28 APRIL 1838, Page 18

WA AGEN ON ART AND ARTISTS IN ENGLAND.

IN no one of the fine arts—using the term in its original and true sense—is criticism at so low an ebb as in those of design. The reason is obvious : for the thorough appreciation of works of painting and sculpture, a knowledge of' the process, as well as the principles involved, is requisite,—nay, even some measure of practical skill is desirable; for the girl who has had a few lessons from HARDING OT PROUT, will better understand the technical part of a picture, than the most acute thinker who is not familiar with the knack of picture-making. The critic of painting ought to be an artist in mind, if not in practice : he should have the "painter's eye" for the beauties of form and colour—a gift of nature that only study and practice can fully develop. Without this indispensable qualification, the profoundest analytical powers, or the most lofty imagination, will be completely at a loss to traoe to its source the enjoyment derived from the sight of a fine work of art, to discriminate the true from the false goddess, and to ded duce leading principles from the practice of the great masters. Until the study of the arts of design become a regular branch of education, and a knowledge of draa hag be as general as of music, painting and sculpture will continue to be valued only as oraa•

ents

• of luxury, and tl eir literature be limited to barren techni- cm lities. AZIATT, one of the r inest critics of painting in modern names, studied as a painter : LAmB, whose perception of the beau- ties of art was delicate and refined, was indeed unacquainted with the practice, but he had the mind of an artist, and was a practised connoisseur. In the dearth of writers on the arts of design, such a contribu- nea o this of Professor WAAGEN possesses a value beyond its abstract merits. In correctness of judgment, nice discrimination, and an eclectic impartiality in estimating the different schools, Dr. WAAGEN shows himself to be an enlightened and experienced connoisseur : but his critical remarks are more just than original or profound, and his gusto seems orer-chustened by an equable and dispassionate temper—we miss the kindling enthusiasm that canin the reader along as if listening to an animated discourse. Instead of conveying broad general impressions in a vigorous style, with glancing indications of the salient points, Dr. W AAIUN esters into the minute details of the pictures he saw ; and his de- scriptions, consequently, rather serve to identify the subjects of his remarks than to bring, them before us. In a word, he has written a catalogue raisonne of the works of art in England; very useful to refer to, but very tiresome to read. Dr. WAAGEN came to -England in May 1835; and from that time till October, he was wholly occupied in the pursuit and in- spection of the public and private collections in London and the country ; running the round of picture-seeing with all the ex- pedition possible to a person limited for time and means. In the course of this rapid progress, he went through nearly all the prin. cipal galleries: for, being provided with the best introductions, including Royalty, those collections most difficult of access were thrown open to him; and he shared the splendid hospitality for which England is famous—that is, where the stranger is dis- tinguished enough to be a "lion" of the season. Dr. W AAGEN s account of his visit to Windsor, of the parties at Devonshire, Lansdowne, and Stafford Houses, and of his tour round the "

show-places" of the aristocracy, are the most readable portion of his volumes. The unpretending shape of letters to his wife, and entries in his journal, give a character of simplicity to the de- scriptions, that may be relished in his native country ; but as the impressions are not different from those of any ordinary person under similar circumstances, and we have been pretty well sa- tiated with the notions foreigners entertain of our prospects, stage- coaches, inns, and mansions, even this has little interest. The worthy Professor seems to have been as much impressed with the conveniences of travelling in England, and the liberality and courtesy of the possessors of the houses be visited, as with the number and richness of the collectiona. And no wonder : we cannot fancy a more delightful existence than that enjoyed by a foreigner having the entrée of the first circles, and the ad- vantage of an intelligent chaperon. He sees the best face of society : every one is desirous to please, and he is in the mood to be gratified with every thing. In two or three instances, however, through the absence of the family, our tourist experienced some of the disagreeables that " nobodies '• are doomed to suffer in seeking a sight of the treasures that wealth and taste accumulate for their private gratification. The bland and placid German is not a little chagrined at meeting with a positive denial, or the tanta- lising treat of walking through rooms lined with fine pictures with an impatient housekeeper at his heels, jingling her keys and significantly holding the door. This constant habit of superfi- cially glancing at pictures, is, by the way, both a proof and a cause of the insufficient knowledge of art among us : nine-tenths tithe curious who flock to exhibitions and picture-houses, do no more than "wonder with a foolish face of praise."

Dr. WAAGEN introduces his account of the various collections by an interesting sketch of the origin and progress of the collect- ing of works dart in England : it is too long to quote entire.

THE FIRST ROYAL GALLERIES. •

The inclination to collect works of art originated in the Court. King Henry the Eighth, a friend of the fine arts and a great patron of the celebrated Holbeim NU the first who formed a collection of pictures. It Yin, however, of mode- rate extent, since including miniatures, it contained no more than one hundred and fifty. The glory of having been the first to form a gallery of paintings on &large scale, belongs to King Charles the First, who lived a century later. As this prince united an extraordinary love for works of art with the moat refined taste, and spared neither pains nor expense, he succeeded in forming a collection of paintings, which was not only the richest of that age in masterpieces of the time of Raphael, but is perhaps scarcely to be equalled even in our days. The King began to collect before lie ascended the throne. After the death of his elder brother, Prince Henry, who was likewise a lover of the arta, it was in- creased by the addition of his cabinet. But the chief portion consisted of the collection of the Dukes of Mantua, which he purchased, through the Duke of Buckingham, most probably of Duke Charles the First, in the year 1627 or 1628. He is said to have paid 80,0001. for it—a very large sum in those days. That collection was, however, one of the first in Italy : the family of Gonzaga' reigning at Mantua, had been one hundred and fifty years in forming it up to 1b27; and this family was second only, in patronage of the arts, to that of the Medici. In the fifteenth century they drew the great Andrea Mantegna to their court, and in the sixteenth Raphael's greatest scholar, Giulio Romano. 113 this collection there were then, besides several other pictures by Raphael, hill celebrated "Triumphal Procession of Julius Cresar," and by Giulio a great bomber of capital easel-pieces. Raphael probably painted for the Gonzagas the famous Holy Family, which is admired in the &curial by the name of the .". Pearl ; " Coreggio his " Education of Cupid," now in the Eng- lish National Gallery, and two larger allegorical pictures ; Titian, among many others, the celebrated Entombment, now in the Louvre, and the first Twelve Caesars. All these and admirable works by other masters were acquired for England. The King obtained besides, by the intervention of ideas, the seven celebrated Cartoons by Raphael. Three-and-twenty fine Pictures of the Italian school were purchased of one Frosley. Lastly, foreign The whole number of pictures in the Royal Palaces at the time cf their sale by the Commonwealth was 1,387, and of sculptures 399 ; the greater part being undoubtedly genuine, and a con- siderable number of them chefs-cfcauvre. The Earl of ARUNDEL and the Duke of BUCKINGHAM were the two most distinguished connoisseurs of CHARLES'S reign; and both their noble collections were dispersed. As the Puritans held music and painting in equal contempt, CROMWELL'S buying the seven Cartoons of RAPHAEL (for 300/.) is remarkable. With the Restoration the taste for the fine arts revived; and CHARLES the Second boasted a collection of 1,100 pictures and 100 sculptures, though of an in- ferior grade : LELY, the Court painter, had also a fine collection. Since that time, the taste for collecting pictures has extended widely amongst the nobility, while the Court has done nothing for art, and the Government but little. At the end of the last century, the Houghton collection (Sir ROBERT WALPOLE'S) was suffered to quit the country, being bought by the EmpressCATHI■ RINE of Russia for 3 0,0004 ; as the LAWRENCE collection of draw- ings has been dismembered and scattered in our day.

Dr. WAAGEN's estimate of the English painters is very just.

THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.

This moral-humorous department in the only one in which the English have enlarged the domain of painting in general; for, with the exception of a few pictures by Jan Steen, I know nothing similar of an earlier period. In all other branches they are more or less excelled by the other schools. Portrait painting is the branch which they have cultivated with the most success, and the best portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds take a high rank, even when com- pared with the performances of other schools. Next to this are the painters of what the French call pieces de genre, scenes of every-day life and atill.life, and especially their animal painters. Their landscapes are far lower in the scale, in such a comparison. But they are weakest of all in historical painting, where inventive and creative fancy is the most called for. Having thus viewed the intellectual region of the art, let us briefly consider their progress in the scienti- fic parts. Their drawing is, on the whole indifferent; the forms often suffer from incorrectness, and still more by want of precision; on the other hand, most English painters have great brilliancy, fulness, and depth of colour, which make much show, and charm the eye ; often, it is true, at the expense of fidelity to nature and of delicately balanced harmony. For the mode of execution, it is a misfortune for the English school that it at once began where other school, nearly leave off. From the most scrupulous execution of the details, which seeks to bring every object as near as possible to the reality, even for close inspection, the older schools but very gradually acquired the conviction that the same effect might be produced, at a moderate distance, with fewer strokes of the pencil, and thus attained a broader handling. But the English school began at once with a very great freedom and breadth of handling, where, in the works of Hogarth and Reynolds, indeed, every touch is seen in nature, and expresses something positive; but in most of the later painters degenerated into a flimsiness and negligence, so that but a very superficial and general image is given of every object, and many pictures have the glaring effect of scene-painting, while others are lost in misty indistinctness.

WEST'S eremites AND THE PUBLIC TASTE.

But what shall we say to the two pictures of the "Last Supper," and of "Christ Healing the Lame Man ?" The more we are used to demand in the representation of such sublime subjects, the more unsatisfactory, and even offensive, is the impression made by these pictures. The genera/ and insignifi- cant character of the heads displays a lamentable deficiency in knowledge of nature ; the expression is affected or poor—the attitudes theatrical or uninean. ing—the tone of the flesh brick-red and cold—the colours heavy and intrans. parent—the total impression motley and scattered ; and yet these pictures are considered by many .Englishmen as true models of biblical history ; and I often found a great number of admiring spectators collected round them. Consider. ing the religious respect for the Bible, which is so general in England, I be- lieved at first that this admiration was paid to the subject rather than to the manner in which it was treated. But since I have seem in the apartment at Hampton Court where Raphisers seven cartoons are hung, which also repre- sent subjects from Scripture, and that in the most worthy and most dignified manner., persons of the same clam spend no snore time than what was necessary to walk 'brought it I am convinced that even in the great mass of what are called the educated classes in England, there is not yet any genuine feeling for historical painting.

WILE II.

Wilkie is especially to be commended, that in such scenes as the "Distress

for Rent," he never falls into caricature, as has often happened to Hogarth, but with all the energy of expression remains within the bounds of truth. It is affirmed that the deeply impressive and touching character of this picture caused an extraordinary sensation in England when it first appeared. Here we first learn duly to prize another feature of his pictures, namely, their genuine

national character. They are in all their parts the most spirited, animated, and faithful representations of the peculiarities and modes of life of the English. • In many other respects, Wilkie reminds me of the great Dutch

painters of common life of the seventeenth century, and likewise in the choice of many subjects—for instance, the "Blind Man's Buff;" but particularly by the • which means also Scotch, thou;ii Professor WAeosN could not be expected to dila criminate between them. sovele,giis arid his 011/11 Hibjects vied with each other in adding to the collection by most valuable presents. On his visit to Madrid, when Prince of Wales, King Philip the Fourth of Spain gave him the famous picture of Titian, called after the palace where it had so long been kept, the " Venus del Pardo." The subject is properly Jupiter and Antiope. in one of the grandest and finest land. scopes by Titian with which we are acquainted. It is now in the Louvre. Louis the Thirteenth, King of France, presented him by his ambassador, M. de Lyoncourt, with St. John the Baptist, a highly-finished picture, by Urinals& do Vinci, which is now likewise an ornament of the Louvre. Among the many Englishmen who presented the King with pictures, those who above all distinguished themselves were, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the Lord Marshal, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord High Chamberlain, the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Hamilton, and Lord Abbot Montague. Though the King preferred the great Italian masters, he duly appreciated the principal painters of the German and Flemish schools. Of the earlier masters of the sixteenth centssty he posse-seed works of Holhein, Durer, Pens, Cranaeb, Lucas von Leyden, and Antonio More. He endeavoured to induce Rubens, the greatest painter among his contemporaries, to settle in England ; and when he failed in this, be loaded Mtn with marks of favour, and not only engaged him to paint the ceiling of the Banqueting.room in the Palace of Whitehall, built by Inigo Jones, but also purchased some of his best easel- pictures. On the other hand, he was so fortunate as to attach entirely to his service the most distinguished of the scholars of Rubens, Vaodyck ; and the number of masterly pictures which he executed for him, from the year 163'2 to his death in 1642, was very considerable. 'artful and complete making out of the details, in which he is one of the rare exceptions among his countrymen. If he does not go so far in this respect as Douw and Frans Minis, he is nearly on an equality with the more carefully. executed paintings of Teniers and Jan Steen. His touch, too, often approaches the former in spirit and freedom, especially in his earlier pictures.

A ROYAL ACADEME EIRIBITIOW.

The total impression is by no means satisfactory ; the great mass of the pic- tures, compared with those of the older English painters, manifest progressive decline and licence. Individual feeling, drawing, truth of colouring, careful execution, are here sought in vain. The whole object is to produce a striking but unmeaning effect, by the harshest contrasts and the most glaring colours. On a closer inspection, however, we find a moderate number of pictures which are honourable exceptions. Of the higher tilers of historical painting there is sothing here.