‘Acknowledges with joyHis manner, and with rapture tastes His style.’Cowper,The Task,III.227–8.
‘Acknowledges with joyHis manner, and with rapture tastes His style.’Cowper,The Task,III.227–8.
‘Acknowledges with joyHis manner, and with rapture tastes His style.’Cowper,The Task,III.227–8.
‘Acknowledges with joy
His manner, and with rapture tastes His style.’
Cowper,The Task,III.227–8.
327.Alternate action and repose.Cf.
‘And bid alternate passions fall and rise.’Pope,Essay on Criticism, 375.
‘And bid alternate passions fall and rise.’Pope,Essay on Criticism, 375.
‘And bid alternate passions fall and rise.’Pope,Essay on Criticism, 375.
‘And bid alternate passions fall and rise.’
Pope,Essay on Criticism, 375.
328. After ‘is to us a mystery,’ add, fromThe Examiner: ‘Further, we are ready (for the benefit of the Fine Arts in this kingdom) to produce two casts from actual nature, which if they do not furnish practical proof of all that we have here advanced, we are willing to forfeit all that we are worth—a theory’ [see p.331, present volume]. The article then ends with the ten principles and the following note: ‘We shall conclude with expressing a hope, that the Elgin Marbles may not be made another national stop-gap between nature and art.
‘In answer to some objections to what was said in a former article on the comparative propriety of removing these statues, we beg leave to put one question. It appears from the Report of the Committee, that the French Government were, in the year 1811, anxious to purchase the collection of Lord Elgin, who was then a prisoner in France. We ask then, supposing this to have been done, what would have become of it? Would not the Theseus and the Neptune have been solemnly sent back, like malefactors, “to the place from whence they came?”—Yes, to be sure.—The Rev. Dr. Philip Hunt, in the service of Lord Elgin, declares, in his evidence before the Committee, that no objection was made nor regret expressed by the inhabitants at the removal of the Marbles. In the notes toChilde Harold’s Pilgrimage,[69]we find the following extract of a letter from Dr. Clarke to Lord Byron:—“When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and in moving it, great part of the superstructure, with one of triglyphs, was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from His mouth, dropped a tear, and in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, ‘Telos! I was present.’”—It appears that Dr. Philip Hunt was not.’
330.Image and superscription.S. Matthewxxii. 20.
332.So from the ground[root].Paradise Lost, v. 481.
Laborious foolery.Seeante, note to p.121.
333.Fair varieties.‘And all the fair variety of things.’ Akenside,Pleasures of Imagination,I.
Mr. Westall.Richard Westall (1765–1836), chiefly remembered by his book-illustrations.
Angelica Kauffman.Maria Anna Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807), a Swiss painter, chiefly of female characters.
334.Torrigiano.Pietro Torrigiano (1472–1528), Italian sculptor. The bronze tombs of HenryVII.and Queen Elizabeth at Westminster are his. He was imprisoned for heresy and died of hunger.
335.Gay creatures of the element.Comus, 299.
336.Mr. Martin.John Martin, landscape and historical painter (1789–1854), one of the founders of the Society of British Artists.
338.Sir Joshua tells us ... the Idler.Nos. 76 and 82. Cf. vol.VI.Table Talk, p. 131 and note.
Note.Sedet in æternumque sedebit.Virgil,Æneid,VI.617–18.
339.Villainous low.The Tempest, ActIV.Sc. 1.
340.To o’erstep the modesty of nature.Hamlet, ActIII.Sc. 2.
All we hate.Pope,Moral Essays,II.52.
342.Thrills in each nerve.
Cf. ‘A sudden horror chillRan through each nerve, and thrilled in ev’ry vein.’Addison,Milton’s Style Imitated, 123–4.
Cf. ‘A sudden horror chillRan through each nerve, and thrilled in ev’ry vein.’Addison,Milton’s Style Imitated, 123–4.
Cf. ‘A sudden horror chillRan through each nerve, and thrilled in ev’ry vein.’Addison,Milton’s Style Imitated, 123–4.
Cf. ‘A sudden horror chill
Ran through each nerve, and thrilled in ev’ry vein.’
Addison,Milton’s Style Imitated, 123–4.
347.Mr. Kean.Edmund Kean (1787–1833).
Mr. Kemble.John Philip Kemble (1757–1823).
FromThe London Magazine, November 1822
348.Omne ignotum.Tacitus,Agricola,XXX.
Ships of pearl and seas of amber.An unacknowledged recollection of ‘seas of milk, and ships of amber.’ Otway,Venice Preserved, v. 2.
349.Breughel.Jan Brueghel (1568–1625), of Brussels, a landscape painter greatly admired by Rubens, in some of whose pictures Brueghel painted the landscapes.
Rottenhammer.Johann Rottenhammer (1564–1623), of Munich, historical painter. Brueghel painted some of his landscape back-grounds also.
Which like a trumpet.
‘That like a trumpet made young pulses dance.’Leigh Hunt,The Story of Rimini, CantoIII.
‘That like a trumpet made young pulses dance.’Leigh Hunt,The Story of Rimini, CantoIII.
‘That like a trumpet made young pulses dance.’Leigh Hunt,The Story of Rimini, CantoIII.
‘That like a trumpet made young pulses dance.’
Leigh Hunt,The Story of Rimini, CantoIII.
Cumberland.Richard Cumberland (1732–1811), the dramatist, who was sent to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1780. See hisMemoirs, 1807, vol.II.p. 78.
While groves of Eden.Pope,Windsor Forest, 7.
Mr. Ritchie.Joseph Ritchie (1788?-1819), who went out on a government expedition to Africa about 1818.
Bruce.James Bruce (1730–1794), who explored Abyssinia in 1769–1771.
Beckford.Seeante, note to p.56.
351.Whose price is above rubies.‘The price of wisdom is above rubies.’Jobxxviii. 18.
351.The showman in Goldsmith’s comedy.She Stoops to Conquer,I.
352.In our mind’s eye.Hamlet, ActI.Sc. 2.
Mr. Christie.James Christie, the elder (1730–1803), the London auctioneer. His son, James the younger (1773–1831), was both antiquary and auctioneer.
354.Della Cruscan.See vol.V.Lectures on the English Poets, note to p. 148.
Nugæ Canoræ.Horace,Ars Poet.322.
Stella.A family of French painters of various years from 1525 to 1697.
Franks.Frans Francken, the younger, otherwise Don Francisco, of Antwerp (1581–1642), one of a numerous family of painters.
Lucas Cranach.Luther’s friend, the painter whose name is always associated with the Reformation (1472–1553).
Netecher.Caspar Netcher (1639–1684), of Heidelberg, painter of domestic scenes and small portraits. His two sons Constantine and Theodor were also painters.
355.Cosway.Richard Cosway (d. 1821), the miniaturist. This passage about Cosway is substantially repeated in vol.VII.The Plain Speaker, pp. 95–6.
Mr. Cipriani.Giambattista Cipriani, of Florentine birth (1727–1785).
We scarce shall[shall not]look upon his like again.Hamlet, ActI.Sc. 2.
G. Douw.Seeante, note to p.35.
Bassan.Seeante, note to p.35.
FromThe Literary Examiner, August 2, 1823
357.Dr. Kitchener.William Kitchiner (1775?-1827), M.D., author ofApicius Redivivus, or the Cook’s Oracle, 1817, a book which passed through many editions.
Mr. Ude.Louis-Eustache Ude, whose book,The French Cook; or the Art of Cookery developed in all its branches, was published in 1813.
As ‘Squire Western would say.SeeTom Jones, BookIV.chap,X., etc.
FromThe New Monthly Magazine, November 1827. It was published later in the volume of Hazlitt’sLiterary Remains, 1836.
359.L.Landor [W. C. Hazlitt].
360.With hideous ruin.Paradise Lost,I.46.
361.Divinæ particula[particulam]auræ.Horace, Sat.II.2.
The rapt soul.Il Penseroso, 40.
Seer blest.Paradise Lost,XII.553.
As a book where one may read strange matters.Macbeth, ActI.Sc. 5.
Neither the cloud by day nor the pillar of fire.Exodusxiii. 21.
362.His bodies thought.
‘——so distinctly wroughtThat one might almost say, her body thought.’John Donne:An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–6.
‘——so distinctly wroughtThat one might almost say, her body thought.’John Donne:An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–6.
‘——so distinctly wroughtThat one might almost say, her body thought.’John Donne:An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–6.
‘——so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say, her body thought.’
John Donne:An Anatomy of the World, Second Anniversary, 245–6.
363.A fiery soul.Dryden,Absalom and Achitophel,I.156.
365.Hope elevates, and joy brightens their every feature[his crest].Paradise Lost,IX.633.
366.On his front engraven thought[deliberation sat].Ibid.,II.302.
Scattered like stray-gifts.Wordsworth,Stray Pleasures.
366.Stately height though bare.Cf.Paradise Lost,I.723:
‘The ascending pileStood fixed her stately highth.’
‘The ascending pileStood fixed her stately highth.’
‘The ascending pileStood fixed her stately highth.’
‘The ascending pile
Stood fixed her stately highth.’
367.Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine.Waverley, vol.II.chap. 28.
Fergus MacIvor.Ibid.vol.II.chap. 40.
FromThe New Monthly Magazine, October 1827
369.The vast, the unbounded.Paradise Lost,X.471.
371.Petrific mace.Paradise Lost,X.294.
372.Pan is a god.Lyly’sMidas,IV.1.
The colouring of Titian.Tristram Shandy,III.12.
373.The high endeavour.Cowper,The Task,V.901.
374.Hobbes said well.Leviathan, PartIV.,Of the Kingdome of Darknesse, chap. 47.
375.Vox faucibus hæsit.Virgil,Æneid,II.774.
Sedet infelix Theseus.Ibid.,VI.617.
His tediousness.Cf. the scene between Leonato and Dogberry, etc.Much Ado About Nothing, ActIII.Sc. 5.
376.Tearing[wipe away]from his memory.Hamlet, ActI.Sc. 5.
Her[my]commandment all alone.Ibid.
An article contributed to the supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of theEncyclopædia Britannica: 6 vols., 4to, 1824. Signed Z. This essay was based upon articles which appeared inThe Championon August 28, September 11, and October 2, 1814, entitled—Fine Arts.Whether they are promoted by academies and public institutions, and on October 30 and November 6 entitledCharacter of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Passages omitted from the later publication will be found below. The article is a characteristic example of Hazlitt’s method of using his previous work when writing on a similar subject.
The text here printed is that of the supplementary volumes of 1824, published during Hazlitt’s lifetime, and incorporated later in the uniform issue of theEncyclopaedia Britannica(the 7th) the title-pages of which were dated 1842.
Hazlitt’s article onThe Fine Artsand the one onPaintingby Haydon, ‘being the articles under those heads contributed to the seventh edition of theEncyclopædia Britannica,’ were published in one volume by Messrs. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, in 1838. Hazlitt’s article was also published in the volume ofLiterary Remainspublished in 1836.
The Essays inTable Talk, Nos.XIII.andXIV., ‘On certain Inconsistencies in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses,’ may be mentioned in connection with the subject-matter of the present article (see vol.VI.pp. 122et seq.), and also four papers contributed toThe Championon Reynolds as critic, November 27, December 4 and 25, 1814, and January 8, 1815. See the final volumes of the present edition, where they are reprinted for the first time.
PAGE
382.The Mistress or the saint.Goldsmith’sTraveller, 152.
388.Bright with excessive darkness.
Cf. ‘dark with excessive bright.’Paradise Lost,III.380.
Cf. ‘dark with excessive bright.’Paradise Lost,III.380.
Cf. ‘dark with excessive bright.’Paradise Lost,III.380.
Cf. ‘dark with excessive bright.’
Paradise Lost,III.380.
389.They are of the earth, earthy.1 Cor.XV.47.
Vangoyen.Seeante, note to p.36.
Ruysdael.Seeante, note to p.22.
Vanderneer.Probably Eglon Hendrik Van der Neer (1643–1703), of Amsterdam, is meant, since his pictures are characterised by their elaborate finish. His father, Aert Van der Neer (1603–1677), painted moonlight and winter scenes.
390.To hold the mirror.Hamlet, ActIII.Sc. 2.
To show vice[virtue]her own feature, scorn her own image.Ibid., ActIII.Sc. 2.
391.Die of a rose in aromatic pain.Pope,Essay on Man, Ep.I.200.
Of the great vulgar and the small.Cowley,Horace,Odes,III.1.
392. AfterMarriage à la Modethe article in its original issue adds: ‘exhibited lately at the British Institution.’
394.Universal Pan.Paradise Lost,IV.266.
396.The authority of Sir Joshua Reynolds.From the article inThe Champion, Oct. 30, 1814, entitledCharacter of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Afterworth consideringadd: ‘From the great and substantial merits of the late President, we have as little the inclination as the power to detract. But we certainly think that they have been sometimes over-rated from the partiality of friends and from the influence of fashion. However necessary and useful the ebullitions of public or private enthusiasm may be to counteract the common prejudices against new claims to reputation, and to lift rising genius to its just rank, there is a time when, having accomplished its end, our zeal may be suffered to subside into discretion, and when it becomes as proper to restrain our admiration as it was before to give a loose to it. It is only by having undergone this double ordeal that reputation can ever be established on a solid basis—that popularity becomes fame.’
397.Alone give value and dignity to it.Cf. Lamb’sEssay on the Genius and Character of Hogarth(ed. E. V. Lucas,I.80), where the words are quoted from Barry’sAccount of a Series of Pictures ... at the Adelphi.
Hudson.Thomas Hudson (1701–1779), one of the most fashionable portrait painters of his day, the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Afteraffected positionadd: ‘He thought that beauty and perfection wereoneand he very consistently reduced this principle to practice.’
Richardson.Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745), portrait painter and writer on art.
Coypel.A family of French painters of various years from 1628 to 1752.
398. Afterproportion or formadd: ‘This distinction has not been sufficiently attended to. Mr. West, for example, has considerable knowledge of drawing, as it relates to proportion, to the anatomical measurements of the human body. He has not the least conception of elegance or grandeur of form. The one is matter of mechanical knowledge, the other of taste and feeling. Rubens was deficient in the anatomical measurements, as well as in the marking of the muscles: but he had as fine an eye as possible for what may be calledthe picturesquein form, both in the composition of his figures and in the particular parts. In all that relates to the expression of motion, that is, to ease, freedom, and elasticity of form, he was unrivalled. He was as superior to Mr. West in his power of drawing, as in his power of colouring.—Correggio’s proportions are said to have been often incorrect: but his feeling of beauty, and grace of outline, was of the most exquisite kind.’
399. Afterand some othersadd the following footnote: ‘Our references are generally made to pictures in the late exhibition of Sir Joshua’s works in the British Gallery.’
No mark or likelihood.1 King Henry IV., ActIII.Sc. 2.
Afterdownright portraits and nothing more, add: ‘What if he had painted them on the theory of middle forms, or pounded their features together in the same metaphysical mortar? Mr. Westall might just as well have painted them. They would have been of no more value than his own pictures of Mr. Tomkins,[70]the penman, or Mrs. Robinson,[71]who is painted with a hat and feather, or Mrs. Billington,[72]who is painted as St. Cecilia, or than the Prince of Wales and Duke of York, or the portraits of Sir George and Lady Beaumont. Would the artist in this case have conferred the same benefit on the public, or have added as much to the stock of our ideas, as by giving usfac-similesof the most interesting characters of the time, with whom we seem, from his representations of them, to be almost as well acquainted as if we had known them, and to remember their persons as well as their writings? Yet we would rather have seen Johnson, or Goldsmith, or Burke, than their portraits. This shows that the effect of the pictures would not have been the worse, if they had been the more finished, and more detailed: for there is nothing so true, either to the details or to the general effect, as nature. The only celebrated person of this period whom we have seen is Mr. Sheridan, whose face, we have no hesitation in saying, contains a great deal more, and is better worth seeing, than Sir Joshua’s picture of him.’
Afterstiff and confinedadd: ‘But there is a medium between primness and hoydening.’
400. Afterease and eleganceadd: ‘Sir Joshua seems more than once (both theoretically and practically) to have borrowed his idea of positive excellence from a negation of the opposite defect. His tastes led him to reject the faults, which he had observed in others; but he had not always power to realize his own idea of perfection, or to ascertain precisely in what it consisted. His colouring also wanted that purity, delicacy, and transparent smoothness, which gives such an exquisite charm to Vandyke’s women. Vandyke’s portraits (mostly of English women) in the Louvre, have a cool, refreshing air about them, a look of simplicity and modesty even in the very tone, which forms a fine contrast to the voluptuous glow and mellow golden lustre of Titian’s Italian women. There is a quality of flesh-colour in Vandyke, which is to be found in no other painter, neither in Titian, Rubens, nor Rembrandt; nor is it in Reynolds, for he had nothing which was not taken from those three. It exactly conveys the idea of the soft, smooth, sliding, continuous, delicately varied surface of the skin. Correggio approached nearer to it, though his principle of light and shade was totally different. The objects in Vandyke have the least possible difference of light and shade, and are presented to the eye without being reflected through any other medium. It is this extreme purity and clearness of tone, together with the elegance and precision of his particular forms,[73]that places Vandykein the first rank of portrait-painters. As Reynolds had not his defects, he had not his excellences. We accidentally saw the late Lady Mount-Joy at the exhibition of Sir Joshua’s works in Pall-mall: nor could we help contrasting the dazzling clearness of complexion, the delicacy and distinctness of the form of the features, with the half made-up and faded beauties which hung on the walls, and which comparatively resembled paste figures, smeared over with paint. We doubt whether the same effect would have been produced in a fine collection of Vandyke’s. In the gallery of Blenheim, there is a family picture of the Duchess of Buckingham with her children, which is a pure mirrour of fashion. The picture produces the same sort of respect and silence as if the spectator had been introduced into a family circle of the highest rank, at a period when rank was a greater distinction than it is at present. The delicate attention and mild solicitude of the mother are admirable, but two of the children surpass description. The one is a young girl of nine or ten, who looks as if “the winds of heaven had not been permitted to visit her face too roughly”;[74]she stands before her mother in all the pride of childish self-importance, and studied display of artificial prettinesses, with a consciousness that the least departure from strict propriety or decorum will be instantly detected; the other is a little round-faced chubby boy, who stands quite at his ease behind his mother’s chair, with a fine rosy glow of health in his cheeks, through which the blood is seen circulating. It was like seeing the objects reflected in a glass. The picture of the late Duke and Duchess of Marlborough and their children, in the same room, painted by Sir Joshua, appear coarse and tawdry when compared with “the soft precision of the clear Vandyke.”’[75]
400. Afterborrowed from Correggioadd: ‘Sir Joshua has only repeated the same ideaad infinitum, and has, besides, caricatured it. It has been said that his children were unrivalled. Titian’s, Raphael’s, and Correggio’s were much superior. Those of Rubens and Poussin were at least equal. If any one should hesitate as to the last painter in particular, we would refer them to the picture (at Lord Grosvenor’s) of the children paying adoration to the infant Christ, or to the children drinking in the picture of Moses striking the rock. Our making these comparisons or giving these preferences is not, we conceive, any disparagement to Sir Joshua. Did we not think highly of him, we might well blush to make them.’
Infant Samuel.The passage inThe Championis slightly different, and quotes a few lines from Mr. Sotheby’s poetical Epistle to Sir G. Beaumont describing the infant Jupiter and the infant Samuel. William Sotheby (1757–1833) was horse-soldier, friend of Sir Walter Scott, and poet.
Afterbut the nameadd: ‘Sir Joshua himself (as it appears from his biographers) had no idea of a subject in painting them, till some ignorant and officious admirer undertook to supply the deficiency. What can be more trifling than giving the portrait of Kitty Fisher[76]the mock-heroic title of Cleopatra?’
401.Count Ugolino.The story will be found inThe Inferno, CantoXXXIII.
Afterrest of the figuresadd: ‘who look very much like apprentices hired to sit for the occasion from some neighbouring workshop. There is one pleasing and natural figure of a little boy kneeling at his father’s feet, but it has no relation to the supposed story.’
401. Aftercharitable donationadd: ‘There is all the difference between what the picture is and what it ought to be, that there is between Crabbe and Dante.’
Afterwhich they are borne?add: ‘Nothing! Yet Dr. Warton,[77]who has related this story so well; Burke, who wrote that fine description of the effects of famine;[78]Goldsmith, and all his other friends, were satisfied with his success. Why then should not Sir Joshua be so too?—Because he was bound to understand the language which he used, as well as that which was given him to translate.’
Afterdreadful objectsadd: ‘The idea of Macbeth seems to be taken from the passage in Shakespear—“Why stands Macbeth thus amazedly?”[79]The poet has in this taunting question of the witches laid open the inmost movements of his mind. Why has the painter turned his face from us?’ Then, the Cardinal Beaufort passage having been given before instead of after that about Macbeth, theChampionarticle ends thus:—
‘“Garrick between tragedy and comedy” is, to say the best, a very indifferent performance. He appears to be “grinning for a wager.” We cannot conceive how any two ladies should contend for such a prize, nor how he should be divided between them. The muse of comedy is as childish and insipid as the muse of tragedy is cold and repulsive. The whole is mere affectation without an idea. Mrs. Siddons, as the tragic muse, is an improvement on the same false style. It is not Mrs. Siddons, nor is it the tragic muse, but something between both, and neither. We would ask those who pretend to admire this composition, whether they think it would convey to any one who had never seen the original, the least idea of the power of that wonderful actress in any one of her characters, and as it relates to the expression of countenance alone? That it gives an idea of any thing finer, is what we cannot readily make up our minds to. We ought perhaps in fairness to close these remarks with a confession of our weakness.—There was one picture which affected us more than all the rest, because it seemed to convey the true feeling of the story, and that was the picture of the Children in the Wood.
‘To return once more to Sir Joshua’s general character as a painter. He has been compared to Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, and Correggio, and said to unite all their excellences. It will be well to qualify this praise. He had little congeniality of mind, except with the two last, more particularly Rembrandt. Of Raphael, it is needless to say any thing. He had very little of Titian’s manner, except perhaps a greater breadth and uniform richness of colour than he would have acquired from Rembrandt. He had none of the dignity or animation of Titian’s portraits. It is not speaking too highly of the portraits of Titian to say, that they have as much expression, that is, convey as fine an idea of intellect and feeling, as the historical heads of Raphael. The difference seems to be only, that the expression in Raphael is more contemplative and philosophical, and in Titian more personal and constitutional. In the portraits of the latter, the Italian character always predominates: there is a look of piercing sagacity, of commanding intellect, of acute sensibility, which it would be in vain to expect to find in English portraits. The daring spirit and irritable passions of the age and country are as distinctly stamped upon the countenances, and can be as little mistaken as the costume which they wear. Many of them look as if it would be hardlysafe to be left in the room with them, so completely do they convey the idea of superiority.[80]The portraits of Raphael, though full of profound thought and character, have more of common humanity about them.—Of Vandyke, as we have observed before, Sir Joshua had neither the excellences nor defects. Some years ago, we saw his picture of the Marquis of Granby, and Vandyke’s picture of Charles I. (engraved by Strange[81]) standing by one another, in the Louvre. The difference was striking. The portrait of the nobleman looked heavy and muddled, from the mode of heaping on the colours, and the determination to produce effect alone without attention to the subordinate details defeated itself. The portrait of the unfortunate monarch, on the contrary, displayed the utmost delicacy and facility of execution. Every part would bear the nicest inspection, and yet the whole composition, the monarch, the figure of the horse, and the attendants, had all the distinctness, lightness, and transparency of objects seen in the open air. There are some persons who will still prefer the former mode of execution as more bold and dashing. For the same reason, we might prefer the copies of the head of the Marquis of Granby, which we so often see in conspicuous situations in the vicinity of the metropolis, to the original.
‘Of Rubens our admired countryman had neither the facility nor brilliancy. He was crude and heavy both in drawing and colour, compared with the Flemish painter. Rembrandt was the painter of all others whom Sir Joshua most resembled, and from whom he borrowed most. Strong masses of light and shade, harmony and clearness of tone, the production of effect by masterly, broad, and rapid execution were in general theforteof both these painters. Rembrandt had the priority in the order of time, and also in power of hand and eye. There are no pictures of Reynolds’ which will stand against the best of Rembrandt’s for striking effect and an intense feeling of nature. They are faint, slovenly, dingy, and commonplace in comparison. Rembrandt had even greater versatility of genius. He had an eye for all objects as far as he had seen them. His history and landscapes are equally fine in their way. He might be said to have created a style of his own, which he also perfected. In fact, he is one of the great founders and legislators of art. Of Correggio, Reynolds borrowed little but the air of some of his female heads, and the models of his children, which he injudiciously overloaded with the massy light and shade of Rembrandt, instead of the tenderchiaro-scuroof Correggio, the only colouring proper for that kind of soft, undulating, retiring line of beauty. We shall sum up our opinion by saying, that we do not find in the works of Sir Joshua either the majesty and power, the delicacy and refinement,the luxurious splendour, and dazzling invention, neither the same originality of conception, nor perfect execution, which are to be found in the greatest painters. Nevertheless, his works did honour to his art and to his country.
W. H.’
406.Collins.William Collins (1788–1847), painter of rustic life, and father of Wilkie Collins, the novelist, and a friend of Wilkie, the painter.
Heaphy.Thomas Heaphy (1775–1835). He was the first President of the Society of British Artists, 1824.
As if some of nature’s journeymen.Hamlet, ActIII.Sc. 2.
Note.This subject of the Ideal.Cf. the article contributed to theAtlasunder this heading, pp.429et seq.
408.Snatch a grace.Pope,Essay on Criticism,I.154.
It has flourished.The remainder of the essay is based on the twoChampionarticles of August 28 and September 11, 1814. The first one begins:—
‘The Directors of the British Institution conclude the preface to their catalogue of the works of Hogarth, Wilson, &c. in the following words....
‘“The present exhibition, while it gratifies the taste and feeling of the lover of art, may tend to excite animating reflections in the mind of the artist:if at a time when the art received little comparative support such works were produced, a reasonable hope may be entertained that we shall see productions of still higher attainment, under more encouraging circumstances.”
‘It should seem that a contrary conclusion might more naturally have suggested itself from a contemplation of the collection, with which the Directors of the Institution have so highly gratified the public taste and feeling. When the real lover of art looks round, and sees the works of Hogarth and of Wilson,—works which were produced in obscurity and poverty,—and recollects the pomp and pride of patronage under which these works are at present recommended to public notice, the obvious inference which strikes him is, how little the production of such works depends on “the most encouraging circumstances.” The visits of the gods of old did not always add to the felicity of those whose guests they were; nor do we know that the countenance and favours of the great will lift the arts to that height of excellence, or will confer all those advantages which are expected from the proffered boon. The arts are of humble growth and station; they are the product of labour and self-denial; they have their seat in the heart of man, and in his imagination; it is there they labour, have their triumphs there, and unseen and unthought of, perform their ceaseless task.—Indeed, patronage, and works of art deserving patronage, rarely exist together; for it is only when the arts have attracted public esteem, and reflect credit on the patron, that they receive this flattering support, and then it generally proves fatal to them. We really do not see how the man of genius should be improved by being transplanted from his closet to the anti-chambers of the great, or to a fashionable rout. He has no business there—but to bow, to flatter, to smile, to submit to the caprice of taste, to adjust his dress, to think of nothing but his own person and his own interest, to talk of the antique, and furnish designs for the lids of snuffboxes, and ladies’ fans!
‘The passage above alluded to evidently proceeds on the common mistaken notion, that the progress of the arts depends entirely on the cultivation and encouragement bestowed on them; as if taste and genius were perfectly mechanical, arbitrary things,—as if they could be bought and sold, and regularly contracted for at a given price. It confounds the fine arts with the mechanic arts,—art with science. It supposes that feeling, imagination,invention, are the creatures of positive institution; that the temples of the muses may be raised and supported by voluntary contribution; that we can enshrine the soul of art in a stately pile, of royal patronage, inspire corporate bodies with taste, and carve out the direction to fame in letters of stone on the front of public buildings. That the arts in any country may be at so low an ebb as to be capable of great improvement by positive means, so as to reach the common level to which such means can carry them, there is no doubt or question: but after they have in any particular instance by native genius and industry reached their highest eminence, to say that they will, by mere artificial props and officious encouragement, arrive at a point of “still higher attainment,” is assuming a good deal too much. Are we to understand that the laudable efforts of the British Institution are likely, by the mere operation of natural causes, to produce a greater comic painter, a more profound describer of manners than Hogarth? Or even that the lights and expectations held out in the preface to the British catalogue, will enable some one speedily to surpass the general excellence of Wilson’s landscapes? Is there anything in the history of art to warrant such a conclusion—to support this theory of progressive perfectibility under the auspices of patrons and vice-patrons, presidents and select committees?
‘On the contrary, as far as the general theory is concerned the traces of youth, manhood, and old age, are almost as distinctly marked in the history of the art as of the individual. The arts have in general risen rapidly from their first obscure dawn to their meridian height and greatest lustre, and have no sooner reached this proud eminence than they have as rapidly hastened to decay and desolation.’
409. Aftersymmetry of formadd: ‘What then has the Genius of progressive improvement been doing all this time? Has he been reposing after his labours? How is it that the moderns are still so far behind, notwithstanding all that was done ready to their hands by the ancients,—when they possess a double advantage over them, and have not nature only to form themselves upon, but nature and the antique?’
AfterGuido Reniadd: