ON THE PRINCIPLES OF GENIAL CRITICISM CONCERNING THE FINE ARTS, MORE ESPECIALLY THOSE OF STATUARY AND PAINTING, DEDUCED FROM THE LAWS AND IMPULSES WHICH GUIDE THE TRUE ARTIST IN THE PRODUCTION OF HIS WORKS. PRELIMINARY ESSAY. "Unus ergo idemque perpetuo Sol perseverans atque manens aliis atque aliis, aliter atque aliter dispositis, alius efficitur atque alius. Haud secus de hac solari arte varii varie sentiunt, diversi diversa dicunt: quot capita, tot sententiae et tot voces. Hinc corvi crocitant, cuculi cuculant, lupi ululant, sues grundiunt, oves balant, hinniunt equi, mugiunt boves, rudunt asini. Turpe est, dixit Aristoteles, solicitum esse ad quemlibet interrogantem respondere. Boves bobus admugiant, equi equis adhinniant, asinis adrudant asini! Nostrum est hominibus aliquid circa hominum excellentissimorum inventiones pertentare.”—JORDAN: BRUNUS de Umbris Idearum. It will not appear complimentary to liken the Editors of Newspapers, in one respect, to galley-slaves; but the likeness is not the less apt on that account, and a simile is not expected to go on all fours. When storms blow high in the 5 political atmosphere, the events of the day fill the sails, and the writer may draw in his oars, and let his brain rest ; but when calm weather returns, then comes too "the tug of toil," hard work and little speed. Yet he not only sympathizes with the public joy, as a man and a citizen, but Io will seek to derive some advantages even for his editorial functions, from the cessation of battles and revolutions. He cannot indeed hope to excite the same keen and promis cuous sensation as when he had to announce events, which by the mere bond of interest brought home the movements of monarchs and empires to every individual's countinghouse and fire-side; but he consoles himself by the reflection, that these troublesome times occasioned thousands to 5 acquire a habit, and almost a necessity, of reading, which it now becomes his object to retain by the gradual substitution of a milder stimulant, which though less intense is more permanent, and by its greater divergency no less than duration, even more pleasureable.-And how can he hail and 10 celebrate the return of peace more worthily or more appropriately, than by exerting his best faculties to direct the taste and affections of his readers to the noblest works of peace? The tranquillity of nations permits our patriotism to repose. We are now allowed to think and feel as men, 15 for all that may confer honor on human nature; not ignorant, meantime, that the greatness of a nation is by no distant links connected with the celebrity of its individual citizens-that whatever raises our country in the eyes of the civilized world, will make that country dearer and more 20 venerable to its inhabitants, and thence actually more powerful, and more worthy of love and veneration. Add too (what in a great commercial city will not be deemed trifling or inappertinent) the certain reaction of the Fine Arts on the more immediate utilities of life. The trans- 25 fusion of the fairest forms of Greece and Rome into the articles of hourly domestic use by Mr. Wedgwood; the impulse given to our engravings by Boydell; the superior beauty of our patterns in the cotton manufactory, of our furniture and musical instruments, hold as honorable 30 a rank in our archives of trade, as in those of taste. Regarded from these points of view, painting and statuary call on our attention with superior claims. All the fine arts are different species of poetry. The same spirit speaks to the mind through different senses by manifestations of itself, 35 appropriate to each. They admit therefore of a natural division into poetry of language (poetry in the emphatic sense, because less subject to the accidents and limitations of time and space); poetry of the ear, or music; and 5 poetry of the eye, which is again subdivided into plastic poetry, or statuary, and graphic poetry, or painting. The common essence of all consists in the excitement of emotion for the immediate purpose of pleasure through the medium of beauty; herein contra-distinguishing poetry from 10 science, the immediate object and primary purpose of which is truth and possible utility. (The sciences indeed may and will give a high and pure pleasure; and the Fine Arts may lead to important truth, and be in various ways useful in the ordinary meaning of the word; but these are not the direct and characteristic ends, and we define things by their peculiar, not their common properties.) 15 Of the three sorts of poetry each possesses both exclusive and comparative advantages. The last (i. e. the plastic and graphic) is more permanent, and incomparably less depenao dent, than the second, i. e. music; and though yielding in both these respects to the first, yet it regains its balance and equality of rank by the universality of its language. Michael Angelo and Raphael are for all beholders; Dante and Ariosto only for the readers of Italian. Hence though 25 the title of these essays proposes, as their subject, the Fine Arts in general, which as far as the main principles are in question, will be realized in proportion to the writer's ability; yet the application and illustration of them will be confined to those of Painting and Statuary, and of these, chiefly to 30 the former, 35 "Which, like a second and more lovely nature, 5 To this disquisition two obstacles suggest themselvesthat enough has been already written on the subject (this we may suppose an objection on the part of the reader) and the writer's own feeling concerning the grandeur and delicacy of the subject itself. As to the first, he would consider himself as having grossly failed in his duty to the public, if he had not carefully perused all the works on the Fine Arts known to him; and let it not be rashly attributed to self-conceit, if he dares avow his conviction that much remains to be done; a conviction indeed, which every 10 author must entertain, who, whether from disqualifying ignorance or utter want of thought, does not act with the full consciousness of acting to no wise purpose. The works, that have hitherto appeared, have been either technical, and useful only to the Artist himself (if indeed useful at all) 15 or employed in explaining by the laws of association the effects produced on the spectator by such and such impressions. In the latter, as in Alison, &c., much has been said well and truly; but the principle itself is too vague for practical guidance.—Association in philosophy is like the 20 term stimulus in medicine; explaining every thing, it explains nothing; and above all, leaves itself unexplained. It is an excellent charm to enable a man to talk about and about any thing he likes, and to make himself and his hearers as wise as before. Besides, the specific object of the present 25 attempt is to enable the spectator to judge in the same spirit in which the Artist produced, or ought to have produced. To the second objection, derived from the author's own feelings, he would find himself embarrassed in the attempt 30 to answer, if the peculiar advantages of the subject itself did not aid him. His illustrations of his principles do not here depend on his own ingenuity-he writes for those, who can consult their own eyes and judgements. The various collections, as of Mr. Acraman (the father of the 35 Fine Arts in this city*), of Mr. Davis, Mr. Gibbons, &c.; to which many of our readers either will have had, or may procure, access; and the admirable works exhibiting now by Allston; whose great picture, with his Hebe, landscape, 5 and sea-piece, would of themselves suffice to elucidate the fundamental doctrines of color, ideal form, and grouping; assist the reasoner in the same way as the diagrams aid the geometrician, but far more and more vividly. The writer therefore concludes this his preparatory Essay by two postu10 lates, the only ones he deems necessary for his complete intelligibility: the first, that the reader would steadily look into his own mind to know whether the principles stated are ideally true; the second, to look at the works or parts of the works mentioned, as illustrating or exemplifying the 15 principle, to judge whether or how far it has been realized./ ESSAY SECOND IN Mathematics the definitions, of necessity, precede not only the demonstrations, but likewise the postulates and axioms they are the rock, which at once forms the foundation and supplies the materials of the edifice. Philosophy, 20 on the contrary, concludes with the definition: it is the result, the compendium, the remembrancer of all the preceding facts and inferences. Whenever, therefore, it appears in the front, it ought to be considered as a faint outline, which answers all its intended purposes, if only it circum25 scribe the subject, and direct the reader's anticipation toward the one road, on which he is to travel. Examined from this point of view, the definition of poetry, in the preliminary Essay, as the regulative idea of all the Fine Arts, appears to me after many experimental applica30 tions of it to general illustrations and to individual instances, * Bristol. |