Painting popularly explained : including fresco, oil, tempera, mosaic, encaustic, water-colour, miniature, missal, painting on pottery, porcelain, enamel, glass, &c., with historical sketches of the progress of the art

Front matter

X**KK5a

SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT

OF THE COMMITTEE. OF COUNCIL ON

Preface

Vll the order of the book need anticipate no difficulty in this particular. Should, however, the clue to the exact meaning of any artistic word or phrase be lost, a copious index has been added, the references of which, instead of affording the dry definitions a mere glossary would supply, will, it is hoped, be found at once to define the word and illustrate its application.

In conclusion, the inquiry may possibly, and not unreasonably, suggest itself — how it happened that one of the authors of this volume, to whose name " painter " is attached, did not prefer, like and in the words of Annibale Carracci, " only to speak by works." The answer to this is, that in him, as in many others, the natural tendency was nearly equally strong to literary as to artistic pursuits. And the observation may be ventured, though at the risk of provoking unfavourable comparisons, that many painters have been better known by the productions of their pen than by those of their pencil. In this instance, however, his literary efforts would probably have been confined to contributions to periodicals, had not an accident occurred to him which, though it compelled for a long period a comparative cessation from the practice of art, did not prevent his undertaking, with a former literary associate, a task, the accomplishment of which, they trust, will serve some useful purpose.

THE FRONTISPIECE.

The sublime Titanic forms, the " awful synod," as Fuseli calls them, of Prophets and Sibyls on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, are described at p. 164 as being by general consent the grandest single figures of modern painting. In a note on the same page, reference is made to the circumstances which led to the Sibyls becoming favourite subjects of pictorial representation, and to their elevation to almost equal rank with the Prophets of the Old Testament. In Christian Art each Sibyl is occasionally distinguished by a legend or motto selected from her reputed prophecy. The following is that appropriated to the subject of our Frontispiece: "A prophet shall be born of a virgin, and he shall be crowned with thorns." The well-known oracle of Apollo at Delphi was consulted by all Greece, and the Pythia, or Sibyl, seated on the mystic tripod, was the accredited medium, while under prophetic influence, of transmitting the answers of the god. The Delphic Sibyl of Michael Angelo is then, we are to understand, the enthusiastic representative of classical art, poetry, and philosophy. Mr. Harford , in his Life of Michael Angelo, justly says : — " Her looks are fraught with intellectual expression, and her form and features with youthful grace and severe beauty : fit emblems of the noblest and most finished schools which the world has ever seen of taste and eloquence." The Sibyls were always represented as tall, majestic, and somewhat masculine ; but we have selected the Delphic prophetess, with her attendant genii, from others on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,* as Calculated to at least qualify the popular opinion, that all the figures of Michael Angelo are of uniform character, and always too robust and muscular.

The engraving on the title-page of this volume is from one of the portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds in his official robes, as (first) President of the Eoyal Academy, from his own pencil. The head was alone adapted to serve as a vignette, but in the background of the original is introduced a bust of Michael Angelo. The mention of this can scarcely fail to recal the impressive tribute paid by Sir Joshua to the genius of the great Italian, when the President, concluding in solemn silence the last of his Discourses, said, " 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."

* A large chromo-lithograph of the whole ceiling has been published by Messrs. Colnaghi, Pall-Mall.

Contents

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 1

GILDING, ETC 10