The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

fittraturt. Notes on Modern Painting at Naples. By Lord Napier. London : J. W. Parker and Son. A DELIGHTFUL essay might be written on " First Impressions," especially as applied to travel. How far are they to be relied on ? Do eye and mind really take in at a glance the prin cipal characteristics of a country or capital ? Does a foreigner understand London when ho has gazed on it from the monument, and voyaged on the Thames from Gravesend to Putney? We think not. Some rude notion may be gathered of a nation's life from such superficial views ; but, besides that, the views must be necessarily imperfect, the observer brings to them preconceptions, and is im pressed favorably, or the reverse, as they rise above or fall below the standard he has formed. The inner life of a people is often widely different from its outward. The latter may be bustling, the former serene ; or, again, the external life may be dull, and the internal Active. Visit a merchant in the morning in his dingy counting-house in some one of those wretched City streets running down to the river, where he is surrounded by papers and lumber, and see him in the evening in his elegant drawing room in Tyburnia, and you do not recognise the same man—scarcely can believe that his sphere of existence is the same. Life in other countries rarely presents the same contrast, yet in all the range of difference is large. The mere tourist is to be trusted only as far as he sees. The sky, the air, the earth, the aspect of cities and villages, the garb of people, their public gatherings—on such matters, if he has an observant eye, he may be trusted ; but familiarity with the inner life of a people will alone qualify him to describe it with any approach to accuracy. Some travellers visit Naples, and view it, in spite of its natural beauties, but as a huge prison. Spies dog their footsteps, and a sus picious and tyrannical Government is ever on the watch to suppress intelligence and perse cute freedom. Another views it as the lowest deep in the depths of religious fanaticism. By people in general it is connected with sham miracles, as the liquefaction of the blood of St Januarius, with eruptions of Mount Vesu vius, with lazy lazzaroni, and with the antics of an ogre kind of monarch, known as King Bomba. But in this same degenerate Naples Lord Napier shows us that a place for the arts is still reserved, and that those who care to explore the studios of Neapolitan artists will find much to warm their imagination and cheer their fancy. In his preface he explains the circumstances which led him to compose this volume : It was the fortune of the author to hold a diplomatic employment at the Court of Naples, during a period in which the appropriate pastimes of that pleasant city were discarded for the illusions and regrets of political change. These transactions, of which the melancholy issue is note. rious, were of a nature to engross and often to darken the thoughts of one who had an intimate knowledge and a foreboding view of the revolutionary drama ; the resources of society were limited by the suspicions and passions which altered and envenomed the conversation even of cultivated men ; and the author was induced, alike by ne cessity and taste, to expend his relaxation and recover his serenity in the study of the local arts. In this time of perplexity he inspected the remains of art in deserted palaces and sanc tuaries, and visited the obscure abodes of artists who " did not exchange the academy " for the market-place, or the pencil for the " stiletto, but kept their burdened studious in " patience, and expected the revival of pa " tronage with peace." These notes were drawn up, he tells us, in 1851, when the arts were still suffering from the previous period of political agitation. He anticipates for them a revival of prosperity, though Italy seems doomed to the painful trial of continued alter nation : - The arts in Italy, like every other branch of industry, suffered severely from the disorders of Im4B. The absence of foreigners, the suspension of public works, the reduction of private fortunes, the terror of the ecclesiastical bodies, dried up the life-springs of those whose existence is nourished by the ease and fulness of a polite and super stitious society. Nor are the resources and confidence of the community yet confirmed. The exhaustion of the peninsvila is prolonged by the debts inherited from the revolutionary exchequer, and by the oppressive main- THE PRESS. tenance of foreign and mercenary troops. Should the general peace be restored and maintained, the experience of former times assures us that this state of suffering and fear will not be of very long duration. When the last throbs of the revolutionary heart are still, then will begin the period of protocols, and diplomacy will devise how jealous armies may measure off their mutual retreat. The French will muffle their eagles on the Capitol ; the Austrians will concentrate their battalions within the bounds of indefea sible treaties and hereditary right ; King Ferdinand will cease to multiply his republican Praetorians. As the appre- hensions of authority are put to sleep, a tardy mercy will be extended to the exile, and one by one the patriots who have aged in fetters will go free. Those will again be the years of academies and carnivals, of the triumphs of music and the pomp of priests, the affluence of strangers and the deep indulgence of the doke far niente ; but in vain the fabric of ghostly and German dominion will be glossed with a fair exterior, and filled with the noise of gladness; below the flowers of sensual civilisation the ineradicable root of conspiracy will spring anew. The prosperity of Italy, like the wealth that waves over the track of its subterranean fires, is the pause between two convulsions. This admirably-written preface fitly intro duces the " Notes." Lord Napier's style is formed en old models. It is very elaborate, and for that reason is sometimes fatiguing, but it is considerate and full of matter. The naturalist school finds most favour in Naples, and, according to our author, It is the only form capable of successful cultivation in Italy, for it alone is in harmony with the ideas of the whole community ; in it the patriotism of the educated, the policy of the governing, and the piety of the devout, can find a congenial interpretation; to the intelligent and dis contented it offers the romantic or heroic subjects selected from the pages of the poets or historians of their country, in the contemplation of which they may assuage the sense of present indignity, or gather the visionary hopes of future vengeance ; to the ecclesiastical bodies, with whom the patronage of art and the perpetuation of slavery mainly lies, the naturalist manner affords the direct and per spicuous instrument of that pictorial teaching, which affects the heart without exercising the understanding ; while, to to the Italian peasant it displays the forms of Catholic or local veneration in the lineaments of familiar reality, with out the superfluous refinements or subtleties of the schools of Dusseldorf or ➢iunich. In these pages the most noted painters of Naples are passed in review. To Camillo Guerra great praise must be accorded for the industry of his pencil. In 1846 he was com missioned to paint in fresco the dome of the new and beautiful church of the Oratorians at Naples. He selected the "Apocalyptic Vision of St. John," introducing, to suit the taste of his patrons, the apotheosis of Loyala, and other saintly episodes not anticipated by the Apostle. In 1852 he completed his task, and, if the following estimate of it be correct, with considerable success : The immense undertaking, which Signor Guerra has, with his unaided pencil, brought to a successful terming nation, numbers upwards of 200 principal figures, of which the nearest are between fifteen and twenty feet in height, while the more remote still greatly exceed the natural size. . . . . In all the multitude of his figures, there is scarcely a feature or an attitude which was not transferred from the life to the sketch-book, from that to the cartoon, and from thence, with a careful adaptation, to the plaster. In the masculine heads, the author is not h enabled to recognise any energy or grandeur, nor are those of the female per sonages distinguished by sweetness, sentiment, or ideal beauty; a certain conventional, academic mediocrity reigns throughout, and the composition pleases, rather by cor rectness and propriety, than by novelty, grace, or power. The colouring, compared with the usual vapid tons of modern frescoes, seems to be deep and effective, while the hudicious perspective and retreating order of the groups appily conveys the impression of vastness and expansion. Michele di Napoli, Giuseppe Mancinelli, and Raffaelle Postiglione, aro among the prin cipal historic painters in Naples. They were the competitors in 1850 for the office of Pro fessor of Design in the Neapolitan academy : The subject selected for trial was " Jacob bestowing his Benediction on the Sons of Joseph," and the conditions imposed were, the unpremeditated execution of a design in pencil, within six hours, and its subsequent repetition in a cartoon with the proportions of life. The subject, which is one of extreme difficulty,and which labours under the disadvantage of excluding the female figure, was at tempted by eight artists, whose deliberate works were submitted to the criticism of the public and the verdict of a commission of artists and conoscenti. The result was gratifying : none of the cartoons were entirely deficient in merit, and three exhibited qualities of a very high order. These were respectively the works of Signori di Napoli, Mancinelli, and Postiglione. After a pro longed and virulent discussion, the superiority was ad judged to the second, but the first had nearly obtained an equality of suffrages, and, perhaps, the voice of the public was in favour of the third. The official decision was pro bably just ; it was certainly fortunate. Naples already possessed di Napoli and Postiglione; it regained their successful rival. The latter has entered upon his func tions with the prestige of an Italian celebrity, with the influence which belongs to a genuine enthusiasm, and the popularity whisk accompanies a generous recognition of SATURDAY, merit in others. His public clasa•room and his private academy are almost equally frequented. Though purged of the more offensive features of the classic manner, it must be allowed that the general character of the works of Sig. Mancinelli is more academic than is pleasing to the English eye. This defect may diminish the charm of his pictures, but it does not, in the present time, impair the value of his teaching. Of Domenico Morani, another painter in the same style, an anecdote worth extracting is related : In the year 1832 the painter passed some days with the monks of the Benedictine convent at La Cava, dedicated to the Holy Trinity; during his residence in this retreat, which is alike charming by the beauty and salubrity of its position, and venerable by the antiquity of its archives and the piety of its inmates, he was so fortunate as to en counter Sir Walter Scott, who, together with his daughter, Sir William Gel], and a numerous company, had come to view the scenery and the treasures of the place. While th• poet was bending with deep curiosity over the Codex of the Lombard Kingdom, and the famous manuscript of the Scriptures, the painter rapidly drew his likeness on a leaf of paper—not, however, without being observed by one of the attending ecclesiastics, who, delighted with the spirit and fidelity of the portrait, presented Sig Morani to the unconscious subject of his pencil. Sir Walter Scott spoke to hint with kindness, and commissioned him to execute copies of the miniatures with which the Lombard volume is enriched. These Sig. Morani completed with the greatest diligence, and presented to his patron, refusing all rem uueration for his pains. The disinterested enthusiasm of the artist confirmed the agreeable impression inspired by his first address : Sir Walter Scott invited him to his house, and presented him to the must distinguished Eng lish families resident at Naples, among whom he found, in making small portraits, a pleasant and profitable employ ment. Before our great and benevolent countryman set out on that last journey, which terminated in the grave of Dryburgh, he consented to sit to Sig. Morani, who desired to rectify and terminate the clandestine sketch; and the portrait, though slight, and marked with the melancholy traces of a mortal infirmity, preserves the familiar features of the original. It remains in the possession of Sig. Morani, with one which he had the honour to take of Miss Anne Scott. The religious orders continue to be in Naples the great patrons of historic painting, and hence a number of artists attain distinc tion in this walk, though none of them rise to the highest rank. It seems wholly impossible to account for the rise of artistic genius at some epochs and its decline at others. The greatest Italian painters of the Roman, the Florentine, the Lombard, and the Venetian schools all flourished at nearly the same period, and there has been no revival from the decline which followed their departure. Yet the arts, in Naples at least, have had no reason to complain of want of patronage. There are institutions to afford students gratuitous instruction in the fine arts, and nine pupils are maintained gratuitously at Rome:— After passing one year in the study of the monuments and works of art at Naples, they are transferred to Rome, under the inspection of a director, for five years, lodged in the Palazzo } arnese, a venerable and appropriate habita tion, and freely provided with all the necessaries of life, and with the instruments, materials, and facilities requisite for their respective arts. An allowance of three pounds per month as pocket-money, and of seven pounds a year for travelling expenses, is also made to each student. Other facilities are afforded for the develop ment of artistic genius, but skilful and culti vated mediocrity is generally the highest result attained. The supervision cxei cised over artists, and the denial to them of the female figure for their studies by the ecclesias tical authorities, may perhaps have the effect of restraining their activity. The part of this volume which will be reed with most pleasure is that relating to tie landscape and genre painters of Naples, whoEe characteristics are felicitously described. The Americans and Russians, and particularly the latter, have been great patrons of this depart ment of Neapolitan art ; and from the fidelity with which, according to Lord Napier, it reflects the natural scenery and life of Naples — the landscape, the sea, the processions in the streets, the market-places, and the interior of convents and churches—we should imagine that this class of works might if better known find patronage in Europe. The lives of some Neapolitan painters are as full of romance as those of Italian artists in past days. Lord Napier has agreeably sketched the rise and fortunes of the artists w hose works are noticed in his pages, and has given us altogether a complete and acceptable account of modern painting in Naples, and of he lives of its principal professors. iiibbi.