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of nature; nor from my present knowledge can I name work on canvas in which he has carried out the dignity of ched conceptions, or exhibited any perceptiveness of new

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ot so Rubens, who perhaps furnishes us with the first ines of complete unconventional unaffected landscape. His nent is healthy, manly, and rational, not very affectionate, ten condescending to minute and multitudinous detail; s as far as it goes pure, forcible, and refreshing, consumin composition, and marvellous in color. In the Pitti e, the best of its two Rubens landscapes has been placed a characteristic and highly-finished Titian, the marriage of atherine. But for the grandeur of line and solemn feeling e flock of sheep, and the figures of the latter work, I doubt its glow and depth of tone could support its overcharged and blue against the open breezy sunshine of the Fleming. not mean to rank the art of Rubens with that of Titian, but always to be remembered that Titian hardly ever paints sun, but a certain opalescent twilight which has as much of an emotion as of imitative truth in it,—

"The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality:"

hat art of this kind must always be liable to some appearof failure when compared with a less pathetic statement of

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is to be noted, however, that the licenses taken by Rubens rticular instances are as bold as his general statements are In the landscape just instanced the horizon is an ue line; in the Sunset of our own gallery many of the ows fall at right angles to the light; and in a picture in Dulwich gallery a rainbow is seen by the spectator at the side

e sun.

bese bold and frank licenses are not to be considered as eting from the rank of the painter; they are usually acteristic of those minds whose grasp of nature is so certain extensive as to enable them fearlessly to sacrifice a truth of ality to a truth of feeling. Yet the young artist must keep

in mind that the painter's greatness consists not in his taking, but in his atoning for them.

$16. The lower Dutch schools.

Among the professed landscapists of the Dutch school, we find much dexterous imitation of certain kinds of nature, remarkable usually for its persevering rejection of whatever is great, valuable, or affecting in the object studied. Where, however, they show real desire to paint what they saw as far as they saw it, there is of course much in them that is instructive, as in Cuyp and in the etching of Waterloo, which have even very sweet and genuine feeling; and so in some of their architectural painters. But the object of the great body of them is merely to display manual dexterities of one kind or another, and their effect on the public mind is so totally for evil, that though I do not deny the advantage an artist of real judgment may derive from the study of some of them, I conceive the best patronage that any monarch could possibly bestow upon the arts, would be to collect the whole body of them into a grand gallery and burn it to the ground.

Passing to the English school, we find a con§ 17. English school, Wilson necting link between them and the Italians formand Gainsborough. ed by Richard Wilson. Had this artist studied under favorable circumstances, there is evidence of his having possessed power enough to produce an original picture; but, corrupted by study of the Poussins, and gathering his materials chiefly in their field, the district about Rome-a district especially unfavorable, as exhibiting no pure or healthy nature, but a diseased and overgrown Flora among half-developed volcanic rocks, loose calcareous concretions, and mouldering wrecks of buildings-and whose spirit, I conceive, to be especially opposed to the natural tone of the English mind, his originality was altogether overpowered, and, though he paints in a manly way and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of color, as in the small and very precious picture belonging to Mr. Rogers, and sometimes manifests some freshness of feeling, as in the Villa of Maecenas of our National Gallery, yet his pictures are in general mere diluted adaptations from Poussin and Salvator, without the dignity of the one or the fire of the other.

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or any other school. The greatest colorist since Rubens, the last, I think, of legitimate colorists; that is to say, of e who were fully acquainted with the power of their matepure in his English feeling, profound in his seriousness, eful in his gayety, there are nevertheless certain deductions - made from his worthiness which yet I dread to make, bee my knowledge of his landscape works is not extensive gh to justify me in speaking of them decisively ;. but this is e noted of all that I know, that they are rather motives of ng and color than earnest studies; that their execution is me degree mannered, and always hasty; that they are altoer wanting in the affectionate detail of which I have already and that their color is in some measure dependent on a minous brown and conventional green which have more of nce than of truth in them. These faults may be sufficiently d in the magnificent picture presented by him to the Royal lemy, and tested by a comparison of it with the Turner (Llan,) in the same room. Nothing can be more attractively inous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough, nothmore bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and the asion of the broad distant light upon them, where a vulgar st would have thrown them into dark contrast. But it will ound that the light of the distance is brought out by a vioexaggeration of the gloom in the valley; that the forms of green trees which bear the chief light are careless and Tective; that the markings of the crags are equally hasty; that no object in the foreground has realization enough to ble the eye to rest upon it. The Turner, a much feebler pice in its first impression, and altogether inferior in the qualand value of its individual hues, will yet be found in the more forcible, because unexaggerated; its gloom is modte and aerial, its light deep in tone, its color entirely uncontional, and the forms of its rocks studied with the most oted care. With Gainsborough terminates the series of nters connected with the elder schools. By whom, among se yet living or lately lost, the impulse was first given to modlandscape, I attempt not to decide. Such questions are her invidious than interesting; the particular tone or direcn of any school seems to me always to have resulted rather

from certain phases of national character, limited to particular periods, than from individual teaching; and, especially among moderns, what has been good in each master has been commonly original.

§18. Constable, Calcott.

I have already alluded to the simplicity and earnestness of the mind of Constable; to its vigorous rupture with school laws, and to its unfortunate error on the opposite side. Unteachableness seems to have been a main feature of his character, and there is corresponding want of veneration in the way he approaches nature herself. His early education and associations were also against him; they induced in him a morbid preference of subjects of a low order. I have never seen any work of his in which there were any signs of his being able to draw, and hence even the most necessary details are painted by him inefficiently. His works are also eminently wanting both in rest and refinement, and Fuseli's jesting compliment is too true; for the showery weather in which the artist. delights, misses alike the majesty of storm and the loveliness of calm weather it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. There is strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure in sunbeams but when piercing painfully through clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken by the wind, nor in light itself but when flickering, glistening, restless, and feeble. Yet, with all these deductions, his works are to be deeply respected as thoroughly original, thoroughly honest, free from affectation, manly in manner, frequently successful in cool color, and especially realizing certain motives of English scenery with perhaps as much affection as such scenery, unless when regarded through media of feeling derived from higher sources, is calculated to inspire.

On the works of Calcott, high as his reputation stands, I should look with far less respect; I see not any preference or affection in the artist; there is no tendency in him with which we can sympathize, nor does there appear any sign of aspiration, effort, or enjoyment in any one of his works. He appears to have completed them methodically, to have been content with them when completed, to have thought them good, legitimate, regular pictures; perhaps in some respects better than nature. He painted everything tolerably, and nothing excellently; he

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given us no gift, struck for us no light, and though he has uced one or two valuable works, of which the finest I know he Marine in the possession of Sir J. Swinburne, they will, lieve, in future have no place among those considered esentative of the English school.

Peculiar

Throughout the range of elder art it will be ncy of re remembered we have found no instance of the landscape. faithful painting of mountain scenery, except in a d background of Masaccio's nothing more than rocky mences, undulating hills, or fantastic crags, and even these ted altogether under typical forms. The more specific study mountains seems to have, coincided with the most dexterous etice of water-color; but it admits of doubt whether the ce of subject has been directed by the vehicle, or whether, rather think, the tendency of national feeling has been foled in the use of the most appropriate means. Something is e attributed to the increased demand for slighter works of and much to the sense of the quality of objects now called uresque, which appears to be exclusively of modern origin. mn what feeling the character of middle-age architecture costume arose, or with what kind of affection their forms e regarded by the inventors, I am utterly unable to guess; of this I think we may be assured, that the natural instinct child-like wisdom of those days were altogether different n the modern feeling, which appears to have taken its origin he absence of such objects, and to be based rather on the -ngeness of their occurrence than on any real affection for m; and which is certainly so shallow and ineffective as to be antly and always sacrificed by the majority to fashion, com, or economy. Yet I trust that there is a healthy though ole love of nature mingled with it, nature pure, separate, eitous, which is also peculiar to the moderns; and as signs his feeling, or ministers to it, I look with veneration upon ny works which, in a technical point of view, are of minor

ortance.

G. Robson, D.

I have been myself indebted for much teaching False use of and more delight to those of the late G. Robson. term "style." Weaknesses there are in them manifold, much bad wing, much forced color, much over finish, little of what

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