YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

LEG T U It E S

WORKS AND GENIUS

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

WILLIAM WARE. hi

AUTHOR OP

ZENOBIA, AURELIAN, JULIAN, &c.

BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY.
M DCCC LII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1>:52, by
Henry Ware,
in the Clerk's O.Tice of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

'¦ c

THURSTON, TOItRT, AND EMERSON, PRISTBRS.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.
 /
The Lectures contained in this volume arc given
to tho public, as tlicy were left by the author, at
his death. There might, perhaps, be some question
as to the propriety of giving to the world an unfin
ished work of criticism upon such a subject; but
the words of the author himself, in speaking of
the great unfinished picture of the Artist, whose
name and fame it was his object, so far as it was
in his power, to make more extensively known
and honored among us, furnish a sufficient apology.
It seems to be, " a work from which lessons may
be drawn of use to society; too valuable, too
beautiful, too much of it near its completion, too
instructive, in many ways, to be rolled up forever,
or seen by a few and hidden from the common
eye." The preparation of these Lectures was a work
of love ; the opinions expressed , the result of a

long and loving study of the subject; and, though
it may be that, before publication, they would have
undergone some modification from his own hand,
which that of another cannot venture to undertake,
it is believed that they are mainly the result of
careful study and deliberate conviction.
The author, at the time he was suddenly attacked
by his last illness, was engaged in making arrange
ments for delivering these Lectures in this city,
so long the residence of the illustrious Artist and
Scholar of whose works and genius they treat. To
the last sentence, which is here given as it was
left unfinished by his pen, it was the author's in
tention to add a conclusion adapted to the circum
stances of the place, and to the audience to whom
it would have been first addressed.
Caubbidge, Massachusetts, August, 1852.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ALLSTON'S
GENIUS.

CONTENTS.

LECTUEE I.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ALLSTON'S GENIUS.
LECTURE II.
THE LESSER PICTURES. LECTUEE III.
THE LARGER PICTURES.— BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ALLSTON'S
GENIUS.

In the Lectures which I propose to read
upon Mr. Allston and his works, upon his
works, rather than upon him, (upon him, only
incidentally,) it will be my object to present
some account of them ; in order to increase
and extend, if it may be, what I cannot but
regard as just impressions of their value and
importance, to artists, to all lovers of art, and
to the cultivated portion of society at large.
But, really, it seems idle to think of reading
Lectures upon such a subject, so far off and
dead, while our public is all alive with
Liberty, Intervention, Hungary and Russia,
French Revolution, and a thousand other
topics no less engrossing ; — it seems much
as if one were to propose a course upon the
I

,i I.KCTL'llKS ON ALLSTON.
virtues and duties of moderate exercise, while
one's city was burning down. I can look for
but a few hearers under such circumstances,
and a few will satisfy my wishes.
I shall go, somewhat minutely, into criti
cisms of these works. Some may think this
not very well judged, as but few, it may be
thought, can be supposed to have seen them,
and but few, therefore, are able to form
any opinion on what may be offered. But I
believe that the having seen them, or not,
would make but little difference in an easy
understanding or enjoyment of the subject, to
any Avho would enjoy such a subject at all.
It were better, no doubt, on the whole, were
the memory familiar with the works to be
named ; but it can, by no means, be neces
sary. Hardly more so than it would be, in
the reading of literary criticism, that all the
books criticised should first have been read,
which would be better, but not essential to
the receiving a great deal of pleasure and
instruction. Suppose some La Harpe, Sis-
mondi, Tiraboschi, were to offer a course of

THE CRITICISM OV WORKS OF ART. 3
lectures upon the History of English Litera
ture, how very few could attend such a
course, and how much pleasure and informa
tion would be lost, were it to be confined to
those only who had read all the volumes
that were to form the subject-matter of the
course. For my own part, I listen to criticisms on
pictures, and the works of famous artists, in
their biographies, or in lectures, with as much
interest, and enter into them as heartily, as
to criticisms on any subjects purely literary.
Descriptions, I can follow as readily as analy
ses of dramas, poems, novels, histories ; as
well as details of campaigns, battles, sieges,
and can come to as intelligent an opinion.
And this, without any thing more being requi
site than attention ; with no necessity what
ever for any particular acquaintance with, or
knowledge of, any of the purely mechanical
departments of the art. In fact, all the more
important statements and criticisms in relation
to art, have a closer relation to what is uni
versal in its character, common alike to litera-

4 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
ture and art, than to any thing peculiar and
restricted. And particularly is this true when
criticisms relate to a mind so universal in its
tastes and attainments as that of Mr. Allston.
With this explanation, I shall feel myself as
fully justified in any minuteness of detail in
my subject, as I should, in the case of an exclu
sively literary topic. Yet shall I be none the
less anxious to avoid the too much and the
too minute. I shall hope not to make my
subject tedious, though I naturally experience
some apprehensions.
Before I proceed to the particular enume
ration of Mr. Allston's characteristics as an
artist, I wish to glance at some of the foun
dations and reasons of his eminence aud
success. In the first place, Mr. Allston was prepared
for a successful career by his general cultiva- -J
tion. This should be well considerecT^y" the
young aspirant. It had much to do in his
case, and always, in any case, must have
much to do, with success. I do not enter
into the question of his natural genius, how

THE FOUNDATIONS OV HIS EMINENCE. 5
great it was, as a reason and explanation of
his eminence ; nor, to what extent his fame
was owing to genius, rather than to his cul
ture of it. We never can know or tell how
much God has originally given, nor how
much withheld. All that we can affirm, in
any case, with certainty is, whether any thing,
and if any thing, how much, man has done.
If much, it will be fair and right to ascribe
to culture much of the grand total of success.
If absolutely nothing, or but little, then the
eminence, if manifested, will be, as justly,
ascribed to God, or to genius. But I can call
to mind scarce an instance of a transcendently
great artist, who was great, independently of
labor, and great labor. In literature, Shaks-
peare comes nearer than any other human
being, to the case of pure, exclusive genius.
We have no evidence that he ever was a
scholar or student, that ho ever did any
thing save merely to transcribe the ideas
that crowded upon his mind ; only, that he is
known to have hunted through volumes of
old novels, histories and translations, for the
l*

/

LECTURES ON ALLSTON.

themes of his plots. Homer, on the other
hand, the other great genius of the world, as
he began life as a schoolmaster, may, with
reason, be supposed to have been a man of
work, more or less, — most likely more. Not
at all, that I am inclined to deny or underrate
genius, in comparison with labor, in art. I
believe that in art, as in literature, there is the
greatest inequality conceivable in the human
powers. I would as soon believe that all men
and women are born equally handsome, well-
shaped, or strong, as that they are created
equal in intellectual power ; — as soon be
lieve that the ugly may be made beautiful by
washes and unguents, the crooked, straight, by
mechanical appliances, as that any efforts of
labor can ever supply a natural intellectual
deficiency. But I think that, generally, they
who have been preeminently indebted to na
ture for their superiority, are they, who have
added as much as ever nature did for them,
by their own efforts. Particularly was that
so with those intellectual giants, Da Vinci,
Michael Angelo, and Raffaelle. Without their

HIS INTELLECTUAL CULTURE. I
unremitting, herculean labors, what would
they have been, with all their genius? In all
the instances of Allston's peculiar success, we
cannot conceive of that success being attained
without all of that application by which he
was distinguished. And really, without such
application, no one knows what his genius is,
nor how great. Claude was a remarkable in
stance of this. In color, which was Allston's
grand distinction, though feeling, or genius,
was its foundation, the most pains-taking
labors could alone have raised the superstruc
ture. In the first suggestion of his subjects and
their management, how much must he not
have been indebted to his general cultivation
of mind! How much must it not have added
to the general dignity of his character, and
imparted the vigor, grace and elegance of
learning, to his design ! No one can look
upon the works that come from his hand,
without perceiving, at a glance, his indebted
ness to the highest intellectual culture ; in the
same way as one would, from reading such
poetry as Bryant's, or such prose as Irving's.

!*> LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
Another explanation of Allston's eminence,
was the truthfulness and earnestness of his
mind, its simplicity and unselfishness, the
noble and elevated principles on which he
acted and pursued his art. He made pic
tures, not, that they might be sold and enrich
him ; not, that they might bring him reputa
tion now, and fame afterwards ; not, that he
might eclipse others, and throw them into the
shade ; from that he shrunk with instinctive
horror ; but, because he loved aud honored his
art on its own account ; because, through it,
as a medium, he could express himself in the
best way possible to him ; because, in this
manner only, could he reveal to others his con
ceptions of the beautiful, the grand, the divine.
He certainly had a proper regard for the prices
which his works would bring; he was to live
by his art ; and he demanded the full sum
which he thought they were worth, as a
matter of just self-respect, but he made no
demand till he had made the very picture
which he wished to make, and as he wished
to make it. He loved reputation ; but would

HIS CHOICE OF SUBJECTS. 9
seek or accept it, only as the fair reward of
labors honestly and entirely his own, both in
the conception and the execution, and com
pleted up to the highest mark of his ability.
In regard to the particular subject of any
picture, he chose it, not, for any reason of mo
mentary popularity, or, because it would sell
well, or exhibit well, nor at the urgency of
others, nor for any idle whim or fancy ; but
because he himself had fallen in love with it,
and he could not rest till it was done ; his
imagination was inflamed, and the fire spread
and communicated power to his whole being.
He then was in a condition to work, and he
worked, as a man, then only, does. When a
man paints a picture, or does any kind of
work, on such principles, he works well. He
paints, sculptures, writes well. A book, poem,
novel, history, written in such a way, stands a
chance of being read longer than while the
ink is drying. To draw an illustration from
my own profession, sermons written in this
way only, are good ones. An eminent ser-
monizer of our own time, I have heard say, that

10 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
he would not begin to write a sermon, let what
would happen, till he knew what to write
about (what a censure on most of us!) nor
only that, not till he had found something
that he wanted to say, and believed he knew
how to say. And he waited often, weeks aud
weeks, before he could move. But, when the
work was done, it teas done ; the man was in
the sermon ; and whatever there was in him
of intellectual or moral power, these passed
over to the hearer and possessed him ; it was
so, so only, that Allston undertook his pictures.
They are, in no instance, painted without the
deepest meditation and the profoundest study.
This is obvious to any one who knows any
thing about them. He has, in each case, found
a thought which he wished to utter, which
he was burning to utter, into which, then, by
degrees and by prolonged study, he concen
trated every faculty, affection, knowledge of
his mind. Then he painted ; and to say that
he succeeded, is only to proclaim a natural,
irresistible effect, of the means and methods
employed.

HIS CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 1 1
This, undoubtedly, was the principal reason,
why, comparatively, and, for a person of his
power, he painted so few pictures. He could
not paint many done in that way. A man so
thoroughly conscientious, who made a con
science of his art, could not make many ; too
many conditions were to be satisfied for that.
Had he been willing to paint pictures on the
principles on which so many make them,
men, too, who have been eminent in their pro
fession, he might easily have rolled in wealth,
instead of dying, as he did, in a more honor
able poverty. But whether, in that way, his
reputation would have gained, is another thing.
Mr. Allston's mind was a religious mind —
another reason of his success. He looked at
subjects, as he looked at nature, through a
religious medium. Every thing was colored
by it to his eye. This was a great happiness
to him, as a man, as it was a great additional
source of power, as an artist. Beato Angelico
was not more a religious man than he — nor
Overbeck ; religious in no one-sided, technical
sense, but in the universal sense. He was,

12 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
indeed, of a particular church ; but he was, in
religion, what he so emphatically declared
himself in art, a wide liker ; by charity in
religion, and benevolence in art, he was alike
distinguished. It is delightful once more to
see religion in so close alliance with art. If
an undevout astronomer is mad, what shall be
said of the artist ? One would think it could
hardly be otherwise, than that the student of
nature, for the simple, beautiful ends of art,
should be religious, in the sense of a devo
tional mind ; penetrated with sentiments of
' reverence and love, for the grandeur and the
loveliness of the Creator's works. Were it
oftener so, it is easy to see what a spirit of
elevation it would necessarily communicate to
art, to what a different class of subjects it
would lead the mind, to what a different
manner of treating them ; in a word, into how
different, and more exalted a state it would
bring it, and from how much loftier a point it
would view all subjects that came within its
sphere. It will not necessarily declare itself
by the selection and treatment of subjects dis-

RELIGIOUS REVERENCE. 13
tinctivcly religious. By no means. Though
it will naturally do this, occasionally. It will
rather, reveal itself indirectly, but only the
more powerfully. And here, one cannot but
sometimes regret, and yet, with misgivings,
that, while Allston was so eminently of a
religious spirit, it should not, oftener, have
drawn him away from his devotion to the
purely beautiful ; that it should never, in a
single instance, have led him for his theme, to
the New Testament. But I am inclined to
think that it was his religious reverence that
deterred him — no indifference; that scriptu
ral subjects, the only ones that would prove
attractive to him, which another might treat,
with no doubt as to their fitness and propriety,
he could not touch, at all, or without trem
bling; without trembling too much to com
mand a free use of his powers, or even think
it right to use them so at all. This is but a
conjecture, but plausible, as it seems to me.
Since writing this as a conjecture, I have
been happy to find the conjecture verified in
a brief article written by Dr. Channing at
2

1 1 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
the time of Mr. Allston's death, to whom lie
distinctly declared, that " He never could make
that person, or those characters, Christ and
his Apostles, subjects of his art."
Another foundation of his eminence was,
that he so often painted upon a large scale,
the scale of life, or colossal, that it led to
the formation, not only of a correct, but an
elevated hand, to the avoiding of all that class
of faults, and all that sort of looseness and
littleness of manner, the attendant aud result
of confinement to diminutive forms, and pic
tures of cabinet size. The schools do wisely,
when the absolute requisition is made of the
pupil, that every drawing shall be made of
the size of life, or, otherwise, collossal. It
leads, with certainty, to correctness and truth
of form, and gradually, to a grand style of
drawing, and even higher style of thinking
and desiguing. It elevates the mind as well
as improves the hand. On the other hand,
beneath drawings on a diminutive scale, are
safely hidden away a thousand inaccuracies

THE MINIATURE SCALE. Ii)
and errors, which the observer cannot distin
guish nor detect to be such. It is impossible
to judge, in such a case, whether the work
of an artist be correct or not. The very
power to judge is taken away. In reply to
this, it would be a mere sophism to maintain
that, because the drawing of the human form
should be of the size of life, or more, houses
and trees should be as well, to be judged
true. All that is meant is, that all objects
shall be of such a size, that the eye shall be
easily capable to make such comparisons with
reality, as to be able to discriminate between
what is correct and incorrect; which cannot
be done Avhen the scale is miniature. Accus
tomed to the large scale, the eye, at once,
detects the faulty, in one's own work, or in
another's. But, much more than this, it ele
vates the general style of art, impresses upon
it, more than any other cause, I believe, that
grand manner, as it is termed, in the way of
thinking and drawing, which gave its sublime
character to the era of the fifteenth and six
teenth centuries.

1(5 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
And, to my mind, one of the prominent
causes of the decline of art at the close of
those centuries, was the fall of the Catholic
Church ; for, with that church disappeared the
broad field for the exercise of art, on that
scale essential to its grandeur. During the
centuries just named, fresco was the kind of
art universally employed. The vast panels
for that art were furnished by nothing less
than the walls and ceilings of churches and
cathedrals. The colossal was the scale em
ployed ; this, of itself, was enough to stamp
a character of grandeur upon art. The intel
lectual and mechanical advantage derived from
that sweep of the arm which designing on
so vast a scale, imparts, can hardly be enough
appreciated. Add to this, that, as far as the
church was concerned, it was religion that
alone supplied the subjects for the pencil, and
no other cause can be needed to account for
the elevation to which painting was raised at
that time. The rise and predominance of
Protestantism, while it gave new life to Reli
gion, struck Art with a palsy, from which it

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 1/
seems as if it could never recover, nor, per
haps, ever will, till some new Church shall
arise, which, bent on truth, not on party,
shall not be afraid to revive all that was good,
beautiful in the elder church, while it still
prosecutes its work of reform. Ages often drop,
and leave forgotten behind, treasures as choice
as any new ones they may find on the road,
or invent, as they go along. Such effects as
these named have not universally followed, of
course, nor has art universally declined, but that
it has suffered very materially, none can doubt.
Allston's paintings of the human form, with
but few exceptions, were of the size of life, or
larger. This was one cause of his excellence.
Another cause of his success, which I may
name, was the conscientious exactness with
which he finished, to the utmost of his ability,
every work which he undertook. The labor,
toil, finish of art could go no further than in
the case of this brilliant artist, who Avas never
so solicitous to achieve a great work, or extend
his reputation, or to gather laurels, as he was
2*

IS LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
to finish, with almost Dutch minuteness, what
ever labor he had commenced and promised.
I turn, now, to some of the characteristics
of Mr. Allston's art. I shall take up these
points: Mr. Allston's color; his appreciation
of character, or power of expression ; his love
of beauty ; and his feeling for the sublime ;
but with no severe strictness of method.
The grand, distinguishing characteristic of
Mr. Allston, as an artist, that which, at once,
raises him, not only above our own artists, but
I am equally clear, above all others, certainly
of the present day, is Color. He was great in
many ways, but greatest there ; for one, I am
ready to say, unapproached. And, it is to be
observed, that, to excel in color, is to excel
in by no means an inferior department of art.
Excepting only, in the purely intellectual power
of the conception and composition of those
grand designs which express the greatest
thoughts of genius, and which have filled the
world with works that can never die, which
have lived for ages, and will live for ages to
come, in the admiration of successive genera-

GENIUS. 19
tions — Color, in its perfection, more than any
thing else, proves an original mind, proclaims
that gift of nature which we describe by the
word genius ; an excellence to be acquired by
no labor, no art, no teaching, by no processes
of reason, by no search after principles. None
can teach it to another; none can learn it
from another. It is a feeling, an instinct, a
heaven-given, heaven-born virtue ; a thing
that God gives, which man cannot otherwise
possess. It may be approximated, more or
less remotely, by effort, study, and imitation,
but not reached. We call it appropriately,
genius ; it is nothing else. More strictly, is
this great excellence of color, thus denomi
nated, than even the power I first named,
invention and composition. If, to a knowl
edge and skill in form, be added the highest
intellectual culture, in a mind of great natural
vigor, one can easily suppose that the mind of
an artist may be so far exalted, that he shall
be able to conceive and express subjects the
most subtle and the most complex, with that
perfection, that both the requisitions of logic

i-'O LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
and of the imagination shall be fully satisfied.
But, on the other hand, as to the feeling, by
which the brush shall be arrested, at the point
when absolute truth and absolute beauty shall
be reached, in the color of a head, the tint of
a sky, or the gradations of a distance ; this is
native in the soul, and, like the perception of
color itself, is a grace beyond the art of teach
ing or learning. Unless schools and masters
can work miracles, they can do nothing. I say
they are powerless to reach perfection. To
borrow au illustration from a kindred depart
ment, color, is to painting, what the choice of
words is, to style, in literature. The highest
graces of style, as every body knows, are
beyond the reach of professors, and cannot be
imparted by them, even though they be models
themselves. Errors can be corrected aud faults
amended, to any extent, but beauty, »race,
cannot be imparted, any more than beauty and
grace of movement can be imparted, by the
dancing-master, to the body which nature has
constructed awkwardly. All the wisdom and
genius of Universities, cannot make a single

STYLE. 21
Addison or Goldsmith or Irving out of a raw
material designed by Heaven for something
very different. In truth, the more style is
taught by laborious processes, the further, I
believe, it flees from the love-sick votary. It
is an impalpable essence, that eludes, like
some airy phantom, the grasp of him who
attempts to seize it. Imitators may herd
around a great man who has originated a
transcendent excellence ; and imitation will
produce resemblance, but nothing more, — no
real excellence ; and a far inferior grace, if
original, is worth it all. A copyist is he who
must be considered as, least of all, hopeful of
any good and lasting success. The color of
Palma, Correggio, Titian, cannot be taught or
learned. Titian was surrounded by scholars,
yet not one of them equalled Titian. To
himself and his pupils, there were common, the
same pigments, the same vehicles, the same
tools and other mechanical contrivances. They
might stand by and watch the miraculous hand
as it laid on the tints ; but it all availed not, till
the genius to use the tools and the methods

S.i LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
could be imparted as well ; in short, till one
mind could be inserted into another. I do not
believe that a single process was concealed
from those whom he professed to teach. I
believe that he freely imparted all the artifices
or tricks of color, which he himself practised
or knew. And, if pupils were, in any case, as
I have seen affirmed by some writers, not per
mitted to overlook him at work, a much more
probable explanation of the fact may be found
in the unwillingness which any one who has
secured a great reputation, will naturally feel,
to admit witnesses of the blunders, mistakes,
changes, and alterations, through which he is
seen to work his difficult way to what, at last,
seems so perfect, and which he would rather
have believed to have leaped from the brain
at once, full armed, in all its panoply of beauty
and glory. Such changes seem a confession of
infirmity ; erroneously, but naturally enough.
In the same way, Allston made no secret of
his art. He was no quack, dealing with hidden
nostrums. He was ever ready to impart to
any who sought him, the materials he used,

TITIAN  ALLSTON. 'do
and to describe the order and succession of his
tints, and all the various other processes by
which he produced his wonderful results. But
on whom has the mantle of his genius fallen ?
Some few learned so far as to catch some
of his more obvious peculiarities ; but, of his
unrivalled carnations, no one, I believe, ever
attempted an imitation. Any one must see
that it is the native eye, the heaven-descended
feeling for color, which makes the consummate
artist; that this is a mental attribute, and lies,
not iu the cunning hand, alone; and that, in
truth, the hand has cunning only because the
mind has it first.
This original genius for color was eminently
Titian's, Correggio's, Allston's. 1 am not afraid
to place those names in immediate juxtaposi
tion, though Allston himself might have shrunk
from the distinction. If any one will compare
the coloring of Allston with that of Titian,
he will perceive that, while the results are
different, so as to prove a proper independence
of one over the other, the one is not inferior
to the other. I am ready to say this de-

2-1

LECTURES ON ALLSTON.

libcrately, and with my most entire conviction
of its unexaggerated truth. I may be mistaken,
of course, but such is my opinion. And this
obliges me to add, that I cannot, willingly,
yield to many, a power of discrimination in
respect to truth of color. When I knew, a
few years ago, that I was about to have an
opportunity to see the works of Titian, I
examined, with renewed attention, all the best
examples of Allston ; and when, after a care
ful study of very many of the best instances of
Titian's pencil, I returned, aud, with that ex
perience fresh in my mind, again reexamined
the best works of Allston, I felt that, in the
great Venetian, I had found nothing more true,
nothing more beautiful, nothing more perfect,
than I had already seen in Allston. I cannot
but think that most persons, who should go
through the same process, would arrive at the
same result. When I passed from the Venus
to the Valentine, I could acknowledge no
falling off. The hues of the one were no less
perfect than those of the other. It was nature
in both, and nature when most beautiful.

OCCASIONAL FAILURES. 25
They both sought to represent nature when
adorned, and adorned the most. There was
no Tuscan nor Doric, in their style ; it was
more even than Corinthian. Nor was their
taste ever at fault, though they so preferred,
and practised, the gorgeous. Their hues never
glare upon the eye. All the deepest and rich
est tints are there, but in such harmonious
union, that a divine simplicity seems the only
result. Just as in nature, we know, it is a
complexity which baffles all comprehensions,
by Avhich every hue is produced Avhich gives
enchantment to a landscape, to the color of a
cheek or a hand. In the case of such artists,
their colors are so broken, and mingled, and
contrasted, that no one tint ever predominates
and stares upon the eye ; art is concealed and
buried beneath nature.
But it need hardly be said that Allston Avas
not always, equally felicitous, even in color,
where he most excelled. This should be
remembered by all Avho would judge or criti
cise him. It is only right and fair that the
opinion should be formed of him, of what he
3

26 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
was, and of what he could do, by the finest ex
amples of his power. Sometimes, he seemed,
for a while, to have lost the delicacy of his
eye and truth of his feeling, as Avell as the
cunning of his hand ; as, for instance, in that
picture called the Amy Robsart. But this
cannot be accounted strange or unusual. The
same occasional inferiority of hand is to be
noted in Titian, Correggio ; many a pic
ture by those masters could hardly be deter
mined, by evidence alone, to be the work of
their pencil. But much the greater part of all
that came from Allston's hand, Avhether his
tory, ideal portrait, landscape, or still life, is
sufficiently marked by his felicitous and pecu
liar touch and color, to show the same mastery
over nature, and reveal the same inimitable
beauties. The most perfect examples of Alls-
ston's color may be found, I think, in the Jere
miah and the ATalentine, in the Spanish Girl,
and in portions of the Belshazzar. There are
many others Avhich are little inferior to these.
I single out these ; the first, for the most per
fect example of flesh color, and the Jeremiah

EXAMPLES OF COLOR. 27
for the variety of color manifested, and for the
perfection with which such a variety of tints
is managed, for producing a unity of effect be
yond any thing that could be well imagined ;
a harmony, rich and delicious like the Fifth
Symphony of Beethoven, — or one of nature's
sunsets, when all her infinite pallette is em
ployed, Avith all her inexhaustible resources.
I have just mentioned that there may be
the greatest inequality in the color of a great
colorist. The reason for it is found in the
very definition given of this process, as, in
its perfection, being the result of feeling or
genius, rather than the result, even of the most
scientific and careful education. Genius is
proverbially unequal. The Avork Avhich is the
result of feeling, not science, cannot but Be so.
The fortunate execution Avhich was yester
day's achievement, cannot, with any certainty,
be repeated to-day ; the drawing may be, but
not the color. That execution Avas good for
tune, it Avas nothing that can be done again
with absolute certainty of the same result.
The results of genius must ahvays possess

28 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
this uncertainty. Talent, on the other hand,
which works under the guidance of accurate
knowledge and settled principles, moves in
one and the same direction, and accomplishes,
with little error, the same foreseen, predeter
mined ends. So that, while great designers
are commonly equal to themselves, great col-
orists are much less so. I do not mean to
imply that these things are true, without ex
ception, and in every degree, but, commonly,
and in some good degree.
For the Valentine, I may say, though to
some, it may seem an extravagance, I have
never been able to invent the terms that
Avould sufficiently express my admiration of
that picture — I mean, of its color ; though, as
a whole, it is admirable for its composition, for
the fewness of the objects admitted, for the
simplicity and naturalness of their arrange
ment. But the charm is in the color of the
flesh, of the head, and of the two hands. The
subject is, a young Avoman reading a letter,
holding the open letter Avith both the hands.
The art can go uo further, nor, as I believe,

THE VALENTINE. 29
has it ever gone any further. Some pigments
or artifices Avere unfortunately used, which
have caused the surface to crack, and Avhich
require the picture now to be looked at, at a
further remove than the work, on its own
account, needs or requires ; it even demands a
nearer approach, in order to be well seen, than
these cracks will permit. But these accidental
blemishes do not materially interfere Avith the
appreciation and enjoyment of the picture. It
has, what I conceive to be, that most rare
merit — it has the same universal hue of nature
and truth, in both the shadoAvs and the lights
Avhich Nature has, but Art almost never,
and Avhich is the great cross to the artist.
The great defect, and the great difficulty, in
imitating the hues of flesh, lies in the shadoAvs
and the half-shadows. You will often ob
serve, in otherwise excellent works of the most
admirable masters, that, the moment their
pencil passes to the shadoAvs of the flesh, es
pecially the half-shadows, truth, though not
always a certain beauty, forsakes them. The
shadows are true in their degree of dark, but
3*

•M)

LECTURES OV ALLSTON.

false in tone and hue. They are true sha
dows, but not true flesh. You see the form
of a face, neck, arm, hand, in shadow, but not
flesh in shade ; and, Avere that portion of the
form sundered from its connection Avith the
body, it could never be told, by its color alone,
Avhat it was designed to be. Allston's won
derful merit is, (and it Avas Titian's,) that the
hue of life and flesh is the same in the shadows,
as in the light. It is not only shadow or dark,
but it is flesh in shadoAV. The shadows of
most artists, even very distinguished ones, are
green, or brown, or black, or lead color, and
have some strong and decided tint other than
that of flesh. The difficulty, with most, seems
to have been so insuperable, that they cut the
knot at a single blow, and surrendered the
shadoAvs of the flesh, as an impossibility, to
green, or brown, or black. And, in the general
imitation of the flesh tints, the greatest artists
have apparently abandoned the task in despair,
and contented themselves with a correct utter
ance of form and expression, with well har
monized darks and lights, Avith little attention

COLOR. 31
to the hues of nature. Such was Carravaggio
always, and Guercino often, and all their re
spective followers. Such was Michael Angelo,
and often Raffaelle, though, at other times, the
color of Raffaelle is not inferior, in truth and
glory, to Titian, greatest of the Venetian col-
orists ; as in his portraits of Leo X., Julius, and
some parts of some of his frescoes. But, for
the most part, though he had the genius for
every thiug, for color as well as form, yet one
may conjecture he found color, in its greatest
excellence, too laborious for the careful elabo
ration, Avhich can alone produce great results,
too costly of time and toil, the sacrifice too
great, of the greater to the less. Allston Avas
apparently, never Aveary of the labor Avhich
would add one more tint of truth to the color
of a head or a hand, or even, of any object of
still life, that entered into any of his composi
tions. Any eye that looks, can see that it was
a most laborious and difficult process by which
he secured his results ; by no superficial Avash
of glaring pigments, as in the color of Rubens
— whose carnations look as if he had finished

32 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
the forms at once, the lights and the darks, in
solid, opaque colors, and then, Avith a free and
broad brush or sponge, washed in the carmine,
lake, and vermilion, to confer the requisite
amount of red ; but, on the contrary, wrought
out, in solid color, from beginning to end, by a
painful and sagacious formation on the pallette,
of the very tint by which the effect, the lights,
shadows and half-shadoAvs, and the thousand,
almost imperceptible, gradations of hue, which
bind together the principal masses of light and
shade, Avas to be produced.
For one, I cannot regret what many may
regard as the disproportionate labor and atten
tion Avhich he bestowed upon this part of his
art. Here, the analogy with the art of writing,
again comes in. For certain great effects to
be produced upon the reason of mankind, aud
the condition of the world, you do not desire,
nor could you endure, the high coloring of
style, or any prettinesses of language. It is
only by pure intellect, set forth iu the strictest
forms of logic, that mankind are to be moved
or permanently benefited. Bacon and Locke

STYLE IN LITERATURE. 33
rule the world of mind ; and they do it, not by
dainty phraseology, but by conipo.ct argument ;
the closer and severer the better. And even
statesmen and orators of the highest order,
never toy Avith language, it is no play Avith
them ; but they launch forth their fiery bolts
upon an opponent, or a hostile cause, as hot
shot from the batteries of a besieged city ; every
Avord, an argument ; every argument, a convic
tion. The more rough, sinewy, the language,
and the less of the ornamental, the greater the
power. These are the men, not, Avho please
the taste of a few, but Avho uproot the founda
tions of current opinion, change the force of
philosophies, and shake continents and Avorlds.
For them style is hardly an entity ; the word
can hardly apply to them. The Avords they
use will not bear adornment, any more than
a Bacon or a Newton could Avear the costume
of a Beau Brummel.
In like manner, the Michael Angelos of art
will hardly deign to clothe the Atlantean
forms of their Prophets and Apostles in flesh,
much less decorate them with color, or any

34 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
nearer resemblance to humanity. They are
gods rather than men. Form alone, colossal
form, expressed by strongly contrasted masses
of light and shade, (for it can hardly be called
color,) is all that such conceptions as those
of Michael Angelo, in his Prophets and Sybils,
would bear. The splendors of hue, added to
such forms, would but detract from the gran
deur of the effect.
But there is a class of subjects iu which Mr.
Allston chiefly delighted, for which color Avas
as essential as form ; without which, and Avith
out Avhich, in all its attractiveness and most
seductive charms, they would be almost desti
tute of all merit, or could be represented not
more truly than by au engraving. I allude to
his ideal female heads, aud his landscapes. In
both these classes of subjects, the objects are
few, to the most extreme simplicity, and color
constitutes the peculiar charm. Every one
must have noticed this, in observing works of
art, that the total charm of many a picture, lies,
almost Avholly, in the exquisiteness of the
color. You Avill find it, not in the drawing,

THE COLOR OF LANDSCAPES. 35
not in grace of form, not in expression, but
distinctly and almost solely, in the delicious-
ncss and absolute truth of color. This Avill
be found to be so in the human form, emi
nently, and even more so in landscape. There
is many a landscape, the merit of Avhich lies
wholly in the color ; its picturesque effect, its
power over the imagination, is in the color ;
in the memories, which it thus awakens, of
former scenes and places, even of aspects of
the heavens, at night, morning, or sunny noon,
of deep woods, or heated, desert plains. An
engraving of such scenes would convey no
idea Avhatever, all the forms being poor and
meagre, without beauty and Avithout expres
sion. I remember Avell a picture by the Flem
ing, Both, of a white coav. The picture was
very large ; yet, though so large, the only
objects were, the cow cooling herself, as she
stood in some running water, beneath a spread
ing tree, — the tower of a church glimmering
in the distance over a long sandy reach. Buf
the strength and charm of the picture, lay in the
atmospheric hues and haziness of a hot mid-

30 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
summer day, its aerial perspective, and the
general truth of color. Allston's Spanish Girl,
and his Italian Scenery, possess these merits,
in an eminent degree. These have other
merits, as well ; but the predominating beauty
is in the color. And, is it not exactly so, in
scenes of actual nature ? The beauty that rav
ishes the eye is in the color, in the vanishing
hues of cloud, atmosphere, and earth ; Avhile,
at the same time, a distinct or agreeable form
can scarce be made out, at all.
I now pass to another characteristic of Mr.
Allston's genius, as an artist ; I refer to ex-
expression. His power over, and knowledge of, the hu
man countenance was very great, aud though,
clearly, he is not to be ranked among the
greatest artists of this class, he Avas, never
theless, to be ranked among those who stood
very high in it. But, among those Avho ex
celled in this particular respect, I am inclined
to think that he cared less than others, to use
what poAver he had ; and perhaps, through a
dread of caricature, avoided painting an ex-

IDEAL FEMALE HEADS. 37
prcssive face. In portrait, the difficulty is not
in reaching a likeness, but in confining the
likeness at the point where decided resem
blance is attained and caricature begins. And
in historical subjects, in subjects of every kind
Avhere sentiment is to be expressed, the same
difficulty must occur. It must be compara
tively easy to express with strength a strong
and decided passion or emotion, — but diffi
cult to restrain the expression within such
bounds as to make it effective, yet not offen
sive. In the numerous works of that class
in which he particularly excelled, the ideal
female heads, he sought not, but avoided
expression, except perhaps, in a single case.
The faces are expressionless, passionless,
emotionless, like the beautiful head of the
Unknown One, in the Pitti Gallery. And cer
tainly, such faces, otherwise well executed, are
far more agreeable, or less repulsive, than are
sometimes, the extremely pious heads of
Guido, and always, those of Carlo Dolce, or
Sassoferrato. In the case of these heads by
Allston, room is left for the imagination to

3S LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
play and conjure into the features what fancy
it may ; Avhich is better, where the main object
of the picture Avas of a very different kind.
There Avas manifestly no Avish to throAV mean
ing into them, or any meaning to be interpret
ed by all alike. They were left purposely
obscure, of doubtful significancy. There are
several in the present exhibition of the Boston
Athenaeum, of this description, only partly fin
ished, but of the same general character ; faces
calm, passionless, Avithout sensibility, but at
the same time, thoughtful, serious, melancholy,
breathing all over, a tender, meditative beauty,
which carries in it an indescribable charm, like
a twilight scene in nature, Avhere all is divinely
beautiful, but all vague, indistinct, indeter
minate — the beauty lying in that very trait.
But some, even of his grandest figures, are
remarkable for an expression, which, grand
and dignified, is yet calm, vague, and hardly
susceptible of definition as to the precise sen
timent intended to be conveyed. So different,
in this respect, from the Avorks of RafTaelle,
where, in his greater works, nor only in them,

RAFFAELLE  CUERCINO. 39
there is not only expression, but a very un
doubted expression, with a very unmistakable
meaning. Take such a picture _as Paul
Preaching, or Elymas Struck Blind. Not
only the principal actors, but secondaries,
and all, Avithout exception, throughout, are
marked and strongly marked, by expressions
naturally created by the particular incident.
This is certainly one of the greatest beauties
of those Avorks, and a most decided proof of
genius. So also, particularly, Avith the Avorks
of Guercino — full, overflowing with expres
sion, sometimes of a character the most mar
vellous and subtle. The meanings, Avhich avc
should say Avould be the most difficult to
convey — almost impossible; half meanings,
mixed, double, even these are there ; such as
pitifulness and reproach, doubt and contempt,
and these are conveyed with the utmost pre
cision, Avith the distinctness and truth of real
life. It is not so with Allston ; in cases even
where it was natural that it should have been
so ; Avhere there was an open, clear field for a
display of all of that kind of power, and

L - -

40 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
where the scene could hardly be expressed at
all Avithout a lavish use of it ; yet it is not
there. In the great picture of Jeremiah and his
Scribe, the expression, for such a subject, is all
perhaps that it could be. This figure is alto
gether of the order of Michael Angelo's
Prophets ; and, while equalling them in gran
deur of form and a divine nobleness in the air,
far surpasses them in that gorgeousness of art,
which still by no means detracts from any
greatness in the effect. But for that which is
my only point at present, (I shall speak here
after of the whole picture,) it seems to me that
it utters, as perfectly as one can imagine, the
sentiment proper to the subject ; the state of
mind and feeling of one under the control of
a divine inspiration ; the air of abstractedness
from every present object, of absorption into
self, that sudden arrest and pause of every
faculty and emotion, Avhile passively the mind
receives the divinely communicated truths.
All this is finely expressed in the character
and fixedness of the countenance, and by the

THE DEAD MAN RESTORED TO LIFE. 41
right hand, as if pausing in mid air, Avhile the
heavenly message is transmitting. No one
can look at this form without being most
deeply struck by the air of supernatural dig
nity spread over the Avhole figure.
In the' form of "Miriam, the Prophetess,
the Sister of Aaron," there is Avell enough
expressed, in a finely conceived and Avell
drawn figure, the jubilant air of a JeAvish
female, singing to the timbrel her song of
triumph over the enemies of her country.
" Saul and the Witch of Endor," is more re
markable for the painter's art, which is very
high, than for any thing strikingly original or
powerful in the expression.
" The Dead Man Restored to Life, by touch
ing the bones of the Prophet." If, in this
instance, Allston's poAver of expression is to
be judged by the character of the Avhole figure
of the man in the act of returning to life ; or,
rather, of life revisiting him sloAvly, Avarming
the limbs Avith the flush of health, the eyes
heavily opening their lids to the returning
light; his genius, inthisrespect, must be judged
4*

42 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
most favorably, for it is not easy to imagine
how either art or the power of conception
could be carried further. It appears an abso
lutely perfect expression of a human form,
under the conditions supposed. It is one of
those poAverful conceptions by Avhich an idea
or subject is exhausted, and its demands satis
fied. Of the soldiers who surround the mouth
of the cave, nothing can be said, but that they
express vulgar terror by common-place lines ;
there appears much monotony in the faces and
attitudes. The Avork of Mr. Allston, which, as I think,
Avas his most successful one, in point of expres
sion of emotion and state of mind through the
countenance, is that Avhich is called the Death
of King John. This is an unfinished picture ;
but, though unfinished in respect to the acces
sories, the design is determined, the composi
tion complete, and expresses well the whole
subject, the forms, and even the costume,
roughly indicated with the great masses of
light and shade ; but the heads of both the
principals and the subordinates, Avith the lines

THE DEATH OF KING JOHN. A'.i
of expression finished, almost to the very final
touches ; at least, had it lain with me to deter
mine, I should not have dared to allow even
the artist himself, to have either added or sub
tracted a line, or a point of light, shade, or
form, so felicitous already, are the counte
nances of the different groups, in the various
shades of their expression. In depicting the
scene, Allston followed Shakspeare rather than
Hume, in killing the king by poison, admin
istered by a monk, and representing Prince
Henry as a full grown man, Avho was but nine
years old ; unless, perhaps, by the tall, melan
choly figure over the dying king be intended
the Bastard of the play, the son of Richard
Cceur de Lion, by Lady Faulconbridge. This
seems more probable, as it was to him, just
returned from France with neAvs for the King,
that the Monarch addresses his dying Avords :
" O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye :
The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned,
And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair ;
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,

41 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
Which holds but till thy news be uttered ;
And then all this thou see'st, is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty. "
The King, as he dies, expresses in the agony
of the countenance, some portion, at least, of
that inner misery of the heart which could
not but torment the conscience of one Avho
had committed every crime, and been guilty
of every meanness possible to humanity.
But, notwithstanding that all those who are
standing by, silent observers of the scene,
could hardly have felt otherwise than as all
must feel, at witnessing the close of so vile a
life, it is a touch of truth and nature in Poet
and Painter, that, at that awful moment which
swallows up every other feeling, however just
and Avarrantable, in deep commiseration —
(the sinner's oavii horrors of remorse are
enough for him) — for themselves, they can
only be moved Avith compassion for the
Avretch who revieAvs such a life, and whom
such a future awaits ; and there is not one
face, in all the surrounding groups, that is
not marked by lines of the tenderest pity

THE DEATH OF KING JOHN. 45
mixed Avith awe, from the female and the
monk bending toAvard the dying man, up to
Prince Henry. All are expressive of the
deepest humanity ; and from such faces gath
ered around him, the passing soul could not,
at the very last moment, but have caught at a
new argument of the mercy of God, from Avit-
nessing such expressions of it in the counte
nances of imperfect, sinful men. If man be
thus pitiful, must not God be more so ? The
whole design of the picture is one of great
truth and simplicity ; perfectly sets forth the
scene ; and, had it been completed, would
have redounded largely to the fame of the
Artist. This Avill close what I have to say of these
two characteristics of Mr. Allston, except
what may incidentally appear, in criticisms
on other parts of the subject. I sum up, as
I began, in saying, that, though Mr. Allston is
not among the highest in this last named
department, he stands very high ; but in color,
on the highest round of the ladder.

THE LESSER PICTURES.

THE LESSER PICTURES.

Mr. Allston was certainly remarkable for
the variety of his powers, and for the variety
of departments in which he excelled ; and
that, not only in the departments of his own
particular art, but in other walks of intellec
tual culture. And within the province of his
own special art, he Avas there marked by
variety. A graduate of Cambridge, he en
joyed, of course, all the best advantages Avhich
the country affords, of a polite education. He
was not only painter, but general scholar as
Avell, and became an author, both in prose and
verse. In verse, he reached, by a few efforts,
a very general and enviable distinction ; in
prose, he Avas confined, not to one depart
ment alone, but attained reputation in many.
5

in) LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
Metaphysician, novelist, critic, poet, essay
ist, as he tried all, he Avas not without much
merit in all. In art, he also attempted all
its various methods of expressing thought by
color and form ; and excelled in all he tried,
history, portrait, ideal portrait, landscape, ma
rine pictures, cabinet pictures or genre pic
tures, as they are called ; in a Avord, in every
thing. When, a few years ago, the admirers and
friends of Mr. Allston collected together, into
a single large room, nearly all the pictures by
his hand on this side the Atlantic, I suppose
that by nothing was one more struck (many
indeed, surprised) than by this variety in the
departments of his art which he had tried,
and in Avhich he had excelled; from the mag
nificence of the Jeremiah, to the exquisite
piece of humor, The Poor Author and the
Bookseller, unless it were, perhaps, by the
amount of work he had done, notwithstand
ing the minuteness and carefulness of his
finish ; and he never dismissed a Avork from
his easel, not only till his employer Avas satis-

THE VERSATILITY OF HIS GENIUS. 51
ficd, but till he himself, the most fastidious
and difficult of all his employers, was also
satisfied. This various application of his mind to the
various departments of his art, Avhile it must
have been more agreeable to himself, and
gave abundant evidence of that trait of genius
termed versatility, and was perhaps, more im
proving to his own powers than a more limited
range would have been, could hardly have
served him so Avell in respect to his ultimate
fame, nor, of course, to high excellence in any
one department. Art, as he pursued it, was
too long for so short a life as the best of us
can reach here. One can, for the most part,
have time but for a feAv sketches, and the scene
closes — prematurely, to every man actuated by
a true ambition, to whatever age he may have
reached. Considering the variety of themes to
Avhich he Avas attached and devoted himself,
more or less, and he had hardly begun to live
at the time of his death. Allston loved the
grand and the beautiful Avith the passion of a
mind great in itself and bent on great achieve-

52 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
ments, in that department. But, almost as well,
he loved the humblest Avork of art, and de
spised nothing. The quiet Dutch feeling with
which he would work upon a stone jar or vase,
upon a vessel of gold or silver, or any object
of still life, and the perfection to Avhich he
would bring it, would hardly have been ex
pected from a mind that preferred and chiefly
devoted itself to the sublime and magnificent ;
to Jeremiahs, Belshazzars, Miriams. Yet that
is ever the way Avith minds of the very highest
order. To them nothing is low, which can
represent any phase of nature and life Avith
truth. Universality is the attribute of this
class of minds. Shakspeare rioted in his Dog
berries and Launcelot Gobbos, more, Ave are
apt to think, than in his Hamlets, Othellos,
Macbeths ; drew them all Avith equal poAver
and truth certainly, and perhaps enjoyed the
Avork more. And, when you examine the jar
or vase in the Jeremiah, or the diamond .rings
on the fingers of his rich Jews, you see that,
in this regard, Shakspeare, and Allston Avere
fellows of the same craft.

VERSATILITY HOSTILE TO SUCCESS. 53
But one cannot doubt that this versatility of
mind and various application of power Avas,
on the Avhole, injurious to his highest success
and his reputation ; and for the reason just
intimated ; — that art is surrounded by so
many difficulties that life is not long enough
to alloAV time to climb, one after another, so
many of its lofty summits. One, for the most
part, must suffice, no matter what the amount
of original genius may be ; I mean, to attain
the greatest excellence in any one. No such
man, be he ever so accomplished, can do more
than make many brilliant beginnings. It is
true that the fundamental principles of the
various fine arts, and in all the departments
and divisions of each, are common to all, and
he who is by nature fitted for one, is fitted for
all, and may be capable of excellence in all.
But, for the infinite detail of work in each, not
perhaps power, but simply, time would be
Avail ting.
There are some branches of art, aud indeed,
some particular pictures, Avhich demand a very
high excellence in many kinds of painting.

54 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
History, for instance, requires often not the
representing of men, but Avomen also, and
various other forms of animal life ; it de
mands the expression of the passions, in their
utmost perfection ; it requires the introduc
tion of landscape, in all its particulars, various
kinds of still life and every variety of cos-

th.:

tcune. This is too much for one man to do
in one life, and do well ; and he Avho will at
tempt it, must fail in many ways. Mr. Allston
did, and it was unavoidable. At least, there
are but tAvo Avays of escape out of the diffi
culty ; one, that all the less important portions
of a picture should be painted with no pretence
at perfect finish, in a broad and careless man
ner, securing only some general good effects ;
or all may be turned over to the hands of assist
ants ; the better way, Avhen possible, and the
only conceivable Avay in Avhich the great artists
of the AArorld haA'e been able to accomplish even
half the number of Avorks ascribed to them. In
such case, the great man made the design and
put in the drawing. Subordinates executed all
the heavy Avork of the first coloring, after the

ASSISTANTS. 1)0
drawings, up to a very high degree of finish,
and then the master put on the final touches,
painting many parts, the heads, perhaps, alto
gether. Just in painting as it is in sculpture :
in Italy a sculptor need never see the marble,
but workmen can be found to complete the
stone after drawings and models in clay, and in
the utmost perfection. Sometimes, the painter
artist borrowed the labor of others, in order to
expedite works which, alone, it Avould take
him too long to finish, and because, in this
Avay, he could fill the Avorld with much more
of the results of his genius, as Avell as accu
mulate greater Avealth. Sometimes, however,
because, in certain departments of the art, he
Avas himself deficient, and Avas compelled to
draw upon the power of another. The figures
in the landscapes of Claude Avere drawn and
painted by those Avhom he employed for that
purpose. Giulio Romano Avas employed by
Raffaelle, to paint very large portions of pic
tures which go under his name. And so of
others. In the case of Mr. Allston, unfortunately,

50 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
there could be no help, no assistant, had he
desired it ever so much. It must all be done
by his own hand, if at all, from the first chalk
sketch to the final glaze, — through all the
laborious, intermediate stages. One thinks
only with a sigh of regret, that the kind of
labor Avhich here fell to his lot, could be pos
sibly done by no other hand, — labor, which,
though absolutely essential to be done in a
very particular manner in order to produce the
desired result, yet could, under a little instruc
tion, be readily performed by any person of
common ability, under the superintendence of
the principal ; such, for instance, as the dead
or first coloring of his pictures, which, requir
ing only directions as to the colors to be used
in each particular case — an all-important pre
requisite — could, for the rest, be done as well
by any young tyro, as by an Allston. And
so Avith much else properly belonging to the
subordinate and less important work of the
artist's studio. Any young student of the
art Avould have been proud of the privilege of
placing upon the canvass the first strata of

ASSISTANTS. 57
color on which Allston Avas to place the last ;
and Avho Avould thus have been thoroughly
instructed in some of the most valuable
secrets and processes by which ultimate ef
fects were to be secured. In this Avay, had
it been permitted, quite a school of young
artists might have been put in training, at the
same time that he Avould have been left free
to apply himself only to the completing, at
the last stages, works, the rough labor of
which had been performed by others ; and in
that way, double, treble the number of his
designs would have been completed. But, hav
ing adopted the opposite system, of doing all
his work Avith his own hand, he Avas not, for a
great part of the time, so much an artist as a
day laborer, performing a drudgery easily to
have been throAvn off upon others ; and ac
cordingly, comparatively few works remain for
posterity ; very many, considering the amount
of Avork he did himself, and especially, his OAvn
fastidiousness and his exalted notions of the
character of his art ; but feAv, compared Avith
Avhat might have been done, on a different

58 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
system, and under which his Avork Avould
have been, in all respects, equally entitled to
the claim of originality.
Another regret one cannot here but feel and
express, that it never should have occurred to
him, that it Avould have been an easy thing
for him to have collected about him and es
tablished quite a school of young artists, whom
he Avould have occupied in the first instance
and chiefly, — and it Avould have been the best
instruction he could have given, — in laying
the ground-Avork of his own pictures. Any
intimation to that effect, I believe would have
draAvn to his side an abundance of assist
ants, whose highest satisfaction Avould have
been the preparation, under his directions,
of the first stages of his pictures, and their
sole reward, such labors, together Avith the
incidental instructions he could have imparted
Avithout loss of strength or time.
The most important instruction to the
artist, is that of the purely mechanical pro
cesses, — processes which the hints or pre
cepts of a master impart in a few theoretic

INSTRUCTION OF YOUNG ARTISTS. 59
lessons, or better still, by a few lessons in
practice, Avhich are never forgotten, and
Avhich save to the young beginner years,
perhaps, of fruitless experimenting. Not that
any amount of teaching, as I have before
hinted, can impart some kinds of knowledge,
but that almost any teacher may impart all
that is most essential ; and, Avhen it pro
ceeds from a master of decided genius, such
teaching must bear with it more or less
of the impress of the master. Had any such
plan been adopted by Mr. Allston, in what a
different state Avould the arts have now been
in this vicinity. It might have proved the
grand centre of art in the country ; a point
from Avhich light might have radiated in all
directions, where now is almost uncommon
darkness. Only the least hint Avas needed at
any time, I am persuaded, to send to his apart
ments croAvds of aspirants ambitious to catch
from his presence, his conversation, his art,
the spirit of grace, beauty, truth, that over-
floAved into all the atmosphere about him.
And thus, from that luminous centre, one can

00 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
easily believe, would have originated an Amer
ican School of Art.
Although hoAvevcr, it be true, that owing
to the turn of mind which coveted every form
of excellence, he was, perhaps, too various in
his labors to reach the loftiest point in any
one, yet there was one mental attribute under
which almost all his works may be classed,
and Avhich stamped itself upon his whole
being, Avhich Avas, grace, beauty. That, as
in the case of Raffaelle, was the feeling that
overruled all others ; the feeling for beauty,
in all the Avidest application of that term.
The conception of grandeur was there also ; a
deep feeling for it, as it is evident, in many of
his works, it was his predominating desire to
express it, and fill others Avith the same
sublime emotions by Avhich he Avas himself
possessed. But, though it is not to be denied
that he in some cases succeeded, it is quite
true that he succeeded, not so often, nor to the
same extent, in exciting it in the minds of
others, as in that of beauty. There he was

THE ELEMENT OE BEAUTY. 01
at home. He dAvelt iu beauty, and beauty in
him. He was it. And in all the works that
came from his hand, you see at once the
attribute that reigned there ; and hoAV, though
defects of one sort and another may be noted,
the divine element of beauty is ahvays there.
There may be found in his Avorks, at times,
a Avant of expression ; a Avant of grandeur,
Avhere you naturally look for it ; a want of
vigor, in conception or execution ; a lack of
that abounding life, which, in the Avorks of
some artists, draAvs the spectator like a mag
net ; but every Avhere, in all the predominant
forms, Avhether of man or Avoman, nude or
draped, in Avater, land, cloud, atmosphere, tree
or rock ; and, as well in color as in form,
beauty and grace are the inspiration, the in
forming soul ; these, the universal presence
that lends attractions and a nameless charm,
to every subject that came from his pencil. If
it Avas not every where and in every thing, in
every picture, it was always somewhere and in
something, and gave its character to the work ;
gave that merit which stamped upon it its
6

02 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
value. Here he Avas eminently of the school
of Raffaelle and Claude, born under the same
star, a vessel of the same divine inspiration.
Mr. Allston had his OAvn peculiar sense of
the beautiful, and that he endeavored to ex
press ; and not any conventional ideas, in
which the many agree. Not at all, that he
was a man of affectations, or sought rather
after the new and eccentric than the true.
He Avas a natural man, a man of simplicity,
earnestness and truth, and his object to ex
press with truth, himself and his own con
ceptions of the beauty, grandeur of nature.
But he Avas very individual ; as much so as
Correggio or Salvator Rosa. He had his
own sense of the beautiful. The face of a
Avoman, for example, is considered beautiful
generally, when it is thought symmetrically
formed, after the Greek mode perhaps, the
features (particularly the nose and mouth)
exactly chiselled, as they call it, and a
fine vermilion enlivening the skin just there
where, according to rule, it should show
itself. Such a face, exhibited at the Avindow

THE CONCEPTION OF BEAUTY. 03
of a print-shop, Avould arrest the steps of
the crowds Avho should pass by, and as they
passed, the most would exclaim, how beauti
ful ! And it must be so. For there is no
fixed standard of the beautiful, but it varies
and changes with the individual ; and even
in the individual, his own standard is apt to
change and vary, and differs this year from
the last, and to-day from yesterday, just as
his general cultivation changes, advances or
recedes ; or, as suddenly, new sources and im
pressions are opened to him. That is to say,
there are no rules to Avhich to refer, and
Avhich can prove this to be beautiful, and that
to be the reverse. Each has his oavii con
ception of Avhat is beautiful. And though,
as I have said, there are certain forms in
which the greater part Avould agree, there are
many Avho Avould totally dissent ; just as we
differ in respect to a fragrance. The rose is,
to most indeed, agreeable ; but not to all, and
to some, offensive. And in regard to most
other flowers, the differences are infinite.
Yet there is a beautiful, as there is a fra-

04 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
grancc, but it is created by the mind of the
looker-on. That is his beautiful, Avhich he
sees to be so, not which others see to be so,
or think they can prove such. But, while
men in general, and even artists themselves,
incline to adopt indolently the conclusions in
Avhich others rest, to think their thoughts,
and to subscribe to their opinions, I do not
think it was the case with Mr. Allston.
Especially in the matter under our thoughts,
he had his oavii standard of the beautiful, and
expressed it in his own Avay. In regard to
the female head, he certainly differed widely
from the common judgment ; never represent
ing as beautiful what most would judge to be
so. Yet no one can doubt, that to him it was
the beauty which captivated and enslaved his
imagination, and Avhich he aimed to reveal to
others through form and color.
There was no subject, perhaps, of which he
was so fond, (and it agreed Avith the delicacy
and refinement of his mind,) and repeated so
often, as ideal female heads ; not exactly repe
titions, of course ; but, Avhile all the accidents

IDEAL FEMALE HEADS. 05
of the picture varied, the main thought Avas
one and the same ; the type was the same, the
individual differences, at the same time, such as
to give an air of newness, if not of originality,
to each particular subject. It is what would
be called an inexpressive countenance, or at
most, a ruminating, introspective one ; but,
save in a single instance, the Rosalie, really
one without expression ; and, in the Rosalie,
no expression of joy or grief or melancholy,
or any other, so determinate that any two per
sons Avould agree as to the meaning intended
to be conveyed. The merit of this class of
pictures, and it is very great, — they are his
greatest AA^orks, I suppose, — is that of objects
of still life, in a state of such absolute repose,
silence, abstractedness, do they live. Life
seems almost dead. The Roman Lady, is as
if suddenly stiffened into a sort of living death,
the very possibility of motion gone, but other-
Avise beautiful, with the full flush of life and
health. Giving up expression, animation, and
they are miracles of beauty and grace, — the
very perfection of the art of painting. If Leo-

00 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
nardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Avhich he was
four years in painting, deserved the immor
tality Avhich has been awarded to it, much
more, at least equally, do the Beatrice, the
Rosalie, the Valentine. And if the picture of
Leonardo's mistress could not be purchased,
though covered thick Avith gold, even deeper
should it be piled for the Valentine. In my
opinion, there is not existing a picture of this
class, Avhich, for the merits of art, stands
higher than this. The picture of Leonardo's
just named, Raffaelle's Fornarina, of the Tri
bune, Titian's Flora, all so celebrated ; not one
possesses in superior perfection, the qualities
Avhich make a work of art supremely beau
tiful, — a transcript absolutely perfect, of the
most beautiful nature. This marvellous per
fection lies in the color, repose, naturalness,
simplicity of the figure. The drawing is all
true, the forms all graceful, and the objects of
still life, whatever they may be, simple almost
to barrenness ; yet is the genius lavished upon
the color so remarkable, that it must ever
remain one of the chief Avoiks of the artist, if

THE VALENTINE. 07
not his chicfcst, scarce ever equalled by any
artist of any time, and never surpassed. This
may seem an extravagance. But it will not
be thought so, if it is considered that this
superiority is affirmed, not of the composition,
invention, or form, but of the color. All is
excellent, and Avithout fault, but it is in the
color alone, that this amazing perfection is
asserted and claimed ; and if it be further
considered, that, to this quality of excel
lence in painting many are almost insensible,
many blind, and many incapable of judging,
for Avant, either of a feeling for color, or of
cultivation in that particular respect. This is
undoubtedly, that element in beauty which
requires both a natural eye for color, and also
a good deal of cultivation in the way of com
parison of one work with another and with
nature, to enable one to detect and then feel,
the secrets of that beauty that so enchants.
Until after a good deal of such comparison and
study, but little difference would be discerned
between the coarse red and white of a great
deal of Stuart's work — with very few though

OS LECTURES ON ALLSTON*.
magnificent exceptions — or the glassy, artifi
cial surface of the French and German painters,
and that mysterious mingling of hues to pro
duce the very tint of nature, and effect of
breathing life, that spreads such an indescriba
ble charm over the Valentine. The lines
where grace and comeliness of form reside
are comparatively obvious, and almost alike
obvious to all, comprehended, moreover, at a
glance. Color, on the other hand, in its per
fection, is neither seen nor enjoyed at once ;
its hidden beauty not even guessed. Just as
mere style in writing is so often overlooked,
and rarely felt in its depths, but by a few who
make it a study, so in very many, in respect
both to color and style, there is an absolute
insensibility ; there is the want of a sense of
perception, as there is oftentimes, the want
of a sense for certain odors, and to poetic
beauties. All the pictures to which I have just re
ferred, and many others, to which I shall
presently turn your attention, are examples
of that peculiar charm in art, styled by the

REPOSE. 09
critics, repose. There is hardly a Avork from
the hand of Allston Avhich is not, either in the
whole, or in some considerable part, an in
stance in point. The Avord Repose, alone,
perhaps with sufficient accuracy, describes the
state of mind, and the outAvard aspect of na
ture intended by it. It describes the breath
less silence and deep rest of a mid-summer
day, when not a leaf moves and the shadoAvs
fall dark and heavy upon the face of the clear
water, Avhich repeats every object near it as
in a mirror ; the cow on the bank, half-asleep,
lazily cheAving the cud and flapping away
the flies from her side ; and the only sound to
break the silence, the sleepy drone of the
locust ; Avhile a warm, misty atmosphere,
through which you just catch the roofs of
the neighboring village, wraps all things in
its purplish folds. Or, it describes the Aveary
foot-traveller sitting upon a stone by the
brook-side, as he rests, Avatching the sheep
as they nibble the short grass, or the falling
of the autumn leaves, as they alight upon
those Avhich had fallen before ; these the only

70 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
sounds, save the gurgling of the Avater among
the pebbles, and the distant Sabbath bell that
echoes among the hills. The poets under
stand this deep repose, and paint no picture
oftener. " Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save whore the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinkhngs lull ihe distant folds :
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign."
And, in the Avords of Bryant :
"For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf.
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming."
And again, " The massy rocks themselves,
And tho old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a cause v rude,
Or bridge tive sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity."

PICTURES IN COLOR AND IN VERSE. 71
There is much that is closely kindred in the
genius of Bryant and Allston. They both
love, prefer, the calm, the thoughtful, the
contemplative. Their pictures, in color and
in verse, paint, oftener than any other theme,
this silence, rest, deep repose of nature ; the
pictures of Allston full of poetry, the poems
of Bryant gushing with life and truth.
As in these exquisite lines :
" And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such
days will come",
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter
home ;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all
the trees are still,
And twinkle in'the smoky light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance
late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream
no more."
Here are music, poetry, and painting —
like Canova's Three Graces, embracing each
other — bound together in indissoluble union ;
beautiful apart, beautiful always, but more
beautiful Avhen knit together by such a bond.

72 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
I may add of this hymn of Bryant, that, like
the Elegy of Gray, the one hardly less perfect
than the other, the pathos and the beauty are
too deep for any one to trust his voice to read
aloud. All the pictures of his ideal women are
illustrations of this feeling of repose, this love
for the silent, the solitary, the contemplative.
The Rosalie, one of the most graceful con
ceptions that artist Avas ever able to copy upon
canvass, — who shall undertake to guess the
thoughts breaking out of that deep, thoughtful
eye, the eye of a woman of sensibility and
genius, yet for the moment floating in va
cancy, or, it may be, arrested by a fancy —
she hardly knows Avhat, just as for an instant
her exquisite hand is fixed, as she twirls the
golden chain that falls from her neck? Of
what she thinks, or, whether she thinks at all,
it Avere vain to conjecture. But the art in the
picture is almost unsurpassed, even by him
self; quite so, save by the Valentine. In her
thoughtful repose, sitting with so easy a grace,
one is reminded, both in the subject, and

THE ROMAN LADY. 73
the perfection of the design and work, of
Correggio's Magdalene, as she lies at length,
reading, beneath a tree. The form of the
body, so far as it is revealed through the
drapery, the rich harmony of the hues that
delight without dazzling the eye ; the hand
so very lady-like, so exquisitely formed, the
round delicate fingers so prettily disposed, yet
not artificially or affectedly, all this is art so
delicious, and of so high a character, that no
other among our painters has ever been equal
to it, and it fills the mind Avith pride that in
our small circle of neAV-born aspirants, one
even should have arisen capable of achieve
ments that might confer honor upon any age
of art, in any land.
In the Roman Lady, as she has been
named, very much the same attributes are to
be observed. Here, she is not in the state of
reverie, but reads from a volume Avhich she
holds before her. She is altogether a less
attractive person than Rosalie ; the face is
hard, Avooden, unsentimental, and every way
less successfully colored, though in all these
7

74 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
very respects less faulty than Raffaelle's For-
narina. But if faults may be found with the
face, as hard and unattractive, it is not so
Avith the hands, Avhich are eminent examples
of the most splendid color imaginable ; both
of them in shadow, or half shado%v, and are
enough to confer celebrity upon any work
of art. In both color and drawing, they arc
specimens of the most perfect art. They
actually seem to ray out light, like some of
Titian's flesh color, and, as I shall afterwards
notice, in the case of the hands of the Jewess
in the Belshazzar.
The Beatrice, by most persons, would be
thought more beautiful than the Rosalie : but
if they differ, they differ only as those things
do Avhich are twin in their charms. Both are
calm and contemplative, and there is simi
larity in some points of the costume. Bolh
look out of the picture. There is a national,
rather than individual difference, between the
two. The calmness of the Beatrice is that
of an English, not an Italian lady; so very
English, as to deem it unlady-like, if she feels,

LORENZO AND JESSICA. 75
to express an emotion, in her countenance.
The countenance of Rosalie is bursting with
emotion not to be restrained ; it is as if she
might have been the lady-love of Petrarch,
Dante, or Tasso, — one who would have
Avatched with enthusiasm, and waited for
the maturing fancies of her lover, and as
they reached their perfect close, would have
thrown a laurel chaplet over his broAvs in the
ardor of her admiration. The English Bea
trice would have made no motion.
But perhaps the most exquisite examples of
repose, are the Lorenzo and Jessica, and the
Spanish Girl. These are Avorks also to Avhich
no perfection could be added ; from Avhich,
Avithout loss, neither touch or tiut could be
subtracted. We might search through all galle
ries, the Louvre, or any other, for their equals
or rivals, in either conception or execution. I
speak of these familiarly, because I suppose
you all to b.e familiar Avith them. The first
named, the Lorenzo and Jessica, .is a very
small picture, (one of the smallest of Allston's
best ones,) but no increase of size could have

70 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
enlarged its beauty, or in any sense have
added to its value. The lovers sit side by
side, their hands clasped, at the dim hour of
twilight, all the world hushed into silence,
not a cloud visible to speck the clear expanse
of the darkening sky, as if themselves Avere
the only creatures breathing in life, and they
absorbed into each other, while their eyes,
turned in the same direction, are bent upon
the fading light of the gentle but brilliant
planet, as it sinks below the horizon ; the
gentle brilliancy, not the setting, the emblem
of their mutual loves. As you dwell upon
the scene, your only thought is, may this
quiet beauty, this delicious calm, never be
disturbed, but, may
" The peace of the scene pass into the heart."
In the back-ground, breaking the line of the
horizon, but in fine unison with the figures
and the character of the atmosphere, are the
faint outlines of a villa of Italian architec
ture, but to whose luxurious halls you can
hardly Avish the lovers should ever return,
so long as they can remain sitting upon that

THE SPANISH GIRL. 77
bank. It is all painted in that deep, sub
dued, but rich tone, in which, except by the
strongest light, the forms are scarce to be
made out, but to which, to the mind in some
moods, a charm is lent surpassing all the glory
of the sun.
The Spanish Girl, is another example to
the same point. It is one of the most beauti
ful and perfect of all of Mr. Allston's works.
The Spanish Girl gives her name to the pic
ture, but it is one of those misnomers, of
which there are many among his works.
One Avho looks at the picture, scarcely ever
looks at, certainly cares nothing for the Span
ish Girl, and regards her merely as giving a
name to the picture ; and Avhen the mind
recurs to it afterwards, however many years
may have elapsed, while he can recall nothing
of the beauty, the grace, or the charms of the
Spanish Maiden, the landscape, of Avhich her
presence is a mere inferior incident, is never
forgotten, but remains forever, as a part of
the furniture of the mind. In this part of the
picture — the landscape — rit must be consider-

78 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
ed as one of those felicitous works of genius,
where, by a few significant tints and touches,
there is unveiled a world of beauty. You see
the roots of a single hill only, and a remote
mountain summit, but you think of Alps and
Andes, and the eye presses onwards, till it at
last, rests on a low cloud at the horizon. It
is a mere snatch of nature, but though only
that, every square inch of the surface has its
meaning. It carries you back to Avhat your
mind imagines, of the warm reddish tints of
some of the slopes of the Brown Mountains
of Cervantes, Avhere the shepherds and shep
herdesses of that pastoral scene passed their
happy sunny hours. The same deep feeling
of repose is shown in all the half-developed
objects of the hill-side, in the dull sleepy tint
of the summer air and in the warm motion
less haze that wraps sky, land, tree, Avater and
cloud. It is quite wonderful, by how few
tints and touches, by what almost shadowy
and indistinct forms, a Avhole world of poetry
can be breathed into the soul, and the mind
sent rambling off into pastures, fields, bound-

THE SPANISH GIRL. 79
less deserts of imaginary pleasures, where
only is warmth, and sunshine, and rest, where
only poets dwell, and beauty wanders abroad
with her sweeping train and the realities of
the working-day world are for a few moments
happily forgotten. This all show's the power
of the painter, and yet more, perhaps, of the
poet. The only part of the picture that could
ever seem a defect to me, was the too formal
outline of the small lake, on the bank of
which the Spanish Girl sits. And yet one
should consider, that it is this very formality,
this uniformity, that goes to create in the
mind, this feeling of repose, that makes the
merit of the whole. The stirring of the
water — it is absolutely -still — even the rug
ged indentations of the bank, would have
done something to break the charm. I do
not remember that the lady possesses any
special charms ; yet a Spanish girl should, if
travellers are to be believed.
The Young Troubadour, is too small to
elicit much interest, yet it would not be so
if I could consider it equally fortunate in its

80 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
conception and execution. But it has ahvays
seemed to me, that there Avas a want of ad
justment and harmony, which violates the
sentiment of repose, Avhich else characterizes
it, and disturbs and agitates the observer.
And in addition to this, one cannot but think,
as in another picture of Mr. Allston's, a Ma
donna and Child, that he was seduced from
his OAvn manner, into a mere imitation of the
manner of the old masters, in the forms, and
especially, in the tone of color and the hand
ling ; it is, as if his aim had been mainly, not
to folloAv the manner of any particular artist,
and much less his own, but to copy the man
ner of all of them, if one may say so, to
paint a neAV picture .of to-day, so as, in its
thought and its color and general style, to
seem like one painted three hundred years
ago. At least, I can account for its fashion
in no other Avay so Avell.
Amy Robsart, — so named, — is not with
out beauties ; but it is, perhaps, one of the
least effective of any from his hand.
I turn, Avith more pleasure, to another Avork

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 81
of Mr. Allston, even though but compara
tively few can ever have seen it, but which
made upon my own mind, when I saw it
immediately after it was completed, an im
pression of grandeur and beauty, never to be
effaced and never recalled without new senti
ments of enthusiastic admiration. I refer to
his grand landscape of Elijah in the Desert, —
a large picture, of perhaps six feet by four.
It might have been more appropriately named,
"An Asian or Arabian Desert." That is to
say, it is a very unfortunate error, to give to
either a picture, or a book, a name which
raises false expectations. It matters not that
you shall find something better than you ex
pected ; if it is not that Avhich you expected,
because it had been promised, you are at
least, disappointed, and in some modes of
mind, vexed. Especially is this the case
when the name of a picture is a great and
imposing one, (as in this instance,) which
greatly excites the imagination. What could
be more so than this ? " Elijah in the Desert,
fed by ravens." Yet extreme, and fatal to

82 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
many, was the disappointment on entering
the room, when, looking upon the picture, no
Elijah Avas to be seen ; at least, you had to
search for him as among the subordinate ob
jects, hidden away among the grotesque roots
of an enormous banyan tree ; and the Prophet,
when found at last, was hardly Avorth the pains
of the search. Sir Walter Scott was always,
justly afraid of a name of a book, of any
name, that should raise expectation on the
part of the public ; a proof equally of his
genuine modesty, and his practical good
sense ; so he gave names that meant nothing,
Waverley, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe, The
Heart of Mid-Lothian. He observed the
same rule in his poems. But, as soon as
the intelligent visitor had recovered from this
first disappointment, the objects which then
immediately filled the eye, taught him that,
though he had not found what he had been
promised, a Prophet, he had found more than
a Prophet, — a landscape, Avhich, in its sub
limity, excited the imagination as poAverfuUy
as any gigantic form of the Elijah could have

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 83
done, even though Michael Angelo had drawn
it. Nevertheless, all who came in the strictly
religious expectation, rather than the artists,
who came to find (what they afterwards did
find in the Jeremiah) a most real and verita
ble Prophet, and who knew little and cared
less, about art, all such probably, never did
recover their equanimity, nor consider the loss
less than total.
This landscape is among the feAV of Mr.
Allston's works, which, I suppose, will bear
to be classed among the works of sublimity
rather than of beauty, or, than among any
Avhich illustrate the feeling of repose. Sub
lime to my mind it certainly Avas, beyond any
picture I have seen since, Avith the exception
of tAvo by Salvator Rosa, in the Guadagni
Palace in Florence, the Temptation and the
Baptism of Christ. These are great Avorks,
Avorthy of any name and any reputation.
They sum up, and even exalt all the peculiar
merits of that great artist. Very many of his
Avorks fall below his reputatiou. The greater
part do. For he painted in a hurry from a

84 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
momentary feeling or conception, and his suc
cess was, of course, a mere accident. Turner
is fabled to Avork in a somewhat similar way ;
painting a large picture out of pots of paint
which he brings Avith him, after the canvass is
framed and in its place, a day before the Exhi
bition is to open. But these great works of
Salvator betray no marks of immaturity or
haste, in either the work or the design. On
the other hand, they are grand and magnifi
cent transcripts of that grand and awful nature
Avhich haunted his imagination, and of which
no truth or reality could possibly be consid
ered an exaggeration. These pictures are
both for sale, and could they be brought into
the country by any fortunate purchaser, what
a foundation would they lay for an Academy
of Art ! And, if to these, could be added the
Elijah of Allston, also probably to be easily
had on application, such a gallery, in one
department of art, might at once boast an
unsurpassed glory. I have said that Allston's
picture may be easily had. I will digress so
far as to say, that soon after it Avas completed

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 85
and exhibited, it Avas purchased by an English
gentleman and removed to England, but fell
into disrepute. The story runs, that on occa
sion of one of our American travellers being
abroad and accidentally at the house of the
owner of the picture, asking, as was natural
enough, to be allowed to see it, the owner (a
member of Parliament at the time) could,
only with difficulty, be brought to recollect
that he had ever possessed such a work, but
on doing so at length, a servant Avas ordered to
bring it down from a lumber-room, where it
had lain for years, frameless and rolled up
among other forgotten rubbish of the same
kind. Whether fable or not, if for sale, it
would be a great piece of good fortune could
it be restored to so many who admire it as a
work of genius. It is, hoAvever, very likely to
be a true story. For the English, in the mat
ter of art, are governed by fashion, solely, not
by knoAvledge, or taste, or sincere relish for it.
If Sir Jeremy Fool, R. A., had once set his
seal of disapprobation upon it, not all the real
merit of this, or any other Avork, could save it

80 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
from its fatal doom. There is no individual
judgment, that is, in such subjects ; prescrip
tion is the rule of action. It is not knowl
edge, genuine connoisseurship, that stamps a
picture's worth there, but simply and solely,
fashion, money. This is no libel of mine, (if
it be one at all,) but you may find it, broad
cast, any where on the columns of the London
Art Journal, Avhere, on these subjects, the
truth is honestly spoken.
But to return to the picture. It is meant
to represent, and does perfectly represent, an
illimitable desert, a boundless surface of bar
renness and desolation, where nature can bring
forth nothing but seeds of death, and the only
tree there is dead and withered, not a leaf to
be seen, nor possible. The only other objects
beside the level of the desert, either smooth
with sand or rough Avith ragged rock, are a
range of dark mountains on the right, heavy
lowering clouds, Avhich overspread and over
shadow the Avhole scene, the. roots and Avide-
spread branches of an enormous banyan tree,
through the tortuous and leafless branches of

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 87
which, the distant landscape, the hills, rocks,
clouds and remote plain, are seen. The roots
of this huge tree of the desert, in all directions
from the main trunk, rise upwards, descend
and root themselves again in the earth, then
again rise, again descend into the ground and
root themselves, and so on, growing smaller
and smaller as the process is repeated, till they
disappear in the general level of the plain, or
lose themselves among the rocks, like the
knots and convolutions of a whole family of
huge boa constrictors. The branches, which
almost completely fill the upper part of the
picture, are done with such truth to general
nature, are so admirable in color, so Avonderful
in the treatment of their perspective, that the
eye is soon happily AvithdraAvn from any
attention to the roots, among which the
Prophet sits, receiving the food with Avhich
the ravens, as they float towards him, miracu
lously supply him.
In this instance, Avhich is rare, Mr. Allston
neglected the general truth of nature, to single
out and depict a subordinate particular, and

88 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
that particular having no beauty or charm
of its own — though certainly possessing a sort
of savage grandeur — simply a piece of natural
history and nothing more, which, however
excellent in itself, is not the end or aim of this
art. We want foliage in a picture, but not a
pitch-pine, a locust, a birch, a maple, an oak,
or an elm ; architecture, but not of stone,
stucco, shingle, or brick, nor of one style or
another ; men and women, but not of one
complexion, form, physiological structure or
another, of one race or another. There may
be such a tree as this of Mr. Allston, with
just such roots ; but, if there is, none but
natives of the country know the fact, or
naturalists, Avhose business it is to be ac
quainted Avith it through their science. And,
to make it a principal object in a great Avork
of art, is to degrade the art to the rank of a
print in Goldsmith's Animated Nature. It
Avas painting a mere whim ; the whole tree,
roots, branches and all, a mere Avhim, a
capriccio. And it only shows Iioav much
poAver Avas in the artist, that, notwithstanding

ELIJAH IN THE DESERT. 89
these essential draAvbacks, the total effect was
most strikingly that which an original and
grand conception could alone produce. You
forget the Prophet, the ravens, the roots, and
almost the branches, though those were too
vast and multitudinous to be overlooked, and
were moreover, truly characteristic of the
general scene ; and dwelt only upon the
heavy rolling clouds, the lifeless Desert, the
sublime masses of the distant mountains, and
the indeterminate, misty outline of the hori
zon, where heaven and earth become one.
The picture Avas therefore a landscape of a
most sublime, impressive character, and not a
mere representation of a passage of Scripture
history. It Avould have been a great gain to
the work if the Scripture passage could have
been painted out, and the Desert only left.
But, as it is, it serves as one further illustra
tion of the characteristic of Mr. Allston's art,
of which I have already given several exam
ples. For melancholy, dark, and terrific,
almost, as are all the features of the scene, a
strange calm broods over it all ; as of an ocean,

90 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
now overhung by black, threatening clouds,
dead and motionless, but the sure precursors
of change and storm. And, over the Desert
hang the clouds, which were soon to break
and deluge the parched earth, and cover it
again with verdure. But, at present, the only
motion and life is in the little brook Cherith,
as it Avinds along among the roots of the great
tree. The sublime, after all, is better ex
pressed in the calmness, repose, silence, of the
Elijah, than in the tempests of Poussin, or
Vernet, Wilson, or Salvator Rosa.

THE LARGER PICTURES.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

THE LARGER PICTURES.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.
If Mr. Allston's mind was drawn, more
powerfully than in any other direction, to
ward beauty and the fit expression of it
through his art, he loved, Avith hardly less
devotion, the grand, the sublime, and sought
its expression by the same channel. And
Avith almost the like success, did he portray
both the one and the other. I say, with al
most the like success. For, if there was any
difference of power in representing the two
emotions, this may have been attributable to
the greater frequency with which he treated
the one, rather than to any actual difference,
either in his poAver of conception or execu
tion. He succeeded better in the painting of
the beautiful, because his mind Avas more in

94 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
harmony Avith it and he therefore painted it
more frequently.
That he should, in so many instances, have
chosen subjects Avhich involved the sublime,
or the grand, may rather surprise us than oth
erwise, as nature in her outAvard aspects, so
seldom, in the comparison, offers themes which
demand its treatment. So also, in representing
states of mind, it is seldom that emotions of
sublimity are awakened in the mind by any
thing Ave are permitted to know or observe in
the character or actions of men, in comparison
with Avhat excites Avithin us the love of the
beautiful. Nature, externally, is full to over
flowing, Avith sources of the beautiful. You
can noAvhere turn your eA'e, above, around,
beneath, that your mind is not raised to ec
stasy by Avhat you are almost compelled to
notice. But it is not so Avith the other class of
emotions. These are but seldom excited, sel
dom gratified. The sublime must be sought
to be found, and is rarely found, though sought.
Unless it be maintained, that some of the most
common objects of all are, at the same time,

SUBLIMITY OF FAMILIAR OBJECTS. i)y
the most sublime of which Ave have any
knowledge, or can form any conception, name
ly, the sun, the moon, the stars, the space that
embraces all ; our atmosphere, with its infinite
changes of cloud and color. And, to a mind
that reflects, it is true, that no other objects in
nature can compare Avith them for an inex
pressible grandeur; no mountain range of Alps
or AndeSj^no Niagara cataract, no ocean in
storm, no African or Asian desert. But then,
on the other hand, it is equally true, that
custom strips them of their poAver, and they
are as if they Avere not ; that the mind, always
seeing them from infancy, in fact,- never sees
them ; and that, in our manhood even, they
never become objects of sublimity, except, by
an express, and almost painful effort of the
imagination. A scientific imagination, the
result of the highest knowledge, is essential
to the existence of sublime emotions deriva
ble from such objects. To a Newton, or a
Herschel, uo other object could compare for
grandeur, to a single telescopic star, Avhose
distance and size he had calculated, while, to

90 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
the rest of us, it Avould necessarily remain but
as a spangle on a robe of blue, or a faint
twinkle of a firefly.
But Mr. Allston sought the sources of the
sublime in almost every case, in states of the
human mind, rather than in any outward as
pects of nature. He did not overlook the
others, but he obviously considered these as
affording the more powerful class of subjects ;
at any rate, it Avas these that appealed most to
his imagination. The Elijah, a mere outAvard
scene, is a grand, sublime landscape ; it raises
emotions of sublimity in the spectator; and
his object was, undoubtedly, to awaken such
emotions in all who should look upon it. His
object Avas the same in his large Swiss Land
scape, Avith its vast, angular piles of rock, its
deep, still Avaters, with their clear reflections,
the stiff, black pines on the banks, Avith a
solitary pathway, dimly traceable beneath the
heavy shadows, along which dark forms are
seen stealing their Avay through the branches.
And other works of his could be named, Avhere
scenes are depicted, by which emotions are

THE MORAL SUBLIME. 97
excited which can be aroused only by objects
of the very grandest character, as by actual
scenes of sublime nature, which sIioav how
well he understood, and hoAV deeply he felt,
this side of nature. But "still, the sources of
the moral sublime were those to which he
applied for yet higher pleasures, and in Avhich
he more frequently sought for subjects for his
pencil. The supernatural terror springing
from objects obscure and ill-defined ; remorse,
a tormented conscience, the human being
agitated by emotions arising from these and
similar sources of Avoe, afforded subjects for
art, Avhich he seemed to think himself capable
of treating more effectively still, (though the
most difficult of any,) and to which he cer
tainly proved himself entirely equal. The
moral condition which he especially delighted
in describing, is depicted in the scene of the
air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, Avhere a natu
rally tender, but terrified, imagination makes
a fearful reality of a mere phantom of the
mind ; and this vision of God, as he cannot
doubt it to be, revealed to deter him from the
9

98 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
deed of blood that he designs, convulses him
with terror. He has attempted one scene,
taken from a novel of Mrs. Radcliffe, not very
unlike the scene from Macbeth, Avhich strik
ingly shoAvs his power in this department in
his art, and to which I shall refer you pres
ently. In the mean time, I first, ho wever
call your attention to the Jeremiah, as a prin
cipal illustration of the topic in hand. But
before doing this, allow me to adduce an
instance from Mr. Allston's writings, to show
how in unison his mind was with this theme,
how readily it received a grand idea and how
fitly clothed it in language Avorthy of the
theme. The passage I allude to is in one of
his letters, in which he is throwing off easily
the thoughts that arise. He is speaking,
among other works of art, of a picture of
Ludovico Caracci. " I do not," he says,
" remember the title of it ; but the subject
Avas the body of the Virgin borne for inter
ment by four Apostles. The figures are co
lossal ; the tone, dark and of tremendous
depth of color ; it seemed, as I looked, as if

THE JEREMIAH. 99
the ground shook beneath their tread, and the
air Avas darkened by their grief." A sentence
Avorthy of Dante, and exactly in his manner.
I suppose that no better example could be
found of Mr. Allston's poAver of raising the
emotions of which we have been speaking,
than in the Jeremiah. It is a large picture,
eight feet in height perhaps by five in Avidth.
It comprises only two figures, the Prophet and
his attendant or scribe, Baruch. The Prophet
is seated, his head raised, and looking upward
with a majestic air. His right arm elevated,
the two middle fingers of the hand bent
under, the tAvo others erect and pointing up
wards. The arm is not, I think, leaning upon
any thing, but you receive the idea of a sud
den, unconscious arrest of the arm — a suspen
sion of it in mid-air, as if pausing to receive
the divine communications ; Avhich effect is
increased by the singular and awkAvard posi
tion of the two fingers ; this very awkward
ness showing the state of unconsciousness, in
respect to all ordinary impressions ; of con
sciousness, only to the presence of the super-

100 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
natural. I do not remember the position and
action of the left arm. The right foot is
thrown out from underneath the drapery,
naked, without even sandal, and in its form,
its color and whole management, offers one
of the finest examples of Mr. Allston's perfect
mastery of his art. It is an exhibition, of
itself, to any one who loves the art, in its
treatment in the most perfect manner, of a
very humble, but very difficult object. The
other figure, Baruch, is as remarkable for
beauty and grace of outline, and splendor of
color, as Jeremiah is for massiveness and gran
deur. The scribe's subordinate condition is
indicated by the deep shadow in which he
sits, and the fainter delineation of his whole
person. He is placed nearly back to the spec
tator, and bends over his tablets as in the act of
recording the Avords that fall from the Pro
phet's lips. It has always seemed to me one
of the most faultless of all Mr. Allston's works ;
and not only faultless, but, Avith great posi-
tiveness, one of the most channing conceptions
of his mind. The back-ground of the panel is

THE JEREMIAH. 101
filled up Avith the remote architecture of the
interior of the Temple. There is to be ob
served, in this part of the picture, tho same
perspective power, both in the draAving of the
architectural forms, and the management of
the light and shade, and of the atmosphere, to
produce the illusions of distance, as in the
Belshazzar. In the foreground of the picture,
stands an immense stone or earthen jar or vase,
partly concealed by some heavy folds of dra
pery, which have fallen upon it, which is
worked up altogether with the greatest beauty
of effect. To return to the Prophet. This is,
perhaps, the grandest form that ever came
from Allston's hand ; quite certainly the noblest
head, Avith an expression, more nearly ap
proaching the loftiest Ave can imagine to our
selves, than any other. Indeed it is not easy,
even supposing Michael Angelo the artist, to
conceive a Prophet or an Apostle of God more
completely filling up our ideas of such a Mes
senger. You feel, the moment you turn your
eye upon the picture, that such an one, if any
on earth, in the shape of man, is worthy to be
9*

102 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
the medium of communication between heaven
and earth ; and, that if he is called Jeremiah,
he well personates the noblest we can imagine
of the sublime old Prophet. And the whole of
this grand picture seen together, examined as
a whole, reminds one, by the grandeur of the
design, by the splendor and harmony of the
color, the beauty and grace of the composition
of a picture, accounted the second in pictorial
merit in the world — the Communion of
St. Jerome, by Domenichino. One is made
to think of that the more, perhaps, because,
like that, it is an upright picture and of about
the same size ; but more especially, because
of its great and surpassing merit in the color,
Avhich is the great predominant feature in its
magnificent prototype. This merit is espe
cially to be observed in the head of the
Prophet, the right hand, and more particularly,
in the right foot, beyond which I do not
believe art can go, or has ever gone. Then,
as a specimen of color, throughout the whole
picture, in the drapery, the figures, the back
ground, the still life, yet more in the carna-

SPLENDOR OF COLOR. 103
tions, this is all no less worthy of admiration.
It is also, I Avill add, an instance to show that
the utmost richness and splendor of color, is
by no means inconsistent with the most suc
cessful treatment of the sublime.
It is many years since I have seen this pic
ture, but I think it not possible that I should
have exaggerated any of its merits, and my
only apprehension really is, lest I may have
failed to do it justice. Those who have not
seen it, nor much else of Mr. Allston's work, I
am sure, can have very little idea of the supe
riority of his art ; and, in order not to con
demn the admirers Avho have seen it, and that
very familiarly, it must be quite necessary that
one should make pilgrimages to the shrine of
his genius, as we do that of Michael Angelo
and Raffaelle. Here I will venture to remark,
that there seems to be a fault somewhere,
when pictures like this, so calculated to afford
pleasure and instruction to so many, particu
larly to the whole body of our artists, and
more especially to the young student, so ex
tremely valuable to them, enough alone, to

104 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
give an impulse for life, should be hidden
away entirely from the eye of the public —
not only in private apartments, but in secluded
remote villages. The artist is, in that way,
defrauded of his just fame, and society of its
best means of improvement. I acknowledge
the difficulty in the Avay. That if, in a pri
vate dwelling, such a Avork is freely thrown
open, the order of the house is disturbed ;
carpets are destroyed, and servants and family
annoyed. Then, if it is deposited permanently
in a public room, the possessor is deprived of
pleasures to Avhich he has his right. But, it
would be a great favor to the Avorld at large, if
such pictures, not possible to be seen in any
other way, could be deposited, annually, or
occasionally, in a city exhibition-room during
three or four months of the travelling season,
when very great numbers could be enabled to
see them and artists Avould have an opportu
nity to examine them and even copy them,
if desired.
There are several pictures of Mr. Allston,
which are illustrations of tho same point hoav

HIS POWER OVER THE SUBLIME. 105
under consideration, his poAver, namely, over
the sublime, but Avhich I have never seen,
and therefore could speak of them only by
report, namely, Uriel in the Sun, Jacob's
Dream, Michael setting the Heavenly Watch
at the Gates of Paradise. These, you perceive
at once, are subjects grand and sublime in
their character, and to be treated in that man
ner ; and the common statements, from the
best judges of art relate, that the success of
the artist was all you would Avish, from the
nature of the theme, and all you Avould expect
from the genius of the man. Perhaps, some
Avould be inclined to include the picture of the
Raising of the Dead Man by the touch of the
Prophet's Bones, in this class ; but, remarkable
as I think that single figure of the dead man, I
should rather regard it as falling into the class
of pictures illustrative of the frightful, the ap
palling, than the moral sublime ; in accordance
with the definition which Allston himself, in
his introductory lecture on Art, gives ; de
nominating the frightful, the horrible, the
appalling, as among the sources of the false

100 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
sublime. The question Avould of course be,
whether this comes legitimately within the
limits of this class. For myself, I should be
inclined to place it there, and number it as
agreeing in character with the Martyrdoms of
the Saints, the Flaying of Marsyas, and sub
jects of that kind. But of this, there Avould be
great difference of opinion.
I noAv return to a picture already named,
" The Bloody Hand," from Mrs. Radcliffe's
novel of the Italian. It is rightly considered
as belonging to the class Ave are speaking of.
Mr. Allston himself considered it as among his
best Avorks. And for a picture of so small
size, Avhich seems really unsuitable to a sub
ject designed to awaken the emotions of the
sublime, I question if one ever was painted
capable of producing impressions of so poAver-
ful a character. Emotions of the sublime one
can hardly expect to be excited by absolutely
miniature objects. If I remember the picture
aright, it cannot be more than two and a half
feet by eighteen inches, if so much. The
subject, is the approach of the Catholic priest

THE BLOODY HAND. 107
Schedoni, Avith his attendant, Spalatro, to
murder EUena, the heroine of the novel, and
their sudden arrest and horror, at the appear
ance to Spalatro, among some of the dark
passages of an old building, of a bloody hand
Avhich beckons to them, and points the way.
" Give me the dagger," said Schedoni. Spa
latro, instead of obeying, grasped the arm of
the confessor, who, looking at him for an ex
planation of the extraordinary action, was still
more surprised to observe the paleness and
horror of his countenance. His starting eyes
seemed to follow some object along the pas
sage, and Schedoni, who began to partake of
his feelings, looked forward to discover Avhat
occasioned the dismay, but could not discover
any thing to justify it. "What is it you
fear ? " he said, at length. Spalatro's eyes
Avere still moving in horror. " Do you see
nothing?" said he. "I saw it as plainly
as I see you ; it came before my eyes in a
moment and shoAved itself, distinctly and out
spread ; it beckoned with that blood-stained
finger, and then glided aAvay doAvn the pas-

10S LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
sage, still beckoning, till it Avas lost in dark
ness." The moment seized by the artist is when
Schedoni, startled by Spalatro's expressions of
terror, pauses, and straining his eyes, tries to
penetrate the gloom and see the object of his
attendant's alarm ; Avhile Spalatro, as in the
case of Macbeth, terrified by his tormented
conscience, stands stiffened with horror, at the
sight of the bloody hand which beckons him
the way that he should go. The whole scene
is one of supernatural horror, which certainly
deserves the epithet of sublime. The figure
and expression of Spalatro is very remarkable,
expressing a terror by which the very blood is
frozen, yet not at all of a common or vulgar
type ; an expression you AA'ould not have
thought of but recognise as very nature, the
moment you see it ; the expression of a horror
Avhich nature could endure but for a moment ;
Avhich drives back the blood upon the heart, or
freezes it Avhere it is. The A*ery passage-way
where the assassins are arrested, has an air of
murder about it ; the effect increased by a

BELSHAZZAIl's feast. 109
spade which leans against the stairs. This
picture is now in South Carolina.
As my last illustration of this part of my
subject, I notice Mr. Allston's large picture,
the Belshazzar ; so long begun, so long left
unfinished, and so often inquired after during
his life ; but, though left unfinished, yet in
many parts equal, to say the least, to any
thing that ever came from his hand. He had,
on the very day of his death, resumed his
Avork upon it ; the paint was yet fresh upon
the tints he had last laid on. He was anxious
on many accounts, to complete it, and now
probably, Avould soon have done so, had his
life been spared but a little longer.
He had met Avith difficulties in his design,
and had found it necessary to re-cast, and
re-arrange much that he had thought, at one
time, completed. That must often happen, I
suppose, in this art. The final effect by no
means appears in first sketching, or even in
the dead color. It is only the color, and in its
full effect, and final touches, that Avill reveal
the real force and character of the design.
10

110 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
After all this labor has been fully completed, it
is only then that the artist is conscious of errors,
sees his mistakes, and at the same moment,
learns what a heavy burden of labor is imposed
in alterations which are absolutely necessary
and unavoidable. Vast labors, therefore, labors
never seen, suspected, or known by those Avho
admire the picture in its completed perfection,
have to be undergone by the solitary student
of art, which have many a time caused the
head and the heart to ache and filled the mind
almost Avith despair, ere the original concep
tion can be brought before the eye of the
world, in the complete fulfilment of all his
ambition. This Avas a cause of mental an
guish, more than once or twice, I have reason
to believe, in the instance of Mr. Allston. As
soon as he unrolled the picture, on the arrival
of the canvass from England, where the picture
Avas begun and almost finished, (as he, at one
time, vainly thought,) he sought the judgment
of Mr. Stuart, as that of a critic whose kuoAv-
ledge he could trust, and from Avhose honest
severity he had nothing to fear. Mr. Stuart

alterations. Ill
pointed out some, which he deemed funda
mental errors. In obedience to his criticisms,
the force of which Mr. Allston acknowledged,
he Avent through a series of alterations, con
nected chiefly with the perspective of the
picture, which cost him immense labor, and
of the most fatiguing kind ; and which a
mechanic draftsman could have done equally
Avell, under the least instruction. This single
alteration required six weeks of unremitting
labor, compelling him to make more than
twenty thousand distinct lines in chalk, in
circles and segments of circles, in order to
bring the whole picture into correct drawing.
And this Avas but the beginning ; as all these
new drawings Avere then to be gone over Avith
the ground colors and the final, finishing
ones. Any one who knows but little of the
art, can but faintly guess what the exhausting,
despairing labor Avas, which all this exacted.
And it is not likely that this Avas the only
one, or the last of labors of this kind.
But, had he lived to complete the picture,
according to his original design, or even ac-

1 12 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
cording to his changing purpose, one cannot
doubt for a moment, that, through mistakes
and alterations, hoAvever many and weari
some ; through new ideas, and new light
constantly breaking in, but always bringing
him nearer to the goal, he Avould at last have
worked li is Avay to a successful and brilliant
result ; a result that Avould have satisfied him
self and exalted still higher his fame, exalted
as it then already Avas. And yet, one may
be permitted to express a belief that even such
success could hardly have been worth the
labors and vexations, the distresses, in short,
it cost, nor have been a remuneration for the
loss of the many smaller pictures, so much
more consonant to his taste and his powers,
he would have given to the world in the time
that Avould have been thus rescued had he
never attempted the Belshazzar. Still, I cau-
not accept Stuart's judgment. It was his
opinion, given to Dr. Channing, after he had
seen the Belshazzar, and Avith his knowledge
of Allston's characteristics, that the picture
never Avould be finished ; giving as the

stuart's criticism. 113
reason, " the rapid growth of the artist's
mind, so that the work of this month or
year Avas felt to be imperfect the next, under
the better knowledge of more time, and must
be done over again, or greatly altered, and
therefore, could never come to an end."
There was a grain of truth in the opinion,
but no more. It is ingenious rather than
sound, complimentary rather than Avise. That
Mr. Allston had already completed pictures,
large ones too, requiring labor of the severest
kinds, and considering his fastidious tastes
and the perfection of his finish, completed in
an extraordinarily short period of time, is a
sufficient refutation of the judgment, Avithout
touching the philosophy of the matter.
It might be thought unfair to criticise this
picture, as it Avas left unfinished by the artist.
But, as his friends have made it the property
of the public, by placing it on permanent
exhibition, there can be no impropriety in
speaking of it freely ; as Ave are, indeed,
bound to do, in the case of every work, in
letters or art, from Avhich lessons may be
10*

111 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
drawn of use to society. They certainly
have done right in placing it on exhibition ;
it is a work too valuable, too beautiful, too
much of it near its completion, too instructive
in many Avays, to have been rolled up forever,
or seen only by a feAV, or hidden from the
common eye. And, having thus rightfully
been made public, the public, on their part,
do right also, in subjecting it to the most
thorough examination, and in fully express
ing their opinions. Every possible benefit to
art should now be drawn from it. The fact
that Mr. Allston sought and profited by the
opinions of those on whose judgment he could
rely, during the progress of the Avork, makes
it sufficiently clear that he regarded it as so
far completed, as to make it a proper subject
of criticism.
The subject or theme of this picture, styled
the Belshazzar, is too A\rell known to need to
be stated in the Scripture extracts which
describe it. It must be enough to refer to it.
A briefer description may, however, be con-

SUBJECT OF THE PICTURE. 1 15
venient. It is a large picture, painted upon a
canvass sixteen feet by twelve. The design
of the artist is to represent the effects that
would be produced by the appearance of the
man's hand coming forth upon the Avail in the
sight of all, the King, the Court, and all the
Magnates of the Kingdom, in the midst of a
blaze of supernatural light, and Avriting on
the wall of the palace, the well known Avords ;
the effect of all this, and of the interpretation
of the words by the Prophet Daniel, upon the
multitude of the people there present, upon
those sitting at the banquet, and up in the
royal persons themselves. The scene which
the artist attempted to present, is of a portion
of the interior of the Palace of the Kit:g, and
the architecture belonging to it ; the King
on his throne ; the Queen and her attend
ants ; Daniel and the Astrologers, in the front
ground ; the Banquet and those Avho sit at
the table, in the middle distance, with the
people who croAvd a gallery above ; then, in
the remote distance, the vast interior of an
Idol's Temple, with the Idol himself in the

110 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
centre, beneath a blazing circle of lights ; the
Temple floor, ascended by successive llights
of broad steps, up and doAvn Avhich the people
are seen hurrying in their terror. Such, in
few words as possible, is a description of the
picture. The first observation I have to offer on the
subject is, that the difficulty Mr. Allston ex
perienced during so many years, (more than
twenty,) in completing the Avork, seemed to
prove, Avith sufficient force, that it was of a
class of subjects to Avhich his genius was not
suited. He Avas not a man for large pictures,
and a multitude of figures. Not that he had
not the imagination requisite, not that he
wanted any of the intellectual force requisite,
— art has seldom, iu its whole history, pro
duced a mind of more brilliancy or compass,
— but, that he preferred another kind of sub
ject so much, that he undertook any other
with reluctance, with too much looking at the
amount of labor involved, to be Avilling to
grapple with it, earnestly and heartily, so as
to go through it Avith any higher feeling than

DIFFICULTIES. 117
that of performing a duty, or doing a job,
which could never produce a grand result.
Especially, considering the comparatiA'e slow
ness with which he wrought. Yet, they had
their attractions, and tAvo he attempted, and
others, he sketched. Still, he Avas not for
them, nor they for him. The artist is mir
rored in his works. The moral idiosyncrasy
shows itself in the picture, the statue, the
building, or the book. Mr. Allston was es
sentially a solitary. In Catholic times, he
would have been a monk. He would have
been another Angelico, Fra. Bartolomeo, Over
beck. You cannot think of him in public
places, mingling promiscuously Avith men ;
you cannot imagine him making dinner
speeches, as present at, seeking or enjoying
croAvds. Yet, a few he sought and loved, and
none enjoyed such society more, or adorned
it more, just as he instinctively shrunk from
the many. What he loved and preferred in
life, he did in art. He loved most r.ud ex
celled most, in single figures. He sought his
happiness, and found his success ant1 fame,

IIS LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
in the class of ideal forms, — in his Uriel and
his Jeremiah ; particularly in the female ideal
forms, Rosalie, The Spanish Girl, The Val
entine, Jessica, Miriam, which especially
captivated his imagination. This same in
clination for the solitary shows itself in his
landscapes, as the Swiss Landscape, and the
Elijah. When, then, he forsook this Avalk of art
for historical pictures of the largest size, it
may not so truly be said, as I have already
hinted, that he thus grasped Avhat he was not
equal to, as that through a momentary fervor,
a noble ambition to make real a vast concep
tion that filled his mind and set it on fire,
he abandoned a path on Avhich he had long
moved Avith ease and grace, and perplexed
himself with themes, which, however attrac
tive to a soaring imagination, were not so
much after his Avhole heart as those of quite
another kind. Moreover, he Avas not, now,
expressing or uttering himself, as before, but
rather treating a subject. He A\-as in the
Valentine, the Rosalie, the Jessica ; the man

DIFFICULTIES. 119
AAras in them. He could feel little sympathy
with the croAvds he was obliged to paint in
the Belshazzar, (or only here and there one,)
and must have tired of them. So Avith the
architecture, of which there is a great deal ;
so too, Avith the brazen and golden vessels,
the king's throne, costumes, and other objects
of still life ; — they cost infinite labor, and he
Avorked them up, as far as he went, in the
spirit of Gerard Dow, and though he Avas not
disinclined to work of that sort, there was
too much of it, the labor and time demanded
Avere too much. He must have felt it as a
Avaste. He Avas not the person, moreover,
Avith his slight frame and little strength, to go
mounting up ladders, and working on stag
ings, and using brushes large as a house
painter's. It is really painful to think of
Allston laying on the priming coats of a pic
ture like the Belshazzar. Pupils should have
done all that Avork after the drawing had been
made. And even when he came to the fin
ishing, it became only so much the more
laborious, and that was Avork Avhich none but

120 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
he could do. For every minute touch, Avith
his taste, his eye and feeling, which pene
trated 1o, and Avas satisfied with only the
whole and exact truth, he must have found
it necessary to descend his ladder, retreat to
the proper point of sight, to learn the precise
effect of the little point of light or shade, or
color he had added, then remount to his po
sition; and repeat the process, day after day,
month after month, during the killing heats
of summer, and the killing frosts of winter.
I can conceive of nothing more painfully toil
some, to a man of a feeble constitution. No
doubt, long use Avould enable an artist to
paint 0,1 this large scale, as easily as on any
other, calculating for the force of color at a
great distance, and doing the work as another
Avould a cabinet picture close to his eye, but
it could be only use, that could enable one to
do it ; and, iu the case of the only Avork of
this character, the difficulty must have been
all but insurmountable.
A man does not succeed quickly or Avell,
in any tiling he does or attempts against the

DIFFICULTIES. 121
grain, however he may ultimately fight his
way to it, after a fashion. I think that to
have been the case with Mr. Allston. He felt
that he Avas out of his true path, and that,
after all, he might meet Avith but partial suc
cess, not enough to satisfy his aspirations.
By such convictions I believe he was often
disheartened and threw off the task in a sort
of despair ; and mean time, soothed and de
lighted himself in some Lorenzo and Jessica.
This, I believe to be the true account of the
non-completion of this large picture, for so
many years. Add to this, there Avas evidently
a dissatisfaction, on his own part, with the
design ; not, perhaps, Avith the very principal
features of it, but with very important parts,
and Avhich led to many great and laborious
changes. The subject was seized only par
tially. He did not see the whole at once, all
the diverse parts in their proper relations to
each other. It Avas not one of those felicitous
conceptions, Avhich belong only to minds of
the very highest order, minds of a universal
sweep, by Avhich a subject is seen, almost as
n

122 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
a divine intelligence would see it, Avhere
every thing is as if it could not be imagined
to have been different, as in the designs of
Raffaelle. He was ever altering, nor at the
last, had he apparently reached the final
limit of change. It has been stated that the
appearance of Martin's remarkable work on
the same subject, Avas a reason why he aban
doned it ; that Martin had drawn from him
the most original feature of the picture, the
proceeding of the light from the miraculous
letters of the inscription. What the truth of
this Avas, I do not know. Only it seems far
more likely, that the causes just named Avere
the more real ones that arrested his hand so
long. It is true that he had, once before, in the
time of his youthful vigor, attempted, and in a
very brief period, completed a great historical
Avork, of a very large size — " The Raising of
the Dead Mau by the touch of the Prophet's
Bones" — a picture which, Avith some faults,
could never have been designed or executed
by any but a person of very remarkable

THE RAISING OF THE DEAD MAN. 123
powers. Indeed, Mr. Allston never manifested
more poAver than in some parts of this work.
But it was too much confined to the single
figure of the reviving dead man. Still, Avhat-
ever defects or faults are to be noted, they are
all abundantly atoned for by the genius that
blazes forth in the wonderful figure of the
dead man, Avhom, at the touch of the Prophet's
bones, you see slowly raise himself, a dead
body just deposited in the tomb, yet begin
ning to move, the faint flush of returning life
tinging the lips and the cheeks ; the eyes,
though heavily unclosing, still glazed and
dead ; a fearful object, and only too true to
our imaginations. As I have before aimed to
show, it is a picture that comes under Mr.
Allston's own classification of the appalling,
rather than the moral sublime. It was a
great, difficult, complicated work, and called
for high poAvers and vast labor.
But the Belshazzar was a vastly more for
midable undertaking, and if the subject just
described was one from its nature little suited
to his mind, much less was this. This calls

124 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
for all the most difficult departments of the
art, makes the highest demand upon the mind
in the conception of the subject, and its man
agement in the composition, and again the
highest demand for the artistic powers abso
lutely required, for even a tolerably successful
treatment of it. The subject is one of the
truest sublimity ; the miraculous interference
of the Deity, by a Prophet, to declare the
speedy overthrow of a great and prosperous
kingdom, in the letters of fire emblazoned
upon the wall ; crowds of the great men of
the empire in their appropriate costumes, as
far as the study of antiquity could supply
them ; the awful Prophet interpreting the
judgment of God ; the terror and consterna
tion of an agitated populace; the magnificence
of a royal entertainment, with its gorgeous
array of gold and silver vessels ; the King
upon his throne, in a state of terror which
caused the joints of the knees to loosen ; the
Queen, with her attendants and the royal
concubines ; the Priests and the Astrologers,
equally humbled and enraged at the success

DEFECTS. 125
of the JeAV, in interpreting the Avriting, Avhich
they had failed to do — here Avere difficulties
enough to appal the stoutest heart, and almost
daunt the loftiest courage, laying a peremptory
claim on every power that could belong to the
most gifted genius. It would be no shame
to confess a failure where none but powers,
almost more than man's, could succeed ; Avhich
asked for a sublime Poet, not less than a sub
lime Artist. But this, while it held out so
brilliant a reward to complete success, was
enough to break the spirit beneath the intol
erable burden of an unavoidable apprehension.
And I cannot doubt that it was a cause of no
little mental suffering.
I shall hoav go on to specify two faults,
Avhich I think Avould strike any one in exam
ining this picture ; in the Avant of expression
of character, and in the architecture.
There is a Avant of power in the expression
of the various passions, emotions, feelings
AA^hich properly belong to the subject, or
rather, constitute it ; Avithout Avhich, or Avith
which, erroneously or feebly expressed, such a
11*

120 LECTURES OS ALLSTON.
picture must fail, or Avould scarcely be said to
exist. Not, of course, that Mr. Allston has not
shown, abundantly even, great power to ex
press passion, feeling, through the language of
the countenance ; but, after all, as I have
already mentioned at some length, it is a lim
ited power, not universal, and does not satisfy
the demand made by a Avork of this high char
acter. I do not say that it might not have be
come all Ave could desire, had he lived, but it
is not so now, where the picture seems com
pleted. But generally, I have said, his power
seems limited on the one hand, to an expres
sion of the stronger, more intense emotions, as
fear, terror, malignity ; and on the other, to
emotions so A'ague and shadowy, as to leave it
doubtful Avhat was the feeling or state of mind
intended to be conveyed, or Avhether any at
all, or of a character so definite as to be capa
ble of being conveyed by art. For those most
delicate, subtle, but yet most precise shades of
meaning, often quite complicated, yet still
attended by no uncertainty as to their sense —
the highest intellectual achievement in art — to

EXPRESSION.

127

be seen in so many of the works of Raffaelle
and Guercino, these are not found in Mr. Alls-
ton ; not in such perfection as to be a charac
teristic. In the work before us, the grosser
sentiments of terror and malignant hatred, are
not very successfully treated. That difficult
line is overstepped which divides a strongly
expressed sentiment from caricature. This is
obvious in the Astrologers, with one exception,
yet, we may feel quite sure that those heads
would have undergone great modification.
In regard to the King, the artist appears to
have been governed by a determination to
avoid caricature of the sentiment of terror,
but, avoiding that, he did not succeed in
substituting any other in its place that could
be considered as successful. The intention
seemed to have been, to exhibit a person
under the influence of a fear and awe so
extreme as to cramp and convulse the form,
freeze, stiffen it into a mere rigid, lifeless clod
— an almost impossible feat to perform in art,
and certainly, not successful here — though
here, it must be said, ^hat the figure, as it is

128 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
now seen, had been painted over by Mr. All
ston, as if dissatisfied Avith it, and since his
death, restored in a good degree. Apparently,
with his conception and execution of the
Queen he was satisfied, and the form seems
perfectly finished, in a costume to the last
degree magnificent; gorgeous in its ornament,
yet in perfect taste. The face, a very noble
one ; but the expression, while strong, not such
as you would look for, nor natural to the scene ;
for it is of scorn and contempt, rather than
of awe or terror. The firm grasp with which
she seizes and holds the hand of one of her
attendants, seems to confess the need of sup
port and help ; but, setting this aside, and she
is too proud of heart, though in the midst of
so dreadful a scene, to express in her counte
nance any thing save utter scorn and con
tempt for what she holds to be the mere
juggler tricks of cheating priests. If the King
sinks down in dismay, she will stand up
against the Avorst that may happen. In all
her bearing, she is every inch a Queen. And
her presence alone, with her queenly beauty,

THE QUEEN AND THE PROPHET. 129
her regal pride, her Avomanly grace, as she
bends her dark eye on the Prophet, is enough
to spread a glory over the Avhole scene. She
is the only person Avith whom the spectator
sympathizes. The Prophet Daniel fails of any
good effect ; the figure wants not only expres
sion but force ; the form is good, but both
head and face want grandeur and power. The
story used to run, that the great Daniel of to
day was to be represented in the Prophet.
But there was no so good fortune in store
for us.
A great proportion of the other figures are
without expression of one kind or another.
Those at the Banquet appear to be in a state
of commotion; some terrified, some apparently
fainting, but more express no emotion of any
kind, which seems unaccountable in the midst
of so dreadful a scene ; those upon the steps
of the Idol's Temple are flying in different
Avays, as if not knowing Avhich Avay to turn ;
those in the gallery above the tables, are in
the same mixed state, some agitated, but more
unconcerned spectators of Avhat one might

130 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
suppose could be witnessed by none with in
difference, and by most, only Avith extreme
terror or a religious awe, by Avhich even
pagans must be affected, as they must have
seen at once, that the apparition Avas beyond
the arts of their Magicians. A group of five or
six, near the centre of the picture, is every
way very remarkable for a display of the
Artist's power in costume, draAving and color.
They may be supposed to be JeAvs. Some
are seated. None, apparently, concerned in
Avhat is going on. One is in a state of won
der, or some such emotion ; the rest, without
any expression whatever. It is true that some
time must have elapsed since the first coming
forth of the Hand ; for the King had first sent
for the Astrologers, Avho arriving, and after
consultation, failing to give an interpretation,
the Queen had then come in and advised the
sending for Daniel. He had been sent for,
had entered the hall, and had interpreted the
Avriting. All this implies the passage of con
siderable time, and the lapse of time would
naturally lead to a gradual subsiding of the

martin's picture. 131
first tumult of surprise and horror, yet, at the
same time, shows that at that very precise
moment, selected for the central point of time
of the picture, when the Prophet utters the
word " Upharsin," " Thy kingdom shall be
taken from thee," there would be almost more
than a renewal of the horror and excitement
on the first appearance of the handwriting, on
the part of the Babylonians and the King ; and
on the countenances of the Jews, either the
deepest awe at the miracle of their God, or
otherwise, triumphant glances, or shouts of joy
at the predicted overthroAv of the kingdom of
their ancient enemy. They could not have
kept their seats, motionless and apathetic, Avhile
such scenes were transacting. I can readily
understand that Mr. Allston must have Avished
to avoid a mere vulgar expression of theatrical
horror, such as we observe in Martin, Avhose
main object Avas not to express character in
its finer shades, but to produce all the effect
he designed by startling contrasts of light and
shade, and especially by architectural perspec
tive. But, Avhile he certainly avoided that,

LECTURES ON ALLSTON.

he fell into an opposite extreme, of presenting
too many persons, (principal ones too,) figures
and faces, without any meaning at all ; for
the very primal object of such a picture, when
the forms are of the size of life, must have
been to express the character and sentiment
proper to the scene ; by Avhich the whole
occurrence could be fitly represented, and, if
such character and sentiment are not express
ed, no other merits of any kind, can atone for
the loss. In the great masters of the art, for
example, Raffaelle, it is, at least very often'
the case, that in a picture where there are
many actors in the scene, of various ranks and
conditions, though all do not utter a common
expression variously modified, the effect of
Avhich would be monotonous ; all express
something, and Avith great preciseness, not ne
cessarily having respect to the main thought
of the picture, but to many things quite differ
ent and remote from it; Ave find many groups,
each Avith its oavii subordinate interest. This
lends great variety and life to the Avhole Avork.
This is Shakspeare like, and like nature.

THE ARCHITECTURE. 133
Bring numbers, a crowd together any where,
and though by no means will all be, immedi
ately, or alike, or deeply interested in the
common object which brought them together,
yet all will be interested about something ;
and a thousand by-plays and by-scenes Avill
be transacting, — all sorts of things, the most
incongruous, will be soon going on.
Another defect in this great picture, of a
different kind, but very great and obvious, is
to be seen in the treatment of the architecture,
Avhich constitutes a very prominent part of the
scene. It is, quite obviously, a portion of the
picture in an unfinished state. But no kind
of finishing could have essentially changed
its character, or removed the objections which
exist to it ; as the difficulty lies, not in the
details, but in the very forms and proportions
themselves ; in the very force of the color
which is requisite to express the forms as they
must be, to be in proper relation to the other
objects of the scene. The final glazings may
have done something to relieve the difficulty,
12

134 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
throAving it a little more out of sight, but could
not have removed it. The fault is in the effect
of littleness, meanness, produced by the rows
of small columns in the front of the picture,
of not more than some ten or twelve feet in
height, looking like the pillars of a country
meeting-house gallery. Such columns are
Avholly out of place in any royal hall or pal
ace ; especially so, in any Babylonian, Assyrian,
Egyptian architecture, and utterly inadmissi
ble where ideas of grandeur, sublimity, are
the emotions sought to be raised. As a Avork
of art Avith such an intent, these columns
blast, blight and kill the whole conception.
It is an irredeemable blot ; a fatal blemish.
Ever so many trivial forms can never make
one grand or sublime one. You may plant
columns, or arches, all over the Roman Cam-
pagna, running from the gate of the city to
the opposite Apennines, but, if they be but
some ten or twenty feet in height, they will
only seem the smaller and meaner for their
number ; they will only be posts, not columns.
The great Cathedral of Pisa has perhaps three

the idol's temple. 135
or four hundred columns iu the interior, but,
being very small, there is no effect of grandeur
produced ; it only looks like a large plaything,
and the pillars like turned sticks. So in this
picture. Here, the columns are but few,
which is better ; but, if one might be so bold,
they should all be swept away and if any
thing of the same sort in their place, the dim
outlines only, of two or three vast pillars,
reaching upward into a gloomy undefined
height, where the forms are lost. The ob
scure, the unbounded are elements of the
sublime, never the clear, and sharply defined.
I can feel no misgiving about the justice of
this criticism. But, the defect Avhich is so
obvious here, is not to be observed, but a
principle the very contrary carried out and
with the greatest majesty of design and effect,
in the interior of the Idol's Temple, Avhich fills
up all the back-ground of the picture. In the
remote parts of the picture, in the boundless
interior of the Temple, it is treated in a man
ner truly grand, and the wonder of wonders
is, how the same principle could have been so

130 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
mistakenly treated, in another part of the same
Avork. The management of the architectural
forms in the Idol's Temple, is one of the
grandest features in the Avhole work. There,
there is sublimity, indeed ; where are seen
columns of Egyptian size and proportion,
tOAvering upward till lost to sight ; the dim
atmosphere of the vast chamber, the countless
flights of steps, up which the crowds are hur
rying and then spreading over the floors, the
mysterious form of the brazen God, with the
circles of blazing light above ; these all con
spire to fill and excite the mind in the highest
degree, and prove the great power of the artist.
The perspective there, both in the form, the
lines of the architecture, and especially, in the
atmosphere, is a perfect triumph in that branch
of the art. Had the whole been completed in
that spirit and power, even Martin's picture,
in that feature in Avhich it has most, or any
merit, Avould not have exceeded, if it had
equalled it.
But the great charm of the picture is where
Mr. Allston always charms, in the color ; so

THE COLOR. 137
far as completed, nothing, to our eyes, remains
to be added. It is the color of the great
Venetians ; rich, gorgeous, yet chaste, pure,
and harmonious. Had it enjoyed the happy
fortune to have been finished up to the Artist's
conceptions, it would have been a picture,
which, for particular merit, would have gone
near to eclipse all that had gone before it,
of which, at least, we have any knowledge.
For, though Paul Veronese may have left
more grand and fruitful inventions, and
stamped his works with a luxuriousness of
fancy to Avhich there is nothing like, and
though his color, also, Avas admirable every
way, yet he never worked up any one of his
pictures, I imagine, to that minuteness and
perfection of finish so striking in this ; Avhich,
though so large, completed, Avould have had
at once, all the truth and delicacy of a cabinet
gem and the breadth and grandeur Avhich be
long to colossal subjects ; Avhich is just the
truth of Nature, Avhose Avorks, though ever so
large, are never finished with any the less
minuteness and perfection. The tAvo traits are
12*

13S LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
compatible and consistent, though Art so often
disjoins them. For the finest example of
color, in any part of the picture, I should refer
you to the group of the Jews, in the centre ;
all in shadow, but all finished to such perfec
tion, that not perhaps a single touch more
would have been needed. Let the group be
carefully examined under the strongest light
that can be thrown upon it, it will bear it all,
and it requires it all, — the more concentrated
and powerful, the better you will see, and the
more objects and forms, otherwise invisible,
Avill come into view and add to the effect of
the Avhole. Nothing is slurred over, all is done
Avith equal fidelity ; objects in shadow, as
objects in light ; and it is in objects in shadow
done Avith this equal perfection, that the
greatest beauties are to be found in paintings.
Many, ignorant of this, overlook the best por
tions of a picture, observing Avith any atten
tion, only Avhat is forced upon the sight by
the strongest light. For beauties in shadow,
I would refer particularly to the same group,
and to the hands of the Jewess, stretched out,

THE HARMONY OF THE WHOLE. 139
as she bends down, expressive of religious
reverence toward God or to his Prophet, close
to whom she sits, Avhere you will see painting
in the forms, color, perspective of the palm
and fingers, that never was surpassed ; for the
color, it really seems self-luminous, and rays
out light, as it were, into the dark all around,
an effect I never saw elsewhere, save in Titian
and the Elder Palma. There are other par
ticular points of excellence in color Avorth
noting, particularly the head of one of the
Astrologers, who stands fronting the spectator,
(Avhich is not more remarkable for its color,
grand as Rembrandt's, than for the successful
expression of the deepest malignity) ; the
Queen, the head of Daniel, a servant at the
tables, just beyond the kneeling Jewess, and I
must add, the brazen and golden vessels, and
the gems that glitter on the fingers of many —
this is all admirable work. Of the great art
shown in the color of the great Hall, and in
the Idol's Temple, I have spoken. But be
yond all this excellence, in particular parts of
the picture, there is a much higher one shown

140 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
in the tone of color and harmony Avhich per
vades the Avhole, which is all as if painted
from a single palette and at one sitting, so
exquisitely are the hues, the lights and the
darks, balanced and blended. The idea of
contrivance, in truth, does not suggest itself;
it seems one grand Avork, not of Art, but of
Nature, Avhere all must be true and right.
The color affects you in the same way. All
this merit so palpable, though the work can
only be said to be partly finished. This fills
one Avith highest admiration, and at the same
time, saddens him with melancholy regrets,
that so noble a conception, which, had life
been spared, we are confident would haAre
been completed in the same spirit of power in
Avhich it had been commenced and prosecuted,
should have been arrested midway. The
effect of the Avhole, upon an appreciating
mind, is that of an exquisite piece of music,
like the intricate, but ever harmonious moA-e-
ments of Beethoven's Symphonies, or the
melting, blending strains of an .iEolian harp.
In closing these Lectures, I am ready to

CONCLUSION. 141
acknowledge, no one more so, that I have
not been able to satisfy myself in representing
Mr. Allston's mind and art. I have been
obliged to omit much Avhich I Avished to say,
as I have said much, doubtless, that were
better left unsaid. But such fault is inci
dental to all writing for temporary and public
purposes. They can only be regretted ; not
apologized for.
But I am quite inclined to offer an apology
to you, who have listened to me, to myself,
and to the venerable shade of the great Artist
of whom I have discoursed, to whom I have
tried to do all honor, and who now perhaps,
with Virgil and Dante, congenial souls, Avith
Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, also congenial
souls, but not more so, wanders by the bank
of some clear stream, beneath grateful shades
in the Elysium for which we all sigh, for ven
turing as I have done, so many observations
on the last unfinished Avork of the author —
especially for such as may seem to have borne
on the face any blame. I declare it is Avith
feelings of severe self-reproach that I recall

142 LECTURES ON ALLSTON.
what I have Avritten of blame, so sure am I
that Avith time, he Avould have brought the
work to a perfect close. But, Avhen I have at
any moment uttered such phrase, I believe I
have coupled with it the extenuating clause,
that there Avas no fault that might not be
amended ; and I repeat now emphatically the
conviction, and it is only what is due, that,
from what we know of Mr. Allston and his
mind, of his spirit of patient perseverance, his
love of perfection, and search after it in all he
attempted, it is quite certain, that had he lived,
he Avould have surmounted every difficulty,
triumphed over all obstacles, and brought his
labor to a perfect and brilliant close. It were
nnpbilosophical to think otherwise. I am
clear in the belief  ¦

NOTES.

The following is the Catalogue of Mr. Allston's
Pictures, exhibited at Harding's Gallery in Boston,
in the year 1839, and referred to on Page 50.
No. 1. — Date 1813.
THE DEAD MAN RESTORED TO LIFE, By
TOUCHING THE BoNES OF THE PllOPHET ElISHA.
" And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the
coming in of the year. And it came to pass as they were
burying a man, that behold, they spied a band of men, and
they cast the man into the Sepulchre of Elisha ; and when
the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha,
he revived." — 2 Kings, chap. xiii. v. 20, 21.
Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
No. 2.
JEREMIAH DICTATING HIS PROPHECY OF
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM TO
BARUCH, THE SCRIBE.
Vide Jer. Ch. xxxvi. Miss Gibbs, Boston.

144 NOTES. No. 3.
THE TRIUMPHAL SONG OF MIRIAM ON THE
DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH AND HIS HOST
IN THE RED SEA.
" Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." —
Exodus, Ch. xv. David Sears, Boston.
No. 4.
THE WITCH OF ENDOR RAISING THE SPIRIT
OF SAMUEL BEFORE SAUL.
Vide 1 Samuel, Ch. xxviii. Col. Perkins, Boston.
No. 5.
THE FLIGHT OF FLORIMEL.
Vide Spenser's Faery Queen. James F. Baldwin, Boston.
No. 6.
POLYPHEMUS IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS EYE
WAS PUT OUT, GROPING ABOUT HIS C\\-
ERN FOR THE COMPANIONS OF ULYSSES.
Drawn on ship-board. James F. Baldwin, Boston.
No. 7. — ISOj.
SWISS SCENERY.
Isaac P. Davis, Boston.

NOTES. 145
No. 8.
A MOTHER AVATCHING HER SLEEPING CHILD.
James McMurtrie, Philadelphia.
No. 9.
•EDWIN.
Vide Beattie's Minstrel. Robert Gilmor, Baltimore.
No. 10.
BEATRICE.
Samuel A. Eliot, Boston.
No. 11.
ITALIAN SCENERY.
Samuel A. Eliot, Boston.
No. 12.
THE VALENTINE.
George Ticenor, Boston.
No. 13. — 1810.
LANDSCAPE. ITALY.
Edmund Dwisht, Boston.
No. 14.
AMERICAN SCENERY.
Time, afternoon, with a south-west haze. Edmund Dwigut,
Boston.
13

Ill}

No. 15.
A ROMAN LADY.
Edmund Dwigiit, Boston.
No. 1G.
LANDSCAPE.
AVarren Dutton, Boston.
No. 17.
THE EVENING HYMN.
AVarren Dutton, Boston.
No. 18.
LANDSCAPE.
Time, after sunset. Charles Copmax, Boston.
No. 19.
ISAAC OF YORK.
Vide Ivanhoe. The Atiiexjecm, Boston.
No. 20.
SKETCH OF A POLISH JEAV.
The AincxiUM, Boston.
No. 21.
PORTRAIT OF HEN J AMI N WEST, Late Presi
dent of the Royal A> apemv, London.
The head painted in London, 1814, the drapery and back
ground added in 1S37, Cambridge.
The Atiien.vx.u, Boston.

NOTES. 147
No. 22.
AN ITALIAN SHEPHERD BOY.
Robert C. HoorER, Boston,
No. 23. — 1805.
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.
Painted in Rome. Nathaniel Amory, Newport.
No. 24.
MOONLIGHT.
Dr. Bigelow, Boston.
No. 25.
LANDSCAPE.
Powell Mason, Boston.
No. 26.
HEAD OF ST. PETER.
A study for the large picture afterwards painted for Sir
George Beaumont, now in a Church at Ashby de la Zouch,
England. George Bancroft, Boston.
No. 27. — 1811.
COAST SCENE ON THE MEDITERRANEAN.
T. Williams, Boston.
No. 28.
A SKETCH OF A POLISH JEW.
J. S. Copley Greene, Boston.

14S NOTES. No 29.
A SKETCH OF A POLISH JEW.
Thomas Dwight, Boston.
No. 30. — 1811.
A POOR AUPIIOR AND A RICH BOOKSELLER.
T. H. Perkins, Jr., Boston.
No. 31.
LANDSCAPE.
Rev. Dr. Lowell, Boston.
No. 32. — 1S04.
RISING OF A THUNDER-STORM AT SEA. PILOT
BOAT GOING OFF TO A SHIP.
S. D. Parker, Boston.
No. 33.
DONNA MENCIA IN Till-: ROBBERS CAVERN.
Col. AA'illiam Drayton, of South Carolina — Philadelphia.
No. 34.
PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL WILLIAMS, Esq.
Timothy Williams, Boston.
No. 35.
ROSALIE.
Nathan ArrLETON, Boston.

NOTES. 149
No. 3l>. — 1810.
LANDSCAPE.
Isaac P. Davis, Boston.
No. 37.
THE TUSCAN GIRL.
David Sears, Boston.
No. 38.
JESSICA AND LORENZO.
Patrick T. Jackson, Boston.
No. 39.
THE SISTERS.
Francis Alexander, Boston.
No. 40.
THE YOUNG TROUBADOUR.
Vide Allston's " Lectures on Art and Poems," pp. 340, 34] .
J. Bryant, Jr., Boston.
No. 41. — 1806.
FALSTAFF AND HIS RECRUITS AT JUSTICE
SHALLOW'S.
AVilliam Sullivan, Boston.
No. 42. — 1S11.
PORTRAIT OF THE LATE Mrs. WM. CHAN
NING.
Rev. Dr. Channing, Boston.

150 NOTES.
No. 43.— 1799.
LANDSCAPE.
Tainted when at College, Cambridge.
General Sumner.
No. 41. — 1799.
LANDSCAPE.
In possession of the Artist.
Painted when at College, Cambridge.
N. B. These youthful efforts are exhibited as objects of
curiosity. No. 45.
STORM AT SEA.
The ship Galen, in which the Artist returned from Eu
rope. Drawn on ship-board. Col. Perkins, Boston.

THE ROSALIE. Page 70. The following verses by
the Poet-Artist give us his own description of the
Rosalie. " O, pour upon my s.ml again
That sad, unearthly strain,
That seems from other worlds to plain ;
Thus falling, falling from afar,
As if some melancholy star
Had mingled with her light her sighs.
And dropped them from the skies!

NOTES. 151
" No, — never came from aught below
This melody of woe,
That makes my heart to overflow,
As from a thousand gushing springs,
Unknown before ; that with it brings
This nameless light, — if light it be, —
That veils the world I see.
" For all I see around me wears
The hue of other spheres ;
And something blent of smiles and tears
Comes from the veiy air I breathe.
O, nothing, sure, the stars beneath
Can mould a sadness like to this, —
So like angelic bliss."
So, at that dreamy hour of day
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play, —
So thought the gentle Rosalie,
As on her maiden reverie
First fell the strain of him who stole
In music to her soul

152 NOTES.
THE SPANISH MAID. Paok 77. Mr. Allston ac
companied the first exhibition of this picture with the
following ballad.
Five weary months sweet Inez numbered
From that unfading, bitter day
When last she heard the trumpet bray
That called her Isidore away, —
That never to her heart has slumbered.
She hears it now, and sees, far bending
Along the mountain's misty side,
His plumed troop, that, waving wide,
Seems like a rippling, feathery tide,
Now bright, now with the dim shore blending.
She bears the cannon's deadly raUlc, —
And fancy hurries on to strife,
And hears the drum and screaming fife
Mix with the last sad cry of life.
(>. should he, — should he fall in battle !
let still his name would live in story,
And every gallant bard in Spain
Would fight his battles o'er again.
And would she not for such a strain
Resign him to her country's glorv ?

NOTES. 153
Tims Inez thought, and plucked the flower
That grew upon the very hank
Where first her car bewildered drank
The plighted vow, — whore last she sank
In that too bitter parting hour.
But now the sun is westward sinking :
And soon, amid the purple haze
That showers from his slanting rays,
A thousand Loves there meet her caze.
To change her high, heroic thinking.
Then Hope, with all its crowding fancies,
Before her flits and fills the air;
And, decked in Victory's glorious gear,
In vision Isidore is there.
Then how her heart 'mid sadness dances !
Yet little thought she, thus forestalling
The coming joy, that in that hour
The Future, like the colored shower
That seems to arch the ocean o'er,
Was in the living Present falling.
The foe is slain. His sable charger,
All flecked with foam, comes bounding on.
The wild Morena rings anon :

151

And on its brow the gallant Don
And gallant steed grow larger, larger ;
And now he nears the mountain-hollow ;
The flowery bank and little lake
Now on bis startled vision break, —
And Inez there. — He 's not awake !
Yet how he '11 love this dream to-morrow !
But no, — he surely is not dreaming.
Another minute makes it clear.
A scream, a rush, a burning tear
From Inez' check, dispel the fear
That bliss like his is only seeming.

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