TO WORKS OF ART.

From Fraser's Magazine.

The above notices of such a man as ON ESTHETICAL CRITICISM AS APPLIED Southey may be found interesting; nor will they be without practical value if they shall lead young persons of ardent imagination to beware of romantic projects and vagrant As many of our readers may not underhabits of life, and early to betake them- stand the meaning of the word asthetics, selves to a settled calling. What were since it has not been commonly used in Mr. Southey's religious opinions in his this country many years, we shall follow younger days we cannot ascertain. We the good old rule of first defining our term. shall rejoice, if, when an authentic memoir The word is taken from the Greek aloendis, of his life is published, it shall appear that perception. Baumgarten, a professor in in after years he both clearly understood the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and felt practically the infinite value of the first used this term to designate a branch Gospel, as "the power of God unto sal- of philosophy by which to establish corvation." The cloud that shaded his latter rect principles of criticism in relation to days precluded all intercourse with him on the beautiful. Germany, France, Italy, and this or any other subject. Though a pros- lately England, have used the word-not perous man, and as much loved as lauded, always correctly. Criticism on art is at he had not found the world to be a home the lowest ebb in this country, consisting or rest. In a letter which we received of very little more than the application of from him in 1835, adverting to his "Pilgrimage to Waterloo," written twenty years before, he mentions the loss of two of his children, whose names will be familiar to those who recollect that affecting effusion of a father's heart. He also lost his beloved wife; though his latter years were supported by a second partner, a daughter of the venerable Canon Bowles, the poet, who devoted herself to his comfort, and watched over him with affectionate anxiety when his mind had sunk be. neath its long-sustained labors. We will copy, with a slight omission, the letter to which we have alluded:

"Keswick, 2nd Sept. 1835. "Dear Sir, I am much obliged to you for your [naming a little volume of verses, chiefly of a domestic character]. They have only been long enough in my possession for me to glance at their contents in cutting open the leaves; but I see enough to perceive that the book will be often in my hands.

"That family picture which pleased you in 1815-which it was hoped would please such as you-is to me the most mournful of all my poems. The studious boy,' who welcomed his father's return so joyfully, was laid in his grave before the book was published; and my sweet Isabel' was laid beside him in the fourteenth year of her age. It pleased God to give me another son after all likelihood of such an event had ceased. He is now sixteen, and by God's mercy promises to be all that I could wish him. But I know too feelingly the instability of human life and human happiness, not to possess the blessings which are still left me, in fear.

"If any opportunity offers in which I can give
your little volume that sort of shove which
poetry, however light its bulk, requires in these
days to set it in motion, I will not let it pass.
"Farewell, Dear Sir,

And believe me yours very truly,
"ROBERT SOUTHEY."

a catalogue of cant terms and phrases, many of them conveying no definite ideas, and but few of them distinctly understood by those who use them most frequently. The general taste in pictorial art is almost as low as the criticism. There are exceptions, just numerous enough to prove the rule. Italy retains a morbid feeling for what is really high and expressive of the uses of this great department of intellectuality, and vents in apostrophes, phrases redolent of superlatives, and in sickly admiration, her moribund recollections, without producing one worthy supporter of her Medicien days. France shines in affectation, bombast, and supposititious analysis; and her exhibitions give no promise that the fine collection of the Louvre will make any impression on her artists. Germany gives promises both in art and in criticism; and the study of æsthetics among her students has raised the whole standard of her taste-her sculpture and painting. In accordance with their prevailing love for has been carried into a terra incognita. mysticism, the criticism of the Germans The esoterical æsthetical doctrines have been worried by them into depths darker than Erebus, and the bewildered and benighted reader is remorselessly made to follow,

"O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or

and, having recovered in some degree his in this country, by giving to mediocrity the composure, finds that he has been mesmer- highest of titles, that of genius. It may be ized into a mystical verboseness, without questioned whether England ever possesspositive thought, which leaves no recol- ed a painter to whom the title of genius in lection. The principles of art, whether a high and extended sense can justly be æsthetical or practical, are, like the laws given. Many may fairly claim to be placed which rule the mental and physical crea- in the next classes, as possessing considertion, positive and intelligible; but no able talent, great vigor, the aesthetical sense sooner is the simplicity and majesty of uncertainly developed, though at times truth deserted, than the human intellect shining forth with considerable lustre. wanders into mists which are beyond her boundary, and, at best, terminate in a delusive mirage, which seems to promise all we want, and, when followed, recedes, producing nothing but appearances, toil, and disappointment. Notwithstanding, if the chaff be carefully separated, there is much that is sound and useful in German criticism, and which will set an example by which the science may be placed on a firm foundation.

One leading characteristic of genius is its being in advance of the age in which it lives. The degree of advance in any particular line decides the elevation on which it stands, not only in its own age, but in comparison with ages past, and that in which we live, and apply the test. A careful examination of the uses which have, or might have, been made of the principia established by it, will enable us to judge how far by them we had been enabled to Mrs. Jameson, in her preface to the penetrate into the fields of knowledge. translation of Waagen's Essay on the Genius The greatest geniuses have invariably of Rubens, takes Sir Joshua Reynolds to burst through the circumstances influenctask for telling the students of the Royal ing those around them, and concentrated Academy that, by dint of study, labor, per- the whole power of their minds on estabseverance, and certain rules of art, any one lishing those principles which are founded of them might become a great artist. That on the immutable laws which govern the her objection is perfectly sound, there can world. Pythagoras and Euclid are exambe no doubt, because the painter, as well ples. We are, however, ignorant how as the poet, is born with facilities for ac- much the former was indebted to the quiring their art. She correctly designates knowledge of the East, where he had been genius inborn and heaven-bestowed." as a soldier. Their originality was maniNo word has been more abused. Every fest amidst surrounding circumstances rhymster, scraper on the fiddle, ranter on not favorable to the development of truths the stage, caricaturist of nature, and every so vast and sound, that they can only terpuppy who scratches with a pencil, or minate with time. stains canvass with a whirlpool of colors, is, in this utilitarian country, styled a genius, and made, if possible, more conceited, or, if R. A. in such daubing, more stolidly vicious than ever.

Genius is an intellectual faculty, which enables the possessor of it to produce with power, facility, and elegance, what another cannot effect with any degree of study or perseverance. The bent of that genius may be in music, poetry, construction, painting, &c. &c. Education may accelerate, direct in the right course, and enable genius to soar to excellence, but education cannot create the faculty. Genius without instruction, without the aid of adventitious circumstances, never carried an art or a science from its rudiments to its acme. Perfection, like confidence, is a plant of slow growth, and requires constant and careful culture, the seed being good, the soil fertile, with that attention, the fruits will approach perfection. Art, science, and literature, have been virtually insulted

Leaving the examples of science, we will touch on those of art. Though Xerxes burnt Athens, the Greeks were conquerors. Their natural powers of mind and fervid temperament were instigated to action by Pericles. Phidias received the impulse from the circumstances by which he was surrounded and by the galaxy of men who were his contemporaries, some of whom maintained the possibility of man attaining mental and personal perfection. Homer and Eschylus had preceded him, and sculpture was no new art. But as Phidias left, as it were, unnoticed the inflexible superficies, the assumption, not the reality of dignity, the meagre or exaggerated outline and the geometrical draperies of his predecessors substituting the reverse, and applying all his energies and intellectual power to typify the deities of his country, thus applying corporeality to the perfection of ideal and imaginative forms, the effect of his works on his countrymen and on succeeding generations proves that

he was directed by that esoterical and on art and artists in England, has lately æsthetical sentiment, without which art attempted, in an Essay on the Life and Geloses its vitality and is lowered to mechan- nius of Rubens, to establish a sounder ism and correctness of eye. Sculpture quality of criticism, and selected that and painting must go nearly pari passu, painter for his example. Had he selected therefore we may conclude that among him to discuss his claims on esoterical and the contemporary painters some felt and æsthetical principles, without reference to embodied the meaning and moral dignity any external influences, he could not have of their art, as well as the greatest, though chosen more judiciously; but superadding not the first of sculptors. In those great them as principles by which to form his artists and their immediate schools the judgment, the force of his intention is demoral sense stamped on the executive parts stroyed, and criticism on art is made secof their works a perfection of form which ondary to the criticism on the individual. never has and never can be produced where The test should have been twofold,-one that feeling does not exist. referring to the unchangeable esoterical and aesthetical principles; then modifying the deduction by reference to the country, times, and peculiar circumstances, by which the artist was surrounded.

Whatever high imaginings any mind has been capable of, progressive steps have been required to enable that mind to delineate its conceptions; therefore, when schools of art are spoken of, the meaning must be that some individual, leaving the manner and routine of the conceptions of his master, adopts a higher system, showing a more profound esoterical and æsthetical feeling than those who preceded him, and to whom his age and country defer. The heads of the great schools, like the founders of families, are generally the greatest men of all their followers, while those very men excelled both the masters and scholars of the schools in which they were brought up, as Raffaelle da Urbino left Perugino far behind.

Rubens was, without doubt, a great painter; what claims he possesses to the title of a great aesthetical artist must be determined by his works. No man was ever less influenced by the circumstances which surrounded him than Rubens. All the painters who had preceded him, all contemporaries were passed by him, not without notice but without borrowing from them. He remained eight years in Italy, and studied at Rome and elsewhere the remnants of ancient art and the works of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Titian, &c., and never showed himself to be indebted even It is unquestionably an act of justice to to a fragment, and left that country withthe individual to allow weight to the in- out imbibing any of the refinements in fluence of the character of the age in feeling, the elevation of sentiment, or the which he lived, and of the peculiar cir-ideal beauty to be found in their works. cumstances by which he was surrounded; The state of neither his native nor any other but we much doubt the propriety of judg-country seemed to influence him; his ining of the artist, as an artist, by any rules dividual characteristics of mind and tembut those which are universal and funda- perament were from first to last stamped mental. The approximation to esoterical on his works, even a superior education and æsthetical delineation of the subject, did not modify them. He was incapable taken in its deepest, highest, and most ex- of copying the works of other masters tended sense, must ever be the test by which he admired, and translated the heads which to appreciate a work of art. We and characters of Leonardo da Vinci into do not refer to those inanities, vulgarities, Flemish. The characteristics of Rubens affectations, and feeble parodies of beau- affording the illustration required, we shall tiful nature, which constitute the mass of not put ourselves under any obligation to pictorial merchandise or the coverings of Dr. Waagen, whose estimate is a sad jumble our Academy walls. The only sound say- of truth and extraneous twaddle, but offer ing of that Micromegas Louis XIV. on see- our own. The leading characteristic of ing his palace-walls disgraced by some of the mind of Rubens was general power and them was, "Otes moi ces mágots là." No capacity. He attained superiority in whatexcellence in the mechanical part of a pic-ever he attempted. He was a painter, ture can compensate for ces magots là; courtier, diplomatist, linguist, generally there are some in our National Gallery informed, conscious of his capability, and better suited to a brothel than to instruct self-confident. Common sense kept the the people in the real uses of art to a na-reins of those great qualities well in hand. His imagination was powerful, but not reDr. Waagen, well known for his volumes fined; the faculty of invention ready, with

tion.

great facility of resource, supported by a sanguine and energetic temperament,calling into action affectionate and generous feelings. His temper was cheerful and buoyant, but the esoterical sense for the elevated, the beautiful, the intense in sentiment, was comparatively weak.

Thus we see conscious power stamped on all his works, and great daring, even to delineating "The Last Judgment," but all characterized by deficiency in esoterical and æsthetical feeling, and, consequently, wanting in that beauty of form and feature which can emanate only from it. In a few instances, like angels' visits, seldom and far between, he has soared into the regions of elevated sentiment and portrayed it;* but his nature being unable to sustain him in such an ethereal atmosphere, he returned to his natural sphere, not quickened by the hallowed fire which bore him there to try and retain the lofty station he had won. Rubens can never be considered as standing in the highest class. Raffaelle was an esoterical, æsthetical, intellectual, reflective painter, who spiritualized his art; Rubens, possessing vigor as yet unparalleled, dragged down with unsparing hand art to his own earthly conceptions, and revelled on a throne

At other times he seemed delighted to

"Welcome joy and feast, Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance and jollity."-Comus. When called on to exercise his ingenuity in allegorical and emblematical composi tions he fails, either producing parodies so devoid of sense, or containing such a rabble rout of personifications male and female, young and old, some in a state of nudity, others connected with them in rich and stiff brocades, ruffs, or armor, as to excite sometimes laughter, sometimes pity. The allegory, so called, in Whitehall, defies all explanation, and the spectator gazes on the strange assemblage wondering who the ladies are embracing, who those are, holding crowns over a youthful prince, what all the gods and goddesses of the heathen mythology are about, why Temperance tramples on Rapaciousness, what Hercules aims at kneeling on a snake-headed lady, what naked person Minerva is above, and what she intends to do to it. Most of these miscalled allegories are melodramatic jumbles, and are to be tolerated only for the excellence of the execution. The mind of Rubens was not sufficiently quiescent and plastic to receive impressions, but so vigorous as to implant his own undisciplined and inexhaustible mental population on the canvass, showing beyond dispute that his classical education and his eight years' companionship with the refinements of the art of ancient Greece and modern Italy had only been admired with the eye, but had made no impression on the mind. Notwithstanding he wrote a dissertation * The following criticism was given by Madame on the use of the study of ancient art, he de Humboldt to Dr. Waagen:-"From this general never improved either his outline or drawcriticism we may except the picture in the Capitolo ing. The statues of the Grecian sculptors Prioral of the Escurial, in which the Virgin is re- never led him to combine elegance with presented as standing on the globe and trampling force and activity in his manly forms, nor on a serpent, which is writhing beneath her feet. The Virgin is a tall, slender, and dignified figure; grace, lightness, and loveliness, in his delia heavenly crown, with the rays of glory, just neations of female beauties; to the last his touches her head; she looks like the queen of heroes, heroines, gods, and goddesses, heaven, and inspires at once veneration and awe. were of the truest Flemish breed. The Two angels, most lovely infant forms, stand on the general contour of his mental manifestaclouds close to her side, the one holding a palm, tions was eminently dramatic, ranging from the other a wreath of laurel. The expression in

"Which far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." Even from that throne he too often descended,

To bestial gods."

"Bowing lowly down

the countenance of the Virgin is that of adoration the truly tragic, through the theatrical, to and gratitude; there is something unearthly and the melodramatic and the whimsical. Alinspired in the soul which looks out from her eyes; garotti thus expresses his estimate of him

her dress falls from her waist in rich folds, and a white veil covers her bosom. This picture is so beautiful, in such noble keeping, and so free from that disagreeable voluptuousness which characterizes Rubens's females in general, that it can be contemplated and dwelt on with delight, although hanging on the wall with a Raffaelle and a Guido; while it possesses all the advantages which belongs so exclusively to the manner of Rubens--the most blooming flesh-tints, the loveliest coloring."

as an artist:

"Rubens was not so violent in his action as Tintoretto, softer in his chiaroscuro than Caravaggio; he was not so rich in his compositions as Paolo Veronese, nor so light and elegant in his touch. Titian was truer in his carnations, and Vandyke more delicate; his colors were more transparent, the harmony of them equal while