PICTURES AND ARTISTS.
THE BOOK OF BEAUTY.
WE really do not know how to look this procession of fine full-grown Foundlings of Fancy in their beautiful faces, and complain, as we are
most critically disposed to do, of their want of interest in our eyes. With such a display of copperplate flesh and blood before us, we ought not only to be content, but enraptured—breaking forth incontinently into a rhapsody of eulogistic exclamations. We should almost as soon
think of being critical in the midst of a bevy of dark-eyed Sultanas in a herein, or a throng of Houris in the Paradise of Mahomet. But 'tie our vocation ; and we have so " subdued our nature to what it works
in," by the exercise of our scrutinizing faculties for the benefit of our readers, that we can no more be moved by the factitious beauty of any thing not intrinsically good, than a judge on the bench by the smiles or tears of a lovely woman to pronounce a false judgment. The truth is, that these beauties are neither real women nor ideal characters. They have fair faces, smooth cheeks, beaming eyes, pulpy lips, and corporeal charms of the ripest and amplest beauty—some of their arms are tremendous—anti they are placed in striking attitudes, and attired in all varieties of fashion, least, present, and possible. They are a brilliant assemblage of substantial nonentities—soulless embodied forms—im- personations of physical charms ; but their faces want meaning, and they themselves want character. The artists appear to have had no
definite object in fashioning them, except that of getting a customer for a pretty face. They are merely a collection of fancy heads, with names given to them by the fair authoress of the written portion of the volume ; who, we suppose, also furnishes forth a Catalogue of charms and characteristics en suite, thus giving " to airy nothing a local habita- tion and a name." These beauties are produced upon the same prin- ciple as the cleverly-drawn French lithographic heads with names each commencing with a different letter of the alphabet; Which is much the same as that acted upon by the respectable fraternity. of doll-makers —only. the face-makers are a profession, and pretend to taste and invention.
This system of spawning pictures, is one so enervating .to the genius or talent of the artist,—fostering an effeminacy that panders alike to
the vanity of the poorest fancy and the love of case of the strongest
imagination among painters,—that we are resolved; for the benefit both of painting and of public taste, to oppose it as strenuously as we can. The notion of giving portraits of ideal persons and characters,
such as those of the Waverley Novels for instance, was absurd enough, and manifestly a delusion ; the attempt could only end in disappoint-
ment to the reader and discredit to the artist. The novelist describes the person of his hero or heroine, to assist the fancy of his reader in embodying the moral and mental character. It enables him to define and fill up the vague outline—to clothe.the shape of fantasy in the cos- tume of the age : It gives us-a personal interest in the individual. But a pretended drawing of a set of features-merely, without any expression incidental to a particular situation or point of feeling, is an imperti- nence—a mere mockery. Still,-to do this,• supposes-some exercise of imagination—there is some purpose evitlentor should be : but for an artist to sit down and sketch faces at random according to his esta- blished formula, and then clothe them in a nondescript costume, and fur- nish them forth with accessaries ad libitum, though it may be a very easy mode of making pictures and making money, is mere child's play ; and can gratify the mind of no one who exercises his understanding in look- ing at a picture. The writing a story, or describing a character, to fit these " designs to let," supplies after a fashion the very essentials these empty outsides want ; gives them an interest they would not otherwise possess, and gains for the artist a credit he did not deserve. The Book of Beauty is the first-fruits of this precious system of humbug; which, if it continue, will emasculate the genius of painting in the end. It will reduce the art to a mere handicraft, like that of a decorator. Shame on such low fancies—such puling efforts on the part of those who profess a high and liberal art! In the case of some attempts to de- pict passion, emotion, or character, we hail partial success as evidence of good feeling and intention ; but these Pro the exceptions, not the rule ; and they- are accidental to the plan of the work,—which was to bring together a lot of showy heads to please the eye, and to interleave them with some pretty writing by a popular author, to make a book. This is " getting up " a new Annual.
Now to the plates. BOXALL contributes two pretty heads. One, called" Meditation," would be beautiful in expression as it is in feature, but that the mouth betrays the want of meaning, and reveals the accident that produced it. The air and composition of the figure are extremely graceful; and there is something very charming in the face ; the cra- nium, however, is preposterously high. " Zolah" has a pretty set of features, but a vacant expression ; and " the Enchantress" is altogether meretricious. Miss L. SHARPE'S are clever pictures, and tastefully dressed. The " Orphan" is pretty and grave, but not genuine ; " Be- linda" might be any one else with greater propriety; " Gulnare" is a dark female, with open mouth, and large gem-like eyes, and she holds a lamp ; but she is no more Gulnare than the next is " Rebecca,"— an affected face, and figure in the costume of the Rebecca of a fancy- ball. If this Annual had been called the " Fancy Ball," and these handsome females set forth as the principal characters, then indeed we should havepraised the artists while we pitied the waste of their skill. JOHN W. WRIGHT'S "Laura" has a set of fine features spoiled by false and inappropriate expression ; and neither the costume nor com- position are felicitous. His " Lucy Ashton " would be excellent but for the mouth ; which is constrained, and denotes a consciousness of something besides the miniature of her lover, which she holds in her hand : the head and eyes and the attitude are good, and the style of the head-dress is simple. CHALON'S " Bride" is an attractive piece of effect ; but she is too listless and indifferent even for a bridemaid : the turn of the head and eyes too is affected and unnatural. Mr. STONE'S beauties are sculptural, and have an air of assumption which is any thing but pleasing : " Donna Julia" is not pensive, but mawkish ; and then what a costume! Mr. PARRIS'S " Grace St. Aubyn" and Mr. HARPER'S female with a mask are just suited to adorn a novel of the Minerva press; they are about-as-like nature as their heroines are : what is the lady with the mask about with her leg ? WOOLNOTRI " 14eQUQ1A" is a smug portrait of some respectable female perhaps, upon whom the artist has conferred a prodigious hat and feathers ; and Mr. ConsouLD's " Medora" is the sculptured effigy of a female sleeping in the position of a corpse on a bier. The engraving of all the plates is in the best style, and highly finished ; as is the case with all works which have the benefit of CHARLES HEATH'S superintending skill.
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