George H. Danton

“ Such strict imitation of nature is more to be expected, to be sure, in the work of the lesser lights, such as are the men who did the pictures for the "Gallery," than in the work of a real genius, and one is glad to overlook, in the works of the latter, those minor faults which almost entirely disappear in the face of a thousand beauties. ”

“ Extremes of passion, astonishment, surprize are strivn for. "Sie hascht nach der Wahrheit der Natur in ihren grässlichen Augenblicken und erlaubt ihrer Phantasie den verwegenen Flug, nicht in das schöne Feenland des Ideals sondern in die verbotene Region der Geister und Gespenster."
But while the general condemnation of British artists shows far more perspectiv than is found in Tieck, the acquaintance with the details of Shakspere's plays is never drawn on to point out any defects in choice of subject matter. ”

“ If the subject of the picture is in itself beautiful and sublime, or if a great poet has furnisht the painter with the invention, the composition and the emotions, our enthusiasm is arousd, we giv our wonder and our delight to the painter. ”

“ This notion, therefore, of leaving anything to the imagination opposes a very fixed and indispensible rule in our art,—that everything shall be carefully and distinctly expresst, as if the painter knew, with correctness and precision, the exact form and character of whatever is introduced into the picture. This ... must not be sacrificed ... for uncertain and doubtful beauty which, not naturally belonging to our art, will probably be sought for without success. ”

“ So, says Tieck (page 14) "who would pass by the divine masterpieces of a Rafael and yet with weighty mien find fault with the bad coloring of a single garment?" There are clearly two kinds of artist. The one is the genius who may be carried too far by his enthusiasm, the other is the colder painter, who by his choice of subject, composition, correctness of drawing, and grace must make up for his lack of genius, and who can not hope to attain the emotional effects of his rival, [P:19] but who must be content to arouse a cooler feeling, that is, the satisfaction of the spectator. ”

“ Das beste Stück von allen in Rücksicht der Composition, Ausdrucks und Auswahl des Lichtes nur ist die Stellung der Hauptperson ein wenig zu theatralisch; sonst aber alles gut geordnet; schöne Contraste von Licht und Ruhe für das Auge. ”

“ Neither of these pictures can be sed to conform with Reynolds' well-known doctrin that the function of art is to arouse the imagination, for in these pictures there is nothing left for the imagination but exhaustion. They show a vein of the bizarre without the great fancy of Füessli and are realistic to a degree that stopt at nothing. It is not to be wonderd at that Tieck exhausts himself in condemnation of the plate that he saw.
It is plain that Tieck saw in the plate a caricature and an evasion. The caricature was the dying man and the evasion was the veild face of the young king. ”

“ The conflict is between a desire in theory for moderated effects, for the toning down of emotion, and a desire, in practis, for strong contrast and superlativ effects. Lessing, in art the enemy of all realism, finds in Tieck a condemer of Hogarth, a condemnation that persists in Tieck as late as the essay on the erly English Theater (1828) , [19] and persists on grounds similar to the fundamental principle of beauty laid down by Lessing. ”

“ In this series, where genius is excluded from the outset, Tieck expects a strict adherence to fact, to verisimilitude, and the correct interpretation of Shakspere must be insisted on.
In order that the soul may get an immediate enjoyment of the work of art, Tieck recommends (page 4) that the painter choose well-known subjects. He says: "The soul passes immediately to the enjoyment of the work of art and curiosity does not stand in the way of his enjoyment as in the case of obscure or unknown subjects. ”

“ It is perhaps with some instinctiv feeling for this that Tieck suggests that one of Hamilton's pictures has been hurt by the bad engraving, just as certain other plates have gaind thru the engraver (page 22) . The hint for this point came originally from the Anzeigen but Tieck has developt it. While it is now no longer possible to check up each plate with its corresponding picture, it is true that the engravers were relatively better craftsmen, as a rule, than the painters. In hardly any one case is the painting a sample of the best work of the artist. ”

“ For Forster, Shakspere is the most logical portrayer of nature that ever existed; he meets the painter halfway in his work by his excellent characterization of the salient features of a personage and so givs the painter sharply defined subjects for his fantasy. For the artists of the British school this is especially valuable because effect is their highest aim and beauty only secondary. ”

“ Perhaps the best example of Tieck's criticism of drawing is that of Northcote's plate to "Richard III." (III, 1, page 27) . [P:23] He says, "Der alte Cardinal scheint ganz verzeichnet zu sein, man ist ungewiss, ob er steht oder kniet: in beiden Fällen ist die Zeichnung fehlerhaft." Tieck's strictures are correct. The space from the waist down is found upon examination to be abnormally long for a kneeling person, and groteskly short for one standing. Tieck's critique is good, for it points out the error and the reason, and shows that in any case the alternativ is a bad one. ”

“ Forster includes a rather detaild description of the Boydell paintings. He did not see the engravings, or rather, his description is based on the paintings as they hung in the gallery in Pall Mall and so the material of this sketch in two parts, is in one way fundamentally different from that of Tieck. All the discussion of technique in which Tieck was so weak, is entirely lacking in Forster. His point of view, too, is different. He is the traveld, experienced man from whose traind eye and broad judgment more may be expected than from the student Tieck. ”

“ Carrikaturen gefallen überhaupt vielleicht nur einem kalten nördlichen Volke, dessen Gefühl für den feinen Stachel der stillen Schönheit zu grob ist, oder die schon die Schule der Schönheit durchgegangen sind, und deren übersatten Magen nur noch die gewürztesten Speisen reizen können, die es daher gern sehen, wenn die Schönheit dem Ausdruck aufgeopfert wird, weil sie in der Schönheit keinen lebenden Ausdruck mehr finden. ”

“ Composition means for Tieck especially order. He has not yet lernd the principle of triangulation of arrangement enunciated by Caroline in the "Gemälde" essay in the Athenaeum. He expects no more than that the principle character shall be in an important place in the picture and insists that the lighting devices serv to throw such personages into relief. So when the perspectiv is bad it is because of the wrong emfasis on the principal figures rather than that the harmony of the whole is disturbed by a wrong arrangement. ”

“ It is to be expected that Tieck's common sense and fancy should rebel at the platitudinarianism of the pictures; that at times he is no more than on the plane of the sentimental "Enlightenment" is also to be expected. The valu of the study is in such harsh negativ criticism as it exercises where emfasis is false or where bad taste prevails in the performance of the artists' task. ”

“ This is by the famous traveler and publicist, George Forster. It was Forster's account which furnisht Fiorillo with much of his data for the treatment of the "Gallery" in his history of British art, but it is hardly likely that the account is a source for Tieck. I hav no external evidence and the internal evidence is entirely negativ.
If Friedrich Schlegel's estimate of Forster's artistic capabilities be accepted, it is just such pictures as these, where the social interest is great and the artistic valu is secondary, that should bring out Forster's strength of judgment. ”

“ Tieck's second point in regard to choice of subject is that the comedies offer a wider field and a better opportunity than the [P:38] tragedies. The general basis for this notion is allied to his theory of the worthlessness of caricature, that is, that there is an exaggeration, an overacting of the part possible in tragedy that is less likely to occur in comedy.
The statement of the evils of exaggeration is very sweeping and includes in some of its details both comedy and tragedy: "Der dramatische Dichter hat Momente in seinen Schauspielen, die kein Pinsel oder Griffel jemals darstellen kann ”

“ The not over laudatory criticisms of the Anzeigen are often paralel, even down to the wording of details with Tieck's judgments, but it would be a mistake to suppose that Tieck used the articles without having seen the engravings and without having given the pictures careful consideration. The fact that Tieck follows the errors of the Anzeigen is significant, but it is equally significant that he corrects the errors of the magazine from his stock of observd judgments. Generally, where Tieck follows the Anzeigen most closely he is at his worst. ”

“ It would be a mistake to argu from the foregoing that in this article Tieck was not a realist, or at least strongly inclined toward realism in his practis. His realism was that of the yung enthusiast for whom each variation from the sense of his idol was a blasfemy, and he points out (page 24) that there can be none of that deception of the senses which is a part of the pictorial arts where "ich irgend eine auffallende Unnatürlichkeit entdecke; denn die Nachahmung der Natur ist der Zweck des Künstlers." ”

“ It is again, says Tieck, a mere exaggeration, tantamount to a confession of inability. That the spectator cannot laugh at the character is the artist's greatest punishment; in overstepping the just limits of the comic and the natural, he has made the figure insignificant. Unlike Hogarth, says Tieck, Smirke has not the power of expressing character by means of the distortions of the exterior. To put an artist below Hogarth is with Tieck to put him very low ”

“ Tieck's essay has been almost entirely neglected by Tieck scholars. It is not a great piece of constructiv criticism, nor can it be said to contain the ripe judgments of a mature mind. It is, however, a fresh and, on the whole, convincing analysis of the plates and as such deserves a careful examination. It will be seen that the article has a very definit foundation in preceding criticism but that Tieck, tho borrowing freely from one source at least, namely the Gœttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, has not slavishly plagiarized nor has he been servil in his adoption of the ideas of others. ”

“ Charm and grace, beauty in motion as it is exprest by the female figure in Anne Page and a few other cases, are Tieck's nearest approach to it. [30]
The general reason for Tieck's failure is that in actuality these pictures were not ugly or inartistic to him. Where he criticizes it is oftenest the idea; the execution and the relation to an abstract standard are of less consequence, and his theory once more limps behind his practis. He may berate Hogarth as an artist without beauty but it is clear that his extoling of Rafael is a mere matter of fashion ”

“ Tieck's decided aversion to the English national standpoint toward Shakspere is strongly exprest in the essay. The man who later vainly tried to convert Coleridge to a point of view with respect to the dramatist that was opposed to all that was national and English, does not, as a mere lad, hesitate to venture his douts as to whether the English nation is equal to the task of illustrating its greatest poet. ”

“ Das Auge wird von der Hauptperson auf die Lichtmasse, folglich, auf das Kind hingezogen; die Hauptfigur tritt gar nicht genug hervor, sondern hängt mit den hinter ihr stehenden zusammen; die Köpfe im Hintergrunde sind eben so gross, wie die der vorderen Personen. Alles verräth den ungeübten Künstler." As an example of Tieck's rejection of the opinion of the G. G. A., the discussion of "Winter's Tale," V, 3, will suffice. ”

“ Where, as in the case of Barry, Sir Joshua's great rival, the picture is reckond with his superior work, the only conclusion is that Barry was a very bad artist and so Tieck considers him. The engravers, on the other hand, had had no better chance in years to exhibit their art than in this imposing series, and most of the best names in stipple appear in it. The best that Tieck does to recognize this fact is in the occasional lament for the waste of good labor on a bad subject or painting (e. g., page 20) . ”

“ The general theoretical standpoint upon which the essay was written is that of Lessing, and a careful perusal will show that Haym was wrong when he postulated no Lessing influence on the article. [16] Tieck's letters to Wackenroder show that he was reading the Laokoon at this time, but even if a preoccupation with Lessing were not easily postulable, the matter of the paper itself will show a distinct recrudescence of Lessing's ideas. And not only Lessing, but the school of critics out of which Lessing [P:18] arose, e. g., Winkelmann and DuBos, were also a part of Tieck's reading. ”