesso , plaster of Paris ; that 
 then they mixed three colours, white, yellow, and amber, 
 and spread them equally over the white ground ; and that 
 after tracing their cartoons, they painted their pictures.” A 
 more abominable ground never was mixed ; to those who 
 have an organ of colour it is an absolute emetic; and though 
 it might have been Vasari’s and the Florentines’ ground, 
 it never could have been endured by the eye of a Venetian. 
 “ This was the method,” says Vasari, 44 for pictures on 
 wood ; but when canvass became the fashion, gesso being 
 
 1 All the great painters seemed to prefer supper • In Tichozzi, 
 Titian seems to have been a sociable man, and there are extracts from 
 Titian’s and Aretino’s letters, alluding to pheasants, and presents of 
 birds for the next supper . 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 175 
 
 likely to crack in ceiling, they made a ground of flour (fa- 
 rina), white lead, and nut-oil, after the canvass had been 
 smoothed by size.” 1 
 
 Nowwhen this was published, Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo 
 Veronese were alive and all at work ; and it is but common 
 sense to conclude, that had it been false, they would have 
 contradicted it. Vasari concludes with saying, “ So are paint- 
 ed all the great works in St. Mark’s Place, Venice.” In that 
 place was the Miracle of the Slave, by Tintoretto, afterwards 
 seen by every body in the Louvre. Lanzi says, that the Vene- 
 tians preferred canvass, but that at first they painted in tem- 
 pera, and then came oil-painting, which the Venetians first 
 adopted. On the arrival of the Bacchus and Ariadne in 
 England, a little bit chipped off at the corner showed the 
 ground underneath to be of the purest white. Now, if a white 
 ground is absorbent, it sucks the oil out of the oil colours, 
 and becomes the colour of oil. Sir Humphry Davy said to 
 the author of this article in 1 823, that in process of time oils 
 become varnishes ; and it is not impossible that the white 
 ground of Titian may have been absorbent, and though it 
 had sucked out the oil in the course of three hundred years, 
 it may have recovered its original whiteness. The author’s 
 experience extends only to thirty years, and in that period 
 an absorbent ground which sucked out oil has never recovered 
 its whiteness. 
 
 But, if the Venetians painted first in tempera upon the 
 white ground, and finished in oil, the tempera intervening 
 between the last painting and the ground would preserve 
 the ground white ; and as Titian’s method of proceeding 
 was gradual and progressive in successive layers, like that 
 
 1 This is Vasari’s account, pp. 51, 52, 53, Firenze, volume i. 1568. 
 
176 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 of Protogenes, so that each layer became a help to the suc- 
 ceeding one, there is no reason to doubt that tempera might 
 have been the first impasto. In parts of the Pietro Mar- 
 tyre, there certainly was the crude look of tempera prepa- 
 ration, softened by a glaze, especially about the projecting 
 leg of the assassin. That the basis of Venetian pictures was 
 a white ground, there can be no doubt ; like the intonacos 
 of Apelles, and the plaster-grounds of the painted mummy- 
 coffins of Egypt. Tintoretto and Bassano used dark grounds 
 to save trouble ; but they are ruinous. They come through 
 the thin half-tints of the picture, and render it distinct mas- 
 ses of dark and light, like most of the Lombard school. 
 Many of the works of Paul Veronese, who painted one hun- 
 dred years before, were in perfect preservation in the Louvre? 
 whilst a number of the Lombard pictures were gone. The 
 white ground was the “ luce de dentro ” of the Italians, 
 “ the light within.” Upon this beautiful white ground they 
 placed their colours purely and crudely, and then by spread- 
 ing thin transparent tones, took down the rawness, without 
 losing the force of the tint. This was the practice of the 
 Greeks, and is also the present practice of the British school. 
 When Cicognara, the president of the Venetian academy, 
 was in England, he remarked to the author on the singular 
 fact, that the British was the only school of colour left in 
 the world, though our climate was the worst ; and such was 
 the state of Venice some years since, that an English consul 
 could get nobody to paint the king’s arms for him, and being 
 the son of a painter, he was actually obliged to paint them 
 himself. 
 
 As an example for the student, Titian is perfect. His 
 execution never attracts by itself alone, but as the vehicle 
 of the object it imitates. In colour he is never gaudy, 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 177 
 
 never black in light and shadow, never forced or affected, 
 and in drawing, latterly, grand. In composition he was not 
 so perfect nor so fertile as Raffaelle ; but in the imitation of 
 flesh, no other artist in the world, except Apelles perhaps, 
 could rival him. As a painter of portrait and landscape, no 
 one has surpassed him. He did not grace his senatorial heads 
 with the beauty of the backgrounds of Reynolds or Van- 
 dyke ; but the absence of all gaiety behind the heads, per- 
 haps added to the sublimity of their expression. It is cu- 
 rious to read in Boschini’s little work, that young Palma, 
 who had it from old Palma, a pupil of Titian, told him 
 that Titian very often finished with his thumb. Palma dis- 
 tinctly says, that he has seen Titian put on with his thumb 
 and fingers masses of colour which gave life to a picture. 
 
 In a word, neither of the great Italian schools showed 
 the sense of the ancients. The Romans omitted colour and 
 imitation from sheer accident ; the Venetians drawing and 
 form ; and Reynolds, without going into the causes of these 
 mutual deficiencies, laid it down as a principle, that colour 
 and reality were incompatible with high art ; whereas, when 
 each school found out its deficiency, each endeavoured to 
 correct its peculiar defect. 
 
 The giant of Titian’s school was Tintoretto, who gave 
 such early indications of self-will and genius, that Titian, 
 mean and jealous, turned him out of the house. Raffaelle 
 would not have done this ; he did not turn out Julio Ro- 
 mano. But Tintoretto was not to be crushed by the bad 
 passions of his envious master ; and took it very properly as 
 an evidence of his talent. And what did Titian get by his 
 paltry meanness ? Nothing but pity. Tintoretto, young a^ 
 he was, immediately formed a plan of his own, for combin- 
 ing the drawing of Michel Angelo with the colour of Titian. 
 
178 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 He devoted the day to the one, and many parts of many nights, 
 and often whole ones, to the other. In a few years, the result 
 was the Miracle of the Slave and the Crucifixion. Although 
 the execution of Tintoretto looked daring and impudent 
 by the side of the modest, senatorial dignity of Titian, yet 
 there was a grand, defined dash about it. The original 
 sketch of the Miracle of the Slave, is in the possession of 
 Rogers the poet, and is a very fine thing. Every body speaks 
 of the Crucifixion as a wonderful instance of power. But in 
 colour it is lurid and awful ; in expression, character, and 
 delicacy of feeling, discordant and offensive. His pictures 
 seem to be a mass of fore-shortenings, affected twistings, 
 dashing darks, and splashing lights, with a hundred horse- 
 power of execution ; bearded heads, Venetian armour, silks, 
 satins, angels, horses, architecture, dogs, water, and brawny- 
 armed and butcher-legged gondoliers, without pathos, pas- 
 sion, or refinement. He used to put little models in boxes, 
 and light them in different holes, for effect. Like all Ita- 
 lians, he was accustomed to model and hang up his models 
 by threads for fore-shortening. His style of form was a 
 mixture of the pulpiness of the Venetian, and the long, ana- 
 tomical, bony look of the Florentine school. He cannot be 
 depended upon for correctness of proportions, but he was 
 a grand and daring genius ; and his conduct, when oppress- 
 ed by Titian, should ever be held up as an example for the 
 aspiring youth, when trodden upon by his elders. 
 
 Whilst Tintoretto was astonishing the Venetians by his 
 daring, which made even Titian tremble, Paul Veronese, 
 the other great contemporary, was mildly pursuing his azure 
 *§nd beautiful course. Of a nature the reverse of Tintoretto, 
 and not equal to him in sublimity or terror of conception, he 
 yet gave equal evidence of being run away with by his brush. 
 
LOMBARD AND PARMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 179 
 
 Ceilings, canvass, halls, walls, and palaces, were so many 
 proofs of his power. His greatest work is at Paris. It is the 
 Marriage of Cana, a wonderful instance of executive power ; 
 but here all story, sentiment, and pathos, are buried in the 
 noise, bustle, eating, drinking, and fiddling of a Venetian 
 city feast. Paul Veronese was certainly the most corrupt 
 painter of the time. 
 
 After these great men, the art began to decay ; and Paul 
 Veronese and Tintoretto gave symptoms of a conventional 
 mode, which, when taken up by inferior men, hastened its 
 ruin. Down to the present age, with the exception of two 
 or three mannerists, no name occurs worthy of eminence or 
 selection. Cannaletti was a genius in his way. Sebastian 
 Ricci, and Marco Ricci, were much employed in England 
 to disfigure ceilings and palaces by wholesale, with gods and 
 goddesses, in subjects allegorical, poetical, mythological, and 
 nonsensical, to understand which it required pages of expla- 
 nation, and to see which a nine-feet telescope by Dolland. 
 Montague, Burlington, and Bulstrode houses, are signs of 
 the infatuation of the English nobility at that time ; an in- 
 fatuation, however, which shewed a disposition to employ 
 art as it had been employed in Italy, and if the genius had 
 been equal to the opportunity, the result would have been 
 different. 
 
 The next school of any importance is the Lombard school, 
 which comprehends the Mantuan, the Modenese, the Cre- 
 monese, and the Milanese. Andrea Montegua is the hero of 
 the Mantuan school, and Vasari says, that his master-pieces are 
 the tempera designs which we have at Hampton Court. They 
 are fine things ; Rubens used them ; and they are a mine of 
 costume, though the forms have too much the look of the mo- 
 del. Julio Romano’s great work is at Mantua, yet he must be 
 
180 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 considered as a Roman. It was, as Lanzi says, the great- 
 est effort of the last style before Leonardo da Vinci intro- 
 duced a new one, which overturned the Gothic. After 
 Julio Romano, the art decayed, and then of course came the 
 old story, “ Una accademia per av vivaria.” This academy 
 has been splendidly kept up by Austria, and, as usual, has 
 not produced a single man of great genius, in three hundred 
 years. 
 
 Contiguous to the Modenese school is the Parman ; and 
 now we come to the most unaccountable and delightful of all 
 painters, Corregio. When it had been determined to or- 
 nament the great cupola of St. John, Corregio, though then 
 a young man, was selected to paint it; and, like Raffaelle, 
 his genius expanded with the opportunity. After Raffaelle, 
 Titian, Michel Angelo, Da Vinci, and Bartolomeo, who 
 would have thought that another style, independent of either, 
 and unlike any thing else in the world, could have burst out? 
 But so it was. Of all the painters that ever lived in the world, 
 there is no accounting for Corregio. Unlike Greeks, Ro- 
 mans, and Italians, out he came into the world, in colour, 
 drawing, light and shadow, composition, expression, and form, 
 like nature, and unlike every body else, who ever studied na- 
 ture at all. Michel Angelo, Raffaelle, Titian, we can trace ; 
 we see upon whom they were grafted, when they budded and 
 burst forth. But who is Corregio ? Nobody is certain. 
 One swears he was poor, another that he was well off ; ano- 
 ther says he died in consequence of a fever which he caught 
 by carrying all his money in copper, the price of a picture ; 
 another protests it was no such thing. Meng’s account is 
 the best, and Vasari’s mostly without authority. 
 
 There is no certainty that his portrait is in existence ; in 
 fact there is as much dispute about it as there is about Shakes - 
 
LOMBARD AND PARMA N SCHOOL. 
 
 181 
 
 peare’s ; and here are his beautiful works, his Notte, his 
 Catherine, his Christ in the Garden, his Magdalene, his Ve- 
 nus and Mercury, and his Eccellomo in the National Gallery, 
 the only head of Christ in the world. This head of Christ 
 ought to be reverenced as the identification of the charac- 
 ter, as much as the head of Jupiter by Phidias was in the 
 Pagan world. There is no Christ’s head by Raffaelle which 
 at all approaches it, either in the Transfiguration or in any 
 other work ; and the head by Leonardo da Vinci in the gal- 
 lery cannot be endured after it. Of all painters, he aston- 
 ishes one the most. If any fault is to be found with him, 
 his men have a touch too effeminate. His colour is exqui- 
 site ; his light and shadow are enchanting, but his forms 
 defective ; his composition is simple and infantine ; his ex- 
 pression unimpassioned, but sweetness itself ; and when sor- 
 row or suffering w T as to be represented, who ever did it more 
 tenderly than Corregio ? Let any man who doubts this, dwell 
 for a moment on the gentle suffering, and the feminine yet 
 manly beauty of the Christ above mentioned. It is the very 
 Christ who commanded by submission ; without weakness 
 beautiful, without effeminancy tender ; without taint the 
 personification of love. His hands, his shoulders, his beard, 
 his hair, belong to that divine being who vanquished sin, 
 by yielding to torture. It does not seem painted, but as it 
 were spread upon the canvass by an angel’s breath. Plis 
 men look as innocent as girls ; his women as guileless as in- 
 fants; and his infants as if they had just come from the skies. 
 
 In the cupola at Parma, the great wonder is the fore- 
 shortening ; and in the mouths of the vulgar this is techni- 
 cal perfection ; whereas there is nothing more purely me- 
 chanical, nothing in fact you can so easily teach. One single 
 smile of Corregio’s angels, one touching look of Raffaelle’s 
 
182 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 apostles, the sentiment of the Duke de Lorenzo by Michel 
 Angelo, one crimson tone by Titian, are worth all the fore-* 
 shortening on earth. The greatest excellencies of Signo- 
 relli, Buonarotti, and Corregio, are said to be their fore- 
 shortenings ; whereas the greatest excellencies of Buona- 
 rotti and Corregio are not their fore-shortening at all. 
 
 In spite of the perfections of this wonderful man, he 
 founded as it were the decay, “le commencement de 
 la fin.” His breadth in fresco produced Lanfranco, Cor- 
 tona, and Giordano, who covered Italian palaces with the 
 sweeping brush of our patent chimney-cleansers, begin- 
 ning it in the morning, finishing it by the evening, stand- 
 ing on the floor, and disdaining a scaffold, previous study, or 
 previous thinking ; and others came who bedaubed the pa- 
 laces of Europe with clouds like feather-beds, cornucopias 
 and Jupiters, till one’s brain aches in thinking of them. 
 
 Reynolds was immensely indebted to Corregio ; for Rem- 
 brandt and Corregio are certainly the bases of his style. 
 One of the most beautiful works in the Louvre was the 
 Marriage of St. Catherine, which when once seen haunts 
 us in after life in dreams. In a word, Corregio was an 
 angel that passing this earth in its flight, drooped its wings 
 and dropped upon it, to give us a foretaste of the smiles 
 which welcome a happy spirit in a purer sphere. 
 
 Parmegiano is the next important name in this school, 
 who grafted the grace of Corregio on the affectations of 
 Michel Angelo. His greatest work is in our National 
 Gallery ; the Vision of St. Jerome. The Christ is a beautiful 
 boy, but affected ; the Virgin is Michel-Angelesque, having 
 the glumdalclitch look of his Brobdignaggian women. 
 St. John is finely drawn, but not unexceptionable ; and the 
 St. Jerome is sleeping in a position as if he had got into a 
 
SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA. 
 
 183 
 
 cramp in the first part of the vision, and could not get out 
 till it was over. It is raw in colour, skinned in construc- 
 tion, and spoils the composition altogether. His small pic- 
 tures are beautiful but long in proportion. His fingers seem 
 always to move to music ; and his limbs to be conscious how 
 gracefully they are disposed. He has often been a fatal 
 example to the young. Nor is his Moses, whatever Gray 
 may say of it, an instance of the sublime. The expression 
 is mean, and the form overdone. Parmegiano died, like 
 Raffaelle at the age of thirty-seven, when all that was ex- 
 pected of him had not been realised, and when, if he had 
 lived longer, perhaps he would have done worse. 
 
 In 1570, the best Corregieschi were grown old or dead, 
 and the school of Parma began to give way to that of Bo- 
 logna, the truly great academical school. This was not an 
 academy in the modern sense of the word ; it was a school, 
 and nothing but a school, without distinctions, and managed 
 by directors ; and it is the only academy which has ever pro- 
 duced any genius. Dominichino, Guido, and other names 
 of the second period, came between unrivalled excellence 
 and approaching destruction, and stopped for a little time 
 the decay of the art. 
 
 Of the Cremona school, there is no great name. In the 
 Milanese school, Da Vinci seems the hero ; he founded 
 an academy which, according to Lanzi, was the first in Eu- 
 rope that reduced art to rules, the works of Leonardo be- 
 ing the canon. His great work is in the refectory. But 
 fifty years afterwards Aramini says that it was spoiled ; in 
 1642 Scannelli writes, that it was with difficulty made out; 
 and Barry ultimately saw it destroyed by a restorer. When 
 Eugene Beauharnois was viceroy of Italy, he drained the 
 refectory and had it paved with tiles ; and it is said in a re- 
 
184 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 port, that the colours began to revive. Da Vinci’s acade- 
 my having produced no talent, Maria Theresa founded 
 another, which, though full of casts of every description, has 
 nevertheless proved equally unsuccessful. 
 
 The Caracci and their pupils were the last crop of genius 
 which Italy threw up, and though they were second-rate, 
 they came of the breed of the great who were no more. 
 The style of Michel Angelo seems to have taken early root 
 in Bologna, perhaps from his executing in that place the 
 statue of Julius II. Giotto, in the first instance, excited 
 emulation by flying about Italy; but he seems to have scat- 
 tered everywhere the seeds of art, and Tibaldi, after hav- 
 ing studied in Rome, certainly founded this style at Bo- 
 logna. The first school formed was by Bagna Cavallo, and 
 Primaticcio. It failed in 1 564 ; upon which Primaticcio went 
 to France, and Tibaldi to Spain, and the art was of course 
 neglected. 
 
 The Caracci succeeded them and were extraordinary 
 men ; but what would they have done if Raffaelle, Michel 
 Angelo, Titian, and Corregio had never lived ? They 
 saw nature only by the help of their great predecessors. 
 'Whatever the Caracci did had the appearance of labour; 
 whilst whatever was done by their great predecessors, had 
 an air as if there was something that no labour could at- 
 tain. Ludovico had more feeling than his brothers, and 
 had the honour of being instructed by Tintoretto. They 
 were the sons of a tailor, and founded an academy in their 
 own house. Agostino principally engraved, and Annibale 
 principally painted ; but they each contributed instruction 
 to the school in which were formed Dominichino, Guido, 
 Lanfranco, Guercino, and Albano. 
 
 The greatest genius of the school was Guido ; but he was 
 
SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA. 
 
 185 
 
 envied by the Caracci ; and even in this school the vices of 
 an academy began to appear. We did not find Raffaelle 
 sowing discord amongst his pupils by putting one against 
 die other. Albano was opposed to Guido. Dominichino was 
 an eminent but heavy genius ; and his communion of St. Je- 
 rome is a fine thing though dull. There was a vulgar gran- 
 deur about Guercino, and an insipidity about Albano. The 
 great work of Annibale Caracci is the Farnese gallery, 
 which is excellent in every thing, but nerve and genius. Say 
 what you will about the Caracci, there is a want in their art, 
 which affects the pen of him who is attempting to do them 
 justice. They lived together, did not marry, mid were ill 
 paid and ill-tempered ; like all old bachelors they were dis- 
 contented, they did not know why, and fidgety, they did not 
 know for what ; they envied the talents they were desirous 
 of bringing forward, called the art their “ wife,” and were 
 never satisfied, living in a perpetual fret of teaching, and paint- 
 ing, and complaining. Annibale became dissipated and 
 died early. It is an extraordinary feature in the moral cha- 
 racter of the Italian artists, that the greater part did not 
 marry, and hence came the cant “ of the art being their 
 wife,” with the natural consequence, that girls who had 
 been models generally ended by being mistresses. 
 
 The Caracci kept up this affectation, they said the art was 
 their “ cara sposa ;” and to all the confusion of a bachelor’s 
 house, added the slang of a mere painter’s habits. At the 
 dinner-table, crayon and paper were always at hand to 
 catch attitudes, actions, and expressions, and groups ; as if 
 expressions and attitudes could not have been remember- 
 ed in the solitude of the study, and kept till wanted, with 
 just as much effect as this vulgar intrusion on the usages of 
 society. A great artist is always a man of the world ; mi 
 
186 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 inferior one a man of the palette. Raffaelle, Titian, Angelo, 
 Rubens, and Reynolds, would have passed a twelvemonth 
 in any society without being discovered to be artists ; but 
 the Caracci would have talked of tone and touching during 
 the first half-hour. A genteel woman, accidentally travelling 
 in a coach with three artists who were palette-men , express- 
 ed afterwards her wonder and suspicion as to the state of 
 their intellects. For after the usual dead silence, one of them 
 said, with an air of vast profundity : “ Flow finely the white 
 sheet in the hedge carries off the colour in the sky.” “ And 
 look at that old woman’s cloak taking up the brick-wall,” 
 said another. “ Yes,” said the oldest of the set, “ how fine- 
 ly it was done yesterday by a red night-cap in a pretty bit 
 of Sir George.” Johnson used to say, “Sir, we were redu- 
 ced to talk of the weather.” But even the weather is prefera- 
 ble to this detestable affectation. Though the deepest prin- 
 ciple of the ancients was the preservation of beauty in every- 
 thing, they never sacrificed beauty to expression, but al- 
 ways combined the two ; whereas Guido, by an eternal re- 
 petition of the expression of the Niobe in Christs and Vir- 
 gins rendered the preservation of beauty at such an expense 
 insipid. The beauty of the Helen and Paris was truly ex- 
 quisite; but hundreds of Herodias’s daughters with St.John’s 
 heads, “ have a look,” as Lord Byron says, “ of bread and 
 butter.” His grace was the grace of theatres ; his pencil 
 light, airy, and beautiful, though rather careless than master- 
 ly. Dominichino, on the other hand, obedient, slow, and 
 timid, imitated everybody and fell short of all. But Guer- 
 cino was the most original of the school ; his finest manner 
 is his candlelight manner, yet still there is a vulgarity in 
 his forms. 
 
 JVone of the Caracci or their school, had they been born 
 
SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA. 
 
 187 
 
 at an earlier period, would have advanced the art one iota be- 
 yond their predecessors, so entirely dependent were they up- 
 on the great who had gone before. “ Such was the state 
 of art,” says Fuseli, “ when the spirit of machinery destroy- 
 ed what was yet left of meaning when contrast and 
 grouping meant composition and thinking, and a mass of 
 rapid, thoughtless, empty, impudent frescos disgraced the 
 walls, palaces, and churches of Italy. Pietro of Cortona 
 and Luca Giordano are the heroes of this inundation of 
 splashiness ; and yet what artists they were ! The decay 
 which it announced, w T as the decay of the giant Italian fresco 
 hand that still struggled to do its duty, whilst the head was 
 fast approaching imbecility in thought. The meanest pupil 
 of the meanest machinist would have swept the first-rate 
 British artist that has ever yet existed into the earth, with 
 his tiptoes and exhibition-glare. 
 
 Thus, with the Caracci and their school, ended the great- 
 ness of Italian art ; nor has there been one single painter of 
 such genius since, from Andrea Sacchi to Cammucini the 
 present hero of the Romans. Rubens, Vandyke, and Rem- 
 brandt turned it into a new channel in Flanders; Velas- 
 quez and Murillo kept it alive in Spain ; Teniers, Ostadt, 
 and Jan Steen preserved it from extinction in Holland ; the 
 Poussins, Claude, and Salvator, meanwhile revived it in 
 Italy ; whilst the old Gothic masters in Germany, with their 
 colour, and most of them with great invention but in bad 
 taste, were an absolute dung-hill of diamonds and pearls, 
 which everybody has considered himself as having a right 
 to plunder, not even excepting Raffaelle himself. Whilst 
 the art was sunk to the lowest depths in Europe, Reynold’s 
 in England broke forth with a brilliancy of colour which 
 has rendered it no longer a hopeless attempt to rival the 
 
188 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 gorgeousness of Venetian splendour. If ever there was a 
 refutation of Reynold’s own theory, that “ genius was the 
 child of circumstances,” he was a living one ; in spite of all 
 circumstances, in spite of the utter want of all education as 
 a painter, in spite of .all the apathy of the nation, and the 
 extinction of art in Europe, out he came with a vigour and 
 beauty which have ever since defied rivalship in portrait and 
 children. 
 
 The Germans are an extraordinary nation, but always 
 more or less under the influence of a wrong taste. Their 
 early painters are full of thought ; and as a proof of what 
 Raffaelle’s estimation of them must have been, he adopted 
 almost to the letter, in his famous Spasimo in Spain, Shoen- 
 gaer’s magnificent composition of Christ bearing the cross. 
 The hand leaning on the stone, with the momentary action 
 of the drapery, is in Shoengaer. The brute pulling Christ, in 
 an old German dress, RafFaelle has taken and improved ; 
 and he has also placed the Marys in the fore-ground which 
 Shoengaer placed in the back-ground ; but the whole of 
 the composition is Shoengaer’s, though Raffaelle of course 
 has added to it his own perfections. 
 
 Albert Diirer is considered as the greatest man of the 
 German school ; but there is nothing which he has ever 
 done that can compete, in expression and composition, with 
 this fine production of Shoengaer’s. Fuzeli says, “ Albert 
 Diirer was a man of great ingenuity, but not of genius. His 
 proportions of the human figure are on a comprehensive 
 principle founded on nature, and the result of deep think- 
 ing.” He had sometimes a glimpse of the sublime, but it 
 was only a glimpse. The expanded agony of Christ on the 
 Mount of Olives, and the mystic conception of his figure 
 of Melancholy, are thoughts of sublimity, though the ex- 
 
GERMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 189 
 
 pression of the latter is weakened by the rubbish he has 
 thrown about her. His Knight, attended by Death and the 
 Fiend, is more capricious than terrible ; and his Adam and 
 Eve are two common models shut up in a rocky dungeon. 
 “ If he approached genius in any part of his art, it was in co- 
 lour ; his colour went beyond his age, and as far excelled 
 in truth, and breadth, and handling, the oil colour of Raf- 
 faelle, as Raffaelle excelled him in every other quality. I 
 speak of his easel-pictures ; his drapery is broad though 
 much too angular, and rather snapt than folded. Albert 
 is called the father of the German school, though he nei- 
 ther reared scholars nor was imitated by the German artists 
 of his or the succeeding century. That the exportation 
 of his works to Italy should have effected a temporary 
 change in the principles of some Tuscans who had studied 
 Michel Angelo, as Andrea del Sarto, and Jacopo da Ponto- 
 rino, is a fact which proves that minds as well as bodies 
 may be at certain times subject to epidemic influences.” 
 Lucas von Leyden was the Dutch caricature of Albert 
 Diirer ; and ere long the style of Michel Angelo was 
 adopted in the same way as by Pelegrino Tibaldi, and be- 
 ing spread by the graver of Giorgio Mantuano, provoked 
 those caravans of German, Dutch, and Flemish students, 
 who, on their return from Italy, introduced at the courts 
 of Prague and Munich, in Flanders and the Netherlands, 
 that preposterous manner, that bloated excrescence of 
 swampy brains, which in the form of man left nothing hu- 
 man, distorted action and gesture with insane affectation, 
 and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes, in 
 the style of Golzius and Spranger. But though content 
 to feed upon the husks of Tuscan design, they imbibed the 
 colour of Venice, and spread the elements of that excel- 
 
190 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 lence which distinguished the succeeding schools of Flan- 
 ders and of Holland. At this moment out blazed upon 
 the world that giant of execution and brute violence of 
 brush, and brilliant colour, and daring composition, Ru- 
 bens ; and another mysterious and extraordinary being, 
 Rembrandt, who seemed born to confound all theory but 
 that of innate genius, confirmed it for ever. Rubens glo- 
 ried in the splendour of the rainbow, whilst Rembrandt en- 
 joyed only the poetry and solemnity of twilight ; when the 
 evening star glittered, and the sun was down, then was the 
 hour of his inspiration. 
 
 The scholar of Otho Venius, Rubens, imbibed from his 
 master an emblematical taste ; he spent eight years in Italy, 
 hurried back at the death of his mother, and painted that 
 wonder of art the Elevation of the Cross, before he was thirty. 
 It is the perfection of a fearless hand and daring brush, con- 
 scious of its principle ; and though the sweep of Michel An- 
 gelo’s contours, applied to butcher’s backs and coal-heaver’s 
 legs, rather increased their vulgarity than added to their re- 
 finement, yet the dashing power of that astonishing picture, 
 in spite of its Flemish, pallid, and ugly wretches for women, 
 renders it the bloom of his powers. Rubens w as a man of 
 such general knowledge, that the Marquis of Spinosa said, 
 that painting was his least qualification. He was ambassador 
 to Spain and England, and adorned the banquetting ceiling 
 at Whitehall, the centre portion forming an amazing picture. 
 Educated classically, he carried classical feeling into every 
 thing but his art ; and after spouting Virgil with enthusiasm, 
 lie turned to his canvass and painted a Flemish butcher with 
 bandy legs (if he happened to have such) for iEneas. How 
 extraordinary it is that, relishing as he did, Homer, Virgil, 
 and Livy, he should give Dutch Helens, Flemish Junos, and 
 
FLEMISH SCHOOL. 
 
 191 
 
 German Diomeds, for classic art. His greatest work is the 
 Luxembourg Gallery; and for once he hit a sweet female ex- 
 pression in the mother of Mary de’ Medicis, after accouch- 
 ment. One of his finest pieces, the Rape of Proserpine, is 
 at Blenheim, where the Arethusa, as a water nymph, is put* 
 ting up her hand, with her back towards you. That a man 
 who could occasionally paint with such delicacy, should so 
 often disgust us with his flabby vulgarity, is not to be ac- 
 counted for. He painted portrait finely, landscape sweetly, 
 and animals with great power, except the lion, whose straight, 
 shaggy mane he always curled like the ancients, and lost its 
 noble look. He was a great man, and painted wherever he 
 went. He w’as diligent and religious ; he rose at four, heard 
 mass, and went to his painting-room, where, with little inter- 
 mission, he painted till five ; he then rode, and returned to 
 his friends, many of them the most celebrated men of the 
 day, who were assembled to meet him at supper ; at eleven 
 he retired, and again proceeded to work at day-break. It 
 is interesting to contrast this virtuous course of so great a man, 
 with the vulgar infidelity which alone distinguishes the most 
 incompetent in the art ; and it is impossible not to conclude, 
 that those whom God has most endowed with gifts, are the 
 most sensible of their own imperfections. Rubens was thrice 
 married, and educated his children highly ; one of them 
 wrote a very learned work, De lato Clavo, which shews re- 
 search and learning. 
 
 No where did Rubens shine so effectually as in the Lou- 
 vre. In all the world, perhaps, there never was such a 
 splendid opportunity for studying to perfection the princL 
 pies of the great men in the art, as was afforded in the Louvre 
 in its full glory ; and injurious as the formation of that col- 
 lection had proved to the cities of Italy, yet Napoleon gave a 
 
192 
 
 PAINTING, 
 
 dignity and an importance to the art, which it has not since 
 lost, by making the productions of its great men subjects of 
 treaty, and receiving them as equivalent to territory or trea- 
 sure. There you rushed from the Romans to the Venetians, 
 from the Flemings to the Spaniards, from Titian to Raffaelle, 
 from Rembrandt to Rubens, and settled principles in half 
 an hour, which it took others months, perhaps years, to ac- 
 complish. It cannot be denied, that in force of effect, Ru- 
 bens bore down all opposition, from his breadth, brightness, 
 and depth ; and let every painter be assured, that if he keep 
 these three qualities of effect, the leading qualities in the 
 imitation of nature, he will defy rivalship in the contest of 
 exhibition. 
 
 Rembrandt, with all his magic, painting on too confined 
 a principle, lost in power, and looked spotty and individual. 
 Paul Veronese and Tintoretto had not that solidity, which 
 is the characteristic of Rubens ; Titian seemed above con- 
 test, and relying on his native majesty of colour, exhibited 
 a senatorial repose, which gave to Rubens a look almost of im- 
 pertinence ; but still you could not keep your eyes off the 
 seducer, and even if you turned your back, you kept peeping 
 over your shoulder. Here all peculiarity suffered. The sil- 
 very beauty of Guido looked grey ; the correctness of Raf- 
 faelle looked hard ; Rembrandt failed most by the bright- 
 ness of Rubens, the magic of Corregio, or the sunny splen- 
 dour of Titian ; and after wandering about for days, you de- 
 cided that he suffered most who had most peculiarity. With 
 all his grossness, want of beauty, and artificial style, Rubens’ 
 brightness and breadth carried the day, as far as arresting 
 the eye, and forcing you to look at him, hate as you might 
 his vulgarity, and his Flemish women, and his Flanders breed 
 of horses. 
 
FLEMISH SCHOOL. 
 
 193 
 
 Rembrandt van Rhyn, was next to Rubens, in point of 
 art, and more than equal to him in originality. Whether in 
 portrait, landscape, or historical pictures large and small, he 
 was like nobody ; as wonderful as any, and sometimes superior 
 to all. His bistre-drawings are exquisite, his etchings un- 
 rivalled ; his colour, light and shadow, and surface, solemn, 
 deep, and without example ; but in the naked form, male or 
 female, he was an Esquimaux. His notions of the delicate 
 form of women, would have frightened an Arctic bear. Let 
 the reader fancy a Billingsgate fish-woman, descending to a 
 bath at a momeiit’s notice, with hideous feet, large knees and 
 bony legs, a black eye, and a dirty night-cap, — and he will 
 haveaperfect ideaof Rembrandt’s conception of female beau- 
 ty. Though his historical pictures are often remarkable for 
 pathos and expression, his characters are sometimes abso- 
 lutely ridiculous. His Abrahams are Dutch old clothesmen ; 
 and yet his Jacob’s Dream is sublime beyond expression. 
 Whatever he painted, he enriched ; his surface was a mass 
 of genius, and his colour a rainbow, darkened by the gloom 
 of twilight. In portrait, sometimes, his dignity was equal 
 to Titian ; but the characters he painted were inferior. 
 
 These two wonderful men, each a perfect contrast to the 
 other, revived art ; Rubens on the principles of the Vene- 
 tians, and Rembrandt in defiance of all principles. But the 
 latter sacrificed too much to a peculiarity, and he was punished 
 for it in the Louvre by the side of others. 
 
 Rubens produced Vandyke, Snyders, and Jordaens, and 
 a whole host of pupils. Vandyke had more elegance, but not 
 so much imagination ; Jordaens more vulgarity, with equal 
 power. Snyders was a mere animal painter, and he carried 
 the touch necessary to execute the hairy skin of an animal, 
 into every thing he did. Vandyke by his splendid portraits, 
 
 K 
 
194 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 certainly generated a love of art in England, which has never 
 left us, after the destruction of historical painting at the Re- 
 formation. 
 
 Rembrandt had pupils, who were by no means equal to 
 himself. David Teniers the elder was a pupil of Rubens. 
 These two extraordinary men were certainly the founders of 
 the Dutch school ; and the great principles of their works 
 were carried by David Teniers the younger, Jan Steen, 
 Ostadt, and Cuyp, into smaller and more delicate produc- 
 tions. A man of the highest ambition and noblest views in 
 art can study with the greatest benefit the dead fish and 
 bunches of turnips, servant girls and drunken boors, for beauty 
 of handling and effects in art. He who looks down on the 
 excellencies of the Dutch school, does so from a narrowness 
 of understanding, and not an enlargement of views ; and if 
 an historical painter can see nothing to learn in their little 
 beautiful works, he will not learn much from the greater pro- 
 ductions of Titian. 
 
 Directly after the Flemish comes the Spanish school, which, 
 not so vulgar as the former, was equally unideal. The Spani- 
 ards painted the people about them for all sorts of subjects 
 and all sorts of characters ; and they are only more refined 
 than the Flemings because the Spaniards are a more culti- 
 vated people. The long possession of the Moors prevent- 
 ed the Spaniards from advancing as soon as Italy. The great 
 schools in Spain have been those of Madrid, Seville, and Va- 
 lencia. In 1446 Antonio Rincon abandoned the Gothic 
 of the European artists; in 1475 Gallegos was so like Albert 
 Diirer, that he is suspected to have been a pupil ; in the six- 
 teenth century riches flowed in, patronage was liberal, and, 
 what is most important of all, genius existed in Spain. Be- 
 cerra de Baeza, pupil of Michel Angelo, painted in fresco, 
 
SPANISH SCHOOL. 
 
 195 
 
 at Madrid, Salamanca, and Valladolid; and in theTrinita del 
 Monte in Rome, there is also a picture of his. Various paint- 
 ers follow of course in all the schools, till the coming of the 
 real hero of Spanish art. 
 
 Velasquez was born at Seville in 1599* He became a pupil 
 of Herrera, and left Seville in 1522, to seek his fortune in the 
 metropolis ; where he succeeded so completely as a portrait 
 painter, that he got to court, and having become acquainted 
 with Rubens, often visited his painting-room. Rubens must 
 have been of the greatest use to him. Velasquez then visited 
 Italy, but could notbear the Roman schoolafterthe Venetian. 
 In masterly execution and life he surpassed Rubens and Van- 
 dyke. Of &11 the great painters, he seems to have despised the 
 most the vulgar appetite for what is called finish, that is, polish- 
 ed smoothness. Every touch from Velasquez is ^thought qs\- 
 culated to express the leading points of the thing intended 
 to convey it. Masterly beyond description, and delightful 
 beyond belief, he conveyed the impressions of life as exqui- 
 sitely as if his imitation breathed. But so utterly decayed is 
 the present Spanish school, with its pompous academy, that 
 Spaniards when asked how they can reconcile their hideous 
 polish with the freedom of Velasquez, have answered that 
 Velasquez was always in a hurry. 
 
 Af ter Velasquez ranks Murillo, a man of a tenderer genius, 
 but equally alive to life. He has the surface of Corregio and 
 colour peculiarly his own ; and he was what the Italians call 
 a Naturaliste ; indeed, the whole school was of that species. 
 Like Rembrandt and Rubens, the heroes of history are 
 always the countrymen of the Spanish painter. The Pro- 
 digal Son is one of the finest works in the Duke of Suther- 
 land’s collection ; it is beautiful in execution, light and sha- 
 dow, and colour, but Spanish in character and expression. 
 
196 
 
 PAINTING- 
 
 They never got beyond their model or their country ; and 
 this may in a great measure be owing to their masters hav- 
 ing been Venetians, though Tibaldiand Torrigiano had visited 
 Spain. Murillo was an exquisite painter, and if he had been 
 soundly educated like the Greeks, ivould have been as refined 
 in character and form as he is now in colour and handling. 
 He first got an insight into painting from Moya, a pupil of 
 Vandyke. Having sold his pictures to hawkers for what 
 they would bring, he saved money and went to Madrid, 
 and, with the frankness of genius, at once introduced him- 
 self to Velasquez, who received him like another Raffaelle. 
 After three years of continued kindness, he returned to Se- 
 ville, founded an Academy, and for his great work of St. An- 
 tony at Padua, he received ten thousand reals. It is said 
 that he covered more canvass than anybody else; butafterthe 
 acres of Rubens in the Louvre, that assertion is questionable. 
 Velasquez and Murillo, of course, came like the rest, before 
 academies. One now exists in Madrid, and no genius has 
 appeared since its institution. It is quite ridiculous to see 
 the same results all over the world ; and it is still more ri- 
 diculous, to find the kings of Europe still continuing to found 
 and embellish these useless ostablishments. 
 
 In France, throughout all the middle ages, the art of de- 
 sign was never extinct, either in mosaic, glass, tapestry, fresco, 
 miniature, or tempera. Though the learned author of the 
 “ Discourse Historique” says, that the French were the first 
 who presumed to personify the Almighty in the form of 
 man ; yet nothing worth remembering occurred till the death 
 of Leonardo, in the arms of Francis I. in 1518, and the em- 
 ployment of Primaticcio, R<osso, and Nicolo del Abbate. 
 Jean Cousin in 1462, and Vouet in 1582, were the first 
 French painters of any importance in this latter period. Si- 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL. 
 
 197 
 
 mon Vouet, the younger, was the master of Le Sueur, Le 
 Brun, Mignard, and Dufresnoy ; he lived in 1600, and the 
 best period of French art was from that time until 1665, the 
 beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. They, as usual, found- 
 ed an academy, ten years before Poussin’s death ; and Coy- 
 pel, Jouvenet, and Rigaud, were the produce of the institu- 
 tion ; whilst Poussin, Le Sueur, and LeBrun, had flourished 
 and obtained their reputation before it was founded. Van 
 Loo and Boucher succeeded Jouvenet and Rigaud, and gave 
 additional evidence of the utter incompetence of the aca- 
 demic system. About 1770, flourished Greuze, who began 
 to evince a better taste, and was persecuted by the Royal 
 Academy for his independence, till the Revolution of 1790 
 put an end for the time to all imposture. Down went the Roy- 
 al Academy in an instant; and all the conventional distinc- 
 tions in art, which are generally the cloak of imbecility, were 
 fluttered off in the whirlwind. The people, long prevented 
 from seeing fine works in the great galleries, now broke into 
 these galleries with brutal exultation. Bloody and dreadful 
 as were the consequences of the first burst of the French 
 Revolution, one of its most beneficial effects consisted in 
 throwing open all matters of art and science to the people. 
 Naigeon, the conservator of the Luxembourg, said, in 1814, 
 that nothing was opened to the people before the Revolu- 
 tion ; and we ourselves in England are now enjoying our 
 Museums, entirely in consequence of the effect produced upon 
 Mr. Fox and the English, who visited Paris in the year 1802, 
 and who were astonished at the noble frankness with which 
 the Louvre was exposed. 
 
 The academy being swallowed up in the whirlpool of poli- 
 tical revolution, the Institute supplied its place. Napoleon, 
 on becoming first consul, sent immediately for David, who 
 
198 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 had been a furious republican during “le temps de la ter- 
 reur a man of great talent, but of abominable taste. Na- 
 poleon made him his court-painter, and gave such prepon- 
 derance to his influence, that the detestable style of David 
 became everywhere but in England the style of European 
 art. Gros, Prudhom, Guerin, deviated from the rigidity of 
 David’s style. Prudhom was a man of genius. Hideous as 
 was the style of David, in fact painted Roman sculpture, it 
 had some foundation in reason. This was, if possible, to 
 bring the French back to classical art, after the flutter of 
 Boucher, and the pomposity of Coypel ; but, like all reform- 
 ers, he went to excess. 
 
 The materials for assisting them are so deficient, that the 
 greatest artists have arrived at any thing like an imitation 
 of nature only by the greatest science and skill. It is much 
 easier to paint abutton and a chair, than a human face ; there- 
 fore the great artists dwelt upon the face with all their dex- 
 terity, and touched off the button and chair w*ith less an- 
 xiety and care. The French used to say, that theirs ivas 
 the system of the ancient Greeks, and that it was our pre- 
 judice to disapprove of it. But before we have done, we 
 shall show that it was not the system of the ancient Greeks ; 
 and as we pay all due deference to the Italians, Flemings, 
 Dutch, Spaniards, and Greeks, and to their own Poussin and 
 Claude, they have no right to accuse us of prejudice be- 
 cause we disapprove of David. We do not deny David’s 
 talent, because it must have required talent to mislead the 
 continent of Europe. In art, David’s expression was taken 
 from the theatre, and his actions were borrowed from the 
 opera-house ; his forms were Roman and not Grecian, and 
 his colour was hideous enough to produce ophthalmia. If 
 he and his pictures, with all he ever designed, and all he ever 
 
FRENCH SCHOOL. 
 
 199 
 
 invented, had not appeared in the world, or having appeared, 
 had been utterly rooted out of it, the atmosphere would be 
 purer. He is a plague-spot, a whitened leprosy in painting, 
 that haunts the imagination w ith disgust. This he had the 
 impudence to say of Rubens. But since the peace, and from 
 the connection with England, a better school of colour has 
 sprung up in France ; and La Roche gives evidence of hav- 
 ing in some degree got rid of the furniture look of David, 
 though it still poisons a French pencil. 
 
 Horace Vernet is a distinguished name ; indeed, he may 
 be called the fwst light-infantry grenadier of European art. 
 He paints a head in five minutes, a whole imperial family 
 in ten minutes, and an historical picture in twenty ; and he 
 paints all three with talent and skill. Though the French 
 are not yet sound in art, they are the best educated artists 
 in Europe ; and if the English would combine their own 
 colour w ith the careful habits of French early study, and if 
 each school could supply the deficiencies of the other, they 
 would make out a very good school between them. 
 
 In thus suffering ourselves to be led away to the present 
 state of the French school, we have omitted to do justice 
 to the great men of former times; Poussin, Sebastian, Bour- 
 don, and Le Sueur. Poussin is the hero of French art. 
 His Death of Germanicus is very fine, as a specimen of his- 
 tory ; and his Polyphemus sitting on the top of a mountain, 
 and playing his pipe, with his back towards you, is a pure 
 specimen of the poetic. He studied the ancient Romans so 
 much, that he became Roman in his faces, drapery, and 
 figures ; and in his naked forms, the common model is too 
 apparent. His finest works are in England ; but though dis- 
 tinguished for expression, there is always an antique heart- 
 lessness, as if copied from the masks of an ancient theatre. 
 
200 
 
 1* AIN TING. 
 
 Bourdon’s Return of the Ark is a high proof of his con- 
 ception ; and Le Sueur’s St. Bruno is pure in taste, but bad 
 in colour. The Battles of Alexander by Le Brun show the 
 latter to have been of the family of machinists. His colour is 
 bronzed and disagreeable. Le Brun was a court -favourite, 
 and his Greeks, as well as barbarians, have an air of the 
 opera at Versailles. His composition is artificial ; and he is 
 not a fit example for youth. The only man who coloured 
 with exquisite feeling was Watteau, whose touch and delicacy 
 of tint may be studied with great profit by any artist. 
 
 In a word, it is extraordinary that the F rench as a nation, have 
 never been right in art. Poussin was the only man who could 
 have set them right, and they persecuted him so, that he set- 
 tled in Rome. Claude Lorraine can hardly belong to them ; 
 and though Louis Philippe is now employing them by hun- 
 dreds, nothing very eminent has yet proceeded from such 
 encouragement. 
 
 The Germans are taking higher ground than any other 
 nation, and are making rapid advances, particularly at Mu- 
 nich. They have begun again fresco painting ; and the li- 
 berality of their king has rendered Munich the most flou- 
 rishing city in Europe for arts and artists ; but as Canova 
 said when he was in England, there is very little grand art 
 left in the world. It is extraordinary to reflect on the little 
 original thinking that is to be found. This was more ap- 
 parent in the Louvre than any where else ; and one could 
 not help being amused at seeing the way in which Rubens, 
 who, like Michel Angelo, is supposed to have never looked 
 out of himself, had plundered the old Gothic painters ; the 
 Fall of the Damned, by an old German, being the complete 
 basis of the same subject by Rubens. 
 
 When incessant demands are made on the genius of a 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 201 
 
 favourite, every aid to thinking is grasped at and improved. 
 Raffaelle did this ; so did Rubens ; and even Reynolds used 
 to have portfolios brought him to look over at breakfast, and 
 select what would help him, saying, “ It will save me the trou- 
 ble of thinking.” This involves a very serious question in art. 
 The utmost merit that can be allowed is that of skilful adap- 
 tation. “ Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit ” may be said of 
 all these ; and surely a gooid*thouglit badly done is justifiable 
 food for a superior mind to render it better. 
 
 We come now to the British School, which, though the 
 last founded in Europe, is inferior to none in variety of power. 
 
 There is no doubt that the art 1 would have advanced in 
 
 1 It is a curious fact, that the art seems to have been in an advanc- 
 ed state in England, while it is doubtful whether there was a painter 
 in Florence, in 1236. In 1250 the authorities in Florence sent for 
 some Greeks because there was no painter ; yet at that period in 
 England, and long before, historical painting seemed quite the fashion 
 amongst the upper classes. All the king’s rooms, as well as his 
 chapel, were painted. In the 25th cf Edward III. in the rolls of 
 the Exchequer, 26th September 1351, there is a charge to “ Wil- 
 liam of Padryngton, for making twenty angels to stand in the taber- 
 nacles by task-work, at 6s. 8d. for each image, L.6, 13s. 4d.” In 
 1530, were begun the beautiful pictures and designs in St. Stephen’s 
 Chapel ; and it is curious to see, in all the accounts, the continual 
 allusions to oil-painting. The artists employed must certainly have 
 been men of distinguished talent, who had the power of ordering 
 inferior artists to assist them. The most celebrated of their num- 
 ber appears to have been Hugh de St. Alban’s, who was appointed 
 by the king as his principal painter. The following document, dated 
 18th March 1350, contains his appointment. “ The king to all 
 and singular, the sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, officers, and his other 
 lieges, as well within liberties as without, to whom be greeting, Know 
 ye, that we have appointed our beloved Hugh de St. Alban’s, mas- 
 ter of the painters assigned for the works to be executed in our 
 chapel, at our palace at Westminster, to take and choose as many 
 painters and other workmen as may be required for performing those 
 works, in any places where it may seem expedient, either within li- 
 
202 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Britain side by side with the continental nations, if we had 
 continued Catholics ; in fact, we were doing so, when Wick- 
 liffe’s opposition to the Catholic priests roused up the peo- 
 ple to hate and detest every thing connected with their sys- 
 tem. Painting of course came under this furious denunci- 
 ation, and through successive ages went on till the period 
 of the Reformation. 
 
 In Edward the Confessor’s time^here were executed bas- 
 reliefs as good as any thing done at that time in Europe, and 
 by no means deficient in grace, though disproportioned, and 
 unskilful in composition. In one of these there is a king in 
 bed, and leaning upon his hand ; which in an improved style 
 might be made a fine thing. In Alfred’s reign and before, 
 York and Canterbury were adorned with pictures and ta- 
 pestry ; and in the tenth century, Ethelrida adorned Ely 
 Cathedral with a series of historical pictures in memory of 
 her famous husband Birthwood. As this is recorded, says 
 Strutt, the practice must have existed before ; and that it 
 continued to exist and be the fashion down to the Edwards 
 and Henrys, there is good evidence ; for in the time of Henry 
 III. mention is made of the immortal Master Walker’s paint- 
 ing in Westminster, the no less renowned John Thornton of 
 Coventry, painter there, and the east window of York . 2 In 
 
 berties or without, in the counties of Kent, Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, 
 and Sussex, and to cause those workmen to come to our palace afore- 
 said, there to remain in our service, at our wages, as long as it may 
 be necessary. And therefore we command you to be counselling 
 and assisting this Hugh, and completing what has been stated, as 
 often and in such manner as the said Hugh may require.” (See 
 Britton’s West . Pal. p. 170.) The illustrious Hugh seems to have 
 been a designer; for in the books, (25 Edward III. April 30,) is 
 the following entry, “ to H. de St. Albans, ordering or designing the 
 drawings for the painters, one day, Is.” 
 
 2 See Carter’s Etchings. 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL, 
 
 203 
 
 the reign of Henry VIII. there was a chartered society of 
 painters ; and in the seventeenth of Elizabeth it was moved 
 in the House by Sir G. Moore, “ that a bill to redress cer- 
 tain grievances in painting be let sleep, and be referred to 
 the Lord Mayor, as it concerned a controversy between 
 painters and plaisterers and Sir Stephen Jones stood up 
 and desired that the Lord Mayor “ might not be troubled, 
 and it seemed to go against the painters .” 
 
 The painters who complained that the plaisterers used their 
 colours, and took the bread out of their mouths, go on to say, 
 that in the nineteenth of Edward IV., that is in 1480, there 
 were orders issued “ for the use of oil and sizb” and that the 
 “ painters’ only mixture w as oe'/and size, which the plaisterers 
 do now usurp and intrude upon.” In their petition they ob- 
 serve with the greatest simplicity : “Workmanship and skill 
 is the gift of God, and not one in ten proveth a workman, 
 and that those who cannot attain excellence must live by 
 the baser part of the science.” They add that “ painting on 
 cloth is decayed ; that this art is a curious art, and requireth 
 a good eye, and a stedfast hand, which the infirmity of age de- 
 cayeth, and then painters go a-begging and then they 
 conclude the petition to the House by this remarkable pas- 
 sage : “ These walls thus curiously painted in former ages 
 the images so perfectly done , do witness our forefathers' care 
 in cherishing this art of painting .” “ This bill,” said Sir 
 
 Stephen Jones, “ ip very reasonable and fit to pass,” and 
 so it did. 3 
 
 The above extract, proves that in Elizabeth’s reign the 
 historical attempts were alluded to, as belonging to formei 
 
 3 See Sir W. Monson’s Account of the Acts of Elizabeth , 1632, 
 British Museum. 
 
204 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 ages , viz. from the tenth century downwards ; that the House 
 of Commons praised the wisdom of those times in cherish- 
 ing painting ; and that this wisdom the Reformation had ob- 
 viously discarded. 
 
 In 1538, Henry issued an order against the use of pic- 
 tures and statues to impose on the people ; yet pictures are 
 called “bokes for unlearned people.” In 1542, in his letter 
 to Cranmer, the king tries to restrain the destruction of pic- 
 tures; but it was too late. In the reign of Edward IV. the Duke Yj 
 of Somerset fined and imprisoned all those who possessed 
 pictures of religious subjects. To such excess had the fury 
 of the people been excited, that the recorder of Salisbury, Mr. 
 Henry Sherfield, was fined L.500, and imprisoned in the Fleet 
 for not breaking a painted window in Salisbury Cathedral. 
 Walpole says that one Bleese was employed at 2s. 6d. a-day 
 to break windows at Croydon ; and in Charles I/s reign it 
 was ordered, 1 that all pictures having the second person of 
 the Trinity should be burnt, and that all pictures having the 
 Virgin should share the same fate. Cromwell stopped this 
 barbarity, and it was owing to the self-will of this extraor- 
 dinary man that the Cartoons of Raffaelle was bought in for 
 L.300, at the sale of Charles’s effects. 
 
 Thus it is clear the art was stopped by the Reformation. 
 
 In St. Stephen’s Chapel, before the alterations made some years 
 since, there were figures painted on the walls, as excellent 
 as any figures in the Campo Santo, and perhaps executed 
 about the same period. In Elizabeth’s reign, as we have 
 seen, historical art is referred to with sorrow in the House, 
 as a thing past but which had existed ; and in the same 
 reign, says Hillier, “ men induced by nature,” to pursue high 
 
 1 See Journals of the House, 23d July 1645. 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 205 
 
 art, “ have been made poorer, like the most rare English 
 drawers of story works .” Now, Hillier would not have said 
 this, if it had not been true that the drawers of story works 
 were principally natives. 
 
 In Henry VII.’s time, Torrigiano, the same youth who had 
 felled Michel Angelo to the ground in the gardens of Lo- 
 renzo and shattered his nose, was in England, and executed 
 important works. In the time of Henry VIII., commissions 
 for high art being over, Holbein devoted himself to court 
 portrait-painting, though in the city he painted some large 
 pictures. Rubens’ and Vandyke’s visit excited Dobson, a 
 capital painter of a head ; but although Oliver was distin- 
 guished as a miniature painter, and although there are de- 
 signs at Oxford, by English painters, no one genius seemed 
 to arise till after Lely and Kneller had succeeded Vandyke. 
 Cooper was the first English painter employed in foreign 
 courts as a miniature painter. Thornhill, a man of talent, 
 and a member of the House, forms the link between one race 
 and another ; and then sprung up Hogarth, Gainsborough, 
 Wilson, West, and Barry. As usual, when Reynolds and 
 Hogarth had for ever rescued Britain from all doubt as to her 
 genius, without an academy of any description, a royal aca- 
 demy was founded to produce more genius, just as had been 
 done all over Europe ; and no man equal to Reynolds and 
 Hogarth has since appeared . 1 After the academy was found- 
 ed at Milan by Leonardo, no genius like his appeared. After 
 that of St. Luke was founded at Rome, Raffaelle and all 
 being dead, no one came forth. After an academy had been 
 founded at Parma, Corregio being gone, nobody appeared. 
 
 1 Wilkie was not produced at an academy, but at Graham’s school, 
 Edinburgh. Now this school is an academy with all its pride, and 
 nobody will come of it. 
 
206 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 After a national academy was founded at Venice, and royally 
 endowed, genius fled. The same thing happened in Fer- 
 rara, Modena, Florence, and Naples ; and also in France, 
 Spain, and England. Need further evidence be sought of 
 the uselessness of such institutions ? 
 
 In 1711, there existed a school, of which Kneller was the 
 head, whilst Vertue the engraver drew in it. After 1724, 
 Sir James Thornhill opened a school in his own home Co vent 
 Garden, and so did the Duke of Richmond at Whitehall Privy 
 Gardens. Sir James proposed to Lord Halifax to found a 
 royal academy, but without success. At Sir James’ death, 
 the school was broken up, and the artists were again left 
 without instruction ; when, for the purpose of studying the 
 living model, they hired a room in Greyhound Court, Arun- 
 del Street, and Michael Moses was the conductor of it. Here 
 they were visited by Hogarth, who was so well pleased, that 
 a union of the whole body took place, and they removed to 
 Peter’s Court, St. Martin’s Lane. The number of members 
 amounted to a hundred and forty-one, each paying an annual 
 subscription. There was at the time a great deal of happy fel- 
 lowship amongst the artists. Reynolds, who was a member, 
 with Hogarth and others, adorned the Foundling Hospital; 
 and the public were so interested, that the society thought they 
 might venture on a charter, which was obtained, and there 
 was establishedby lawa government of twenty-four directors, 
 annually elected, including the president, by the whole body 
 and out of it. An united exhibition having begun, (the con- 
 stant source of irritation, for every man cannot have his works 
 in the best places,) squabbles arose ; and the directors finding 
 the benefit of being able to hang their own works and those 
 of their friends in the best situations, intrigued to keep their 
 places another year. This was foolishly granted ; and every 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 207 
 
 subsequent year finding themselves becoming a match for the 
 constituency, they kept theirplaces for eight years, in defiance 
 of law ; so that at last it was found that the men elected to 
 preserve order and law, had been the grossest violators of 
 both. With the feelings of independent freemen, the con- 
 stituencies resolved to endure this no longer ; when, to pre- 
 vent collision, it was agreed to refer the point to the Attor- 
 ney-General, De Grey, both parties pledging themselves to 
 abide by his decision. De Grey gave it against the direc- 
 tors, and these honourable men then refused to keep their 
 word. The constituency met, and violently expelled six- 
 teen of them ; but before resigning, these gentlemen met 
 secretly, and fearing exposure, tore out and destroyed the 
 minutes from the 19th November 1764, to the 11th March 
 
 1765, and from the 17th of June 1765, to the 21st of March 
 
 1766. They then went to the king, George III., whom they 
 persuaded that the chartered body was republican ; and that 
 there was no hope unless a royal academy was founded, with 
 the number of members and voters limited to forty. The 
 king, without inquiry, foolishly yielded to their cunning sug- 
 gestions, and founded an academy with forty members ; the 
 other eight directors resigned directly, and the whole twenty- 
 four were madeR.A’s. Thus by this limited number were 
 framed the present exclusive law and constitution, and all 
 the obnoxious regulations passed, which had been checked 
 by the sense of a constituency ; and thus the art of England 
 received a blow more fatal than at the Reformation. The 
 weakness of the nation has been gratified to an excess by 
 this interested assembly, to the ruin of their taste and judg- 
 ment ; high art has gone back, and is going back further 
 every year, by the struggles of these men to keep up their 
 monopoly, in defiance of the increasing intelligence of the 
 
208 
 
 TAINTING. 
 
 people, which they fear, and which will yet be their utter de- 
 struction. In this affair Reynolds behaved with great mean- 
 ness. He promised to stand by the constituency; yielded 
 at the offer of a knighthood; was afterwards justly punished, 
 by being compelled to resign ; and foolishly complained of 
 ingratitude which he had deserved. 
 
 In order that the state of art in Great Britain may be 
 rightly understood, this authentic detail, taken from pamphlets 
 published at the time, especially that of Sir Robert Strange , 2 
 has been thought necessary ; and it will not appear tedious, if 
 it be considered that, for the sake of the art of our own coun- 
 try, it is but just that particulars should be ascertained. The 
 effect of the academy has been pernicious. Imitating the 
 example, all the eminent provincial towns have established 
 exhibitions instead of schools ; and every year the annual 
 exhibition in the metropolis is repeated in the provinces, with 
 but little addition to that which proved unsaleable in the Lon- 
 don show. Hogarth opposed such a conclusion, and from the 
 beginning predicted its effect, which has happened to the very 
 letter ; and when Reynolds began to perceive the truth, he 
 acknowledged his error, and said to Sir George Beaumont, 
 that “ a party was gaining ground which would ruin the 
 art .” 3 If the detail of every other academy in Europe could 
 be thus laid open, the same intrigues, the same despotism, 
 the same injustice, and the same want of principle would be 
 found at the bottom ; and Europe would no longer wonder 
 that academies never have produced a Raffaelle. 
 
 2 See Sir Robert Strange’s pamphlet, and another published in the 
 year 1771, by Dixwell, St. Martin’s Lane, entitled “ On the Conduct 
 of the Royal Academicians,” in the British Museum. 
 
 3 This was told the author by Sir George ; and has since been confirm- 
 ed by his pamphlet, “ Concise Vindication,” &c. in British Museum. 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 209 
 
 The honest and straight forward constituency being thus 
 left as it were unprotected by the king, it was soon deserted 
 by the nobility and the public, and shortly escaped notice alto- 
 gether ; though such a man as Hogarth had improved his know- 
 ledge by drawing in its schools. The literary splendour with 
 which Reynolds was surrounded, gave agloryto the Academy 
 which it has not yet lost; and the genius of Reynolds spread a 
 halo around it, which the artists still fancy they see, though it 
 vanished the moment he expired. Reynolds was really a great 
 artist; gorgeous in tone and colour, unimpeachable in compo- 
 sition, deep in light and shadow, beautiful in character, and 
 the purest painter of children and women that ever lived 
 in the art, Greek or Italian. His ignorance belonged to the 
 period ; his beauties were entirely his own ; and though he 
 overrated Michel Angelo, and has done injury to taste, by 
 his sincere conviction that he was right, yet had he lived to 
 see the Theseus or Ilyssus, he would have been equally can- 
 did in saying he was in error. Lord Heathfield is a portrait 
 that need not fear any work of Titian’s for men, and Mrs. 
 Parker, a tender, sweet picture of a woman, was never equalled 
 in sentiment or delicacy by any work of the Venetian and 
 Roman schools. Where were children ever so completely 
 hit as in the Infant Academy ? who surpassed the propriety 
 of his back-grounds as well as their splendour ? His eye, 
 or rather his organ for colour, was exquisite ; nor is there 
 in the whole of his works a heated and offensive tint. He 
 did not combine essential detail and breadth so beautifully as 
 Titian ; but place one of his finest portraits by the side of 
 any picture of Titian’s, see them at the proper distance, and 
 Reynolds would keep his station. Here, however, the praise 
 must stop. Reynolds could have no more painted Pietro Mar- 
 tyre than he could have revived the martyr after he was 
 
210 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 dead. He was not so great a man as Titian, because he 
 did not like him remedy his ignorance, when he found it 
 out at a much earlier age. He was always talking of what 
 he would do if he began the world again. Sir Joshua loved 
 society ; he was the deity of his coterie ; he liked a glass 
 of wine and a game at whist ; and he never lost his temper 
 because he was successful in the world, but the first time he 
 was thwarted he got in a passion. Reynolds was a great 
 genius in painting, but not a great man. He raised English 
 art from the dust, and gave English artists an a-plomb in so- 
 ciety which they never had before, and he first reduced the 
 art to something like system by his discourses ; but not hav- 
 ing moral courage to resist the formation of an academy, 
 which lie could have done by his influence and his genius, 
 he compromised the art, and was indirectly the means of 
 throwing it off its balance, which it will yet take half a cen- 
 tury more to remedy, as Hogarth predicted. 
 
 As an inventor, Hogarth is by far the greatest of the British 
 school ; although in aim and object, colour, surface, and all 
 the requisites of a great painter, infinitely below Reynolds. 
 It would be useless to detail the perfections of a man so ad- 
 mired all over the earth, and who will only cease to be a de- 
 light with its existence. It is astonishing how hereditary 
 is the hatred of academies. The painters in revenge for 
 Hogarth’s opposition, swore that he was no painter, and swear 
 so to this hour. The absurdity of this criticism can be prov- 
 ed by the Marriage a la Mode, whilst the picture of the hus- 
 band and wife after a rout, is as beautifully touched as any in 
 that class of art can be. He has not the clearness of Teniers, 
 nor the sharpness of Wilkie ; his touch is blunt, and his co- 
 lour deficient in richness ; but you feel not the want whilst 
 looking at him; and although his expression is often carica- 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 211 
 
 ture, yet in the above picture it is perfection. Hogarth un- 
 fortunately believed himself infallible; but his wretched beau- 
 ty of Drury Lane for Pharaoh’s daughter at the Foundling, 
 his miserable Sigismun da, and his Paul before Felix, we hope 
 convinced him of his forte. If he was serious in these pic- 
 tures, which we very much doubt, he deserved a strait waist- 
 coat and a low diet as the only treatment for his hallucina- 
 tion. 
 
 Gainsborough was another painter of great genius in 
 portrait and landscape ; but Wilson was a greater. His touch 
 and feeling were comprehensive, though too abstracted for 
 the vulgar, who always like polish and to put up their fingers. 
 He used to say to Sir George Beaumont, “ When some- 
 body is dead somebody’s pictures will sell better.” From 
 neglect he got into foolish habits of drinking, and died 
 librarian to the academy. A miserable dauber called Lam- 
 bert was the fashion, and his character as a landscape pain- 
 ter was hit by poor Wilson. He said “ his trees and foliage 
 were eggs and spinach, and nothing more yet Lambert 
 got hundreds when Wilson could hardly get shillings. But 
 where are now the immortal Lambert’s w orks ? Making 
 fire-screens for garrets, whilst “ somebody's pictures” adorn 
 the houses of the great. Gainsborough was a great por- 
 trait painter and ran Reynold’s hard. West’s Wolf and La 
 Hogue are the triumphs of his talent ; but his great sacred 
 subjects are inferior works. The writer of this observed to 
 Canova in England, “ Au moins, il compose bien. ” “ Mon- 
 sieur,” replied the Italian, a il ne compose pas ; il met des figures 
 en groupe.” He was a skilful machinist ; and though there are 
 bits of colour in his small works, rich and harmonious, his 
 portraits are detestable, his handling unfeeling, his drawing 
 meagre and common. He was deeply versed in nothing, 
 
212 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 though possessing great acquired knowledge of his art with- 
 out being an educated man. With respect to his being the 
 greatest man since the Caracci, with Rembrandt, Rubens, 
 Vandyke, and Dominichino, Guido, and Guercino since, or 
 a little after, the idea is ridiculous and absurd. The king 
 hated Reynolds on account of his devotion to Burke and 
 Fox, and puffed W^est from sheer irritability. The king said 
 to Hopner, “ Why does Reynold paint his trees red and 
 yellow ? who ever saw trees that colour ?” Hopner, who 
 said what he pleased, replied, “Then your majesty never 
 saw trees in autumn.” 
 
 Romney, a second-rate man, had great patronage, whilst 
 Barry, a man of great grasp of mind, had none whatever. 
 Barry joined the Academy to oblige Reynolds, against his own 
 convictions; was soon at issue with its selfish monopoly; op- 
 posed it ; urged the propriety of devoting a portion of its funds 
 to establish a school of colour; exasperated the intriguers by 
 his fearless attacks ; and w r as expelled of course as an ob- 
 noxious man, the king having been persuaded to sanction it, 
 under the deadly hint that Barry was a radical. Barry was 
 the protege of Burke; and his Adelphi pictures, shewing the 
 progress of society, though deficient in drawing, colour, and 
 delicacy of touch, were the first work in England on the 
 comprehensive principle of the ancients. Having neglect- 
 ed Burke’s repeated entreaties to dissect, he suffered the con- 
 sequence. His forms at the Adelphi are such as can be got 
 by general drawings from the antique, but there is no refined 
 knowledge of construction in them. 
 
 As a man of genius, however, Barry is not to be compared 
 to Henry Fuzeli, the friend of Reynolds and Lavater, andone 
 of the most distinguished and accomplished men of his time. 
 Fuzeli was undoubtedly the greatest genius of that day. 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 213 
 
 His Milton gallery shewed a range of imagination equal to 
 the poet’s ; his Satan bridging Chaos, his Uriel watching 
 Satan, his Shepherd’s Dream, his Fairies from Shakespeare, 
 and his Ghost in Hamlet, announce him as having conceiv- 
 ed, like Theon, <pavraa-Las , and as being the greatest inventor 
 in art since Julio Romano. But in the modes of conveying 
 his thoughts by form, colour, light, and shadow, and above 
 all, nature, he was a monster in design ; his women are all 
 strumpets, and his men all banditti, with the action of gal- 
 vanized frogs, the dress of montebanks, and the hue of pes- 
 tilential putridity. No man had the power like Fuzeli of 
 rousing the dormant spirit of youth ; and there issued from 
 his inspirations a nucleus of painters, who have been the firm- 
 est supporters of the British school. 
 
 But Fuzeli, as a painter, must be a warning to all. Had 
 he taken the trouble to convey his thoughts like the great 
 masters, his pictures would have risen as time advanced; 
 yet as time advances, his pictures, from having no hold on 
 our feelings like the simplicity of nature, must sink. His 
 conceptions, however poetical, are not enough to satisfy the 
 mind in an art, the elements of which are laid in lovely 
 nature ; and great as his genius was in fancy and concep- 
 tion, inventor as he was in art of fairies and ghosts, he will 
 never be an object to imitate, but always to avoid by young 
 men, who are more likely to lay hold of his defects than his 
 beauties. The finest conception of a ghost that was ever 
 painted, was the Ghost in Hamlet on the battlements. There 
 it quivered with martial stride, pointing to aplace of meeting 
 with Hamlet ; and round its vizored head was a halo of light 
 that looked sulphureous, and made one feel as if one actu- 
 ally smelt hell, burning, cindery, and suffocating. The 
 dim moon glittered behind ; the sea roared in the distance, 
 
214 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 as if agitated by the presence of a supernatural spirit ; and 
 the ghost looked at Hamlet, with eyes that glared like the 
 light in the eyes of a lion, which is savagely growling over 
 his bloody food. But still it was a German ghost, and not the 
 ghost of Shakespeare. There was nothing in it to touch 
 human sympathies combined with the infernal ; there was 
 nothing at all of “ his sable, silvered beard,” or his coun- 
 tenance more “ in sorrow than in anger ;” it was a fierce, 
 demoniacal, armed fiend reeking from hell, who had not 
 yet expiated “the crimes done in his days of nature,” to qualify 
 him for heaven. His next finest works were the two fairy pic- 
 tures in the Shakespeare gallery, some diving into harebells, 
 somesailing in Bottom’s shoe; but beautiful as they were, in- 
 deed the only fairies e ver painted, still your heart longed for na- 
 ture in colour, form, action, and expression. Such an union had 
 the Greeks, and no art in the world will be perfect until it 
 appears again. These pictures are evidences of the highest 
 conception of the fanciful and supernatural. His Lazar 
 House is an evidence of his power of pathos ; his Uriel and 
 Satan of the poetical ; his Puck putting on a girdle, of the 
 humorous and mischievous. But when Fuzeli attempted 
 the domestic, as in the illustrations of Cowper, his total want 
 of nature stares one in the face, like the eyes of his own 
 ghosts. Never were the consequences of disdaining the 
 daily life before your eyes, or of affecting to be above it, so 
 fatally developed as in this series of design ; though in com- 
 paring with him another eminent artist, namely, Stothard, 
 who, in sweetness and innocence, was his decided superior, 
 Fuzeli surpassed him in elevation and reach of mind. In the 
 pictures of Stothard, who painted equally well without life 
 before him, there is not the same extravagance, yet there 
 is almost equal want of nature in another way. Flaxman, 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 215 
 
 Stothard, and Fuzeli, are the three legitimate designers of 
 our school, and yet not one of them was perfect master of 
 the figure. 
 
 Flaxman’s designs from the Iliad and the Greek tragedies 
 are his finest works ; and when first they appeared in Italy, 
 they were denied to be the invention of an Englishman, as 
 it was supposed to be impossible that any Englishman could 
 have an imagination. But yet of some of these designs it 
 really may be said, “ II n’y a qu’un pas du sublime au ri- 
 dicule.” It is extremely difficult to say whether they are 
 in the highest degree sublime or extremely absurd. In all 
 attempts to express the passions, you will perceive extra- 
 vagance ; but in comparing him with Canova, in this part of 
 the art, Canova must yield the palm as much as Flaxman 
 was inferior in the perfection of working up a single and 
 beautiful figure. Though this eminent man talks pom- 
 pously of Greek form and anatomical knowledge, he in re- 
 ality knew very little of either ; and though there is a great 
 deal of useful matter of fact in his lectures, yet on the whole 
 they display a wretched poverty of thinking. His book 
 of Anatomy for students is not deep enough on the separa- 
 tion of muscle, bone, and tendon, and can help a young man 
 a very little way to correct notions. The value of Fuzeli’s 
 and Opie’s lectures in comparison with Flaxman’s or Bar- 
 ry’s is evident ; and the superiority of Reynolds to all, ex - 
 cept Fuzeli in his lecture on Greek art, needs not to be 
 dwelt on. 
 
 Stothard, as an inventor in composition, was equal to all, 
 but as a painter, certainly inferior to all. In fact he could 
 not paint ; he had no identity of imitation ; he did not and 
 could not tell a story by human passions ; and his style of 
 design showed great ignorance of the constituent parts of the 
 
216 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 figure. But there was a beautiful and angelic spirit that 
 breathed on every thing he did. He seems in early life to 
 have dreamed of an angel, and to have passed the remain- 
 der of his days in trying to endow every figure he design- 
 ed, with something of the sweetness that he had seen in his 
 sleep. Peace to his mild and tender spirit. It was im- 
 possible to be in Stothard’s painting-room for ten minutes 
 without being influenced by his angelic mind. He seem- 
 ed to us always as if he had been born in the wrong pla- 
 net. He had a son whose etchings from our ancient tombs 
 are an honour to the country. He fell from a great height, 
 in pursuinghis designs from some tomb in a country church, 
 and was killed. This ill-fated artist was in every respect 
 worthy of his father. 
 
 Never were there four men so essentially different as West, 
 Fuzeli, Flaxman, and Stothard. Fuzeli was undoubtedly 
 the man of the largest capacity and the most acquiredknow- 
 ledge ; West was an eminent artist in the second rank ; 
 Flaxman and Stothard were purer designers than either ; 
 Barry and Reynolds were before all the others. In Barry’s 
 Adelphi there is a grasp of mind, as Johnson said; yet as a 
 painter he was inferior to all. Though Fuzeli had more 
 imagination and conception than Reynolds, though W^est 
 put things together with more facility, and Flaxman and 
 Stothard did what Reynolds could not do ; yet as a sound, 
 great, and practical artist, in which all the others were de- 
 ficient, Reynolds must be considered the head of the Bri- 
 tish school as a painter and handler of his brush. 
 
 Opie must not be omitted, nor Northcote his imitator and 
 contemporary, both of them men of talent. Opie, a man of 
 great and powerful genius, issued from Cornwall at once on 
 the town. Northcote was six years with Reynolds ; and his 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 217 
 
 Arthur and Hubert, and Children in the Tower, are fair 
 specimens of his talents. He was a malicious man, and 
 tried to injure his greatest protector, Reynolds, and Dr. 
 Mudge who introduced him, by allowing Hazlitt to print 
 his (Northcote’s) Conversations. There never was a deeper 
 scheme for malignant defamation. Northcote always said 
 that lie did not print them, and Hazlitt that he did not talk 
 them ; and each vented his spite on a mutual friend, and 
 shifted the blame to the other. Reynolds was succeeded by 
 West, and the art sunk to the lowest depth, containing only 
 Sir Joshua's humble imitators, when a genius broke forth, 
 David Wilkie, who rendered our domestic school, the first 
 in Europe ; and the feeling for art has been rapidly advan- 
 cing amongst the people ever since. This many circum- 
 stances unite to prove. 
 
 In consequence of the perpetual complaints from the 
 great body of artists, the government granted a committee 
 in 1836, to examine the cause of the superiority of France in 
 manufacturing design, as well as the condition of high art, and 
 to ascertain if the accusations against the Royal Academy 
 were true or false. Never in the world were the consequences 
 of a monopoly on the perceptions of respectable men so 
 ludicrously developed. The president and body first denied 
 the right of the House of Commons to examine them at all ; 
 and when the persuasions of their friends showed them their 
 folly, their appearance before the committee presented a scene 
 never to be forgotten in the history of English painting. 
 On all questions of finance, they proved satisfactorily the 
 honour of their transactions ; but on all questions of art more 
 was proved against them than ever had been suspected. 1 2 
 
 1 See Report on Arts and Manvfactures. In this Report the im- 
 
 L 
 
238 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 The resignation of Reynolds, and the expulsion of Barry ; the 
 loss of a million of money to the art on the Waterloo mo- 
 nument, in consequence of their not replying to Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh’s committee ; their refusal to let the artists also 
 support their exhibition, and have the same opportunities of 
 fitting their works for the public as at the British Gallery ; 
 and, to crown all, their rendering the school of design lately 
 established of no avail to the mechanic, by establishing a law, 
 that the study of the figure is not necessary for his education, 
 though it was proved that this stfidy at the Lyons academy 
 for mechanics, was the real cause of their superiority to us ; 
 are such indisputable evidence against their protestations 
 of sincerity, that it has rendered the nobility and the nation 
 more than suspicious of the truth of all the accusations which 
 have been made against them. 
 
 In Scotland the art is in a promising condition, and the 
 Scottish school in purer taste than the English. Living as 
 the artists do, in the most magnificent city in Europe, sur- 
 rounded by a country pregnant with historical recollections, 
 and guided by their own shrewd understandings, the school in 
 Edinburgh will, before many years, take a very high rank 
 in the art. But there is some cause to apprehend that it will 
 be checked at its most critical period, from the usual cause, 
 the foundation of the old curse of Europe, an academy. 
 After having produced Runciman, Raeburn, Wilkie, and 
 the other eminent men Scotland can boast of in art, they 
 have been persuaded to found conventional distinctions, 
 in favour of a select few ; and, as elsewhere, the result will be 
 the same. No Wilkie, no Runciman, no Raeburn will come 
 from it; for the best men they now possess were eminent be- 
 
 portant subjects of Art and Manufactures are both considered ; and 
 no one with any pretensions to taste, should be without it. 
 
BRITISH SCHOOL. 
 
 219 
 
 fore it was thought of. The art has no business with any aris- 
 tocracy of talent. Conventional distinctions, which are not 
 hereditary, are laughable and absurd ; and distinctions which 
 are, ought to be reserved for high descent, heroic actions, land- 
 ed property, or vast political genius. Such an aristocracy pro- 
 duces heart-burnings and injustice ; for it places power in 
 the hands of men, who are not amenable to justice for tyran- 
 ny, and who cannot be reached by law, for calumny or in- 
 sinuation. “ Of all hatreds,” said the Edinburgh Review , 
 “ there are none to equal the hatreds weak men in power 
 bear to the man of genius without it.” It is a curious evi- 
 dence of the sagacity of the Scotch, that whilst the English 
 portrait painters, since the death of Reynolds, were all plac- 
 ing kings and queens on their toes, from sheer ignorance of 
 perspective, Raeburn, Wilkie, and Gordon have never made 
 that mistake. 
 
 In a word, it is our decided and unprejudiced conviction, 
 that the genius of the British people, will never have lair 
 play or be soundly advanced, till the Royal Academy is 
 removed, or effectually remodelled ; and this will be effected 
 either by the positive interference of the queen or the go- 
 vernment, or by the rapidly increasing knowledge of the 
 people. If the capital and the provinces were freed from the 
 predominance of those men ; if the honours were abolished 
 and the constituencies restored ; if the whole national galler- 
 ies were turned into a great school, with branch schools in the 
 great towns ; if the Cartoons were removed to London for 
 the occasional sight of the people, as they might be inclin- 
 ed to drop in; and if a Native Gallery were arranged for the- 
 best productions to be purchased as they appeared, and 
 the House of Lords adorned with a series of grand works 
 referring to the British constitution ; then would the go- 
 
220 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 vernment do areal good to taste, refined pleasures, and design 
 for manufactures, such as would entitle them to the ever- 
 lasting gratitude of the nation. 
 
 On the other hand, if all the ancient boroughs of the 
 land have been obliged to bend to the call for reform ; if 
 the crown itself has been obliged to yield up the old House of 
 Commons ; if the salaries of our great officers of state have 
 been cut down without complaint ; if pensions bestowed 
 equally for merit or for vice, are to be rigorously sifted ; if 
 the queen herself has been obliged to permit her expendi- 
 ture to be questioned ; are a set of men without a lease of 
 their House, or charter for their existence, without any one 
 legal claim to be considered as a constitutional body — are 
 they alone to brave the Commons and the Lords, are they 
 alone to defy and deny reformation, taking their stand upon 
 their utter insignificance ? If so, it will be an anomaly in 
 the character of the British Legislature, which, in after times, 
 will only be remembered as a proof of imbecility and folly, 
 if not of something still worse than either. 
 
 We have now gone through the great leading schools of 
 Italy, France, Germany, Flanders, Holland, Spain, and Bri- 
 tain, and we have taken those names only, which may be 
 considered as fading an epoch ; so that, in such a system, 
 many eminent men must of necessity have been omitted. 
 From the Petersburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, or Stockholm aca- 
 demies, no great genius except Thorwaldsen has yet appeared. 
 
 Was Italian art equal to Greek art ? Certainly not. In 
 the finest Italian there is a want of beauty in form and face, 
 which Greek art could only supply. Poussin said, that Raf- 
 faelle was an angel in comparison with the moderns, but in 
 comparison with the ancients he was an ass. Though this is 
 vulgar, it is in our opinion true. The ancients combined 
 
GENERAL DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 221 
 
 the Venetian and Roman schools ; they considered form, 
 colour, light and shadow, surface, expression, and execu- 
 tion, as all equally component parts of imitation, and all neces- 
 sary to perfect that imitation which was to be employed as an 
 instrument to convey thought. They combined the draw- 
 ing and the colouring of the two great Italian schools ; as 
 these illustrious schools tried to do when they found out 
 their error, in pursuing one at the expense of the other. 
 
 Reynolds, from the defective practice of each school, laid 
 it down that colour was incompatible with high art ; and he 
 also laid it down that the ancients could not be great paint- 
 ers in a whole , though they might be in a solo, from the pic- 
 tures on the walls of Pompeii. We do not wonder at any 
 man so concluding before the Elgin marbles arrived ; but 
 we do marvel at Reynolds taking the works in the private 
 rooms of a provincialRoman city asjustifiable grounds on which 
 to estimate the extent of genius in Greek art at its finest 
 period, five hundred years before. But after all, what are the 
 pictures of Pompeii ? Very probably the designs in Pom- 
 peii would rank about as high in ancient art, as the designs of 
 our paper-stainers in Bond Street would in British art. 
 The pictures at Pompeii are no more criteria of what the 
 art of Apelles and Polygnotus really was, than any sculpture 
 dug up there would be a criterion of what the art of Phi- 
 dias was. Reynolds undervalues contemporary praise ; but 
 Quintilian, Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Strabo, Polybius, and 
 Pausanias, Valerius Maximus, JElian, and Pliny, were not 
 contemporary ; and, therefore, the praises of Aristotle or of 
 Plato who were, justify the enthusiasm of those who were 
 not. 
 
 Since the works of Phidias arrived in England, we have 
 positive evidence that the Greeks knew the great principles 
 
222 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 of composition and grouping, as applied to painting ; because 
 the metopes are instances of arrangement of line, that will 
 do exactly in a picture, if the Laocoon had not shown it be- 
 fore. Having now seen the Elgin marbles, which the Greeks 
 estimated as their finest work, and having found all the enthu- 
 siasm of the ancients more than borne out, have we not a jus- 
 tifiable ground to argue from what we do see in one art, 
 that what we do not see in another was equally excellent ? 
 Will any man, after seeing the Theseus and Ilyssus, doubt 
 that the ivory Minerva and Olympian Jupiter were equally, 
 if not more beautiful ? Why should the ancient critics have 
 faith placed in all their decisions except those on painting ? 
 Why should they lose their perspicacity of understanding 
 only when they talked of this art? After Aristotle and 
 Plato had admired the Minerva inside the Parthenon and 
 the sculpture outside, they might admire the pictures ; and 
 nobody will deny them the power of making comparisons. 
 Had the Elgin marbles and the old antique never been seen, 
 would not the same sophistry have been put forth to question 
 the merit of their sculpture as well as to deny that of their 
 painting ? “ Nothing can be more perfect than Phidias,” 
 
 says Cicero. “You cannot praise him enough,” exclaims Pliny. 
 “ He made gods better than men,” says Quintilian. “ He 
 was skilful in beauty, ” says Plato. You believe all this, 
 because you cannot contradict it ; but the moment Quin- 
 tilian says, “ Zeuxis discovered light and shade ; Parrhasius 
 was exquisite for subtlety of line ; Apelles for grace ; Theon 
 for poetical conceptions, ( tpavrao-ias ) ; Pamphilus for ma- 
 thematical principle ; Polygnotus for simplicity of epic ar- 
 rangement in colour and form ; Protogenes for finish ;” — when 
 Pliny commends Aristides for expression, and Amphion for 
 composition, and speaks of the grand assemblage of the gods 
 
GENERAL DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 223 
 
 by Zeuxis, as well as the single figures of Apelles, Reynolds 
 replies, “ Admiration often proceeds fromignorance of higher 
 excellence, I will not believe contemporaneous praise.” We 
 answer, that admiration oftener proceeds from knowledge 
 of superior excellence ; that the most enthusiastic admir- 
 ers of Greek painting were not contemporary ; and that 
 Reynolds’ conclusions against Greek art are founded upon 
 data which are altogether erroneous. 
 
 Taking the Elgin marbles as a standard, we cannot but 
 suppose that the finest great works of Greek art had the 
 finest drawing, the most wonderful knowledge of form, the 
 finest grouping, and the finest expression. To this may 
 be added, colour from Pliny, light and shadow from Quin- 
 tilian; perspective from Vitruvius; fore-shortening, dwelling 
 on the leading points, like Vandyke, and touching off the 
 inferior parts from Plutarch; and, what was never suspect- 
 ed, execution with the brush from Horace, on the leading 
 principles of the Venetians. The French used to affirm, 
 that David’s principle was the same as that of the Greeks, 
 namely, obtruding on the attention all the superior parts, and 
 neglecting the inferior ones. In Plutarch’s life of Alexan- 
 der, at the very beginning, he describes to his readers his 
 plan of writing his lives, and concludes with this extraor- 
 dinary passage : “ Like painters that paint portraits, who 
 dwell on the face, caring little about the remaining parts .” 1 
 His meaning is, that he would, like painters, dwell upon the 
 leading points in the history of great men and lightly touch 
 off the inferior parts. Could he have made such an allusion 
 
 1 dxrTr ep ovv 61 faypatyoL ras opoioTijras thro tov npoaroi- 
 
 7rov, avakapfiavovcriV) iXa^ra rav \oltto!>v pepcov (ppovTifavres. 
 
 AAESANAP02. 
 
224 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 for the general reader, if this had not been the practice of 
 the great Greek painters ? Again, Horace says in the art 
 of poetry, 
 
 Ut pictura poesis erit ; quse si propius stes, 
 
 Te capiat magis ; qusedam si longius abstes. 
 
 That is, some pictures are painted for a close, others for a 
 distant inspection. The former, of course, are wrought up ; 
 but in the latter, the leading points are seized by a touch, 
 leaving the atmosphere to unite. As to mere handling of 
 the brush, this is conclusive, and shows that it was done on the 
 same system as by Titian, Tintoretto, and Velasquez. Rey- 
 nolds has quotedPliny’s description ofglazing,that is, spreading 
 a thin transparent tint over the crude colours to bring them 
 into harmony, which was the practice of the Venetians. 
 Another passage completes the conviction : “ Adjectus est 
 splendor , alius hie quam lumen, quem quia inter hoc et 
 umbram esset, appellaverunt tonon” (Lib. xxxv. c. 5.) 
 u Now was added splendor, a different thing from light, and 
 which splendor, because it was between light and dark, 
 was called tone.” To the mind of an artist this is exquisite 
 in distinction ; first, the colours on the tablet were fresh, 
 unmixed, and raw; then was spread over a transparent glaze 
 to take off the crudeness ; then this crudeness being reduced, 
 it was called splendor , glowing, rich, and deep, but different 
 from light, which is cold and white ; and this splendor the 
 Greeks called tone, as both the Venetians and the British 
 denominate it. But the circumstance of tone being the cha- 
 racteristic of any school, is proof of an age for colour. 
 
 As to their perspective, let any man consult Vitruvius, 
 (lib. vii.). Agatharcus composed a treatise on the subject ; 
 andfrom this hint, Democritus and Anaxagoras wrote on per- 
 
GENERAL DEDUCTIONS. 
 
 225 
 
 spective, explaining in what manner we should, in appear- 
 ances agreeable to nature, from a central point make the 
 lines to correspond with the eye and the direction of the 
 visual rays, and render the scene a true representation of 
 buildings, that those objects which are drawn on a perpen- 
 dicular plane, may appear some retiring from the eye, and 
 some advancing towards it. From a passage in Plato, it is 
 clear, that the Greeks carried the illusions of theatrical per- 
 spective to a much greater extent than, in consequence of 
 some bad landscape discovered in Herculanum, has been 
 supposed .” 2 That they foreshortened is 'clear, from Pliny’s 
 description of a bull coming out of a picture frontways. 
 
 The inferences to be drawn from all this, are, first, from 
 Plutarch and Horace, that the Greeks had execution like 
 Titian and Vandyke ; secondly, from Pliny, that they must 
 have had fine colour, (lib. xxxv.) ; thirdly, from Quintilian, 
 that the principles of light and shadow were understood, (lib. 
 xii.) ; fourthly, from Vitruvius, (lib.vii.), that they had suffi- 
 cient perspective to make objects recede and advance ; and 
 fifthly, from the Elgin marbles, executed by and in the school 
 of Phidias, who was first a painter, that they had expression, 
 form, and composition. If the three most important can be 
 proved, as they can, and colour, light and shadow, and exe- 
 cution, more than inferred ; what right has an eminent En- 
 glish portrait-painter, grossly deficient as a painter of high 
 art, to assert, that they could not be great in extensive com- 
 positions, because the painted walls of a provincial city gave 
 no evidence of such excellence in their private houses ? for- 
 getting that these were executed five hundred years after the 
 eras of Greek perfection, when Greece was a Roman pro- 
 
 Theatre of the Greeks , p. 262, 3d edition, Cambridge. 
 
226 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 vince, when her cities had been sacked, and her art was talk- 
 ed of as a wonder that had passed away. 
 
 The principle laid down for high art has been, that the 
 lower addresses the eye and the higher the mind, and that 
 the union of the two was incompatible ; whereas, the true 
 principle surely is, that both styles address the mind through 
 the eye, but in different ways ; the lower walk making the 
 imitation of the actual substance the great object of plea- 
 sure only; and the higher walk making imitation the means 
 of conveying a beautiful thought, a fine expression, or a 
 grand form with greater power. The imitation though more 
 abstracted must not be less real or effective. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds affirmed, that the look of truth which fine colour, 
 light and shadow, and reality gave, distracted the eye from 
 the poetry of the conception or the depth of the expres- 
 sion. But it may be maintained, that in an art, the ele- 
 ments of which are laid in imitation, the beauty of an ex- 
 pression, the grace of a motion, and the sublimity of a 
 conception, will be increased in proportion to the look of 
 reality in the objects ; and the practice of all the great 
 Greek painters, and of Raffaelle and Titian in their latter 
 works, (the Transfiguration, and Pietro Marty re), proves 
 that they had come to the same conclusions. Yet Rey- 
 nolds, with his usual sagacious policy, appears to waver lest 
 he should be wrong. “ There is no reason,” says he, “ why 
 the great painters might not have availed themselves with 
 caution and selection of many excellencies in the Venetian, 
 Flemish, and Dutch schools ; there are some not in con- 
 tradiction to any style, a happy disposition of light and shade, 
 breadth in masses of colour, the union of these with their 
 grounds, and the harmony arising from a due mixture of hot 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 227 
 
 and cold tints, with many other excellencies which w'ould 
 surely not counteract the grand style.” And then he con- 
 cludes that “ a subdued attention to these excellencies must 
 be added to complete a perfect painter.” This is all that 
 is contended for. So far from these excellencies being in- 
 compatible with grandeur of style, they are essential to it, they 
 are the elements and the basis of it, they cannot be left out, 
 or if they are, the style is deficient, absurd, and not founded 
 in nature. There is not the least doubt that the Greek 
 painters considered the power of imitating natural objects 
 by colour, and light and shadow, as necessary and requisite 
 in preparatory study as drawing or composition ; and the 
 greatest painters in the grand style in ancient Greece, were 
 just as capable of imitating still life as the possessors of it 
 now. 
 
 It may, therefore, be fairly deduced, that the Greeks 
 possessed all parts of the art, and none particularly to the 
 exclusion of others ; that, therefore, all parts of the art, in 
 due subordination, maybe considered as essential to an artist 
 of the highest w^alk, as also in the more humble depart- 
 ment ; and that the system of Reynolds, which excludes 
 identity and power of reality from judicious imitation of the 
 objects painted, combining colour and light and shadow, as 
 well as expression and form, is false, and should be exploded 
 from all systems where art is considered as a matter of im- 
 portance to the dignity or glory of a nation. 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 
 Printed by Balfour and Jack. 
 
J 
 
 
1128 — Haydon (B. R.) and William Hazlitt. 
 Painting and the Fine Arts, being articles contri- 
 buted to the 7th cdn. of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, Ediitb., 1838, First Edition, sm. 8vo, 
 orig. cloth, a little worn (Keynes 103) £7/7/- 
 
 
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