Hand-book for young painters

Front matter

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Preface

right progress of Art, — theories the more dangerous for the talents with which they are advocated; and from the peculiar fashions at present dominant in criticism, I have no hesitation in expressing my conviction that the thing, just now, most in danger of being neglected by painters is the Art of Painting ; and that want of patronage is far less to be dreaded than the wTant of that which patronage should foster.

The road to Art is proverbially a long one ; and it is often made longer than it need he, not only by the causes I have mentioned, but by our own mistakes. If, therefore, anything I can say should tend to shorten it to younger artists, it will be in a great measure owing to discoveries of some of my owTn errors, — wThich, though made too late to be of much benefit to myself, may possibly be of use to those whose habits are not so formed but that they may be abandoned, if wrong.

Painting and Poetry, as Sister Arts, have a family likeness ; but it is the business of each to do what the other cannot ; and words can no more become substitutes for pictures than lines and colours can supply the place of Poetry. Hence the difficulty of writing or speaking of Painting; indeed the impossibility of describing those things belonging to it that are most impressive. Yet Language may do something for Art. It may direct the student in all that is mechanical and scientific, and principles of Nature, as far as they are known, may be explained ; and, as we may believe Ben Jonson when he tells us, that “ a good poet s made, as well as born,”

PREFACE.

V we may be sure that this is equally true of a good painter.

The great difficulty of instruction will be found in attempting to analyze the things that are most addressed to the taste and the feelings. Here the teacher must rely on his own impressions ; impressions liable to be biassed by a thousand accidental associations, and by peculiarities of temperament that may well lead him to mistrust himself; and he can only be sure that his guidance will be safe to others in as far as he finds his opinions confirmed by the most generally-received authorities.

If, writh respect to one most important element of Art, and that too colour, I dissent from so great a painter as Reynolds, I do but follow Opie, whose opinion has carried with it that of every succeeding artist of eminence.

The Lectures I delivered at the Royal Academy form the greater part of this volume. They have been carefully revised, and re-cast into other forms ; and with such additional matter as I venture to hope may render it worthy of the attention, not only of young artists, but, in some degree, of painters past the period of pupilage, and also of that now large and increasing class of lovers of Art who adorn their houses with pictures.

If I owe any apology for what I have said of some late purchases of pictures for the National Gallery, I owe it to the public for not saying more. For the Trustees of the collection, as noblemen and gentlemen, I have the greatest respect. But I can have iio respect

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for their taste (as a body) when they throw away the public money on worthless pictures. It is clearly not sufficient that there should be, as there always have been, among these gentlemen, one or two who know the difference between good and bad Art ; and whose professional or non-professional acquaintance with the works of the great masters, enables them to judge of the value or originality of the pictures that may be offered to the nation, either as gifts or in the way of purchase; for when the pictures to which I have alluded were added to the Gallery, such gentlemen must have been absent or out-voted. The abilities required to govern a country are so far from including the accomplishments necessary to the formation of a fine collection of works of Art, that it may be safely asserted they are scarcely compatible ; and the taste and knowledge of this kind, even of a Pericles or a Lorenzo de Medici, must always be as nothing, compared with the taste, and knowledge of an artist. I may be told that some of our eminent statesmen of the last generation have formed fine collections of the old masters ; but such collections were, in fact, formed for them by the late Mr. Seguier, and Mr. Smith, the elder, of Bond Street.

I have spoken out on this matter, from a sense of duty to the public, as well as to my professional brethren, to whom, above all others, it is important that such an institution as a National Gallery should be properly managed.

C. R. L.

December, 1854.

Section I. P

On the Imitation of Nature, and on Style.

Comparison of Art with Nature. — Examination of the axiom that the most perfect Art is that in which Art is most concealed. — The works of Rubens suggestive of action, Hogarth’s “ Enraged Musician” suggestive of sound. — Wax-work, its lifelessness. — Deception differs from illusion. —Panoramic and Dioramic Art. — Imitation defined by Coleridge. — Painting not an invention. — Error in the reasoning of Lessing. — Tableaux vivants. — Inferiority of Gerard Dow to Terburg, Metsu, or Jan Steen. — Style. — Manner. — Mediaeval Art. — Chinese Art. — Sameness not always a fault.

SECTION II. On the Imitation of Art

Judgments of young Painters. — Apparent present advantages of study. — Real difficulties. — Defects in the minds of different classes of students. — Faith in the inexhaustibleness of Nature necessary to originality. — The overpowering Influence of contemporary Art on students. — Danger of resorting to exhibitions of modern pictures as to schools. — Poets not necessarily judges of Painting. — Mischief done by pretenders to Taste.— Statesmen and princes rarely judges of Art. — Misemployment of Michael Angelo by Leo X. — The poetry of Painting. — The “ Cephalus and Aurora” of Poussin. — Tintoret. — Poussin’s “ Polyphemus.”— Importance of technical excellence. — Misapplication of the word sensual. — Remarks of Lord Lindsay. —

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Fra Angeleo. — Heads of angels by Reynolds. — Quotation from Dr. Waagen. — The Expression of Hogarth aided by his colour. — Purchases of worthless pictures by the Trustees of the National Gallery. — Francia compared with Correggio. — Eclecticism of the greatest painters. — Plagiarism.

SECTION III. On the Distinction between Laws and Rules. . 39

Genius not lawless. — The laws of Art and of Nature the same. — Rules not binding. — Debate of the French Academy on a picture by P. Veronese. — Sterne on criticism.— “ Last Supper ” of Leonardo di Vinci. — Watteau. —

Dr. Johnson and Miss Burney. — Quotation from Johnson’s preface to Shakespear. — The violation of rules in obedience to laws. — How the prosperity of Art may be promoted.— Instances of laws. — Drawing school and amateur rules.

SECTION IV. Quotation from Charles Lamb. — Sancho Panza’s Story

M. Angelo and Raphael. — The subjective element. — Vulgarity.— Morland not vulgar. — Pretension the essence of vulgarity. — French Painters of the eighteenth century. — Poussin. — Watteau. — The objective element. — Caravaggio.— Rembrandt.— F useli. — Blake. — High Art Religious Art. — The levelling tendency of classification according to subject. — Raphael. — Masaccio. — Ostade. — Rembrandt. — Carlo Dolci. — Carlo Maratti, &c.

SECTION Y.

Fashion. — Opie supposed to be self-taught. — Examination of this opinion. — Alderman Boydell. — His Shakespear Gallery. — His patronage of Opie. — Northcote’s “ Slighted Beauty.” — Michael Angelo, origin of his style.— Raphael.

— Rubens. — Sir Joshua Reynolds on genius and industry.

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SECTION VI. On Genius, Imagination, and Taste. . . .71

Genius a combination of many faculties. — Taste. — Its rarity. — The superior taste of Raphael. — Finish determined by taste. — Velasquez. — Terburg. — Cold natures, their taste. — Ardent temperaments. — Bad taste. — Good and bad tastes often united. — The revivals of Art are always with a difference of its character.

SECTION VII. On the Ideal, and on Beauty of Form. . . 76

The Ideal not always distinct from matter-of-fact. —

The Elgin horses. — Faults in Flaxman’s animals.— The Ideal is the select. — It is not the beautiful only. — Raphael. — The Greeks. — Angelico.' — The connection between modern and ancient Art never lost. — How the antique should be studied. — Guido’s “ Aurora.” — Raphael, the painter of loveliness. — Statue of Thalia. — M. Angelo’s Delphic Sibyl. — Perfect human beauty not to be found in an individual, and why ? — Proportions of the figure relatively beautiful. — Grace, also relative. — Beauty of old age. — Of disease. — Of calamity. — Of death. — Lord Byron’s remarks on death. — Cast from the face of Napoleon. — Mistakes made by Artists in representations of death.

Section VIII

All schools, in which drawing the figure is taught, begin with the study of the antique. — Reynolds’s suggestion that students should paint their studies. — Stothard’s method. — Inequality of excellence in the antique. — Earlier and later works. — Fault in the attitude of the “ Fighting Gladiator.” — Drawing from Nature. — Flaxman and Stothard’s Practice. — The knowledge of anatomy may be abused. — Mr. Haydon’s theory. — His autobiography.— His error respecting Raphael. — Fashions among students. — Stothard’s drawings from the life.

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SECTION IX. On Invention and Expression. — Instances from the Old Masters 93

The Powers of invention and expression only to be sustained by observation. — Hogarth’s habits. — Stothard’s sketch-books. — Raphael. — M. Angelo. — Anecdote of Burns.

— The Supernatural not the Unnatural. — A Failure of N. Poussin in the Supernatural. — False notions of the Natural.

— Travelling not necessary to a knowledge of human nature. — Creations of the Poet or the Painter, what they really are. — Selection and combination the principles on which invention works. — Invention and expression the first things displayed in Art. — The dark ages. — Giotto. — Raphael. — His Cartoons. — Leonardo da Vinci’s “ Last Supper.” — Principle of the early painters, resembled that of the Naturalisti. — Imitations by Raphael and M. Angelo of some of the conceptions in the Campo Santo. — Orcagna’s “ Triumph of Death.” — Early Art checked by the dread of idolatry. — The typical system adopted by M. Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. — Raphael’s Cartoons. — Heads of the Saviour by da Vinci and by Raphael. — Question as to the propriety of representing the Divine nature of Christ. —

The Religious sentiment not less displayed in Raphael’s late works than in his earliest. — His Representations of childhood. — The Cartoons, the work of Raphael’s own hands. — His “ Sacrifice of the Innocents.” — His frescoes in the Vatican. — The obligations of Raphael to M. Angelo have been over-stated. — M. Angelo, how greater than Raphael.

— The “ Raising of Lazarus,” by S. de Piombo. — M. Angelo’s “ Holofernes.” — The u Cartoon of Pisa.” — Titian. — His Power in expression. — Allegory. — Paul Veronese. — Rubens.

SECTION X. On Invention and Expression. — Instances from the British School 120

Hogarth. — His adherence to Nature closer than that of most dramatic writers. — His wit and humour. — Not a

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caricaturist. — His benevolence. — His Art Ideal. — His treatment of accessories. — His representations of childhood.— Vindicated from the charge of prostituting his Art at the suggestion of a vicious patron. — His failure in Subjects froip the Bible. — Walpole’s Insensibility to his excellence as a painter. — Exhibition of his Works in 1814. — Fuseli. — His “Sin and Death.” — The “Satan” of Sir Thomas Lawrence. — Fuseli’s chiaroscuro and colour.

— Variety of excellence of the British school. — Stothard.

— Bewick. — Opie. — Wilkie. — Haydon’s mis-statements respecting the Royal Academy.

Section XI

The natural Principles of composition. — The picturesque styles. — Perspective. — Giotto. — The Campo Santo.— Gozzoli. — Masaccio’s treatment of background. — The architecture in Raphael’s Cartoons. — The “Sacraments” of Poussin. — Comparison between Orcagna’s “Last Judgment,” and Raphael’s “ Dispute of the Sacrament.” — Symmetry of composition. — Irregularity. — Perspective, some of its principles explained. — Hogarth’s faults in perspective. — Titian’s “ Peter Martyr.” — His “ Death of Abel,” and other like compositions. — The serpentine line. — Hogarth’s Mistake respecting “ The Laocoon.” — His “ Analysis of Beauty.” — The Richness of Hogarth’s compositions. — Their perspicuity. — Drapery. — Fashions in dress. — Reynolds. — Gainsborough. — Hogarth’s use of the dresses of his time.

Section XII

Wilkie’s Opinion of the importance of colour.— Deprecia • tion of its value by Reynolds.— Rubens’s “ Descent from the Cross.”— Colour compared by Reynolds to language.

— P. Veronese. — Erroneous estimate of the Flemish and Dutch schools. — Colour not more a sensual element of

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Art than form.— P. Veronese not more gay in colour than Raphael. — His imitation of Raphael. — Their aim in colour the same. — Solemnity of the tones of Titian, Tintoret, and sometimes of P. Veronese. — Venetian and Dutch colour applicable to the most sublime subjects. — The admission of this by Reynolds. — A taste for colour always an early development.— Vulgarity in colour of European manufactures compared with those of China and Persia. — Colour of the early Italians, and the Flemish Painters. — The Van Eycks. — Failure of modern Painters in imitating the early schools. — Organization. — Entire schools have coloured well, and entire schools have coloured badly. — Cause of this. — Raphael inferior in colour to the best colourists.— Probable cause. — The best colourists generally those who have studied Nature only. — Students should begin to paint early. — Raphael inferior in colour only when compared with such Painters as Titian. — N. Poussin.— M. Angelo. — Opie’s opinion of the best mode of Study. — Recommendation of Reynolds.— The Excellence of his drawing. — Colour more difficult of acquirement than form. — Chiaroscuro a late addition to the Art. — Its inseparable connection with colour. — Reflections. — Shadows on water. — Harmony. — Daylight. — Queen Elizabeth misunderstood. — West’s theory. — On the treatment of blue. — P. Veronese.

— Hogarth on the effects of time. — Tone of Ludovico Caracci. — The pathetic, — Subjects of wretchedness. — Etty. — His Art and personal character. — Rubens. — N. Poussin. — On copying. — Vehicles. — Fresco. — Picture cleaning.

SECTION XIII. On the Colour of Raphael’s Cartoons, and their Preservation 220

The drapery of the Saviour, in the “ Miraculous Draught of Fishes,” faded. — Probable difference between Raphael’s choice of colour and that of Paul Veronese. — Late works of Raphael, in the Louvre. — History of the Cartoons. —

The risk they run of destruction by fire. — Suggestions for their security. — Other pictures at Hampton Court.

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SECTION XIV. On the Flemish and Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century 230

Quotation from Barry. — Rubens. — Rembrandt. — His Pupils. — G. Dow. — N. Maas. — Jan Steen. — Ostade Teniers.

— Terburg. — Metsu. — De Hooge. — Cuyp. — Ruy sdael.

Section XV

The religious and moral influence of Landscape. — Mistaken classification. — Gainsborough. — The sky. — Wilson.

— Cozens. — Girtin. — Turner. — Constable. — Warmth in Landscape may be expressed without what are called warm colours. — Tropical Landscape.

Section XVI

Exhibition of the Pictures of Reynolds at the British Gallery.— The greatest Historical Painters always great in Portrait. — Vandyke. — Velasquez. — Rubens. — Titian. — Physiognomy. — Holbein. — West’s family picture. — Rembrandt. — Lely. — Kneller. — Reynolds. — Gainsborough. — Lawrence. — Jackson. — Photography.

Conclusion. 309

Parting advice to young Painters with respect to their habits, modes of study, &c.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,

Figure from the Sistine Chapel .

Frontispiece.

The Annunciation

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La Disputa del Sacramento

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Resuscitation of the King’s

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Heliodorus

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Poetry, or the Parnassus .

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The School of Athens .

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Cartoon of Pisa .

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The Misfortunes of Job .

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Noah and his Family .

Composition by Orcagna, and

the Imitation

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St. Peter Martyr

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Descent from the Cross .

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St. Michael ....

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Battle of the Amazons .

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Rembrandt (photograph)

Human Life

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Itinerant Fiddler

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The Satin Gown

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Cozens, View in Italy

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Girtin, Lake Scene .

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Group from the Sistine Chapel .

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The Surrender of Breda

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The Anatomist Tulp .

HANDBOOK

FOR

YOUNG PAINTERS.

Section I. On The Imitation Of Nature, And On Style

In comparing Art with Nature, we are as apt to underrate it, as in considering it by itself we are sometimes disposed to elevate it unduly ; and both errors stand in the way of our improvement.

Though, in a comprehensive sense, it be true that “all Nature is hut Art,” and “all Chance direction;” and though it he of great importance that we should keep these truths always in mind, yet that Painting cannot rival the beauties of Nature is not a defect, for it can only be defective where it fails to do what is possible ; and how far the painter may do something else, and something valuable, and something which Nature herself refuses to do, though she teaches it, I shall endeavour to show.

The axiom that the most perfect Art is that in which the Art is most concealed, is directed, I apprehend, against an ostentatious display of the means by which

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ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE.

the end is accomplished, and does not imply that we are to be cheated into a belief of the artist having effected his purpose by a happy chance, or by such extraordinary gifts as have rendered study and pains unnecessary. On the contrary, we always appreciate and therefore enjoy a picture the more in proportion as we discover ourselves, or are shown by others, the why and the wherefore of its excellences, and much of the pleasure it gives us depends on the intellectual employment it affords. Nor does the concealment of Art mean concealment of imitation, or that what it gives is to pass on us for a reality, for then we should immediately want what we never miss in a fine picture, motion and sound. Both of these it is a great triumph of the painter to suggest. Rubens was pre-eminently successful in giving action to his figures, and Hogarth’s “Enraged Musician,” as Fielding says, “is deafening to look at.” But could the eye be deceived, from that moment the figures of Rubens would stand still, and the din of Hogarth’s groups would cease; and, indeed, such Art would be unnatural, because, unless in the representation of still life, it would have the motionless and speechless appearance of wax-w7ork — the most lifelike, in externals, of all the modes of imitating Nature, and for that very reason the most lifeless.

These remarks are so obvious that they may seem superfluous. I may be told that deception is not attempted, and is, indeed, generally impossible, from the circumstances of pictures being bounded by their frames, and the diminutive scale on which natural objects are most often represented. Still, as this lowest kind

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE.

of truth is sometimes the aim of the painter, though it has never been the aim of a true artist, and as I have often heard it highly applauded when to a certain degree successful, and even by painters, it seems to me of importance that we should clearly understand that the illusion of Art is quite another thing from deception of the eye, and that such deception would in fact destroy illusion.

Children and childish minds are attracted by wonders. I remember when I was a boy seeing a picture that was placed flat against the wall at the end of a long room, representing an open door through which a flight of stairs receded, with the figure of a man of the size of life painted as if walking up them. At the base of the canvass a real step projected on the floor of the room, and at a certain distance it was impossible to distinguish between the painted stairs and the wooden one ; indeed, so complete was the deception, that on first seeing it my only wonder was at the man’s remaining stationary. This picture seemed to me perfection, and at that time I should probably have looked on the finest Titian with comparative indifference. It was, however, the work of a very ordinary painter, and I have since learned that deception to the degree in which it was here, with the assistance of a little ingenious management, attained, depends merely on carefully copying some of the most obvious appearances of Nature ; and that her most charming qualities — all that the greatest artists have courted in her throughout their lives with success infinitely short of their hopes — may be omitted without rendering the representation less delusive.

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ON THE IMITATION OF NATUKE.

I would ask whether others have not felt what has always occurred to me in looking at a Panorama, — that exactly in the degree in which the eye is deceived the stillness of the figures and the silence of the place produces a strange and somewhat unpleasant effect, and the more so if the subject places us in a city. We then want the hum of population, and the din of carriages, and the few voices heard in the room have an unnatural sound, as not harmonizing with the scene. Even in the Diorama, where the light and shade is varied by movement and the water is made to ripple, there are still many wants to be supplied, and these are indeed suggested the more in proportion to the attainment of deception. I have no wish to disparage the ingenuity of such contrivances ; the Panorama is an admirable mode of conveying much information which by no other means can so well be given. My object is merely to ascertain how it is that there is always something unsatisfactory — to speak from my own feelings, I should say unpleasant — in all Art of every kind of which deception is an object. We do not like to be cheated even in a harmless way: the wonder excited by the tricks of a juggler is not without a mixture of humiliation ; the powers of our minds, instead of being exercised, are for the time suspended, and even our senses cease to serve us ; while the Art of a great actor delights us, not only as an imitation of Nature, but because our imaginations are excited, our understandings appealed to, and we have a secret gratification in the consciousness of the feelings he arouses within us; and these are also among the many

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE.

sources of pleasure we derive from the works of a great painter. “ I feel,” said Beynolds, speaking of Michael Angelo, “ a self-congratulation in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he intended to excite.” But neither at the theatre nor before a picture should we feel in this way were we for a moment to mistake what we see for reality.

“ Imitation,” says Coleridge, is the mesothesis of likeness and difference. The difference is as essential to it as the likeness; for without the difference it would be copy or fac-simile. But to borrow a term from astronomy, it is a librating mesothesis; for it may verge more to likeness, as in painting, or more to difference, as in sculpture.”

It is of the utmost importance, however, that wre should come to a clear understanding of this difference between Painting and Nature, as from mistakes on this point have proceeded all the varieties of mannerism that have in every age sprung up like weeds in the fair domain of Art, and not seldom with their rank luxuriance over-run its whole extent. Every fault arising from indolence, from inability, or from conceit, may he sheltered, as it has been sheltered, under the principle that the object of Painting is not to deceive. Defective colouring, mannered forms, impudent and tasteless bravura of execution, as well as servile imitation of that which is very easy to copy, the immaturity of early Art.

Perhaps the best safeguard against mistake on this subject will be found in our perception that the Art of Painting is in no respect , excepting in what relates to

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE.

its mechanical instruments, a human invention, but the result solely of the discovery and application of those laws by which Nature addresses herself to the mind and heart through the eye; and that there is nothing really excellent in Art, that is not strictly the consequence of the artist’s obedience to the laws of Nature.

Now deception, excepting with extraneous assistance, or hut for a moment, is impossible. One instant’s close examination of a wax figure which we have just before believed to be alive, shows us to what an infinite distance it is removed from Nature. And yet such is the effect of its approach to life, that even after we know what it is, we feel as much as ever its w7ant of the power to move, and which we never miss in a fine statue. In all I have said, therefore, of deception of the eye, I have only meant deception for a moment or at a distance ; for Nature allows of no substitutes that will bear continued or close inspection. And yet while she has placed this beyond the reach of human hands, she has entrusted Art with a peculiar mission — the power, as I have said, of doing something for the world which she herself refuses to do. How many of her most exquisite forms, graces, and movements — how many of her most beautiful combinations of colours, of lights, and shadows that are — “ instant seen and instant gone ” — does she not permit the painter to transfix for the delight of ages ! And, indeed, he is entrusted with another, and a higher task, that of leading us to a perception of many of her latent beauties, and of many of her appearances which the unassisted eye might not recognise as beauties, but for the direction of the pencil. These considerations alone are enough to show that Art has a place assigned to it in the great scheme of beneficence by which man is allowed to be the instrument of adding not only to his sources of innocent enjoyment, but of instruction. “ Painting and sculpture,” says Richardson, “ are not necessary to our being; brutes and savage men subsist without them ; but to our happiness as rational creatures they are absolutely so.”

From what I have said, it is evident I must be at issue with Lessing, when he tells us that “ all appearances of Nature which, in their actual state, are but of an instant’s duration — all such appearances, be they agreeable or otherwise, acquire through the prolonged existence conferred on them by Art, a character so contrary to Nature, that at every successive view we take of them their expression becomes weaker, till at length we turn from the contemplation in weariness and disgust. La Mettrie, who had his portrait painted and engraved in the character of Democritus, laughs only on the first view. Look at him again, and the philosopher is converted into a buffoon, and his laugh into a grimace. Thus it is likewise with the expression of pain. The agony which is so great as to extort a shriek, either soon abates in violence or it must destroy the unhappy sufferer. Where torture so far overcomes the enduring fortitude of a man’s nature as to make him scream, it is never for any continued space of time ; and thus, the apparent perpetuity expressed in the representation

ON THE IMITATION OF NATURE.

of Art would only serve to give to his screams the effect of womanish weakness or childish impatience.”

Lessing argues in this way to show why the sculptor of the Laocoon has not chosen to make the victim bellow with pain, as in the description of his sufferings by Virgil. The attitudes of the entire group, however, being but of “ an instant’s duration,” are, on the principle urged by the critic against a stronger expression, as inadmissible as if the sculptor had made the victim appear to shriek with anguish. Then as to the unpleasant effect of a laughing portrait, we all feel how disagreeable an unmeaning laugh is in nature ; and in a portrait, unconnected with story or incident, it becomes unmeaning or worse, if, as probably in the instance alluded to by Lessing, the face looks at us. He was, in fact, blinded by his theory, to the privilege w7hich Art, when it does not pretend to be Nature, possesses of perpetuating motion and expression ; — a power as undeniable as it is inexplicable. At the bidding of Michael Angelo, life bursts from the grave, and its tenants rise, fall, or struggle with the fiends who drag them down ; and on the canvasses of Wilson or Gaspar Poussin clouds open ; lightnings flash, and the limbs of trees are shivered, — and we recur again and again to the contemplation of images of terror and grandeur that have impressed, as they do us, past venerations, and shall still impress those to come; and so far from “ their expression becoming,” as Lessing says, “ weaker at every successive view,” it grows in reality stronger and stronger ; for it is among the most remarkable qualities of every work of true genius, that it gains