The life and writings of Henry Fuseli Volume III Part 9

233. Compilation is the lowest degree in art, but let him who means to borrow with impunity, follow the statesman's maxim: "strip the mean and spare the great."

_Coroll._--A composition of which every thing was borrowed from himself, being shown to Michael Angelo, and his opinion asked, "I commend it,"

said he, "but when on the day of judgement each body shall claim its original limbs, what will remain in this picture?"

234. He ought to possess some himself, who attempts to make use of borrowed excellence: a golden goblet on a beggar's table, serves only to expose its companions of lead.

235. Resemblance, character, costume, are the three requisites of portrait: the first distinguishes, the second cla.s.sifies, the third a.s.signs place and time to an individual.

236. Landscape is either the transcript of a spot, or a picturesque combination of h.o.m.ogeneous objects, or the scene of a phenomenon. The first pleases by precision and taste; the second adds variety and grandeur; the third may be an instrument of sublimity, affect our pa.s.sions, or wake a sentiment.

237. Selection is the invention of the landscape painter.

238. He never can be great who honours what is little.

_Coroll._--Grandeur of style and execution do not exclusively depend upon dimensions: but in an age and amidst a race who have erected littleness or rather diminutiveness of size to the only credentials of admissibility into collections, to the pa.s.sports without which Raffaelle himself finds it difficult to penetrate the sanctuaries of pigmy art, that which enn.o.bled the age of Pericles, of Julio, and Leone, must be content to look to posterity for its reward. If it were physiognomically true, that the structure of every human face bears some a.n.a.logy to that of some brute, it might reasonably surprise, that an individual marked by nature with no very remote resemblance to a Hippopotamus, should be considered as the legislator of a taste equally noted for tameness of conception and effeminate finish; but as it is improbable that one individual, however favoured by circ.u.mstances or endowed with all-persevering activity, or arrogance, could stamp the taste of a nation exclusively with his own, it may be fairly surmised that he did no more than find and rear the seeds of that Micromania which infects the public taste.

239. The medium of poetry is time and action; that of the plastic arts, s.p.a.ce and figure. Poetry then is at its summit, when its hand arrests time and embodies action: and these, when they wing the marble or the canva.s.s, and from the present moment dart rays back to the past and forward to the future.

_Coroll._--Subjects are positive, negative, repulsive. The first are the proper materials, the voluntary servants of invention; to the second she gives interest and value; from the last she can escape only by the help of execution, for execution alone can palliate her defeat by the last.

The Laoc.o.o.n, the Haemon and Antigone, the Niobe and her daughters, the death of Ananias, the Sacrifice at Lystra, Elymas struck blind, are positive subjects, speak their meaning with equal evidences to the scholar and the unlettered man, and excite the sympathy due to the calls of terror and pity with equal energy in every breast. St. Jerome presenting the translation of his Bible to the Infant Jesus, St. Peter at the feet of the Madonna receiving the thanksgivings of victorious Venice, with every other votive altar-piece, little interesting to humanity in general, owe the impression they make on us to the dexterous arrangement, the amorous or sublime enthusiasm of the artist;--but we lament to see invention waste its powers, and execution its skill, to excite our feelings for an action or event that receives its real interest from a motive which cannot be rendered intuitive; such as Alceste expiring, the legacy of Eudamidas, the cause of Demetrius's disorder.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Tacit. Annal. lib. VI. "Nullam ob eximiam artem, sed quod par negotiis, neque supra erat."

[3] D. Longin. pe?? ?????, -- 34.

[4] "Les hommes qui ont change l'univers, n'y sont jamais parvenus en gagnant des chefs; mais toujours en remuant des ma.s.ses. Le premier moyen est du ressort de l'intrigue, et n'amene que des resultats secondaires; le second est la marche du Genie, et change la face du monde."--_Napoleon._

[5] Tacit. Annal. lib. xiv. et xvi.

[6] Difficile est proprie communia dicere. Hor. A.P.

[7] ??? d' a?' ?p? ????f?? p??sef? p?da? a????? ?pp??. Iliad xix. 404.

----Rhbe diu, etc.--_Virg._ x.

[8] Plin. lib. x.x.xv.

[9] This picture, during a period of nearly half a century, graced the collection of Charles Lambert, Esq. of Paper-buildings, Temple; where it remained without having been washed or varnished. At his death it was purchased by my friend Mr. Knowles, has been cleaned by a skilful hand, and restored to nearly its pristine state.

[10] Sea Voyage, Act 3rd. sc. 1st.

[11] Dante Inferno, Cant. xxiv.

[12] ?T?. Mores. Plin. l. x.x.xv.

[13] The Necromantia of Nicias--the sacking of a town, by Aristides.

Plin. l. x.x.xv.

[14] A group of Stepha.n.u.s in the Villa Ludovisi, known by the name of Papyrius and his mother, called a Phaedra and Hippolytus, or an Electra with Orestes, by J. Winkelmann, bears more resemblance to an aethra with Theseus, or a Penelope with Telemachus.

[15] Gallum inficetissime linguam exserentem.--Plin. l. x.x.xv.

[16] Plin. l. x.x.x. W. c. xiv.

[17] Commonly named the Dying Gladiator; by J. Winkelmann called a Herald; with more probability the "Vulneratus deficiens, in quo possit intelligi quantum restet animae." A work of Ctesilas in bronze, was probably the model of this. Plin. l. x.x.xiv.

[18] Sueton. l. vi.

[19] In one of the cartoons of Raffaello, now lost, but still in some degree existing in tapestry and in print.

[20] Engraved by G. Audran.

[21] In the cartoon of Peter and John.

[22] Iliad, L. xviii. l. 93; L. xvi. l. 74 and 75; L. ix. l. 346.

[23] Commonly called the Castor and Pollux of Monte Cavallo,--the name given from their horses to the Quirinal.

[24] Plin. N.H. l. x.x.xv. c. ix. Tantus diligentia, ut Agrigentinis facturus tabulam, quam in templo Junonis Lucinae publice dicarent, inspexerit virgines eorum nudas, et quinque elegerit, ut quod in quaque laudatissimum esset, pictura redderet.

[25] Mengs Lettera a don A. Ponz. Opere di A.R. Mengs, t. ii. p. 83.

[26] Such was probably that austerity of tone in the works of Athenion, which the ancients preferred to the sweetness or gayer tints of Nicias--"austerior colore et in austeritate jucundior."--Plin. l. x.x.xv.

c. xi.

[27] See the sonnet of Agostino Carracci, which begins "Chi farsi un bon Pittor cerca e desia," &c. which the author himself seems to ridicule by the manner in which he concludes.

[28] ??? ??a??? p???????a??? e?? ????a??? ?st?. Il. ii. 204. The conception of every great work must originate in one, though it may be above the power or strength of one to execute the whole.

[29] Pliny, l. x.x.xiv. c. 8.

[30] In the Letter to C.B. Castiglione. Ideal is properly the representation of pure human essence.

[31] Raffaelle and the best of his pupils; their successors, commonly known by the name of the Roman school, followed principles diametrically opposite.

[32] "Macinava carne," said Annibale Carracci.

[33] aegidius Sadeler sculpsit ex Prototypo Alberti Dureri.

[34] "Elumbis," as applied by the author of the Dialogue on Orators to the style of Brutus, will nearly suit all imitators of Michael Angelo.

[35] In the Sacristy of St. Giovanni in Laterano, painted from the cartoon by Marcello Venusti.

[36] This and the foregoing picture are in the Scuola di S. Rocco at Venice. The skeleton of the former is known by an etching of _Le Fevre_.

[37] "Whoever looks at a picture by Correggio of a glorified Madonna with a St. Sebastian and other figures, at Dresden, is instantly surprised by the light of the glory, which has all the splendour of a sun, though painted with a low-toned yellow, and dim at the extremities."