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Ex ore infantiam et Lactentium pertecizli laudem.

The object we have proposed to ourselves in writing on Art, has

been “an endeavour to encourage and enforce an entire adherence

to the simplicity of nature; and also to direct attention, as an

auxiliary medium, to the comparatively few works which Art has

yet produced in this spirit.” It is in accordance with the former

and more prominent of these objects that the writer proposes at

present to treat.

An unprejudiced spectator of the recent progress and main direc–

tion of Art in England will have observed, as a great change in the

character of the productions of the modern school, a marked attempt

to lead the taste of the public into a new channel by producing pure

transcripts and faithful studies from nature, instead of convention–

alities and feeble reminiscences from the Old Masters; an entire

seeking after originality in a more humble manner than has been

practised since the decline of Italian Art in the Middle Ages. This

has been most strongly shown by the landscape painters, among

whom there are many who have raised an entirely new school of

natural painting, and whose productions undoubtedly surpass all

others in the simple attention to nature in detail as well as in

generalities. By this they have succeeded in earning for themselves

the reputation of being the finest landscape painters in Europe.

But, although this success has been great and merited, it is not of

them that we have at present to treat, but rather to recommend

their example to their fellow-labourers, the historical painters.

That the system of study to which this would necessarily lead

requires a somewhat longer and more devoted course of observation

than any other is undoubted; but that it has a reward in a greater

effect produced, and more delight in the searching, is, the writer

thinks, equally certain. We shall find a greater pleasure in pro–

portion to our closer communion with nature, and by a more exact

adherence to all her details, (for nature has no peculiarities or

excentricities) in whatsoever direction her study may conduct.

This patient devotedness appears to be a conviction peculiar to, or

at least more purely followed by, the early Italian Painters; a

feeling which, exaggerated, and its object mistaken by them, though

still held holy and pure, was the cause of the retirement of many of

their greatest men from the world to the monastery; there, in

undisturbed silence and humility,

• “Monotonous to paint
• Those endless cloisters and eternal aisles
• With the same series, Virgin, Babe, and Saint,
• With the same cold, calm, beautiful regard.”

Even with this there is not associated a melancholy feeling alone;

for, although the object was mistaken, yet there is evinced a con–

sciousness of purpose definite and most elevated; and again, we

must remember, as a great cause of this effect, that the Arts

were, for the most part, cleric, and not laic, or at least were under

the predominant influence of the clergy, who were the most

important patrons by far, and their houses the safest receptacles for

the works of the great painter.

The modern artist does not retire to monasteries, or practise dis–

cipline; but he may show his participation in the same high feeling

by a firm attachment to truth in every point of representation,

which is the most just method. For how can good be sought by

evil means, or by falsehood, or by slight in any degree? By a

determination to represent the thing and the whole of the thing, by

training himself to the deepest observation of its fact and detail,

enabling himself to reproduce, as far as possible, nature herself,

the painter will best evince his share of faith.

It is by this attachment to truth in its most severe form that the

followers of the Arts have to show that they share in the peculiar

character of the present age, — a humility of knowledge, a diffidence

of attainment; for, as Emerson has well observed,

• “ The time is infected with Hamlet's unhappiness, —
• ‘Sicklied o'er with the the pale cast of thought.’

Is this so bad then? Sight is the last thing to be pitied. Would

we be blind? Do we fear lest we should outsee nature and God, and

drink truth dry?”

It has been said that there is presumption in this movement of

the modern school, a want of deference to established authorities, a

removing of ancient landmarks. This is best answered by the

profession that nothing can be more humble than the pretension to

the observation of facts alone, and the truthful rendering of them.

If we are not to depart from established principles, how are we to

advance at all? Are we to remain still? Remember, no thing re–

mains still; that which does not advance falls backward. That this

movement is an advance, and that it is of nature herself, is shown by

its going nearer to truth in every object produced, and by its being

guided by the very principles the ancient painters followed, as soon

as they attained the mere power of representing an object faithfully. These principles are now revived, not from them, though through

their example, but from nature herself.

That the earlier painters came nearer to fact, that they were less

of the art, artificial, cannot be better shown than by the statement

of a few examples from their works. There is a magnificent Niello

work by an unknown Florentine artist, on which is a group of

the Saviour in the lap of the Virgin. She is old, (a most touching

point); lamenting aloud, clutches passionately the heavy-weighted

body on her knee; her mouth is open. Altogether it is one of the

most powerful appeals possible to be conceived; for there are few

but will consider this identification with humanity to be of more

effect than any refined or emasculate treatment of the same subject

by later artists, in which we have the fact forgotten for the sake of

the type of religion, which the Virgin was always taken to represent,

whence she is shown as still young; as if, nature being taken

typically, it were not better to adhere to the emblem throughout,

confident by this means to maintain its appropriateness, and, there–

fore, its value and force.

In the Niello work here mentioned there is a delineation of the

Fall, in which the serpent has given to it a human head with a most

sweet, crafty expression. Now in these two instances the style is

somewhat rude; but there are passion and feeling in it. This is

not a question of mere execution, but of mind, however developed.

Let us not mistake, however, from this that execution should be

neglected, but only maintained as a most important aid, and in that

quality alone, so that we do not forget the soul for the hand. The

power of representing an object, that its entire intention may be

visible, its lesson felt, is all that is absolutely necessary: mere

technicalities of performance are but additions; and not the real

intent and end of painting, as many have considered them to be.

For as the knowledge is stronger and more pure in Masaccio than in

the Caracci, and the faith higher and greater, — so the first repre–

sents nature with more true feeling and love, with a deeper insight

into her tenderness; he follows her more humbly, and has produced

to us more of her simplicity; we feel his appeal to be more earnest:

it is the crying out of the man, with none of the strut of the actor.

Let us have the mind and the mind's-workings, not the remains of

earnest thought which has been frittered away by a long dreary

course of preparatory study, by which all life has been evaporated.

Never forget that there is in the wide river of nature something

which every body who has a rod and line may catch, precious things

which every one may dive for.

It need not be feared that this course of education would lead to a repetition of the toe-trippings of the earliest Italian school, a sneer

which is manifestly unfair; for this error, as well as several others

of a similar kind, was not the result of blindness or stupidity, but of

the simple ignorance of what had not been applied to the service of

painting at their time. It cannot be shown that they were incorrect

in expression, false in drawing, or unnatural in what is called com–

position. On the contrary, it is demonstrable that they exceeded all

others in these particulars, that they partook less of coarseness and

of conventional sentiment than any school which succeeded them,

and that they looked more to nature; in fact, were more true, and

less artificial. That their subjects were generally of a melan–

choly cast is acknowledged, which was an accident resulting

from the positions their pictures were destined to occupy. No man

ever complained that the Scriptures were morbid in their tendency

because they treat of serious and earnest subjects: then why of the

pictures which represent such? A certain gaunt length and slen–

derness have also been commented upon most severely; as if the

Italians of the fourteenth century were as so many dray horses, and

the artist were blamed for not following his model. The consequence

of this direction of taste is that we have life-guardsmen and pugilists

taken as models for kings, gentlemen, and philosophers. The writer

was once in a studio where a man, six feet two inches in height, with

atlantean shoulders, was sitting for King Alfred. That there is no

greater absurdity than this will be perceived by any one that has

ever read the description of the person of the king given by his

historian and friend Asser.

The sciences have become almost exact within the present cen–

tury. Geology and chemistry are almost re-instituted. The first

has been nearly created; the second expanded so widely that it now

searches and measures the creation. And how has this been done

but by bringing greater knowledge to bear upon a wider range of

experiment; by being precise in the search after truth? If this

adherence to fact, to experiment and not theory, — to begin at the

beginning and not fly to the end, — has added so much to the know–

ledge of man in science; why may it not greatly assist the moral

purposes of the Arts? It cannot be well to degrade a lesson by

falsehood. Truth in every particular ought to be the aim of the

artist. Admit no untruth: let the priest's garment be clean.

Let us now return to the Early Italian Painters. A complete

refutation of any charge that the character of their school was

neccessarily gloomy will be found in the works of Benozzo Gozzoli,

as in his ‘Vineyard’ where there are some grape-gatherers the most

elegant and graceful imaginable; this painter's children are the most natural ever painted. In Ghiberti, — in Fra Angilico, (well

named), — in Masaccio, — in Ghirlandajo, and in Baccio della

Porta, in fact in nearly all the works of the painters of this school,

will be found a character of gentleness, grace, and freedom, which

cannot be surpassed by any other school, be that which it may; and

it is evident that this result must have been obtained by their

peculiar attachment to simple nature alone, their casting aside all

ornament, or rather their perfect ignorance of such, — a happy

fortune none have shared with them. To show that with all these

qualifications they have been pre-eminent in energy and dignity,

let us instance the ‘Air Demons’ of Oreagna, where there is a

woman borne through the air by an Evil Spirit. Her expression is

the most terrible imaginable; she grasps her bearer with desperation,

looking out around her into space, agonized with terror. There are

other figures in the same picture of men who have been cast down,

and are falling through the air: one descends with his hands tied,

his chin up, and long hair hanging from his head in a mass. One

of the Evil Spirits hovering over them has flat wings, as though

they were made of plank: this gives a most powerful character to

the figure. Altogether, this picture contains perhaps a greater

amount of bold imagination and originality of conception than any

of the kind ever painted. For sublimity there are few works which

equal the ‘Archangels’ of Giotto, who stand singly, holding their

sceptres, and with relapsed wings. The ‘Paul’ of Masaccio is a

well-known example of the dignified simplicity of which these

artists possessed so large a share. These instances might be multi–

plied without end; but surely enough have been cited in the

way of example to show the surpassing talent and knowledge of

these painters, and their consequent success, by following natural

principles, until the introduction of false and meretricious ornament

led the Arts from the simple chastity of nature, which it is as use–

less to attempt to elevate as to endeavour to match the works of

God by those of man.Let the artist be content to study nature

alone, and not dream of elevating any of her works, which are alone

worthy of representation.*

The Arts have always been most important moral guides. Their flourishing has always been coincident with the most wholesome

period of a nation's: never with the full and gaudy bloom which but

hides corruption, but the severe health of its most active and

vigorous life; its mature youth, and not the floridity of age,

which, like the wide full open petals of a flower, indicates that its

glory is about to pass away. There has certainly always been a

period like the short warm season the Canadians call the “ Indian

Summer,” which is said to be produced by the burning of the

western forests, causing a factitious revival of the dying year: so

there always seems to have been a flush of life before the final

death of the Arts in each period: — in Greece, in the sculptors and

architects of the time after Pericles; in the Germans, with the

successors of Albert Durer. In fact, in every school there has been

a spring, a summer, an autumn, an “ Indian Summer,” and then

winter; for as surely as the “ Indian Summer,” (which is, after all,

but an unhealthy flush produced by destruction,) so surely does

winter come. In the Arts, the winter has been exaggerated action,

conventionalism, gaudy colour, false sentiment, voluptuousness, and

poverty of invention: and, of all these characters, that which has

been the most infallible herald of decease, voluptuousness, has been

the most rapid and sure. Corruption lieth under it; and every

school, and indeed every individual, that has pandered to this, and

departed from the true spirit in which all study should be conducted,

sought to degrade and sensualize, instead of chasten and render

pure, the humanity it was instructed to elevate. So has that school,

and so have those individuals, lost their own power and descended

from their high seat, fallen from the priest to the mere parasite,

from the law-giver to the mere courtier.

If we have entered upon a new age, a new cycle of man, of which

there are many signs, let us have it unstained by this vice of sen–

suality of mind. The English school has lately lost a great deal of

this character; why should we not be altogether free from it?

Nothing can degrade a man or a nation more than this meanness;

why should we not avoid it? Sensuality is a meanness repugnant

to youth, and disgusting in age: a degradation at all times. Let

us say

• “My strength is as the strength of ten,
• Because my heart is pure.”

Bearing this in mind, — the conviction that, without the pure heart,

nothing can be done worthy of us; by this, that the most successful

school of painters has produced upon us the intention of their

earnestness at this distance of time, — let us follow in their path, guided by their light: not so subservient as to lose our own freedom,

but in the confidence of equal power and equal destiny; and then

rely that we shall obtain the same success and equal or greater power,

such as is given to the age in which we live. This is the only

course that is worthy of the influence which might be exerted by

means of the Arts upon the character of the people: therefore let it

be the only one for us to follow if we hope to share in the work.

That the real power of the Arts, in conjunction with Poetry, upon

the actions of any age is, or might be, predominant above all others

will be readily allowed by all that have given any thought to the

subject: and that there is no assignable limit to the good that may

be wrought by their influence is another point on which there can

be small doubt. Let us then endeavour to call up and exert this

power in the worthiest manner, not forgetting that we chose a

difficult path, in which there are many snares, and holding in mind

the motto, “No Cross, no Crown.”

Believe that there is that in the fact of truth, though it be only in the

character of a single leaf earnestly studied, which may do its share in

the great labor of the world: remember that it is by truth alone

that the Arts can ever hold the position for which they were

intended, as the most powerful instruments, the most gentle guides;

that, of all classes, there is none to whom the celebrated words of

Lessing, “ That the destinies of a nation depend upon its young

men between nineteen and twenty-five years of age,” can apply so

well as to yourselves. Recollect, that your portion in this is most

important: that your share is with the poet's share; that, in every

careless thought or neglected doubt, you shelve your duty, and for–

sake your trust; fulfil and maintain these, whether in the hope of

personal fame and fortune, or from a sense of power used to its

intentions; and you may hold out both hands to the world. Trust

it, and it will have faith in you; will hearken to the precepts you

may have permission to impart.