but the human understanding can hardly be so true to those causes as the causes to themselves; and hence the necessity (in this sort of simulated creation) of recurring at every step to the actual objects and appearances of nature. Having shown so far how indispensable it is for art to identify itself with nature, in order to preserve the truth of imitation, without which it is destitute of value or meaning, it may be said to follow as a necessary consequence, that the only way in which art can rise to greater dignity or excellence is by finding out models of greater dignity and excellence in nature. Will any one, looking at the Theseus, for example, say that it could spring merely from the artist's brain, or that it could be done from a common, illmade, or stunted body? The fact is, that its superiority consists in this, that it is a perfect combination of art and nature, or an identical, and as it were spontaneous copy of an individual picked out of a finer race of men than generally tread this ball of earth. Could it be made of a Dutchman's trunk-hose? No. Could it be made out of one of Sir Joshua's Discourses on the middle form? No. How then? Out of an eye, a head, and a hand, with sense, spirit, and energy to follow the finest nature, as it appeared exemplified in sweeping masses, and in subtle details, with out pedantry, conceit, cowardice, or affectation! Some one was asking at Mr. H-yd-n's one day, as a few persons were looking at the cast from this figure, why the original might not have been done as a cast from nature? Such a supposition would account at least for what seems otherwise unaccountable-the incredible labour and finishing bestowed on the back and other parts of this figure, placed at a prodigious height against the walls of a temple, where they could never be seen after they were once put up there. If they were done by means of a cast in the first instance, the thing appears intelligible, otherwise not. Our host stoutly resisted this imputation, which tended to deprive art of one of its greatest triumphs, and to make it * Some one finely applied to the repose of this figure the words: Infelix Theseus. + By Mr. Coleridge. 450 symmetry, an oblong shape, &c. The staunch partisans of this theory, however, get over the difficulty here spoken of, in practice, by omitting the details altogether, and making their works sketches, or rather what the French call ebauches, and the English daubs. 3. The IDEAL is only the selecting a particular form which expresses most completely the idea of a given character or quality, as of beauty, strength, activity, voluptuousness, &c. and which preserves that character with the greatest consistency throughout. Instead of its being true in general that the ideal is the middle point, it is to be found in the extremes; or, it is carrying any idea as far as it will go. Thus, for instance, a Silenus is as much an ideal thing as an Apollo, as to the principle on which it is done, viz. giving to every feature, and to the whole form, the utmost degree of grossness and sensuality that can be imagined, with this exception (which has nothing to do with the understanding of the question), that the ideal means by custom this extreme on the side of the good and beautiful. With this reserve, the ideal means always the something more of any thing which may be anticipated by the fancy, and which must be found in nature (by looking long enough for it) to be expressed as it ought. Suppose a good heavy Dutch face (we speak by the proverb)-this, you will say, is gross; but it is not gross enough. You have an idea of something grosser, that is, you have seen something grosser and must, seek for it again. When you meet with it, and have stamped it on the canvas, or carved it out of the block, this is the true ideal, namely, that which answers to and satisfies a preconceived idea; not that which is made out of an abstract idea, and answers to nothing. In the Silenus, also, according to the notion we have of the properties and character of that figure, there must be vivacity, slyness, wantonness, &c. Not only the image in the mind, but a real face may express all these combined together; another may express them more, and another most, which last is the ideal; and when the image in nature coalesces with, and gives a body, force, and reality to the idea in the mind, then it is that with truth, consistency, and consequent effect. There is no difference, in philosophical reasoning, between the mode of art here insisted on, and the ideal regularity of such figures as the Apollo, the Hercules, the Mercury, the Venus, &c. All these are, as it were, personifications, essences, abstractions of certain qualities or virtues in human nature, not of human nature in general, which would make nonsense. Instead of being abstractions of all sorts of qualities jumbled together in a neutral character, they are in the opposite sense abstractions of some single quality or customary combination of qualities, leaving out all others as much as possible, and imbuing every part with that one predominant character to the utmost. The At any rate, this is the march neither of nature nor of art. It is not denied that these antique sculptures are models of the ideal; nay, it is on them that this theory boasts of being founded. Yet they give a flat contradiction to its insipid mediocrity. Perhaps some of them have a slight bias to the false ideal, to the smooth and uniform, or the negation of nature: any error on this side is, however, happily set right by the ELGIN MARBLES, which are the paragons of sculpture and the mould of form. As the ideal then requires a difference of character in each figure as a whole, so it expects the same character (or a corresponding one) to be stamped on each part of every figure. As the legs of a Diana should be more muscular and Apollo is a representation of grace-adapted for running, than those of ful dignity and mental power; the Hercules of bodily strength; the Mercury of swiftness; the Venus of female loveliness, and so on. In these, in the Apollo, is surely implied and found more grace than usual; in the Hercules more strength than usual; in the Mercury more lightness than usual; in the Venus more softness than usual. Is it not so? What then becomes of the pretended middle form? One would think it would be sufficient to prove this, to ask, "Do not these statues differ from one another? And is this difference a defect?" It would be ridiculous to call them by different names, if they were not supposed to represent sent different and peculiar peculiar ch characters: sculptors should, in that case, never carve any thing but the statue of a man, the statue of a woman, &c. and this would be the name of perfection. This theory of art is not at any rate justified by the history of art. An extraordinary quantity of bone and muscle is as proper to the Hercules as his club, and it would be strange if the Goddess of Love had not a more delicately rounded form, and a more languishing look withal, than the Goddess of Hunting. That a form combining and blending the properties of both, the downy softness of the one, with the elastic buoyancy of the other, would be more perfect than either, we no more see than that grey is the most perfect of colours. a Venus or a Minerva, so the skin of her face ought to be more tense, bent on her prey, and hardened by being exposed to the winds of heaven. The respective characters of lightness, softness, strength, &c.should pervade each part of the surface of each figure, but still varying according to the texture and functions of the individual part. This can only be learned or practised from an attentive observation of nature in those forms in which any given character or excellence is most strikingly displayed, and which has been selected for imitation and study on that account.-Suppose a dimple in the chin to be a mark of voluptuousness; then the Venus should have a dimple in the chin; and she has one. But this will imply certain correspondent indications in other parts of the features, about the corners of the mouth, a gentle undulation and sinking in of the cheek, as if it had just been pinched, and so on: yet so as to be consistent with the other qualities of roundness, smoothness, &c. which belong to the idea of the character. Who will get all this and embody it out of the idea of a middle form, I cannot say: it may be, and has been, got out of the idea of a number of distinct enchanting graces in the mind, and from some heavenly object unfolded to the sight! 4. That the historical is nature in action. With regard to the face, it'is expression. Hogarth's pictures are true history. Every feature, limb, figure, group, is instinct with life and motion. He does not take a subject and place it in a position, like a lay figure, in which it stirs neither limb nor joint. The scene moves before you: the face is like a frame-work of flexible machinery. If the mouth is distorted with laughter, the eyes swim in laughter. If the forehead is knit together, the cheeks are puckered up. If a fellow squints most horribly, the rest of his face is awry. The muscles pull different ways, or the same way, at the same time, on the surface of the picture, as they do in the human body. What you see is the reverse of still life. There is a continual and complete action and re-action of one variable part upon another, as there is in the ELGIN MARBLES. If you pull the string of a bow, the bow itself is bent. So it is in the strings and wires that move the human frame. The action of any one part, the contraction or relaxation of any one muscle, extends more or less perceptibly to every other: Thrills in each nerve, and lives along the line. Thus the celebrated Iö of Correggio is imbued, steeped in a manner in the same voluptuous feeling all over --the same passion languishes in her whole frame, and communicates the infection to the feet, the back, and the reclined position of the head. This is history, not carpenter's work. Some painters fancy that they paint history, if they get the measurement from the foot to the knee, and put four bones where there are four bones. This is not our idea of it; but we think it is to show how one part of the body sways another in action and in passion. The last relates chiefly to the expression of the face, though not altogether. Passion may be shown in a clenched fist as well as in clenched teeth. The face, however, is the throne of expression. Character implies the feeling, which is fixed and permanent; expression that which is occasional and momentary, at least, technically speaking. Portrait treats of objects as they are; history of the events and changes to which they are liable. And so far history has a double superiority; or a double difficulty to overcome, viz. in the rapid glance over a number of parts subject to the simultaneous action of the same law, and in the scope of feeling required to sympathise with the critical and powerful movements of passion. It requires greater capacity of muscular motion to follow the progress of a carriage in violent motion, than to lean upon it standing still. If, to describe passion, it were merely necessary to observe its outward effects, these, perhaps, in the prominent points, become more visible and more tangible as the passion is more intense. But it is not only necessary to see the effects, but to discern the cause, in order to make the one true to the other. No painter gives more of intellectual or impassioned appearances than he understands or feels. It is an axiom in painting, that sympathy is indispensible to truth of expression. Without it, you get only caricatures, which are not the thing. But to sympathise with passion, a greater fund of sensibility is demanded in proportion to the strength or tenderness of the passion. And as he feels most of this whose face expresses most passion, so he also feels most by sympathy whose hand can describe most passion. This amounts nearly, we take it, to a demonstration of an old and very disputed point. The same reasoning might be applied to poetry, but this is not the place. Again, it is easier to paint a portrait than an historical face, because the head sits for the first, but the expression will hardly sit for the last. Perhaps those passions are the best subjects for painting, the expression of which may be retained for some time, so as to be better caught, which throw out a sort of lambent fire, and leave a reflected glory behind them, as we see in Madonnas, Christ's Heads, and what is understood by sacred subjects in general. The violences of human passion are too soon over to be copied by the hand, and the mere conception of the internal workings is not here sufficient, as it is in poetry. A portrait is to history what still-life is to portraiture: ure: that tha is, the whole remains the same while you are doing it, or while you are occupied about each part, the rest wait for you. Yet, what a difference is there between taking an original portrait, and making a copy of one! This shows that the face in its most ordinary state is continually varying and in action. So much of history is there in portrait!-No one should pronounce definitively on the superiority of history over portrait, without recollecting Titian's heads. The finest of them are very nearly (say quite) equal to the finest of Raphael's. They have almost the look of still-life, yet each part is decidedly influenced by the rest. Every thing is relative in them. You cannot put any other eye, nose, lip, in the same face. As is one part, so is the rest. You cannot fix on any particular beauty; the charm is in the whole. They have least action, and the most expression of any portraits. They are doing nothing, and yet all other business seems insipid in comparison of their thoughts. They are silent, retired, and do not court observation; yet you cannot keep your eyes from them. Some one said, that you would be as cautious of your behaviour in a room where a picture of Titian's was hung, as if there was somebody by-so entirely do they look you through. They are the least tiresome furniture-company in the world! 5. Grandeur consists in connecting a number of parts into a whole, and not in leaving out the parts. Sir Joshua lays it down that the great style in art consists in the omission of the details. A greater error never man committed. The great style consists in preserving the masses and general proportions; not in omitting the details. Thus, suppose, for illustration's sake, the general form of an eye-brow to be commanding and grand. It is of a certain size, and arched in a particular curve. Now, surely, this general form or outline will be equally preserved, whether the painter daubs it in, in a bold, rough way, as Reynolds or perhaps Rembrandt would, or produces the effect by a number of hairlines arranged in the same form as Titian sometimes did; and in his best pictures. It will not be denied (for it cannot) that the characteristic form of the eye-brow would be the same, or that the effect of the picture at a small distance would be nearly the same in either case; only VOL. V. The in the latter, it would be rather more perfect, as being more like nature. Suppose a strong light to fall on one side of a face, and a deep shadow to involve the whole of the other. This would produce two distinct and large masses in the picture; which answers to the conditions of what is called the grand style of composi tion. Well, would it destroy these masses to give the smallest veins or variation of colour or surface in the light side, or to shade the other with the most delicate and elaborate chi aro-scuro? It is evident not; from common sense, from the practice of the best masters, and, lastly, from the example of nature, which contains both the larger masses, the strongest contrasts, and the highest finishing, within itself. The integrity of the whole, then, is not impaired by the indefinite subdivision and smallness of the parts. The grandeur of the ulti mate effects depends entirely on the arrangement of these in a certain form or under certain masses. Ilissus or River-god (of which we have given a print in a former num ber) is floating in his proper ele ment, and is, in appearance, as firm as a rock, as pliable as a wave of the sea. The artist's breath might be said to mould and play upon the un dulating surface. The whole is expanded into noble proportions, and heaves with general effect. What then? Are the parts unfinished; or are they not there? No; they are there with the nicest exactness, but in due subordination; that is, they are there as they are found in fine nature; and float upon the general form, like straw or weeds upon the tide of ocean. Once more: in Titian's portraits we perceive a certain character stamped upon the different features. In the Hippolito de Medici the eye-brows are angular, the nose is peaked, the mouth has sharp cor ners, the face is (so to speak) a pointed oval. The drawing in each of these is as careful and distinct as can be. But the unity of intention in nature, and in the artist, does not the less tend to produce a general grandeur and impressiveness of effect; which at first sight it is not easy to account for. To combine a number of particulars to one end is not to omit them altogether; and is the 2 L |