The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

APRIL 7, 1855. yittraturt. The Handbook of Painting. The Italian Schools. Translated from the German of Kugler. Edited, with Notes, by Sir C. L. Eastlake. Third Edition. London: Murray. This " Handbuch " of Kugler was first pub lished in 1887, and, as he states, was some what hastily composed. A wider range of in vestigation enabled him to make important additions to his materials, and further thought induced him to modify his views. In 1847 an enlarged edition of his work was published with the assistance of Dr. Burckhardt, and the improvements of that edition have been in corporated in these elegant volumes. The editor has, however, judiciously maintained the character of the history as relating to Italian painting alone, and has forborne to touch those additions which attempt some what awkwardly and incompletely to connect with it the growth of the German and other schools. In its present shape the work is complete as far as it extends ; the progress of Italian painting is traced from the age of Con stantine to its decline in the seventeenth century, with great knowledge and discrimi nation; and the characteristics of each master are happily seized, and distinctly and forcibly expressed. It is this combination of historic lore with artistic feeling that has made Kugler's book popular through Europe. He feels the peculiar merits of each master he notices, and hence is enabled by a few descrip tive touches to express the character of his greatest works, and give a true idea of his genius. Fuller details on particular points may be contained in other works, but in none is there found so firm a grasp of the whole subject, or such fine appreciation of ar tistic qualities and beauties. For this reason the work will be valued by all who desire to know not only the leading facts of the history of the Italian school, but its pecu liar excellencies ; to comprehend not only its forms, but its spirit. The early history of Christian art (the "later Roman style," as it is termed here), embodies the most material information which laborious research has been able to collect. An ancient mosaic in the museum at the Vatican, " belonging possibly to the third " century," gives some idea of the style of face which the heathens attributed to our Saviour. The type of countenance is that given to the philosophers of the period. The earliest portraits which have descended to us from Christian artists are found in the Roman catacombs. A particular description is given of the likeness in the catacomb of Calixtus : Over the left shoulder is thrown some drapery, other wise what is seen of the figure is naked. The face is oval, with a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and a smooth and rather high forehead ; the expression serious and mild ; the hair parted on the forehead, and flowing in curls on the shoulders ; the beard not thick, but short and divided. The appearance that of a man between thirty and forty years of age. Another portrait found in a distinct cata comb, and perhaps of later date, agrees in character with that above described : The figure is, however, draped, and the whole work has certain peculiarities which appear to mark a later period of art. Both these portraits agree, if not strictly, yet in general features, with the description in Lentulus's letter ; and portraits and description together serve to prove that the earliest Christian delineators of the person of the Saviour followed no arbitrary conception of their own, but were guided rather by a particular traditional type, differing materially from the Grecian ideal, which they transmitted in a great measure to subsequent ages. Considering the number of Christ's dis ciples at the time of his death, the intelli gence and rank of many of them, the reverence with which they must have regarded his memory, the eagerness with which we know That all particulars concerning him were sought for and collected; and taking into account the early period at which these por traits in the catacombs must have been axecuted—some time, probably, in the fourth century—it is far from improbable that they may have been copied from earlier portraits ascending to the time of our Lord himself. It would certainly be rash to conjecture that these likenesses, so strongly resembling each other, and so well defined in character, were THE PRESS. inventions of the age in which they were exe cuted. Kugler's text is hardly correct in stating that Eusebius refused to procure for the sister of Constantine a portrait of our Lord. If we recollect rightly, he evaded the request by asking whether she wished a por trait of him in his divine or human nature, and by saying that no painter had power to do justice to either. Neither is it strictly correct to say that St. Augustine declared that "as " regards the person of our Saviour nothing " was known." What he says is, that the fleshly face of our Lord is varied by the differ ence of many opinions, and so painted—a proof that a great number of portraits of him were at that time in existence, and we know that the numerous likenesses prevalent in the fourth and fifth centuries bore such a general resemblance as to forcibly suggest the idea that all must have had a common origin. On the whole, there is strong probability that what is called the " traditional type" may in its leading features truly represent the linea ments of our Lord. The second portrait en graved in this book from the Pontian cata comb, on the Via Portuensis, strikingly resembles the beautiful heads of Leonardo da Vinci. The chapter on the Byzantine style is marked by great penetration. The art of the early Christian Church was rude, but it was pure, cheerful, and what we should now term Protestant, from its reality and its human character. But the corrupting influences which in the Byzantian court perverted the Christian faith, darkened its art also. The Infant Christ is exhibited with sombre face, totally devoid of expression ; and as a man He appears only writhing in the agonies of phy sical suffering. The conversion of Wladimir the Great at the close of the tenth century tended to perpetuate this frightful style by spreading it through the vast empire of Russia : The Russians received the new doctrines with snpersti tions humility, and the new art with all the ingenuity and love of imitation which distinguish the Sclavonians, and to this day have done little to raise either the theology or the painting with which Byzantium endowed them. If in more recent times the higher classes of Russia have adopted the views and practice of art belonging to modem Europe, this in no way affects the great mass of the people, among whom religion and painting, whether owing to any national deficiency of capacity, or to the despotic form of government, or to the long-continued Mongolian yoke, have both remained only an impoverished and barbarised Byzantine tradition. One chief cause to which this may be attributed, as with the modern Greeks also, is the reli gious prejudice by which the style of art prevailing in the tenth century was honoured as something essentially be longing to, and indivisible from, the sacred subjects of Christianity; so that every exercise of individual power and genius is interdicted to the Russian artist. Thus the picture itself became sacred, because its established forms were sacred We therefore see in these Rus sian paintings a dark brown colouring, elongated heads, mummy-like hands, and a gaudy drapery—that is, where, instead of the latter, a robe wraught in a species f relief, and embossed with gold and silver, is not spread over portions of the picture : this is especially the case on fes tivals. The effect thus produced is something perfectly spectral, inasmuch as the garment introduced in the mode described is of a plastic nature, while, from a doctrinal aversion to all plastic representation of the human form, the dark-coloured robe is kept as flat as possible. It is precisely this combination, however, frightful as it is, which operates upon the senses of the worshipper, and corresponds with his idea of divine and saintly majesty. It is curious that there should be even among us tastes so depraved as to ac cept as the ideal of Christian art that form of it which is the most utterly corrupt. The paintings admirably described in the above extract are prized by a certain class of connoisseurs, and, what is of far greater im portance, are in some cases made the models for ecclesiastical decoration. An attempt is made here to explain the causes of that decline of Italian painting which followed rapidly on its first develop. ment, but the author in his conjectures is less successful than usual. The desire of the wealthy classes to possess showy pictures without much caring for their real merit, and the facility of hand engendered by the growth of merely imitative talent, may partly account for the patronage of mediocrity, but does not explain the absence of genius. It is said : The decline of art stands in immediate connection with the Raphaelesque period. A climax of excellence was felt to have been attained, and it was now the general aim to hold fast, if not to surpass, that (fferi in the great works of art which appeared to have earned for their authors their universal reputation. . . . A considerable share of 331 the blame must be imputed to the altered tastes of the patron, and to the consequent change in the external posi tion of the painter. Tempted by the splendid productions of Itaphael's time, princes and corporations thirsted for the possession of vast works of an elevated kind, which thus soon became objects of luxury which every one sought to obtain according to his rank and means. That such luxuries should be sought for at the least possible expendi ture of time or money was also natural, and as in point of allegorical or historical representation a lower order of conception was preferred to the really high and infinite in art, it followed that the ready-handed and superficial painter invariably took precedence of him who possessed deeper and more lasting qualities. It is melancholy to observe how from this time painters and patrons con tributed more and more to demoralise each other ; the one playing the part of a courtier and an intriguant, the other that of a capricious master. The most enormous under takings were now executed with the greatest rapidity. " We paint," as Vasari says, " six pictures in a year, while the earlier masters took six years to one picture; " and how colossal these pictures are we see in the Sala Regis, in the Vatican, and in the great saloon in the Ducal Palace at Florence ; while he naively adds :—" And yet these pic tures are more perfectly executed than those of the early school by the most distinguished masters." But the greatest masters, as every one knows, have been most distinguished for facility. Michael Angelo completed the vast labours of the Sistine Chapel in twenty-two months, or in three years, and we know how numerous were the works of Raphael, who died at thirty-seven. It is contrary to nature that the taste of a people should degenerate with the finest models constantly before their eyes, nor is there anything in the general ap preciation of art and its extensive patronage to lead to its degeneracy. Besides, as we read here, the decline in the Italian mind was not confined to one branch of intellectual exertion, but was general : Contemporary with this corruption of art, we remark a general decline of Italian power in every department— politics, church, and literature. Human intellect may be subject to some law not yet discovered, by which, when it has reached its highest development, it inevitably declines—as fruit decays after it is fully ripened, as the season wanes when the sum mer solstice is passed, and as the bodily strength of man declines after his form is fully matured. The noon may be sometimes long, sometimes short, yet still be in state of mutation; and hence, after conjecture on what we deem to be causes of the decay is exhausted, the primary cause may remain behind in that constitution of nature which our wisdom may ameliorate but cannot over throw. Apart from the judicious translation of Kugler's text, from the careful notes of our accomplished President of the Royal Academy, and from the elegant style in which this hand book is produced, the numerous illustrations— in number exceeding one hundred—of the celebrated works of great masters, would alone give substantial value to the work. The merit of that quality of art known as compoxition can only be illustrated by example, and the cri ticism on a picture is always better under stood when a drawing from it, on however small a scale, is before the eye. Nos Micomptes et nos Esperanees. By M. Guizot. Paris : Revue Contemporaine. AMONGST living celebrities few stand so good a chance as M. Guizot of escaping the " wrath "of Jupiter, and fire, and sword, and the " scythe of Time," which Ovid so haughtily craved for his poems. And though, of the few, some may enjoy wider and more dazzling fame —none, assuredly, possess reputation which will shine with a steadier or a purer light. For, though neither as historian, writer, philosopher, orator, and, least of all, as statesman, can the very highest place be awarded to him, yet in each of those capacities he has attained a posi tion so lofty as to be inaccessible to men of no mean intellect after a whole life's labour ; and in each has won renown which of itself would be ample reward for a man of no mean ambi tion. And in doing this, as historian and philosopher, he has had recourse to none of the vulgar arts, and insolent cliquism, and brazen charlatanism, which in his country are consi dered justifiable, and even necessary, means of obtaining fame, arid which some of the most deserving of his contemporaries and rivals have unhesitatingly employed. As orator, he has almost always abstained from the inflated claptraps, the vehement appeals years o f age. - - aversion to an plastic representation 01 the numan torm, the dark-coloured robe is kept as flat as possible. It is Nos Micomptes et nos Esperanees. By M. Another portrait found in a distinct cats- precisely this combination, however, frightful as it is, comb, and perhaps of later date, agrees in which operates upon the senses of the worshipper, and Guizot. Paris : Revue Contemporaine. character with that above described : corresponds with his idea of divine and saintly majesty. Amososz living celebrities few stand so good a The figure is, however, draped, and the whole work has It is curious that there should be eve n chance as M. Guizot of escaping the " wrath certain peculiarities which appear to mark a later period among us tastes so depraved as to ac- "of Jupiter, and fire, and sword, and the of art. Both these portraits agree, if not strictly, yet in cept as the ideal of Christian art that form of " scythe of Time," which Ovid so haughtily general features, with the description in Lentulus's letter ; it which is the most utterly corrupt. The craved for his poems. And though, of the few, and portraits and description together serve to prov of e that paintings admirably described in the above some may en j oy w id er an d more d azz li ng f ame the earliest Christian delineators of the person the Saviour followed no arbitrary conception of their own, extract are prized by a certain class of — none, assure dl y, possess reputat i on which but were guided rather by a particular traditional type, connoisseurs, and, what is of far greater im will shine with a steadier or a purer light. For, differing materially from the Grecian ideal, which they p ortance, are in some cases made the models th oug h ne ith er as historian, writer, philosopher, transmitted in a great measure to subsequent ages. for ecclesiastical decoration. orator, and, least of all, as statesman, can the Considering the number of Christ's dis- An attempt is made here to explain the very highest place be awarded to him, yet in eiples at the time of his death, the intelli- causes of that decline of Italian painting each of those capacities he has attained a posi- gence and rank of many of them, the reverence which followed rapidly on its first develop- tion so lofty as to be inaccessible to men of no with which they must have regarded his ment, but the author in his conjectures is less mean intellect after a whole life's labour ; and memory, the eagerness with which we know successful than usual. The desire of the in each has won renown which of itself would that all particulars concerning him were wealthy classes to possess showy pictures be ample reward for a man of no mean anibi- sought for and collected; and taking into without much caring for their real merit, and tion. And in doing this, as historian and account the early period at which these por- the facility of hand engendered by the growth philosopher, he has had recourse to none of the traits in the catacombs must have been of merely imitative talent, may partly account vulgar arts, and insolent eliquiam, and brazen - executed—some time, probably, in the fourth for the patronage of mediocrity, but does not charlatanism, which in his country are consi- century—it is far from improbable that they explain the absence of genius. It is said : dered justifiable, and even necessary, means may have been copied from earlier portraits The decline of art stands in immediate connection with of obtaining fame, arid which some of the ascending to the time of our Lord himself. It the Raphaelesque period. A climax of excellence was felt t h o ol h d av fa e st, i e f n no a t tt t ai o ned, and it th w t as ffe n c r in th t e ) genera would certainly be rash to conjecture that great l awimorktos most deserving of his contemporaries and rivals have unhesitatingly employed. As these li kenesses, so strongly resembling each of art which appeare au d i r h a a ' ve earned a for the l i e r auth ors their other, and so well defined in character, were universal reputation. .. . A considerable share of tohnetor, he has almost always abstained from inflated claptraps, the vehement appeals