Fifth Discourse

Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution
of the Prizes, December 10, 1772, by the President.

Gentlemen,--I purpose to carry on in this discourse the subject
which I began in my last. It was my wish upon that occasion to
incite you to pursue the higher excellences of the art. But I fear
that in this particular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready
to imagine, when any of their favourite acquirements in the art are
properly classed, that they are utterly disgraced. This is a very
great mistake: nothing has its proper lustre but in its proper
place. That which is most worthy of esteem in its allotted sphere
becomes an object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is
forced into a higher, to which it is not suited; and there it
becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a situation which
is not natural to it, and by putting down from the first place what
is in reality of too much magnitude to become with grace and
proportion that subordinate station, to which something of less
value would be much better suited.

My advice in a word is this: keep your principal attention fixed
upon the higher excellences. If you compass them and compass
nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may regret the
innumerable beauties which you may want: you may be very
imperfect: but still, you are an imperfect person of the highest
order.

If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or all, of the
subordinate qualifications, it is my wish and advice that you
should not neglect them.

But this is as much a matter of circumspection and caution at least
as of eagerness and pursuit.

The mind is apt to be distracted by a multiplicity of pursuits; and
that scale of perfection, which I wish always to be preserved, is
in the greatest danger of being totally disordered, and even
inverted.

Some excellences bear to be united, and are improved by union,
others are of a discordant nature; and the attempt to join them
only produces a harsher jarring of incongruent principles.

The attempt to unite contrary excellences (of form, for instance)
in a single figure, can never escape degenerating into the
monstrous, but by sinking into the insipid, taking away its marked
character, and weakening its expression.

This remark is true to a certain degree with regard to the
passions. If you mean to preserve the most perfect beauty in its
most perfect state, you cannot express the passions, which produce
(all of them) distortion and deformity, more or less, in the most
beautiful faces.

Guido, from want of choice in adapting his subject to his ideas and
his powers, or in attempting to preserve beauty where it could not
be preserved has in this respect succeeded very ill. His figures
are often engaged in subjects that required great expression: yet
his "Judith and Holofernes," the "Daughter of Herodias with the
Baptist's Head," the "Andromeda," and even the "Mothers of the
Innocents," have little more expression than his "Venus attired by
the Graces."

Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many writers on our art,
who, not being of the profession, and consequently not knowing what
can or what cannot be done, have been very liberal of absurd
praises in their descriptions of favourite works. They always find
in them what they are resolved to find. They praise excellences
that can hardly exist together, and above all things are fond of
describing with great exactness the expression of a mixed passion,
which more particularly appears to me out of the reach of our art.

Such are many disquisitions which I have read on some of the
cartoons and other pictures of Raffaelle, where the critics have
described their own imagination; or indeed where the excellent
master himself may have attempted this expression of passions above
the powers of the art; and has, therefore, by an indistinct and
imperfect marking, left room for every imagination, with equal
probability to find a passion of his own. What has been, and what
can be done in the art, is sufficiently difficult; we need not be
mortified or discouraged for not being able to execute the
conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has its boundaries,
though imagination has none. We can easily, like the ancients,
suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those powers and
perfections which the subordinate Deities were endowed with
separately. Yet, when they employed their art to represent him,
they confined his character to majesty alone. Pliny, therefore,
though we are under great obligations to him for the information he
has given us in relation to the works of the ancient artists, is
very frequently wrong when he speaks of them, which he does very
often in the style of many of our modern connoisseurs. He observes
that in a statue of Paris, by Fuphranor, you might discover at the
same time three different characters; the dignity of a judge of the
goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the conqueror of Achilles. A
statue in which you endeavour to unite stately dignity, youthful
elegance, and stern valour, must surely possess none of these to
any eminent degree.

From hence it appears that there is much difficulty as well as
danger in an endeavour to concentrate upon a single subject those
various powers which, rising from different points, naturally move
in different directions.

The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage of contrary
qualities, but mixed, in such proportions, that no one part is
found to counteract the other. How hard this is to be attained in
every art, those only know who have made the greatest progress in
their respective professions.

To conclude what I have to say on this part of the subject, which I
think of great importance, I wish you to understand that I do not
discourage the younger students from the noble attempt of uniting
all the excellences of art, but to make them aware that, besides
the difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there is a
peculiar difficulty in the choice of the excellences which ought to
be united; I wish you to attend to this, that you may try
yourselves, whenever you are capable of that trial, what you can,
and what you cannot do: and that, instead of dissipating your
natural faculties over the immense field of possible excellence,
you may choose some particular walk in which you may exercise all
your powers, in order each of you to be the first in his way. If
any man shall be master of such a transcendant, commanding, and
ductile genius, as to enable him to rise to the highest, and to
stoop to the lowest flights of art, and to sweep over all of them
unobstructed and secure, he is fitter to give example than to
receive instruction.

Having said thus much on the union of excellences, I will next say
something of the subordination in which various excellences ought
to be kept.

I am of opinion that the ornamental style, which in my discourse of
last year I cautioned you against considering as principal, may not
be wholly unworthy the attention of those who aim even at the grand
style; when it is properly placed and properly reduced.

But this study will be used with far better effect, if its
principles are employed in softening the harshness and mitigating
the rigour of the great style, than if in attempt to stand forward
with any pretensions of its own to positive and original
excellence.

It was thus Lodovico Caracci, whose example I formerly recommended
to you, employed it. He was acquainted with the works both of
Correggio and the Venetian painters, and knew the principles by
which they produced those pleasing effects which at the first
glance prepossess us so much in their favour; but he took only as
much from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that manly
strength and energy of style, which is his peculiar character.

Since I have already expatiated so largely in my former discourse,
and in my present, upon the styles and characters of painting, it
will not be at all unsuitable to my subject if I mention to you
some particulars relative to the leading principles, and capital
works of those who excelled in the great style, that I may bring
you from abstraction nearer to practice, and by exemplifying the
propositions which I have laid down, enable you to understand more
clearly what I would enforce.

The principal works of modern art are in fresco, a mode of painting
which excludes attention to minute elegancies: yet these works in
fresco are the productions on which the fame of the greatest
masters depend: such are the pictures of Michael Angelo and
Raffaelle in the Vatican, to which we may add the cartoons, which,
though not strictly to be called fresco, yet may be put under that
denomination; and such are the works of Giulio Romano at Mantua.
If these performances were destroyed, with them would be lost the
best part of the reputation of those illustrious painters, for
these are justly considered as the greatest efforts of our art
which the world can boast. To these, therefore, we should
principally direct our attention for higher excellences. As for
the lower arts, as they have been once discovered, they may be
easily attained by those possessed of the former.

Raffaelle, who stands in general foremost of the first painters,
owes his reputation, as I have observed, to his excellence in the
higher parts of the art. Therefore, his works in fresco ought to
be the first object of our study and attention. His easel-works
stand in a lower degree of estimation; for though he continually,
to the day of his death, embellished his works more and more with
the addition of these lower ornaments, which entirely make the
merit of some, yet he never arrived at such perfection as to make
him an object of imitation. He never was able to conquer perfectly
that dryness, or even littleness of manner, which he inherited from
his master. He never acquired that nicety of taste in colours,
that breadth of light and shadow, that art and management of
uniting light, to light, and shadow to shadow, so as to make the
object rise out of the ground with that plenitude of effect so much
admired in the works of Correggio. When he painted in oil, his
hand seemed to be so cramped and confined that he not only lost
that facility and spirit, but I think even that correctness of
form, which is so perfect and admirable in his fresco works. I do
not recollect any pictures of his of this kind, except perhaps the
" Transfiguration," in which there are not some parts that appear to
be even feebly drawn. That this is not a necessary attendant on
oil-painting, we have abundant instances in more modern painters.
Lodovico Caracci, for instance, preserved in his works in oil the
same spirit, vigour, and correctness, which he had in fresco. I
have no desire to degrade Raffaelle from the high rank which he
deservedly holds: but by comparing him with himself, he does not
appear to me to be the same man in oil as in fresco.

From those who have ambition to tread in this great walk of the
art, Michael Angelo claims the next attention. He did not possess
so many excellences as Raffaelle, but those he had were of the
highest kind. He considered the art as consisting of little more
than what may be attained by sculpture, correctness of form, and
energy of character. We ought not to expect more than an artist
intends in his work. He never attempted those lesser elegancies
and graces in the art. Vasari says, he never painted but one
picture in oil, and resolved never to paint another, saying it was
an employment only fit for women and children.

If any man had a right to look down upon the lower accomplishments
as beneath his attention, it was certainly Michael Angelo: nor can
it be thought strange that such a mind should have slighted or have
been withheld from paying due attention to all those graces and
embellishments of art which have diffused such lustre over the
works of other painters.

It must be acknowledged likewise, that together with these, which
we wish he had more attended to, he has rejected all the false
though specious ornaments which disgrace the works even of the most
esteemed artists; and I will venture to say, that when those higher
excellences are more known and cultivated by the artists and the
patrons of arts, his fame and credit will increase with our
increasing knowledge. His name will then be held in the same
veneration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo the Tenth: and
it is remarkable that the reputation of this truly great man has
been continually declining as the art itself has declined. For I
must remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and
that our only hope of its revival will consist in your being
thoroughly sensible of its depravation and decay. It is to Michael
Angelo that we owe even the existence of Raffaelle; it is to him
Raffaelle owes the grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to
elevate his thoughts, and to conceive his subjects with dignity.
His genius, however, formed to blaze and to shine, might, like fire
in combustible matter, for ever have lain dormant if it had not
caught a spark by its contact with Michael Angelo: and though it
never burst out with that extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it
must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and chaste flame.
Though our judgment will upon the whole decide in favour of
Raffaelle: yet he never takes that firm hold and entire possession
of the mind in such a manner as to desire nothing else, and feel
nothing wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michael Angelo
perfectly correspond to what Bourchardon said he felt from reading
Homer. His whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all
nature which surrounded him diminished to atoms.

If we put those great artists in a light of comparison with each
other, Raffaelle had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo more
genius and imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in
energy. Michael Angelo has more of the poetical inspiration; his
ideas are vast and sublime; his people are a superior order of
beings; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their
actions or their attitudes, or the style and cast of their very
limbs or features, that puts one in mind of their belonging, to our
own species. Raffaelle's imagination is not so elevated; his
figures are not so much disjoined from our own diminutive race of
beings, though his ideas are chaste, noble, and of great conformity
to their subjects. Michael Angelo's works have a strong, peculiar,
and marked character; they seem to proceed from his own mind
entirely, and that mind so rich and abundant, that he never needed,
or seemed to disdain, to look abroad for foreign help. Raffaelle's
materials are generally borrowed, though the noble structure is his
own. The excellency of this extraordinary man lay in the
propriety, beauty, and majesty of his characters, his judicious
contrivance of his composition, correctness of drawing, purity of
taste, and the skilful accommodation of other men's conceptions to
his own purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with which
he united to his own observations on nature the energy of Michael
Angelo, and the beauty and simplicity of the antique. To the
question, therefore, which ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle
or Michael Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given
to him who possessed a greater combination of the higher qualities
of the art than any other man, there is no doubt but Raffaelle is
the first. But if, according to Longinus, the sublime, being the
highest excellence that human composition can attain to, abundantly
compensates the absence of every other beauty, and atones for all
other deficiencies, then Michael Angelo demands the preference.

These two extraordinary men carried some of the higher excellences
of the art to a greater degree of perfection than probably they
ever arrived at before. They certainly have not been excelled, nor
equalled since. Many of their successors were induced to leave
this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to surprise and
please by something uncommon or new. When this desire after
novelty has proceeded from mere idleness or caprice, it is not
worth the trouble of criticism; but when it has been in consequence
of a busy mind of a peculiar complexion, it is always striking and
interesting, never insipid.

Such is the great style as it appears in those who possessed it at
its height; in this, search after novelty in conception or in
treating the subject has no place.

But there is another style, which, though inferior to the former,
has still great merit, because it shows that those who cultivated
it were men of lively and vigorous imagination. This I call the
original or characteristical style; this, being less referred to
any true architype existing either in general or particular nature,
must be supported by the painter's consistency in the principles he
has assumed, and in the union and harmony of his whole design. The
excellency of every style, but I think of the subordinate ones more
especially, will very much depend on preserving that union and
harmony between all the component parts, that they appear to hang
well together, as if the whole proceeded from one mind. It is in
the works of art, as in the characters of men. The faults or
defects of some men seem to become them when they appear to be the
natural growth, and of a piece with the rest of their character. A
faithful picture of a mind, though it be not of the most elevated
kind, though it be irregular, wild, and incorrect, yet if it be
marked with that spirit and firmness which characterises works of
genius, will claim attention, and be more striking than a
combination of excellences that do not seem to hang well together,
or we may say than a work that possesses even all excellences, but
those in a moderate degree.

One of the strongest marked characters of this kind, which must be
allowed to be subordinate to the great style, is that of Salvator
Rosa. He gives us a peculiar cast of nature, which, though void of
all grace, elegance, and simplicity; though it has nothing of that
elevation and dignity which belongs to the grand style, yet has
that sort of dignity which belongs to savage and uncultivated
nature. But what is most to be admired in him is the perfect
correspondence which he observed between the subjects which he
chose, and his manner of treating them. Everything is of a piece:
his rocks, trees, sky, even to his handling have the same rude and
wild character which animates his figures.

To him we may contrast the character of Carlo Maratti, who, in my
own opinion, had no great vigour of mind or strength of original
genius. He rarely seizes the imagination by exhibiting the higher
excellences, nor does he captivate us by that originality which
attends the painter who thinks for himself. He knew and practised
all the rules of art, and from a composition of Raffaelle, Caracci,
and Guido, made up a style, of which its only fault was, that it
had no manifest defects and no striking beauties, and that the
principles of his composition are never blended together, so as to
form one uniform body, original in its kind, or excellent in any
view.

I will mention two other painters who, though entirely dissimilar,
yet by being each consistent with himself, and possessing a manner
entirely his own, have both gained reputation, though for very
opposite accomplishments.

The painters I mean are Rubens and Poussin. Rubens I mention in
this place, as I think him a remarkable instance of the same mind
being seen in all the various parts of the art. The whole is so
much of a piece that one can scarce be brought to believe but that
if any one of them had been more correct and perfect, his works
would not be so complete as they now appear. If we should allow a
greater purity and correctness of drawing, his want of simplicity
in composition, colouring, and drapery would appear more gross.

In his composition his art is too apparent. His figures have
expression, and act with energy, but without simplicity or dignity.
His colouring, in which he is eminently skilled, is,
notwithstanding, too much of what we call tinted. Throughout the
whole of his works there is a proportionable want of that nicety of
distinction and elegance of mind which is required in the higher
walks of painting; and to this want it may be in some degree
ascribed that those qualities which make the excellency of this
subordinate style appear in him with their greatest lustre.
Indeed, the facility with which he invented, the richness of his
composition, the luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of his colouring,
so dazzle the eye, that whilst his works continue before us we
cannot help thinking that all his deficiencies are fully supplied.

Opposed to this florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate style, that
of the simple, careful, pure, and correct style of Poussin seems to
be a complete contrast.

Yet however opposite their characters, in one thing they agreed,
both of them having a perfect correspondence between all the parts
of their respective manners.

One is not sure but every alteration of what is considered as
defective in either, would destroy the effect of the whole.

Poussin lived and conversed with the ancient statues so long, that
he may be said to be better acquainted with then than with the
people who were about him. I have often thought that he carried
his veneration for them so far as to wish to give his works the air
of ancient paintings. It is certain he copied some of the antique
paintings, particularly the "Marriage in the Albrobrandini Palace
at Rome," which I believe to be the best relique of those remote
ages that has yet been found.

No works of any modern has so much of the air of antique painting
as those of Poussin. His best performances have a remarkable
dryness of manner, which, though by no means to be recommended for
imitation, yet seems perfectly correspondent to that ancient
simplicity which distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro he studied
them so much, that he acquired a habit of thinking in their way,
and seemed to know perfectly the actions and gestures they would
use on every occasion.

Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from his dry manner
to one much softer and richer, where there is a greater union
between the figures and the ground, such as the "Seven Sacraments"
in the Duke of Orleans' collection; but neither these, nor any in
this manner, are at all comparable to many in his dry manner which
we have in England.

The favourite subjects of Poussin were ancient fables; and no
painter was ever better qualified to paint such subjects, not only
from his being eminently skilled in the knowledge of ceremonies,
customs, and habits of the ancients, but from his being so well
acquainted with the different characters which those who invented
them gave their allegorical figures. Though Rubens has shown great
fancy in his Satyrs, Silenuses, and Fauns, yet they are not that
distinct separate class of beings which is carefully exhibited by
the ancients and by Poussin. Certainly when such subjects of
antiquity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to remind
us of modern times. The mind is thrown back into antiquity, and
nothing ought to be introduced that may tend to awaken it from the
illusion.

Poussin seemed to think that the style and the language in which
such stories are told is not the worse for preserving some relish
of the old way of painting which seemed to give a general
uniformity to the whole, so that the mind was thrown back into
antiquity not only by the subject, but the execution.

If Poussin, in imitation of the ancients, represents Apollo driving
his chariot out of the sea by way of representing the sun rising,
if he personifies lakes and rivers, it is no ways offensive in him;
but seems perfectly of a piece with the general air of the picture.
On the contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had a
modern air or countenance, if they appeared like our countrymen, if
the draperies were like cloth or silk of our manufacture, if the
landscape had the appearance of a modern view, how ridiculous would
Apollo appear instead of the sun, an old man or a nymph with an urn
instead of a river or lake.

I cannot avoid mentioning here a circumstance in portrait painting
which may help to confirm what has been said.

When a portrait is painted in the historical style, as it is
neither an exact minute representation of an individual nor
completely ideal, every circumstance ought to correspond to this
mixture. The simplicity of the antique air and attitude, however
much to be admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a
modern dress. It is not to my purpose to enter into the question
at present, whether this mixed style ought to be adopted or not;
yet if it is chosen it is necessary it should be complete and all
of a piece: the difference of stuffs, for instance, which make the
clothing, should be distinguished in the same degree as the head
deviates from a general idea.

Without this union, which I have so often recommended, a work can
have no marked and determined character, which is the peculiar and
constant evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished to a
high degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that style which we
have fixed as the highest.

Thus I have given a sketch of the characters of Rubens and Salvator
Rosa, as they appear to me to have the greatest uniformity of mind
throughout their whole work. But we may add to these, all these
artists who are at the head of the class, and have had a school of
imitators from Michael Angelo down to Watteau. Upon the whole it
appears that setting aside the ornamental style, there are two
different paths, either of which a student may take without
degrading the dignity of his art. The first is to combine the
higher excellences and embellish them to the greatest advantage.
The other is to carry one of these excellences to the highest
degree. But those who possess neither must be classed with them,
who, as Shakespeare says, are men of no mark or likelihood.

I inculcate as frequently as I can your forming yourselves upon
great principles and great models. Your time will be much misspent
in every other pursuit. Small excellences should be viewed, not
studied; they ought to be viewed, because nothing ought to escape a
painter's observation, but for no other reason.

There is another caution which I wish to give you. Be as select in
those whom you endeavour to please, as in those whom you endeavour
to imitate. Without the love of fame you can never do anything
excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after
it, you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your
style; and your taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain
that the lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within
the compass of ignorance itself; and the vulgar will always be
pleased with what is natural in the confined and misunderstood
sense of the word.

One would wish that such depravation of taste should be
counteracted, with such manly pride as Euripides expressed to the
Athenians, who criticised his works, "I do not compose," says he,
" my works in order to be corrected by you, but to instruct you."
It is true, to have a right to speak thus, a man must be a
Euripides. However, thus much may be allowed, that when an artist
is sure that he is upon firm ground, supported by the authority and
practice of his predecessors of the greatest reputation, he may
then assume the boldness and intrepidity of genius; at any rate, he
must not be tempted out of the right path by any tide of popularity
that always accompanies the lower styles of painting.

I mention this, because our exhibitions, that produce such
admirable effects by nourishing emulation, and calling out genius,
have also a mischievous tendency by seducing the painter to an
ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people
who resort to them.