Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843

Mr Burnet's notes to this Discourse are not important to art. There is an amusing one on acting, that discusses the question of naturalness on the stage, and with some pleasant anecdotes.

The FOURTEENTH DISCOURSE is chiefly occupied with the character of Gainsborough, and landscape painting. It has brought about him, and his name, a hornet's nest of critics, in consequence of some remarks upon a picture of Wilson's. Gainsborough and Sir Joshua, and perhaps in some degree Wilson, had been rivals. It has been said that Wilson and Gainsborough never liked each other. It is a well-known anecdote that Sir Joshua, at a dinner, gave the health of Gainsborough, adding "the greatest landscape painter of the age," to which Wilson, at whom the words were supposed to be aimed, dryly added, "and the greatest portrait painter too." We can, especially under circumstances, for there had been a coolness between the President and Gainsborough, pardon the too favourable view taken of Gainsborough's landscape pictures. He was unquestionably much greater as a portrait painter. The following account of the interview with Gainsborough upon his death-bed, is touching, and speaks well of both:—"A few days before he died he wrote me a letter, to express his acknowledgments for the good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke of him; and desired that he might see me once before he died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to be thus connected with the dying testimony which this excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail upon myself to suppress that I was not connected with him by any habits of familiarity. If any little jealousies had subsisted between us, they were forgotten in these moments of sincerity; and he turned towards me as one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who deserved his good opinion by being sensible of his excellence. Without entering into a detail of what passed at this last interview, the impression of it upon my mind was, that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of leaving his art; and more especially as he now began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were; which, he said, he flattered himself in his last works were in some measure supplied." When the Discourse was delivered, Raffaelle Mengs and Pompeo Batoni were great names. Sir Joshua foretells their fall from that high estimation. Andrea Sacchi, and "perhaps" Carlo Maratti, he considers the "ultimi Romanorum." He prefers "the humble attempts of Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates in the great historical style." He gives some account of the "customs and habits of this extraordinary man." Gainsborough's love for his art was remarkable. He was ever remarking to those about him any peculiarity of countenance, accidental combination of figures, effects of light and shade, in skies, in streets, and in company. If he met a character he liked, he would send him home to his house. He brought into his painting-room stumps of trees, weeds, &c. He even formed models of landscapes on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which, magnified, became rocks, trees, and water. Most of this is the common routine of every artist's life; the modelling his landscapes in the manner mentioned, Sir Joshua himself seems to speak doubtingly about. It in fact shows, that in Gainsborough there was a poverty of invention; his scenes are of the commonest kind, such as few would stop to admire in nature; and, when we consider the wonderful variety that nature did present to him, it is strange that his sketches and compositions should have been so devoid of beauty. He was in the habit of painting by night, a practice which Reynolds recommends, and thought it must have been the practice of Titian and Coreggio. He might have mentioned the portrait of Michael Angelo with the candle in his cap and a mallet in his hand. Gainsborough was ambitious of attaining excellence, regardless of riches. The style chosen by Gainsborough did not require that he should go out of his own country. No argument is to be drawn from thence, that travelling is not desirable for those who choose other walks of art—knowing that "the language of the art must be learned somewhere," he applied himself to the Flemish school, and certainly with advantage, and occasionally made copies from Rubens, Teniers, and Vandyke. Granting him as a painter great merit, Sir Joshua doubts whether he excelled most in portraits, landscapes, or fancy pictures. Few now will doubt upon the subject—next to Sir Joshua, he was the greatest portrait painter we have had, so as to be justly entitled to the fame of being one of the founders of the English School. He did not attempt historical painting; and here Sir Joshua contrasts him with Hogarth; who did so injudiciously. It is strange that Sir Joshua should have characterised Hogarth as having given his attention to "the Ridicule of Life." We could never see any thing ridiculous in his deep tragedies. Gainsborough is praised in that he never introduced "mythological learning" into his pictures. "Our late ingenious academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods and goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no means prepared to receive such personages. His landscapes were in reality too near common nature to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this mistake, in a very admirable picture of a storm, which I have seen of his hand, many figures are introduced in the foreground, some in apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by lightning: had not the painter injudiciously, (as I think,) rather chosen that their death should be imputed to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky with his bent bow, and that those figures should be considered as the children of Niobe." This is the passage that gave so much offence; foolish admirers will fly into flame at the slightest spark—the question should have been, is the criticism just, not whether Sir Joshua had been guilty of the same error—but we like critics, the only true critics, who give their reason: and so did Sir Joshua. "To manage a subject of this kind a peculiar style of art is required; and it can only be done without impropriety, or even without ridicule, when we adopt the character of the landscape, and that too in all its parts, to the historical or poetical representation. This is a very difficult adventure, and requires a mind thrown back two thousand years, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In the picture alluded to, the first idea that presents itself is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so uncommon a situation as that in which Apollo is placed: for the clouds on which he kneels have not the appearance of being able to support him—they have neither the substance nor the form fit for the receptacle of a human figure, and they do not possess, in any respect, that romantic character which is appropriated to such an object, and which alone can harmonize with poetical stories." We presume Reynolds alludes to the best of the two Niobes by Wilson—that in the National Gallery. The other is villanously faulty as a composition, where loaf is piled upon loaf for rock and castle, and the tree is common and hedge-grown, for the purpose of making gates; but the other would have been a fine picture, not of the historical class—the parts are all common, the little blown about underwood is totally deficient in all form and character—rocks and trees, and they do not, as in a former discourse—Reynolds had laid down that they should—sympathize with the subject; then, as to the substance of the cloud, he is right—it is not voluminous, it is mere vapour. In the received adoption of clouds as supporting figures, they are, at least, pillowy, capacious, and round—here it is quite otherwise; and Sir Joshua might well call it a little Apollo, with that immense cloud above him, which is in fact too much a portrait of a cloud, too peculiar, too edgy, for any subject where the sky is not to be all in all. We do not say it is not fine and grand, and what you please; but it is not subordinate, it casts its lightning as from its own natural power, there was no need of a god's assistance.

 
"Nec Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus;"
 

and the action does not take place in a "prepared" landscape. There is nothing to take us back to a fabled age. Reynolds is not unjust to Wilson's merits, for he calls it, notwithstanding this defect, "a very admirable picture;" which picture will, we suspect, in a few years lose its principal charm, if it has not lost it; the colour is sadly changing, there is now little aerial in the sky. It is said of Wilson, that he ridiculed the experiments of Sir Joshua, and spoke of using nothing but "honest linseed"—to which, however, he added varnishes and wax, as will easily be seen in those pictures of his which have so cracked—and now lose their colour. "Honest" linseed appears to have played him a sad trick, or he to have played a trick upon honest linseed. Sir Joshua, however, to his just criticism, adds the best precept, example—and instances two pictures, historical landscape, "Jacob's Dream"—which was exhibited a year or two ago in the Institution, Pall-Mall—by Salvator Rosa, and the picture by Sebastian Bourdon, "The Return of the Ark from Captivity," now in the National Gallery. The latter picture, as a composition, is not perhaps good—it is cut up into too many parts, and those parts are not sufficiently poetical; in its hue, it may be appropriate. The other, "Jacob's Dream" is one of the finest by the master—there is an extraordinary boldness in the clouds, an uncommon grandeur, strongly marked, sentient of angelic visitants. This picture has been recently wretchedly engraved in mezzotinto; all that is in the picture firm and hard, is in the print soft, fuzzy, and disagreeable. Sir Joshua treats very tenderly the mistaken manner of Gainsborough in his late pictures, the "odd scratches and marks." "This chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of magic at a certain distance, assumes form, and all their parts seem to drop into their places, so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chance and heavy negligence." The heavy negligence happily describes the fault of the manner. It is horribly manifest in that magnitude of vulgarity for landscape, the "Market Cart" in our National Gallery, and purchased at we know not what vast sum, and presented by the governors of the institution to the nation. We have a very high opinion of the genius of Gainsborough; but we do not see it in his landscapes, with very few exceptions. His portraits have an air of truth never exceeded, and that set off with great power and artistical skill; and his rustic children are admirable. He stands alone, and never has had a successful imitator. The mock sentimentality, the affected refinement, which has been added to his simple style by other artists, is disgusting in the extreme. Gainsborough certainly studied colour with great success. He is both praised and blamed for a lightness of manner and effect possessed "to an unexampled degree of excellence;" but "the sacrifice which he made, to this ornament of our art, was too great." We confess we do not understand Sir Joshua, nor can we reconcile "the heavy negligence" with this "lightness of manner." Mr Burnet, in one of his notes, compares Wilson with Gainsborough; he appears to give the preference to Wilson—why does he not compare Gainsborough with Sir Joshua himself? the rivalry should have been in portrait. There is a long note upon Sir Joshua's remarks upon Wilson's "Niobe." We are not surprised at Cunningham's "Castigation." He did not like Sir Joshua, and could not understand nor value his character. This is evident in his Life of the President. Cunningham must have had but an ill-educated classic eye when he asserted so grandiloquently,—"He rose at once from the tame insipidity of common scenery into natural grandeur and magnificence; his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples worthy of gods,"—a passage, we think, most worthy the monosyllable commonly used upon such occasions by the manly and simple-minded Mr Burchell. That Sir Joshua occasionally transgressed in his wanderings into mythology, it would be difficult to deny; nor was it his only transgression from his legitimate ground, as may be seen in his "Holy Family" in the National Gallery. But we doubt if the critique upon his "Mrs Siddons" is quite fair. The chair and the footstool may not be on the cloud, a tragic and mysterious vapour reconciling the bodily presence of the muse with the demon and fatal ministers of the drama that attend her. Though Sir Joshua's words are here brought against him, it is without attention to their application in his critique, which condemned their form and character as not historical nor voluminous—faults that do not attach to the clouds, if clouds they must be in the picture (the finest of Sir Joshua's works) of Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse. It is not our business to enter upon the supposed fact, that Sir Joshua was jealous of Wilson; the one was a polished, the other perhaps a somewhat coarse man. We have only to see if the criticism be just. In this Discourse Sir Joshua has the candour to admit, that there were at one time jealousies between him and Gainsborough; there may have been between him and Wilson, but, at all events, we cannot take a just criticism as a proof of it, or we must convict him, and all others too, of being jealous of artists and writers whose works they in any manner censure.

The FIFTEENTH DISCOURSE.—We come now to Sir Joshua's last Discourse, in which the President takes leave of the Academy, reviews his "Discourses," and concludes with recommending the study of Michael Angelo.

Having gone along with the President of the Academy in the pursuit of the principles of the art in these Discourses, and felt a portion of the enthusiasm which he felt, and knew so well how to impart to others, we come to this last Discourse, with a melancholy knowledge that it was the last; and reflect with pain upon that cloud which so soon interposed between Reynolds and at least the practical enjoyment of his art. He takes leave of the Academy affectionately, and, like a truth-loving man to the last, acknowledges the little contentions (in so softening a manner does he speak of the "rough hostility of Barry," and "oppositions of Gainsborough") which "ought certainly," says he, "to be lost among ourselves in mutual esteem for talents and acquirements: every controversy ought to be—I am persuaded will be—sunk in our zeal for the perfection of our common art." "My age, and my infirmities still more than my age, make it probable that this will be the last time I shall have the honour of addressing you from this place." This last visit seemed to be threatened with a tragical end;—the circumstance showed the calm mind of the President; it was characteristic of the man who would die with dignity, and gracefully. A large assembly were present, of rank and importance, besides the students. The pressure was great—a beam in the floor gave way with a loud crash; a general rush was made to the door, all indiscriminately falling one over the other, except the President, who kept his seat "silent and unmoved." The floor only sunk a little, was soon supported, and Sir Joshua recommenced his Discourse.

 
"Justum et tenacem propositi
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."
 

He compliments the Academy upon the ability of the professors, speaks with diffidence of his power as a writer, (the world has in this respect done him justice;) but that he had come not unprepared upon the subject of art, having reflected much upon his own and the opinions of others. He found in the art many precepts and rules, not reconcilable with each other. "To clear away those difficulties and reconcile those contrary opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the greater truth, as it may be called, from the lesser truth; the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the more narrow and confined: that which addresses itself to the imagination, from that which is solely addressed to the eye. In consequence of this discrimination, the different branches of our art to which those different truths were referred, were perceived to make so wide a separation, and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. The different rules and regulations which presided over each department of art, followed of course; every mode of excellence, from the grand style of the Roman and Florentine schools down to the lowest rank of still life, had its due weight and value—fitted to some class or other; and nothing was thrown away. By this disposition of our art into classes, that perplexity and confusion, which I apprehend every artist has at some time experienced from the variety of styles, and the variety of excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should hope, in some measure removed, and the student better enabled to judge for himself what peculiarly belongs to his own particular pursuit." Besides the practice of art, the student must think, and speculate, and consider "upon what ground the fabric of our art is built." An artist suffers throughout his whole life, from uncertain, confused, and erroneous opinions. We are persuaded there would be fewer fatal errors were these Discourses more in the hands of our present artists—"Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ."—An example is given of the mischief of erroneous opinions. "I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my life, with a student of the French Academy, who appeared to me to possess all the qualities requisite to make a great artist, if he had suffered his taste and feelings, and I may add even his prejudices, to have fair play. He saw and felt the excellences of the great works of art with which we were surrounded, but lamented that there was not to be found that nature which is so admirable in the inferior schools,—and he supposed with Felebien, Du Piles, and other theorists, that such an union of different excellences would be the perfection of art. He was not aware that the narrow idea of nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works of those great artists, would have destroyed the grandeur of the general ideas which he admired, and which was indeed the cause of his admiration. My opinions being then confused and unsettled, I was in danger of being borne down by this plausible reasoning, though I remember I then had a dawning suspicion that it was not sound doctrine; and at the same time I was unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to what I was unable to confute." False and low views of art are now so commonly taken both in and out of the profession, that we have not hesitated to quote the above passage; the danger Sir Joshua confesses he was in, is common, and demands the warning. To make it more direct we should add, "Read his Discourses." Again, without intending to fetter the student's mind to a particular method of study, he urges the necessity and wisdom of previously obtaining the appropriated instruments of art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly colouring, before any thing more is attempted. He does not think it, however, of very great importance whether or not the student aim first at grace and grandeur before he has learned correctness, and adduces the example of Parmegiano, whose first public work was done when a boy, the "St Eustachius" in the Church of St Petronius, in Bologna—one of his last is the "Moses breaking the Tables," in Parma. The former has grandeur and incorrectness, but "discovers the dawnings of future greatness." In mature age he had corrected his defects, and the drawing of his Moses was equally admirable with the grandeur of the conception—an excellent plate is given of this figure by Mr Burnet. The fact is, the impulse of the mind is not to be too much restrained—it is better to give it its due and first play, than check it until it has acquired correctness—good sense first or last, and a love of the art, will generally insure correctness in the end; the impulses often checked, come with weakened power, and ultimately refuse to come at all; and each time that they depart unsatisfied, unemployed, take away with them as they retire a portion of the fire of genius. Parmegiano formed himself upon Michael Angelo: Michael Angelo brought the art to a "sudden maturity," as Homer and Shakspeare did theirs. "Subordinate parts of our art, and perhaps of other arts, expand themselves by a slow and progressive growth; but those which depend on a native vigour of imagination, generally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty." Correctness of drawing and imagination, the one of mechanical genius the other of poetic, undoubtedly work together for perfection—"a confidence in the mechanic produces a boldness in the poetic." He expresses his surprise that the race of painters, before Michael Angelo, never thought of transferring to painting the grandeur they admired in ancient sculpture. "Raffaelle himself seemed to be going on very contentedly in the dry manner of Pietro Perugino; and if Michael Angelo had never appeared, the art might still have continued in the same style." "On this foundation the Caracci built the truly great academical Bolognian school; of which the first stone was laid by Pellegrino Tibaldi." The Caracci called him "nostro Michael Angelo riformato." His figure of Polyphemus, which had been attributed to Michael Angelo in Bishop's "Ancient Statues," is given in a plate by Mr Burnet. The Caracci he considers sufficiently succeeded in the mechanical, not in "the divine part which addresses itself to the imagination," as did Tibaldi and Michael Angelo. They formed, however, a school that was "most respectable," and "calculated to please a greater number." The Venetian school advanced "the dignity of their style, by adding to their fascinating powers of colouring something of the strength of Michael Angelo." Here Sir Joshua seems to contradict his former assertion; but as he is here abridging, as it were, his whole Discourses, he cannot avoid his own observations. It was a point, however, upon which he was still doubtful; for he immediately adds—"At the same time it may still be a doubt, how far their ornamental elegance would be an advantageous addition to his grandeur. But if there is any manner of painting, which may be said to unite kindly with his (Michael Angelo's) style, it is that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his colours are left on the canvass, appears to proceed (as far as that goes) from congenial mind, equally disdainful of vulgar criticism. He is reminded of a remark of Johnson's, that Pope's Homer, had it not been clothed with graces and elegances not in Homer, would have had fewer readers, thus justifying by example and authority of Johnson, the graces of the Venetian school. Some Flemish painters at "the great era of our art" took to their country "as much of this grandeur as they could carry." It did not thrive, but "perhaps they contributed to prepare the way for that free, unconstrained, and liberal outline, which was afterwards introduced by Rubens, through the medium of the Venetian painters." The grandeur of style first discovered by Michael Angelo passed through Europe, and totally "changed the whole character and style of design. His works excite the same sensation as the Epic of Homer. The Sybils, the statue of Moses, "come nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demigods, and heroes; those Sybils and prophets being a kind of intermediate beings between men and angels. Though instances may be produced in the works of other painters, which may justly stand in competition with those I have mentioned, such as the 'Isaiah,' and 'Vision of Ezekiel,' by Raffaelle, the 'St Mark' of Frate Bartolomeo, and many others; yet these, it must be allowed, are inventions so much in Michael Angelo's manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered as so many rays which discover manifestly the centre from whence they emanated." The style of Michael Angelo is so highly artificial that the mind must be cultivated to receive it; having once received it, the mind is improved by it, and cannot go very far back. Hence the hold this great style has had upon all who are most learned in art, and upon nearly all painters in the best time of art. As art multiplies, false tastes will arise, the early painters had not so much to unlearn as modern artists. Where Michael Angelo is not felt, there is a lost taste to recover. Sir Joshua recommends young artists to follow Michael Angelo as he did the ancient sculptors. "He began, when a child, a copy of a mutilated Satyr's head, and finished in his model what was wanting in the original." So would he recommend the student to take his figures from Michael Angelo, and to change, and alter, and add other figures till he has caught the manner. Change the purpose, and retain the attitude, as did Titian. By habit of seeing with this eye of grandeur, he will select from nature all that corresponds with this taste. Sir Joshua is aware that he is laying himself open to sarcasm by his advice, but asserts the courage becoming a teacher addressing students: "they both must equally dare, and bid defiance to narrow criticism and vulgar opinion." It is the conceited who think that art is nothing but inspiration; and such appropriate it in their own estimation; but it is to be learned,—if so, the right direction to it is of vast importance; and once in the right direction, labour and study will accomplish the better aspirations of the artist. Michael Angelo said of Raffaelle, that he possessed not his art by nature but by long study. "Che Raffaelle non ebbe quest' arte da natura, ma per longo studio." Raffaelle and Michael Angelo were rivals, but ever spoke of each other with the respect and veneration they felt, and the true meaning of the passage was to the praise of Raffaelle; those were not the days when men were ashamed of being laborious,—and Raffaelle himself "thanked God that he was born in the same age with that painter."—"I feel a self-congratulation," adds Sir Joshua, "in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these Discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly divine man; and I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of Michael Angelo." They were his last words from the academical chair. He died about fourteen months after the delivery of this Discourse. Mr Burnet has given five excellent plates to this Discourse—one from Parmegiano, one from Tibaldi, one from Titian, one from Raffaelle, and one from Michael Angelo. Mr Burnet's first note repeats what we have again and again elsewhere urged, the advantage of establishing at our universities, Oxford and Cambridge, Professorships of Painting—infinite would be the advantage to art, and to the public. We do not despair. Mr Burnet seems to fear incorrect drawing will arise from some passages, which he supposes encourages it, in these Discourses; and fearing it, very properly endeavours to correct the error in a note. We had intended to conclude this paper with some few remarks upon Sir Joshua, his style, and influence upon art, but we have not space. Perhaps we may fulfil this part of our intention in another number of Maga.