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have been effected had any thing like a continual, an important succession of vigorous life in these arts been allowed.

It seems to have been the work of a great guiding will, that the way should be prepared for renovation, by the almost entire loss or mutilation of the greatest works of former periods, and by the veil of ignorance which victorious barbarism spread before all eyes, that they should not distinguish through that cloud the remnant of a glory which was too great to be altogether destroyed, The very language which spoke of it was a buried charm, that the oblivion might be more perfect. And not until the now grown Christian mind required the re-discovery of art, was that tongue loosened. The revival of ancient literature and the birth of new art were simultaneous. With the latter, at least, it was more than a sleep from which it arose-it was from a death, with all the marks of its corruption.

We do not mean to assert that art rose at once full-grown, as Pallas from the head of Jove. It had undoubtedly its progression; but it did not grow from an old stock; and hence it did grow and arose unimpeded and unchoked by an unwholesome exuberance. to the greatest splendour and glory. Whether there can be again any new principle which will require new inventions, it would be almost presumptuous to consider; but we do feel assured that should it be so, there will not be an adaptation of present means to it, but that the wing of oblivion must have to sweep over, overshadow, and obliterate the present multifarious form and body of art. The fine arts are not like the exact sciences, always progressing from accumulative knowledge towards their final and sure establishment of truth; on the contrary, their great truths recede further from view, as knowledge is accumulated, and practice deteriorates by example. Science is truth to be dug out of the earth, as it were; a precious ore, not strictly ours, but by and for our use. The fine arts are in a far greater degree ours, for they are of the mind's creation; they are the product of a faculty giveņ, indeed, but given to create and not to gather, and dig up ready made for our purpose; they are of that faculty which has given

the name to the poet, as altogether the maker. They give that to the world which it never could have received by any accumulation of fact and knowledge. Take away the individual genius, the inventive, the creating mind of the one man, the Homer, the Dante, the Shakspeare, the Michael Angelo, the Raffaelle, and the whole product is annihilated; we cannot even conceive of its existence, know of no mine wherein to dig, no facts, no knowledge out of which it can grow. That creating power may, indeed, turn all existing things to its use, all facts and all knowledge; but it commands and is not governed by them is a power in no degree dependant on them, which would still be, though they existed not-a power which, if it exhausted worlds, would invent new for its purpose. To whom, then, are such powers given? for what purpose ?— and are they of a gift deteriorated in its use and abuse? Alas! they are still of the "corruptible," and cannot, in our present state, "put on incorruption." They are, however, of the mind, which may be purified and strengthened, or corrupted and degraded.

They effect in a great degree, and suitably to the age's requirement, their purpose. Corrupted from the ardour and sincerity of their first passion, and by the admission, little by little, of what is vicious, and yet which, we must confess, has its beauty; their very aim becomes changed, less large by subdivision, and less sure by confusion and uncertainty of aim, until all purpose be lost, in a low satisfaction in mere dexterity and mindless imitation. And what shall stay art in such downward way of decadence? Can a strong impulse be given to it— for there is no strength but the mind's strength? It is not patronage, but purpose, which is wanted. What shall revivify the passion that gave it earnestness,-the sincerity, the trust in itself, the confidence in its own highmindedness, the sense of the importance of its objects, and the true glory of their pursuit? We have our fears that we are doing much to multiply artists, and degrade art. We distribute patronage in so many streams, by our art-unions, that no full fertilizing current is visible. We make a pauperism, and stamp it with the disgrace of the beggarly contri

bution; we pauperize the mind too for low sense, than for its moral by the demand for mean productions, and intellectual expression. Art was and by circulating, as the choicest smothered by her own children The specimens of British art, engravings brood has been too numerous, and which tend utterly to the deteriora- the productions as variable as the tion of the public taste. Perhaps brood. They who would do great there is nothing more frightfully inju- things, were they allowed, are not rious in the present state of art, than allowed. The lower fascinations have this ever putting before the public taken possession of the public mind. eye things in themselves bad, and Patronage runs to the little, and the mostly bad, where badness is more greatest encouragement is to those surely fatal, in purpose. It is far who will provide the market with easier for good taste and for good art, the cheapest, if not the best wares. in practice, to arise out of a blank, Artists must live as well as other out of nothing, than out of an exu- people. They cannot, if they would, berance of bad examples. These sacrifice themselves to work out great things tend to vitiate the pure. The and noble ideas, for which there is. great daily accumulation of inferior no demand; and for this state of works, low in character, and deficient things they are themselves in no small in artistic knowledge and skill, that degree to blame. It is their own cry are ever thrust before the public eye, for patronage that has raised these are doing much mischief. They are art-unions: the patronage has been poisoning and vitiating the ground raised, but who gets it? They (like from which taste should spring. We the national guard in Paris) have are not educating in art, but against been superseded by their own inferior art. We are teaching to admire workmen. And what shall remedy all things which, were it possible to keep this superfœtation? First, let pains what is bad. from the public eye, be taken properly to educate in art would disgust as soon as seen. And the public eye and the public mind. even where the exhibition is in no other respect vicious, it is too often vicious from the total absence of any high purpose. For lack of object, we look to some mere mechanical prettiness; and by habit learn first to look for, and then to work for, nothing more. When the great men of other days, whose names we have now so constantly in our mouths, dedicated themselves to art, they did it with all their soul. They had the earnestness of a passion; and what they did not, as we should now say, well, technically viewing some of their early works, they did to express some strong and some worthy feeling. And as they advanced in technical skill, still they ever thought a certain dig nity and importance were essential to their works. The public mind had not yet felt satiety. But in time the progeny of art multiplied. The trading multitude had to entice purchasers, and to persuade them that their novelties were at least more pleasing, if the aim was not so high. The new lamps were cried up above the old. Thus they first created a bad taste, and then pandered to it. Cold conventionalities took the place of feeling; and even beauty was studied more

We rejoice to know that, while we are writing, a society is forming, similar to the Cambden Society, for the publication of all important works on art, whether old or original, and for having the finest productions of art engraved, in whatever country they are to be found. As good taste is the object, so care will be taken that nothing of a deteriorating character will be admitted; and works will be produced which, in the present state of general feeling, private speculation would scarcely venture upon. The works will, we are given to understand, chiefly be distributable among the members of the society; but some, thought to be particularly well adapted to give a better direction to the public taste, will be generally purchasable.

This society is of great promise—if it succeeds at all, it will succeed eminently, and we believe it must succeed. It will, we have some hope, drive the low, the meaningless things of the day out of the field. We are as a nation, really ignorant of art, We know it not, as it has been. We want to see the public eye acquainted, through good engravings, with the numerous fine frescoes that cannot be

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generally known in any other way. Whatever tends to the real advancement of art will obtain the solicitous attention of this society.

The Fine Arts Commission affords another mans of remedying the evils that are besetting the profession, and through them the public taste. We do not like the Government competition system. We go further-we do not like the Government; we mean the Commission, constituting themselves judges and purveyors This is not the way to make great men. The man of genius shrinks from the competition system; nay, he fears or doubts the judgment of his judges. Perhaps he feels that he is himself the best judge; and if he has a just confidence in himself, he ought to feel this. He will not like the check of too much dictation as to subjects, composition, or any of the detail. We are persuaded that it would be far wiser, both for the public and for art, that the commissioners should studiously select their man, without competition, not for some one or more pictures, but for a far wider range. There will be still competition enough for proper ambition in the number still to be employed. Raffaelle had the Vatican assigned to him, and that at an early age; so would we gladly see a large portion given to one man, and let the whole be of his one mind, and let him have his assistants if he please. Let him be dominant, and if he has within him a power, it will come out; and it cannot be difficult to find a few men of sense and vigour; and even though they have not as yet shown great powers, it does not follow that they have them not trust to what they have, and more will grow. But we have some even now capable of performing beautiful works to do honour to the nation. We should rejoice to see their secretary released from the clerkship of his office, and set to work seriously with his hand and his superintending mind. We would impress this upon the consideration of the commissioners as an indisputable truth, and if they select a man of genius, they select one superior to them selves-one who is to teach, not to be taught by them-and one with whose arrangements, after their selection, they should by no means interfere. And supposing the worst, that they

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have actually made an unfortunate choice-what then? They have made an experiment at no very great cost, and may obliterate whatever is a disgrace. The works of other painters were obliterated in the Sistine Chapel to make room for Michael Angelo. Nor was there any hesitation in destroying the labours of previous artists, and even the suspended operations of his old master, Perugino, that the whole space might be open to the genius of the youth Raffaelle. It is whole, entire responsibility that makes great men. Throw upon the persons you select the whole weight, and thereby give them the benefit of all the glory; and whatever be their powers, you tax them to the utmost. We would have them by no means interfered with, any more than we would cripple the commander of our armies abroad with the petty counsels and restrictions of bureaumanufacture. Nor should they be too strictly limited as to time, nor subjected to the continual questionings of an ungenerous impatience. the trust be conferred upon them as an honour which they are to wear and enjoy, not as a notice of their servility, but of their freedom. That trust is less likely to be abused the more generously it is given. To fulfil it then, becomes an ambition; and the daily habit of this higher feeling, by making the given work the all in all of life, renders the men more fit for it. Let the nation, expecting liberality from the "Liberal Arts,” bestow it-hold out high rewards, leave the artists in all respects unshackled; and, the intention of a work being approved of, let not the time it is to occupy be in the stipulation. And it would be well to look to the promise of the young as well as actual performances; for the power to do will grow. Of thirty-eight competitors convened at Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti, only twenty-three years of age, was chosen to execute the celebrated doors; the work occupied forty years of his life. The work is immortal, if human work can be; and obtained this eulogium from Michael Angelo, that they were worthy of being the gates of Paradise" He conferred honour upon his city, and received such as was worthy the city to bestow. "His labours were justly appreciated, and

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ably rewarded by his fellow citizens, glory of genius. Why should a barwho, besides granting him whatever ren baronetcy have been conferred on he demanded, assigned him a portion the author of Waverley? Had he been of land, and elected him Gonfaloniere, a conqueror in fifty battles, could he or chief magistrate of the state. His have conferred more benefit than he bust was afterwards placed in the has conferred upon his country? Why baptistery." Was the confidence, the is it that there is always in our governfull trust, in the power of the young ment a jealousy of literature and the Raffaelle misplaced? What wonders arts? There has not been a decent did he not perform in his too short life! honour bestowed on either since the Had he lived longer, he would without reign of the unfortunate Charles. question have reached the highest Poets, painters, and sculptors, it is honours his country had to bestow. vulgarly thought, are scarcely "alenOne word more on this subject of di," and certainly 66 non saginandi." generosity of national generosity. The arts might at least be given a We seem to think it a great thing to position in our universities. This, as bestow a knighthood upon an artist a first step, would do much,—it would of eminence here and there, yet tend, too, mainly to raise the public give not the means of keeping the taste, which is daily sinking lower and dignity from conspicuous shame, of lower. We should be glad to see Mr. maintaining a decent hospitality Eastlake made professor of painting among his brethren artists by which at Oxford, with an adequate estabmuch general improvement might lishment there to enable him not only evidently arise. All our real substan- to lecture, but to teach more practitial honours are conferred upon sol- cally by design, in the very place of diers and lawyers. They have estates all others in the kingdom where there publicly given, and are raised to the is most in feeling congenial with art. peerage; yet it is doubtful if one man We mention Mr. Eastlake, not making of genius, in literature and the arts, an invidious distinction, but because does not deserve better of his country, his acquirements in literature, and his and confer upon it more glory, than valuable contributions to it, seem any ten of the other more favoured most readily to point to him as a fit professions and more than this, the occupant for the professor's chair. name of one such genins will be re- We have repeatedly, in the pages of membered, perhaps with some sense Maga, insisted upon the importance of the disgrace of neglect, when all of establishing the fine arts in our the others are forgotten. Let a universities, and at one time enterlawyer be but a short period of his tained a hope that the Taylor Legacy life upon the woolsack, he will find would have taken this direction. We means to raise to himself a fortune, are not, however, sorry altogether and retire back upon private life with that it did not do so, for it would an annual pension of thousands; while surely be more advantageous that such the man of genius in arts and literature a movement should begin with the is too often left in old age uncheered by Government. It would remedy, too, any acknowledgment, and perhaps more evils than one; it would give an weighed down to death by embarrass- occupation of mind, congenial with ments, from which a delighted, im- their academic studies, to our youth, proved, and at the same time an and preserve them from a dangerous ungrateful country will not relieve extravagance both of purse and of him. A government should know that opinions. The hopes, however, of it is for the crown to honour a profes- anything really advantageous to the sion, and thereby to make it worthy fine arts arising from our Governthe honour. We live in a country ment, unless very strongly urged to it, where distinctions do much, and are small. They do not seem inclined are worse than profitless without ade- at all to favour the profession; they quate means to sustain them. It would look upon it as solely addicted would be well if sometimes selections to the labour of the hand with a view were made in other directions than the to small profits-a portion of which law and army, and if our peerage profits, too, upon some strange prin-. were not unfrequently radiated with the ciples of the political economists, they

would appropriate to the nation as a fine, the penalty of genius One would imagine, from the proposition of the Board of Trade to take 10 per cent. from subscriptions to art-unions for the purchasing pictures for the National Gallery, that they considered the epithet "fine" so appropriated to the arts as intended originally to suggest a tax. They would not allow the profession a free trade. What ever is obtained by exhibiting works of artists, should be as much their property as would the product of any other manufacture be the property of the respective adventurers, and the art union subscriptions are undoubt edly a portion of these profits. What, in common justice, have the public to do with them? The proposed scheme is a step towards communism, and may have been borrowed from the French provisional seizure of their railroads. With equal justice might they require that every butcher and baker and tailor should give a portion of his meat, his bread, and his cloth to feed and clothe our army and navy; and this not as of a common taxation, but as an extra compliment and advantage to these trades. There is a great deal too much here of the beggarly utilitarian view. We advocate not the cause of art-unions-we think them perfectly mischievous, and would gladly see them suppressed; but surely to invite and tempt the poor artists to paint their twenty and five-and-twenty pound pictures, and coolly to take 10 per cent. out of their pockets to purchase to yourself a gallery of art, is not very consonant to our general ideas of what is due to the liberal arts. The liberality is certainly not reciprocal.

Nor, indeed, when we view the state of our National Gallery, considering the building as well as what it contains, can we be induced to think that the Government are very much in earnest in their profession of a desire to raise its importance. The National Gallery has its committee, and there is the Commission of Fine Arts. The former like not a questioning Parlia ment, and have not sufficient confi. dence in themselves to disregard the uncomplimentary animadversions of a critical press; and so the National Gallery advances not. The latter

appear to treat art too much as a taxable commodity, and as having a right to levy specimens, and take for the public the profit of them, when they are required to cater for any national works. We do not, however, doubt their sincere desire to promote the arts; but we do doubt if they are perfectly alive to the real importance of the work they have to do, and fear their efforts are rendered less useful by the number and conflicting tastes of the members. Divisions and subdivisions of responsibility terminate too frequent in many little things which, put together, do not make one great one.

However deficient, or however faulty in our taste, there seems to be at the present moment a more general desire to become acquainted with art and its productions in former ages. Publications of historical and critical importance are not wanting; but it is singular that the prevailing patronage is little influenced as yet by the knowledge received. From whatever cause it may arise, the fact is manifest that we have not a distinct School of Art. It might be quite correct to assert that there is no characteristic school, not one founded on a principle—a principle-distinguished from former influences-in any country of Europe. We do not even except the German schools; for able though the men be and honoured, they show no symptom of an inventive faculty, which can alone make a school. They are as yet in their imitative state-in that of revival. They are in the trammels of an artistic superstition. They have no one great and new idea to realize. They make their commencement from art, not from mind-forgetful of this truth, that art cannot grow out of art: for, if good, it seduces the mind into mere imitation, which soon becomes effect; if bad, it incapacitates from conceiving the beautiful. cannot grow out of art; it may progress from its inferior to its better state, till the idea of its principle has been completed. It must then begin again from a new-from an idea not yet embodied—or it will inevitably decline, from the causes named, to mediocrity.

Art

It does not at all follow, in this rise of new art-or, if we please, revival of

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