J. S. Memes

“ In the grand, the venerable, the touching realities of life, the first is unrivalled; his fair, and seeming true, creations cause us to reverence humanity and ourselves. Over the awful and the sublime of fiction, the second extends a terrible sway; he calls spirits from their shadowy realms, and they come at his bidding, in giant shapes, to frown upon the impotency of man.
To contend here for superiority is futile—each has his own independent sphere. The style of Raphael has justly been characterised as the dramatic, that of Michael Angelo as the epic, of painting. ”

“ The labours of the poet are a necessary, in fact a creative preparation; by their rapid and wide circulation, they soften the sensibilities, arouse the imagination, give to taste an existence and a feeling of its object, and awake the mind to a consciousness of its intellectual wants. They constitute, also, a common chronicle, whether of fiction or of reality, whose events are clear to, and quickly recognisable by all. Fancy thus obtains a lore of its own, whose legends delight by repetition, and whose imagery animates the canvass or the marble with forms loved of old. ”

“ Surely of all painters, the British landscape painter is least excusable in deviating from the reality around him, which presents every element of his art in its best perfection, from the softest beauty in a freshness of dewy verdure elsewhere unknown, to the wildest sublimity of lake, mountain, wood, and torrent! Even in the gorgeous magnificence of our changing sky, there is a gloriousness, and grandeur of effect, which we have never seen even in Italy. ”

“ The art being chiefly dedicated to devotion, and to the memory of departed virtue, an air of dignified sincerity, a touching portraiture of the gentler affections, diffuse over the mind of the spectator a melancholy yet pleasing serenity, to be felt rather than described—which give back the images of our own sensibilities in all their simple, unpretending reality. The succeeding age assumes a style and character more elevated, without being less true. The simplicity is refined—equally removed from affectation as from poverty—the skill of hand great, the execution bold and felicitous ”

“ But in this they correspond, that in none is mere imitation the final, or most exalted, object of the artist. In the fidelity of representation, and in the facility with which the originals in nature may be traced, Sculpture and Painting are superior to all the other imitative arts. Between the vivid creations of these, and the more varied, more imaginative, but less defined, efforts of poetry, the middle rank is occupied by Architecture, whose mighty masses and harmonious proportions fill the mind with awe or delight, as they recall the majesty or grace of the material world. ”

“ Every figure—there are six—bears the strong impress of a spirit delighting in the great and the wonderful—an imagination eager in the pursuit of untried modes of existence, and a consciousness of power to execute the most daring conceptions. Intelligence in science, breadth of touch, boldness of manner, fearlessness of difficulty, unite to give life and movement to attitudes the most remote from such as nature would voluntarily assume, or graceful design select. Rome contains the most perfect and the most wonderful of Michael Angelo's statues. ”

“ Such a genius was that possessed by Canova, a name venerable alike for virtue and for talents. Born, in 1757, in a distant and otherwise unknown hamlet, in the territory of Treviso—fallen upon evil days in his art—of the most obscure parentage, destined to fill the humble and laborious occupation of village stone-cutter—remote, in the first instance, from every advice and assistance, he rose to be the companion of princes, the restorer of art, and the generous patron of merit friendless as his own. We know not whether more to love or to admire Canova. ”

“ As Raphael in these works, no painter has ever done so much for the real excellence of the art, nor, in the principles upon which they are conducted, has placed improvement on precepts so pure, so unerring. All that [Pg 138] imagination could lend to a strictly imitative art he has added, yet has infused into its creations the warmest sensibilities of life; to nature he has given all that grace and fancy can bestow, consistent with the sweetest of all charms—leaving her nature still. On this account is Raphael, of all great names in art, the safest to adopt as the guide of taste and practice. ”

“ The amazing demonstrations of Newton, then, and the profound speculations of Locke, were by no means favorable to painting, while so entirely in infancy. They spread abroad a different taste—they engaged in the pursuit every ardent and aspiring mind. The sublime mysteries unveiled by the genius of Newton gave an especial bias to men's minds, and caused his own age to view with indifference, as light and valueless, pursuits which seemed but to minister to the amenities of life, or to hang only as graceful ornaments upon society. ”

“ Indeed, passion is inconsistent with the beautiful in form, or the dignified in sentiment. A sweetly pleasing, a gently agitating excitement, or a nobly repressed feeling, visible only in the resolve of soul, and mastering of sorrow, is the true and the only proper expression in sculpture. Grief alone seems to be admissible in its deepest pathos.
Considered in connexion with the impetuous style of his composition, nothing can be finer than the execution of Michael Angelo. ”

“ In the same style are painted the landscapes of Rembrandt, equally valued, and more true than even his figures. The rest of the Dutch masters have little of distinctive excellence; the imitation of all is wonderful in its fidelity, minuteness, and beauty; but human talent, and weeks of precious time, wasted upon a cabbage leaf, or a few fish upon a board, is after all but a melancholy theme, which we shall despatch with a catalogue of names. ”

“ Casting a retrospect over the ages that have passed in review, how are we struck with the slow and painful growth of human invention! The collective energies and discoveries of a thousand years were required to rear the arts of Greece—not to their perfection, but to the state where the first decided approaches to it commence. Such is the length of time from the first feeble glimmerings of imitative art to the era of Dipænus and Scyllis, Bupalus and Anthermus. ”

“ Yet look again;—even here is passion, sentiment, futurity. The imagination involuntarily shapes out the fortunes of that disposition so legibly expressed in the speaking countenance. But in the deep meaning of the mild full eye, in the holy expression which beams in every lineament, in the spotless form, has not genius made the nearest approaches to our unbreathed conceptions of an infant Saviour! Regard that prophet—how glorious, yet how good, he seems! No spirit insensible to human woe, unpitying of human frailty, lives there. ”

“ Even the tyranny of fashion and the inveteracy of prejudice yield before the majesty of antique excellence, or produce a passing absurdity adopted for a day, to be forever forgotten. Surely, then, there must be in these abiding modes in literature and art, as likewise in that science of taste which appreciates and determines their canons, a beauty—an excellence, the offspring and the object of truth and reason—and like these, ever consistent, immutable, imperishable. ”

“ The succeeding step is easy to the erection of less durable but more particular memorials. Piety—true in sentiment, false in means—patriotism, friendship, gratitude, admiration, leave the successive impress of their influence, according to the accessions of intelligence, on the 'grey stone'—the rude column—the dressed altar—the visible shape—the perfect statue. How beautiful, then, yet how true, the allegory of Grecian poetry, which feigns that love, or the natural affections, taught man the arts of genius! ”

“ He placed nature, as it were, in a dungeon, while, through one solitary loophole, the beam of heaven seems, with ten-fold force, to penetrate to the object of the artist's immediate contemplation. This, spreading a dazzling, yet solemn light over all, invests the commonest forms with an unknown interest, and gives to the grossest and most unclassical imitation an elevated and romantic character,—just as the uncertain gloom of twilight mantles in the shadowy terrors and strange shapes, objects, the most familiar in ordinary day. ”

“ Like every great artist, Sir Joshua must be viewed in two lights—as he stands in reference to the circumstances of his own age, and as an individual master in his profession. As the immediate successor, then, of the artists already named, and as elevating the art from their inanity to the state in which he left it, he justly ranks among the small number who compose the reformers of taste. In this aspect, his genius exhibits no ordinary claims to the gratitude of posterity, while here his merits are presented in the most favorable light. ”

“ There is, and there is not, a standard; meaning, by this term, a permanent rule of taste beyond which human invention or genius shall never pass. At the same time, if there be no stable and unerring principles of judgment, there can be neither merit nor moral dignity, beauty nor truth, in the works of the most gifted mind. How, then, are facts seemingly so discordant to be reconciled? We have already adverted to the radical error in all cases of disregarding, and in some instances of treating with scorn, the idea of a gradual and laborious acquirement of taste. ”

“ Than Michael Angelo, no artist has ever exerted a more extensive influence, or more deeply impressed his peculiar views, upon art. Indeed, so much is this the case, that, during the sixteenth century, not a single sculptor appears who is not to be ranked either as a disciple or imitator. Even to this our own time, the influence in some respect continues. In sculpture more than in painting or architecture, though for the first he did less than for the second art, was his genius paramount. ”

“ In expression, the same system is pursued; for here Corregio has endeavored habitually to impress the soft hues and undulating lines which rapture and joy leave on the countenance. Beyond these, of ideal, he appears to have had no conception. Every form wears the stamp of living nature, and his coloring is the very reflection of natural bloom. He wanted force, which, with the defect of elevation, renders the whole effect, though delightfully soft and graceful, sometimes effeminate and monotonous. Yet Raphael alone united a greater variety of different excellences. ”

“ It is this that discriminates between the Roman and the Florentine. The former is the painter of men as they live, and feel, and act; the latter delineates man in the abstract. The one embodies sentiment—feeling—passion; the other pourtrays the capacities, energies, and idealities of form. Raphael excels in resemblance; he walks the earth, but with dignity, and is seen to most advantage in relations of human fellowship. Michael Angelo can be viewed only in his own world; with ours he holds no farther communion than is necessary to obtain a common medium of intelligence. ”

“ But to this display of capabilities—to the exhibition of science, and the sporting with difficulty, truth, simplicity, feeling, and real beauty, have been sacrificed. In this nothing seems peculiar to painting as distinguished from sculpture; nor, indeed, is there any discrimination: color, tone, light, shadow—all is systematic and ideal, but all mighty and overpowering in the whole. Again, when the influence of such a style upon the progress of improvement is considered, it appears that such influence could be favorable neither to future improvement nor to stationary excellence. ”

“ True, we discover no mixed modes of nature, such as impede her energies and cloud her beauties in ordinary life; yet the tranquil loveliness—the sinless beauty—the noble feeling of the representation—has nothing of the cold and merely imaginative. This, indeed, constitutes the great charm of Raphael's grace, that neither in form nor expression is it abstract; its power of moving is acquired directly from human sympathy. ”

“ Not till towards the conclusion of the last century can there properly be said to have existed a school of British sculpture. Cibber, Roubilac, Scheemakers, Carlini, Locatelli, Rysbrack—all the sculptors who flourished in England during the greater part of the eighteenth century, were foreigners. It is well that the fame of our good and our brave finds a memorial in the records of history, and in the breasts of their countrymen, more worthy of their virtues than these men have often erected, in the noblest, too, of our temples. Now, British worth can be commemorated by British art. ”

“ The highest conceivable grandeur seemed but necessary, as commensurate with the wants and the durability of a dominion which was to be universal and eternal. Roman art has, in these respects, a character almost of moral dignity beyond all relics of antiquity. The records of their dead, though erections of more equivocal usefulness, partake of the same style, and, like the pyramids of Egyptian kings, have ceased to be monuments save of their own greatness. Some, and those but of individuals, or even a woman's grave, as towers of strength have rolled back the shock of feudal warfare ”

“ Long withdrawing lines, unbroken surfaces, simple contours, immense blocks, even while the individual forms are destitute of proportion, harmony, or grace, will ever produce a solemn sublimity of effect.
But it now occurs to inquire, before the merit of rational design can be granted, or these architectonic labours admitted among the works of genius,—Do these lofty effects arise from principle, or are they purely accidental? Are they the meditated results of science and taste, or are they merely inevitable consequences of the large and enduring style which the political system recommended? ”

“ Hence, while the general composition breathes the loftiest spirit of ideal or possible excellence, the means by which the sentiment is rendered are received from individual nature, expressed simply, and without artifice. In this happy and unobtrusive union of nature and imagination, in this continually remounting, without convention or ostentation, to the eternal sources of natural truth and beauty, Phidias displays the real sublimity of art, and stands unrivalled among the masters of the ancient world. ”

“ Here they have never flourished in the genial soil of popular institutions. A haughty and jealous, yet luxurious and unpatriotic aristocracy, converted the arts into instruments of private gratification—instead of turning them to national ornament. Hence sculpture has been little cultivated, architecture more, though in peculiar style, and painting most of all. But while the sacredness of religion, or the manliness of history, has occupied the Italian pencil generally, of the older masters especially, Venice has sent forth her lordly senators, splendid banquets, and naked beauties. ”

“ These do not, indeed, equal in heroic character one or two remains of Greece, but they exhibit a more powerful representation of individual mental resemblance. The soul of history absolutely seems to inhabit and to breathe from the marble. Into every movement of the countenance is infused an expression so speaking, so characteristic, so full of individuality, that we seem to have set before us the very actor in those deeds which have formed our most serious studies. But this high perfection applies only to the termination of the commonwealth, or does not extend beyond the reign of Augustus. ”

“ A glance, however, either to the Greek historians, or especially to the remaining labours of Phidias himself, is more than sufficient to show how utterly without foundation is this censure; and that no other man has united in his style more of the highest excellences. It is, in fact, this union which truly constitutes beauty in sculpture, whose sources of pleasing and of moving, being new, and derived only from the essential elements of design, form, and expression, admit of separation or imperfection with peculiar disadvantage. ”