The new Professor of Painting will_commence his course of lectures at the Royal Academy on Thursday next, and continue it on the three Thursday evenings next following; and the Paofessor of Sculpture, Sir Richard Westmacott, commenced his course on Mon

whereof make a common cross and the other day, and will continue it on the five succeeding four a saltier.

Mondays. This year, therefore, the courses of lectures will be complete; which, owing to infirmity or some other cause, they have not

CHECKY (in heraldry), is where the shield or been for some years past.

No. 41.-Vol. II.

The Theory of Painting;

DEDUCED FROM THE "DISCOURSES" OF SIR

JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

(Continued from page 129.)

to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful; for the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight, but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description." And thus Cicero, speaking of the same Phidias: "Neither did this artist," says he, "when he carved the image of Jupiter or Minerva, set before him any one human figure as a pattern, which he was to copy; but having a more perfect idea of beauty fixed in his mind, this he steadily contemplated, and to the imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed."

THE first endeavours of a young painter, as I have before remarked, must be employed in the attainment of mechanical dexterity, and confined to the mere imitation of the object before him. Those who have advanced beyond the rudiments may perhaps find advantage in reflecting on the advice which I have likewise given them, when I recommended the diligent The moderns are no less convinced than the study of the works of our great predecessors; ancients of this superior power existing in the but I at the same time endeavoured to guard art, nor less sensible of its effects. Every them against an implicit submission to the language has adopted terms expressive of authority of any one master, however excel- this style. The gusto grande of the Italians, lent; or by a strict imitation of his manner, the beau ideal of the French, and the great precluding themselves from the abundance and style, genius, and taste among the English, are variety of nature. I will now add that nature but different appellations of the same thing. herself is not to be too closely copied. There It is this intellectual dignity, they say, that are excellences in the art of painting beyond what is commonly called the imitation of nature, and these excellences I wish to point out. The students who, having passed through the initiatory exercises, are more advanced in the art, and who, sure of their hand, have leisure to exert their understanding, must now be told that a mere copier of nature can never produce anything great; can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

The wish of the genuine painter must be more extensive: instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endeavour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas; instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame by captivating the imagination.

ennobles the painter's art; that lays the line between him and the mere mechanic; and¦ produces those great effects in an instant, which eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to attain.

Such is the warmth with which both the ancients and moderns speak of this divine principle of the art; but, as I have formerly observed, enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by such praise may have his attention roused, and a desire excited of running in this great career, yet it is possible that what has been said to excite may only serve to deter him. He examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration with which he is told so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas, and he finds himself possessed of no other The principle now laid down, that the per-qualifications than what mere common obserfection of this art does not consist in mere imi- vation and a plain understanding can confer. tation, is far from being new or singular. It Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splendour is, indeed, supported by the general opinion of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeof the enlightened part of mankind. The less to pursue an object which he supposes out poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity, of the reach of human industry. are continually enforcing this position-that all But on this, as on many other occasions, we the arts receive their perfection from an ideal ought to distinguish how much is to be given; beauty, superior to what is to be found in indi- to enthusiasm, and how much to reason. vidual nature. They are ever referring to the ought to allow for, and we ought to commend, practice of the painters and sculptors of their that strength of vivid expression which is times, particularly Phidias (the favourite necessary to convey, in its full force, the artist of antiquity), to illustrate their asser-highest sense of the most complete effect of tions. As if they could not sufficiently express their admiration of his genus by what they knew, they have recourse to poetical enthusiasm: they call it inspiration-a gift from heaven. The artist is supposed to have as cended the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this perfect idea of beauty. "He," says Proclus, "who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself

We

art; taking care, at the same time, not to lose in terms of vague admiration that solidity and truth of the principle upon which alone we can reason, and may be enabled to practice.

It is not easy to define in what this great style consists, nor to describe by words the proper means of acquiring it, if the mind of the student should be at all capable of such acquisition. Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius. But though there neither are, nor can

* Lib. 2. in Timæum Platonis, as cited by Junius de Pic- be, any precise invariable rules for the exercise

tura Veterum. R.

or the acquisition of these great qualities, yet

we may truly say that they always operate in proportion to our attention in observing the works of nature, to our skill in selecting, and to our skill in digesting, methodising, and comparing our observations. There are many beauties in our art, that seem at first to lie without the reach of precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical principles. Experience is all in all, but it is not every one who profits by experience; and most people err, not so much from want of capacity to find their object, as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and upon every side of us. But the power of discovering what is deformed in nature, or, in other words, what is particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by experience; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind.

which every deviation is deformity. But the investigation of this form, I grant, is painful; and I know but of one method of shortening the road-this is, by a careful study of the works of the ancient sculptors, who, being indefatigable in the school of nature, have left models of that perfect form behind them, which an artist would prefer as supremely beautiful, who had spent his whole life in that single contemplation. But if industry carried them thus far, may not you also hope for the same reward from the same labour? We have the same school opened to us that was opened to them; for nature denies her instructions to none who desire to become her pupils.

This laborious investigation, I am aware, must appear superfluous to those who think everything is to be done by felicity and the powers of native genius. Even the great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of confining proportion to rules, or of producing beauty by selection. "A man cannot tell," says he, "whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more trifler: whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions-the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, to make one excellent. The painter,' he adds, "must do it by a kind of felicity, and not by rule."*

All the objects which are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close examination will be found to have their blemishes and defects. The most beautiful forms have something about them like weakness, minuteness, or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used It is not safe to question any opinion of so to the contemplation and comparison of these great a writer, and so profound a thinker, as forms; and which, by a long habit of observing undoubtedly Bacon was. But he studies' what any set of objects of the same kind have brevity to excess; and, therefore, his meaning in common, has acquired the power of dis- is sometimes doubtful. If he means that beauty cerning what each wants in particular. This has nothing to do with rule, he is mistaken. long laborious comparison should be the first There is a rule, obtained out of general nature, study of the painter who aims at the greatest to contradict which is to fall into deformity. style. By this means he acquires a just idea of Whenever anything is done beyond this rule, beautiful forms; he corrects nature by herself, it is in virtue of some other rule which is folher imperfect state by her more perfect. His lowed along with it, but which does not contraeye being enabled to distinguish the accidental dict it. Everything which is wrought with deficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of certainty, is wrought upon some principle. If things, from their general figures, he makes it is not, it cannot be repeated. If by felicity out an abstract idea of their forms more perfect is meant anything of chance or hazard, or than any one original; and, what may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally, by drawing his figures unlike to any one object. This idea of the perfect state of nature, which the artist calls the ideal beauty, is the great leading principle by which works of genius are conducted. By this, Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a sober principle what has so much excited the enthusiasm of the world; and by this method, those, who have courage to tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation.

something born with a man, and not learned, I cannot agree with this great philosopher. Every object which pleases must give us pleasure upon some certain principles; but as the objects of pleasure are almost infinite, so their principles vary without end; and every man finds them out, not by felicity or successful hazard, but by care and sagacity.

(To be continued.)

This is the idea which has acquired, and which seems to have a right to, the epithet of OAK TREES FOR SHIPPING.-It is asserted, divine; as it may be said to preside, like a su- in the "Life of Bishop Watson," that a 74-gun preme judge, over all the productions of ship requires to build it 200 oak trees of two nature, appearing to be possessed of the will tons of timber each, and supposing 100 such and intention of the Creator, as far as they trees growing on an acre, clears 20 acres of regard the external form of living beings. woodland. An acre of oak trees is generally When a man once possesses this idea in its per-reckoned at 6,760 square yards, or nearly half fection, there is no danger but that he will be as much more as the common acre. Mr. Wood sufficiently warmed by it himself, and be able observed in the House of Commons lately, that to warm and ravish every one else. it took 150 men a twelvemonth to build such a ship.

Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I may so express it, from

* Essays, p. 252, edit. 1625.