The life and writings of Henry Fuseli Volume II Part 4

[51] Salvator Rosa, surnamed Salvatoriello, died at Rome 1673, aged 59.

[52] Of the portraits which Raphael in fresco scattered over the compositions of the Vatican, we shall find an opportunity to speak. But in oil the real style of portrait began at Venice with Giorgione, flourished in Sebastian del Piombo, and was carried to perfection by t.i.tiano, who filled the ma.s.ses of the first without entangling himself in the minute details of the second. Tintoretto, Ba.s.san, and Paolo of Verona, followed the principle of t.i.tiano. After these, it migrated from Italy to reside with the Spaniard Diego Velasquez; from whom Rubens and Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France, and England, with unequal success. France seized less on the delicacy than on the affectation of Vandyck, and soon turned the art of representing men and women into a mere remembrancer of fashions and airs. England had possessed Holbein, but it was reserved for the German Lely, and his successor Kneller, to lay the foundation of a manner, which, by pretending to unite portrait with history, gave a retrograde direction for near a century to both. A mob of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls, ruffled Endymions, humble Junos, withered Hebes, surly Allegroes, and smirking Pensierosas, usurped the place of truth, propriety and character. Even the lamented powers of the greatest painter whom this country and perhaps our age produced, long vainly struggled, and scarcely in the eve of life succeeded to emanc.i.p.ate us from this dastard taste.

[53] Francesco Mazzuoli, called Il Parmegiano, died at Casal Maggiore in 1540, at the age of 36. The magnificent picture of the St. John, we speak of, was begun by order of the Lady Maria Bufalina, and destined for the church of St. Salvadore del Lauro at Citta di Castello. It probably never received the last hand of the master, who fled from Rome, where he painted it, at the sacking of that city, under Charles Bourbon, in 1527; it remained in the refectory of the convent della Pace for several years, was carried to Citta di Castello by Messer Giulio Bufalini, and is now in England. The Moses, a figure in Fresco at Parma, together with Raphael's figure of G.o.d in the vision of Ezekiel, is said, by Mr. Mason, to have furnished Gray with the head and action of his bard: if that was the case, he would have done well to acquaint us with the poet's method of making 'Placidis coire immitia.'

[54] Lodovico Carracci died at Bologna 1619, aged 64.

[55] Agostino Carracci died at Parma in 1602, at the age of 44. His is the St. Girolamo in the Certosa, near Bologna; his, the Thetis with the nereids, cupids, and tritons, in the gallery of the palace Farnese. Why, as an engraver, he should have wasted his powers on the large plate from the Crucifixion, painted by Tintoretto, in the hospitio of the school of St. Rocco, a picture, of which he could not express the tone, its greatest merit, is not easily unriddled. Annibale Carracci died at Rome in 1609, at the age of 49.

[56] SONNET OF AGOSTINO CARRACCI.

Chi farsi un buon Pittor cerca, e desia, Il disegno di Roma habbia alla mano, La mossa coll' ombrar Veneziano, E il degno colorir di Lombardia,

Di Michel' Angiol la terribil via, Il vero natural di Tiziano, Del Correggio lo stil puro, e sovrano, E di un Rafel la giusta simetria.

Del Tibaldi il decoro, e il fondamento, Del dotto Primaticcio l'inventare, E un po di gratia del Parmigianino.

Ma senza tanti studi, e tanto stento, Si ponga l'opre solo ad imitare, Che qui lasciocci il nostro Niccolino.

Malvasia, author of the _Felsina Pittrice_, has made this sonnet the text to his drowsy rhapsody on the frescoes of Lodovico Carracci and some of his scholars, in the cloisters of St. Michele in Bosco, by Bologna. He circ.u.mscribes the '_Mossa Veneziana_,' of the sonnet, by '_Quel strepitoso motivo e quel divincolamento_' peculiar to Tintoretto.

[57] Guido Reni died in 1642, aged 68. Giov. Lanfranco died at Naples in 1647, aged 66. Franc. Albani died in 1660, aged 82. Domenico Zampieri, called Il Domenichino, died in 1641, aged 60. Franc. Barbieri of Cento, called Il Guercino, from a cast in his eye, died in 1667, aged 76.

[58] Pietro Berretini, of Cortona, the painter of the ceiling in the Barberini hall, and of the gallery in the lesser Pamphili palace, the vernal suavity of whose fresco tints no pencil ever equalled, died at Rome in 1669, aged 73. Luca Giordano, nicknamed Fa-presto, or Dispatch, from the rapidity of his execution, the greatest machinist of his time, died in 1705, aged 76.

[59] We are informed by the Editor of the Latin translation of Albert Durer's book, on the symmetry of the parts of the human frame, (Parisiis, in officina Caroli Perier in vico Bellovaco, sub Bellerophonte, 1557, fol.) that, during Albert's stay at Venice, where he resided for a short time, to procure redress from the Signoria for the forgery of Marc Antonio, he became familiar with Giovanni Bellini: and that Andrea Mantegna, who had heard of his arrival in Italy, and had conceived a high opinion of his execution and fertility, sent him a message of invitation to Mantoua, for the express purpose of giving him an idea of that form of which he himself had obtained a glimpse from the contemplation of the antique. Andrea was then ill, and expired before Albert, who immediately prepared to set out for Mantoua, could profit by his instructions. This disappointment, says my author, Albert never ceased to lament during his life. How fit the Mantouan was to instruct the German, is not the question here; but Albert's regret seems to prove that he felt a want which his model could not supply; and that he had too just an idea of the importance of the art to be proud of dexterity of finger or facility of execution, when employed on objects essentially defective or comparatively trifling. The following personal account of Albert deserves to be given in the Latin Editor's own words: 'E Pannonia oriundum accepimus--Erat caput argutum, oculi micantes, nasus honestus et quem Greci ?et??????? vocant; proceriusculum collum, pectus amplum, castigatus venter, femora nervosa, crura stabilia: sed digitis nihil dixisses vidisse elegantius.'

Albert Durer was the scholar of Martin Schon and Michael Wolgemuth, and died at Nuremberg in 1528, aged 57.

[60] Lucas Jacob, called Lucas of Leyden, and by the Italians, Luca d'Ollanda, died at Leyden in 1533.

[61] Peter Paul Rubens, of Cologne, the disciple of Adam Van Ort and Otho Venius, died at or near Antwerp in 1641, aged 63.

See the admirable character given of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, annexed to his journey to Flanders, vol. ii. of his Works.

[62] Anthony Vandyck died in London, 1641, at the age of 42.--The poetic conception of Abraham Diepenbeck may be estimated from the Temple des Muses of Mr. de Marolles; re-edited but not improved by Bernard Picart.

[63] Rembrandt died, at Amsterdam ? in 1674, aged 68.

[64] Hans Holbein, of Basle, died in London, 1544, at the age of 46.

Peter Francis Mola, the scholar of Giuseppe d'Arpino and Franc. Albani, was born at the village of Coldre, of the diocese of Balerna, in the bailliage of Mendrisio, in 1621, and died at Rome in 1666.

[65] Eustache le Sueur, bred under Simon Vouet, died at Paris in 1655, at the age of 88. His fellow-scholar and overbearing rival, Charles le Brun, died in 1690, aged 71.

[66] For the best account of Spanish art, see Lettera di A. R. Mengs a Don Antonio Ponz. Opere di Mengs, vol. ii. Mengs was born at Ausig, in Bohemia, in 1728, and died at Rome in 1779.

THIRD LECTURE.

INVENTION.

PART I.

----?? ?' ?? ?? FT?????S, ??????? ??????

???????, ???? ?? ???S ???????; ?? ?? ?' ??????

??????, ???? ??T? ???S ?????S, ?S?? ???OS??

?????S?? ??F?S??S??, ??OS ?T???S?? ???S?O?.

Homer. Odyss. A. 346.

ARGUMENT.

Introduction. Discrimination of Poetry and Painting. General idea of Invention--its right to select a subject from Nature itself. Visiones--Theon--Agasias. Cartoon of Pisa--Incendio del Borgo. Specific idea of Invention: Epic subjects--Michael Angelo. Dramatic subjects--Raphael. Historic subjects--Poussin, &c. Invention has a right to adopt ideas--examples. Duplicity of subject and moment inadmissible. Transfiguration of Raphael.

THIRD LECTURE.

The brilliant ant.i.thesis ascribed to Simonides, that 'painting is mute poesy and poetry speaking painting,' made, I apprehend, no part of the technic systems of antiquity: for this we may depend on the general practice of its artists, and still more safely on the philosophic discrimination of Plutarch[67], who tells us, that as poetry and painting resemble each other in their uniform address to the senses, for the impression they mean to make on our fancy and by that on our mind, so they differ as essentially in their _materials_ and their _modes_ of application, which are regulated by the diversity of the organs they address, ear and eye. _Successive action_ communicated by sounds, and _time_, are the medium of poetry; _form_ displayed in _s.p.a.ce_, and momentaneous energy, are the element of painting.

As if these premises be true, the distinct representation of continued action is refused to an art which cannot express even in a series of subjects, but by a supposed mental effort in the spectator's mind, the regular succession of their moments, it becomes evident, that instead of attempting to impress us by the indiscriminate usurpation of a principle out of its reach, it ought chiefly to rely for its effect on its great characteristics s.p.a.ce and form, singly or in apposition. In forms alone the idea of existence can be rendered permanent. Sounds die, words perish or become obsolete and obscure, even colours fade, forms alone can neither be extinguished nor misconstrued; by application to their standard alone, description becomes intelligible and distinct. Thus the effectual idea of corporeal beauty can strictly exist only in the plastic arts: for as the notion of beauty arises from the pleasure we feel in the harmonious co-operation of the various parts of some favourite object to one end at once, it implies their immediate co-existence in the ma.s.s they compose; and therefore can be distinctly perceived and conveyed to the mind by the eye alone: hence the representation of form in figure is the _physical_ element of the Art.

But as bodies exist in time as well as in s.p.a.ce; as the pleasure arising from the mere symmetry of an object is as transient as it is immediate; as harmony of parts, if the body be the agent of an internal power, depends for its proof on their application, it follows, that the exclusive exhibition of inert and unemployed form, would be a mistake of the medium for the end, and that character or action is required to make it an interesting object of imitation. And this is the _moral_ element of the art.

Those important moments then which exhibit the united exertion of form and character in a single object or in partic.i.p.ation with collateral beings, _at once_, and which with equal rapidity and pregnancy give us a glimpse of the past and lead our eye to what follows, furnish the true materials of those technic powers, that select, direct, and fix the objects of imitation to their centre.

The most eminent of these, by the explicit acknowledgment of all ages, and the silent testimony of every breast, is _invention_. He whose eye athwart the outward crust of the rock penetrates into the composition of its materials, and discovers a gold mine, is surely superior to him who afterwards adapts the metal for use. Colombo, when he from astronomic and physical inductions concluded to the existence of land in the opposite hemisphere, was surely superior to Amerigo Vespucci who took possession of its continent; and when Newton improving accident by meditation, discovered and established the laws of attraction, the projectile and centrifuge qualities of the system, he gave the clue to all who after him applied it to the various branches of philosophy, and was in fact the author of all the benefits accruing from their application to society. Homer, when he means to give the princ.i.p.al feature of man, calls him inventor (a?f?st??).

From what we have said it is clear that the term _invention_ never ought to be so far misconstrued as to be confounded with that of _creation_, incompatible with our notions of limited being, an idea of pure astonishment, and admissible only when we mention Omnipotence: to _invent_ is to find: to find something, presupposes its existence somewhere, implicitly or explicitly, scattered or in a ma.s.s: nor should I have presumed to say so much on a word of a meaning so plain, had it not been, and were it not daily confounded, and by fashionable authorities too, with the term creation.

Form, in its widest meaning, the visible universe that envelopes our senses, and its counterpart the invisible one that agitates our mind with visions bred on sense by fancy, are the element and the realm of invention; it discovers, selects, combines the _possible_, the _probable_, the _known_, in a mode that strikes with an air of truth and novelty, at once. Possible strictly means an effect derived from a cause, a body composed of materials, a coalition of forms, whose union or co-agency imply in themselves no absurdity, no contradiction: applied to our art, it takes a wider lat.i.tude; it means the representation of effects derived from causes, or forms compounded from materials, heterogeneous and incompatible among themselves, but rendered so plausible to our senses, that the transition of one part to another seems to be accounted for by an air of organization, and the eye glides imperceptibly or with satisfaction from one to the other and over the whole: that this was the condition on which, and the limits within which alone the ancients permitted invention to represent what was strictly speaking impossible, we may with plausibility surmise from the picture of Zeuxis, described by Lucian in the memoir to which he has prefixed that painter's name, who was probably one of the first adventurers in this species of imagery.--Zeuxis had painted a family of centaurs; the dam a beautiful female to the middle, with the lower parts gradually sliding into the most exquisite forms of a young Thessalian mare, half reclined in playful repose and gently pawing the velvet ground, offered her human nipple to one infant centaur, whilst another greedily sucked the ferine udder below, but both with their eyes turned up to a lion-whelp held over them by the male centaur their father, rising above the hillock on which the female reclined, a grim feature, but whose ferocity was somewhat tempered by a smile.

The scenery, the colour, the chiaroscuro, the finish of the whole was no doubt equal to the style and the conception. This picture the artist exhibited, expecting that justice from the penetration of the public which the genius deserved that taught him to give plausibility to a compound of heterogeneous forms, to inspire them with suitable soul, and to imitate the laws of existence: he was mistaken. The novelty of the conceit eclipsed the art that had embodied it, the artist was absorbed in his subject, and the unbounded praise bestowed, was that of idle restless curiosity, gratified. Sick of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, of demiG.o.ds and pure human combinations, the Athenians panted only for what was new.

The artist, as haughty as irritable, ordered his picture to be withdrawn; "Cover it, Micchio," said he to his attendant, "cover it and carry it home, for this mob stick only to the clay of our art."--Such were the limits set to invention by the ancients; secure within these, it defied the ridicule thrown on that grotesque conglutination which Horace exposes; guarded by these, their mythology scattered its metamorphoses, made every element its tributary, and transmitted the privilege to us, on equal conditions: their Scylla and the Portress of h.e.l.l, their daemons and our spectres, the shade of Patroclus and the ghost of Hamlet, their naiads, nymphs, and oreads, and our sylphs, gnomes, and fairies, their furies and our witches, differ less in essence, than in local, temporary, social modifications: their common origin was fancy, operating on the materials of nature, a.s.sisted by legendary tradition and the curiosity implanted in us of diving into the invisible;[68] and they are suffered or invited to mix with or superintend real agency, in proportion of the a.n.a.logy which we discover between them and ourselves. Pindar praises Homer less for that 'winged power' which whirls incident on incident with such rapidity, that absorbed by the whole, and drawn from the impossibility of single parts, we swallow a tale too gross to be believed in a dream; than for the greater power by which he contrived to connect his imaginary creation with the realities of nature and human pa.s.sions;[69] without this the fiction of the poet and the painter will leave us stupified rather by its insolence, than impressed by its power, it will be considered only as a superior kind of legerdemain, an exertion of ingenuity to no adequate end.

Before we proceed to the process and the methods of invention, it is not superfluous to advert to a question which has often been made, and by some has been answered in the negative; _whether it be within the artist's province or not, to find or to combine a subject from himself, without having recourse to tradition or the stores of history and poetry_? Why not, if the subject be within the limits of art and the combinations of nature, though it should have escaped observation?

Shall the immediate avenues of the mind, open to all its observers, from the poet to the novelist, be shut only to the artist? shall he be reduced to receive as alms from them what he has a right to share as common property? a.s.sertions like these, say in other words, that the Laoc.o.o.n owes the impression he makes on us to his name alone, and that if tradition had not told a story and Pliny fixed it to that work, the artist's conception of a father with his sons, surprised and entangled by two serpents within the recesses of a cavern or lonesome dell, was inadmissible and transgressed the laws of invention. I am much mistaken, if, so far from losing its power over us with its traditional sanction, it would not rouse our sympathy more forcibly, and press the subject closer to our breast, were it considered only as the representation of an incident common to humanity. The ancients were so convinced of their right to this disputed prerogative that they a.s.signed it its own cla.s.s, and Theon the Samian is mentioned by Quintilian, whom none will accuse or suspect of confounding the limits of the arts, in his list of primary painters, as owing his celebrity to that intuition into the sudden movements of nature, which the Greeks called fa?tas?a?, the Romans _visiones_, and we might circ.u.mscribe by the phrase of 'unpremeditated conceptions' the re-production of a.s.sociated ideas; he explains what he understood by it in the following pa.s.sage adapted to his own profession, rhetoric.[70] 'We give,' says he, 'the name of visions to what the Greeks call phantasies; that power by which the images of absent things are represented by the mind with the energy of objects moving before our eyes: he who conceives these rightly will be a master of pa.s.sions; his is that well-tempered fancy which can imagine things, voices, acts, as they really exist, a power perhaps in a great measure dependent on our will. For if these images so pursue us when our minds are in a state of rest, or fondly fed by hope, or in a kind of waking dream, that we seem to travel, to sail, to fight, to harangue in public, or to dispose of riches we possess not, and all this with an air of reality, why should we not turn to use this vice of the mind?--Suppose I am to plead the case of a murdered man, why should not every supposable circ.u.mstance of the act float before my eyes? Shall I not see the murderer unawares rush in upon him? in vain he tries to escape--see how pale he turns--hear you not his shrieks, his entreaties? do you not see him flying, struck, falling? will not his blood, his ashy semblance, his groans, his last expiring gasp, seize on my mind?'

Permit me to apply this organ of the orator for one moment to the poet's process: by this radiant recollection of a.s.sociated ideas, the spontaneous ebullitions of nature, selected by observation, treasured by memory, cla.s.sed by sensibility and judgment, Shakspeare became the supreme master of pa.s.sions and the ruler of our hearts: this embodied his Falstaff and his Shylock, Hamlet and Lear, Juliet and Rosalind. By this power he saw Warwick uncover the corpse of Gloster, and swear to his a.s.sa.s.sination and his tugs for life; by this he made Banquo see the weird sisters bubble up from earth, and in their own air vanish; this is the hand that struck upon the bell when Macbeth's drink was ready, and from her chamber pushed his dreaming wife, once more to methodize the murder of her guest.

And this was the power of Theon;[71] such was the unpremeditated conception that inspired him with the idea of that warrior, who in the words of aelian, seemed to embody the terrible graces and the enthusiastic furor of the G.o.d of war. Impetuous he rushed onward to oppose the sudden incursion of enemies; with shield thrown forward, and high brandished falchion, his step as he swept on, seemed to devour the ground: his eye flashed defiance; you fancied to hear his voice, his look denounced perdition and slaughter without mercy. This figure, single and without other accompaniments of war than what the havock of the distance showed, Theon deemed sufficient to answer the impression he intended to make on those whom he had selected to inspect it. He kept it covered, till a trumpet, prepared for the purpose, after a prelude of martial symphonies, at once, by his command, blew with invigorated fierceness a signal of attack--the curtain dropped, the terrific figure appeared to start from the canva.s.s, and irresistibly a.s.sailed the astonished eyes of the a.s.sembly.

To prove the relation of aelian no hyperbolic legend, I need not insist on the magic effect which the union of two sister powers must produce on the senses: of what our art alone and una.s.sisted may perform, the most unequivocal proof exists within these walls; your eyes, your feelings, and your fancy have long antic.i.p.ated it: whose mind has not now recalled that wonder of a figure, the misnamed gladiator of Agasias, a figure, whose tremendous energy embodies every element of motion, whilst its pathetic dignity of character enforces sympathies, which the undisguised ferocity of Theon's warrior in vain solicits. But the same irradiation which showed the soldier to Theon, showed to Agasias the leader: Theon saw the pa.s.sion, Agasias[72] its rule.