The Sun.
London, England, 1801-07-31 00:00:00

THE ARTS.

As it is our 'purieose tooireet our attention to-
the elegant Arts, and
.as such :a 'Critic as Mr.
FUSELI is a phcerromenon, we think We are Pro-
inoting,the Arts, and improving the general taste,
in making citations from the Le Lures Which
,lie
has recently published. The passages we 'have
already taken, display
,so much learning 'as well as
judgment, and, are:, manifestly governed by such a
liberal spirit, that we are persuaded' oUr,Readers
will be highlyj,gratified by farther Extra;. s
Writer who possesses so profound a knowledge or
the great princ4Aes of Art.

TI-TE brilliant antithesis ascribed to Simonides;
that Painting is mute Poeiry, - and Poetry speaking
Painting., made, I apprehend, no part of the technic
systems. of Antiquity ; for this -we may depend on
the general TraCtice of its ArtiSts, and still more
safely on the philosophic discrimination of Plutarch,
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 essen-
tially in their- materials and their modes of appli-
cation, which are' regulated by the diversity Of the
o'rg:ms they addresSeear and eye. SzicCessive athon
communicated by sounds,' and tioe, are the medium
of Poetry ; form displayed in space, and thomen-
tareeous energy, are the elements of Painting.
As, rt. these premises be true, the diseina repre-
sentation of continued ,anion is refnsed 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 im-
press us by theindiscriminate usurpation of a
principle out, of its reach, _it ought chiefly to -rely
for ,its. effect on its great characteristics, space
and formesingly or in apposition.
Informs alone the idea of existence can be ren-
-tiered permanent. Sounds die, .words perish or
become obsolete. and .obscure, even colours fade;
forms alone can neither be extinguished nor miscon-
s rued ; by- application ,to their standard alone, de.
scription becomes intelligible: and diStina.. Thus
the eifeaual idea ofcorporeal beauty can serialy exist
only in the Plastic Arts ; for as ;the notion of beauty
arises from the pleasure we feel in the harmonious
co-operation of_ theevarious parts of some favourite
objet to one end. at once, it implies -their immediate
co-existence in,the mass they icompose; and therefore
can be distinctly perceived and conveyed to the
mind by. the eye alone.; hence the representation of
form in .figere is the physical element Of the Art.
But es Bodies exist in time as well as in space,. as
the pleasure arising from the mere symmetry of an
objea, is as transient as it i, 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 me-
dium for the -end, and that eharzeter or action is
required to make it an interesting objet of imita,
don, and this is the moral element of the Art..
Those important moments then, which exhibit
the united exertion of form and Character in a sin-
gle objet or in participation with collateral beings,
at once, and which, with equal rapidity and preg-
nancy, give us a glympse of the past, and lead our
eye to what follows, furnish the true materials of
those technic powers, tllat selea, direct, and fix the
objects of imitation to their centre.

The, most eminent of these, by the explicit ac-
knowledgment of all agei, and the silent testimony
of every breast, is Invention. He whose eye
athwart the outward crust of the rock, penetr4tes_
into the composition of its materials, and discovers
a gold mine, is surely superior to him who after-
wards 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 Anierigo Vespucci, who
took possession of its Continent; and. when Newton,
improving accident by meditiation, discovered and
established the Laws of -Attraction, the projeetile
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 fad,- the. Author
of all the benefits accruing- from their application,
to Society. Homer, when he means ,to give .the
principal feature 'of, man, calls him Inventor.
From what we have said, it is clear,. that the
terni Invention never ought robe so far misconstru-
ed as to be confounded with that of Creation, in-
compatible 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 pre-suppri- ses its existence
somewhere, implicitly or explicitly, ,Seattered or in
a mass. Nor should I have presumed to say so
inneh•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 in-
visible one that agitates our Mind with visions, bred
on sense,. by fancy, are the Element ar.d the Realm of

Invention ; it discovers, selefts, combines the possi-
ble, the pobable, the known; in a mode that strikes
with an air of truth and novelty at once. Possible
strialy. means an 'eft-eft &rived from a cause, a
body composed of materials-, a coalition of forms,
whose union or co-ageney imply in themselves no
absurdity, no contradi&ion. Applied to our Art
it takes 4_ wider latitude, it means the representa.:
tion of,effefts derived from causes;or.forms com-
pounded from materials, heterogencotis and incom7
patible among themselves, but rendered so plaust,
ble to our senses, that the. transition of one part to
another seems to be accounted for by an air of Or-
ganization, and. the eye glides imperceptibly, or
with satisfaftion from one to the other, • and over'
the whole. Thltt this was the condition on which,
and thelimits within which alone the Ancients per-
mitted. Invention to represent what was striftlyspeak-
ing impossible, 'we May with plausibility surmise,
from the PiCture ofZeuxis, described by Lucian in

the Memoir to which helrat prefixed that raintees
name, who was probably one of the first adventur-
ers 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 slid-
ing into the•most exquisite forms of a young Thes-
salian 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.niale,Centaur their Father. Rising, above' the
which the female reclined, a grim feature,
but whgse . 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 front the - penetra-
tion of the Public,. which the genius deierVed
that taught him to give plausibflin to a com-
pound 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. subjek%
and the unbOunded praise bestowed, was that
of idle restless curiosity gratified. Sick of Gods
and GoddesseS, of Pemi-GodS and pure human
combinations, the Athenians, pan rd, only for what
Was. new. The Artist, as haughty as irritable,
ordered hi 4 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 lithits set .to invention by
the Ancients ; secure Within:these, it defied the
ridicule thrown on that grotesque- conglutination
which Horace expoSes ; guarded by these, thvir
Mythology scattered its metamorphosis, made every
element its tributary, and, transmitted the privilege
to us on equal conditions : their Scylla and the' Por_
tress of Hell,. their Dxmons and our Spectres, the
Shade of Patinelus and the Ghost of Hamlet, their
. Naiads, Nymphs, and Dreads, and our Sylphs,
Gnomes„and Fairies ;their Furies and our Witches,
differ less in essence, than in local, temporary,- social
moditicitions:. their common origin was Fancy, opc.
rating on the materials of Nature, assisted by legen-
dary tr.:Oh-ion and the curiosity implanted in -"us
of diving into the invisible ; and they are. suffered
orinvited to mix. with, or superintend real agency,
in propOrtion to the analogy which we discover.
between them and ourselves. Pindar praises Homer
less 11.)r ‘-‘' winged power" which whirls inci-
dent on incident, with such rapidity, that absorbed
by the whole, and &awn from ;the impossibility of
single parts, we swallow a tale too gross to be be-
lieved in .a dream, than for the greater power by
which he contrived to connect. his imaginary crea-
tion with the realities of nature and human passions
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 ,ollegerdemain, an exertion of in-
genuity to no adequate end.