FUSELI'S LECTURES.* WHATEVER be the opinion concerning FUSEL! as a
painter, there can be no doubt of his learning and talents as a scholar and a critic of art. Possessed of strong powers of mind, an original genius and extensive literary acquirements, he was in the highest degree qualified to instruct students ; and his precepts and observations partake both of his sound judgment and constitutional enthusiasm. His classical feeling gives refinement to his taste and elevation to his style of writing ; and his profound knowledge of art both in its history and technicalities adds the value of authenticity to his instruction.
The first course of lectures, which has been for a long time before the public, has been admired and appreciated not less by the reader of taste than by the professional student. His second lecture is a grand sym- phony to art. His enlarged views of the beauty and sublimity of the grand style, as exemplified in the works of MICHAEL ANGELO and RAr- FAELLE, do not prevent him from appreciating minor excellence, where • Lectutes on Painting, delivered at the Royal Academy, by Henry Fuse% P. P. Second Series, Now first printed from the Original Manuscripts. London, 18210. "By a great establishment, I mean one that will employ the living I The King has been pleased to appoint Colonel J. Guille to be his Majesty's Aide- artists, raise among them a spirit of emulation dignified by the objects of I de.Camp for the service of His Militia in Jersey. their occupation, and inspire the public with that spirit ; not an ostenta. Memorandum—The King has been pleased to direct that IL Bristow, Esq. late tious display of ancient and modern treasures of genius, accumulated by I Major upon half-pay, 38th Foot, be restored to his rank in the Army. -the hand of conquest or of rapine. To plunder the earth was a Roman I WAR-OFFICE, Sept. 23.—To be Deputy Commissaries-General to the Forces— that modern Assistant Commissary Generals AV. Maturin, A. Stachan, J. J. Moore, J. Spurrier, principle, and it is not perhaps matter of lamentation' G. Moore, D. Ibbetson, AV. Cumming, W. H. Snelling. To be Assistant Commissa- Rome,, by a retaliation of her own principle, is made to pay the debt I ries-General to the Forces—Deputy-Assistant-Commissary-Generals It. Allsopp, contracted with mankind. But let none fondly believe that the imports- I T. II. Thomson, S. Coming, T. Hill, C. Ragueneau, G. Yeoland, Duncan Id `Nab, tion of Greek and Italian works of art is an importation of Greek and W. Gundell, F. L. Chiaranda, W. Green, A. Riddell, W. A. Thompson, W. Thom. Italian genius, taste, establishments and means of encouragement ; with- son. To be Deputy-Assistant-CommissariesHeneral to the Forces—Commissariat- out transplanting and disseminating these, the gorgeous accumulation J T. Wilson. IV. Nicholls. of technic monuments is no more than a dead capital, and, instead of a Erratum in the Gazette of the 21st instant—For Col. S. Guile to be his Majesty's benefit, a check on living I Aid-de-Camp for the service of his Majesty in Jersey, read, for the service of hia "The Act of. honours and rewards has been insisted on as a nem- .,
ieally exists ; but in all his remarks he keeps in view the end and aim of high art, and raises the minds of the students to the intellectual qua- Bees of those fine and great works which he holds up as models for their Study, not for their imitation.
It has been noticed as remarkable, that those of our great painters ;who, though not men of education or literary habits, gave lectures on their art, have furnished not only enlightened remarks and correct precepts, but have delivered them in a style worthy of eminent au- thorship. Such is the case with the lectures of Sir Jositue REY- NOLDS and of Mr. OPIE. Of the former it has been untruly as- serted that he received the aid of his illustrious friends Jottaisott and BURKE ; and of the latter, that he was indebted to his talented wife for the propriety of his style. These doubts arise from a narrow and erroneous judgment ; for both REYNOLDS and OPIE were men of good sense and natural abilities independently of their proficiency in their profession. And when a man has knowledge to communicate, he will not be at a loss for words to convey his meaning ; while his feeling for the art on which he discourses wilt supply him with the vital principle of style in composition. FUSELI had, however, great additional resources in his liberal education, his knowledge of classical and Continental lan- guages, and his extensive reading ; and he displays them not less in his style than in his matter. Nevertheless, his lofty and impassioned elo- quence sometimes degenerates into laboured pomposity and pedantic affectation. His style flows with the volume and impetuosity of a river, but he also occasionally forces it into an artificial stream shallow and frothy.
This second series of his lectures consists of six, making twelve in all ; and they treat respectively of Design—of Colour, in fresco and in oil painting—of the Figure—of the different modes of treating the His- tory of the Art—Observations on the last Supper by LEONARDO DA VINCI—of the present State of Art, and the causes which check its progress. From this last and most generally interesting discourse, we shall find room for a few extracts ; for the opinions of such a man as FUSELI will have due influence both over artists and those interested in art.
In his tenth lecture, he has the following observations ; which some of our modern artists would do well to apply to themselves. After ob- serving, that without unwearied toil and perseverance genius is a bubble and talent a trifle, he goes on to say-
' "If the students of this academy must be supposed to have overcome the rudiments, and to be arrived at that point from which it may be dis- covered whether nature intended them for mere craftsmen or real artists, near that point, where, in the phrase of Reynolds, 'genius begins and rules end,' it behoves us not to mistake the mere children of necessity, or the pledges of vanity, for the real nurselings of public hope, or the future supporters of the beneficent establishment that rears them. Instruc- tion, it is true, may put them in possession of every attainable part of the art in a decent degree ; they may learn to draw with tolerable cor- rectness, to colour with tolerable effect, to put their figures together tolerably well, and to furnish their faces with a tolerable expression—it may not be easy for any one to pick any thing intolerably bad out of their works • but when they have done all this--,and almest.allmay do this, for all Lis may be taught—they will find themselves exactly at the point where all that gives value to art begins—genius which cannot be taught—at the threshold of the art, in a state of mediocrity. Gods, men, and fame,' says Horace, reject mediocrity in poets.' Why ? Neither poetry nor painting spring from the necessities of society, or furnish necessaries to life ; offsprings of fancy, leisure, and lofty contem- plation, organs of religion and government,. ornaments of society, and too often mere charms of the senses and Instruments of luxury, they derive their excellence from novelty, degree, and polish. What none indispensably want, all may wish for, but few only are able to procure, acquires its value from some exclusive quality, founded on intrinsic or some conventional merit, and that, or an equal substitute, mediocrity cannot reach : hence, by suffering it to invade the province of genius and talent, we rob the plough, the shop, the loom, the school, perhaps the desk and pulpit, of a thousand useful hands. A good me- chanic, a trusty labourer, an honest tradesman, are beings more import- ant, of greater use to society, and better supporters of the state, than an artist or a poet of mediocrity.!'
Speaking of the encouragement of art in England, he says-
" You accuse the public of apathy for the arts, while public and pri- vate exhibitions tread on each other's heels, panorama opens on pano- rama, and the splendour of galleries dazzles the wearied eye, and the ear is stunned with the incessant stroke of the sculptor's hammer, and Our temples narrowed by crowds of monuments shouldering each other to perpetuate the memory of statesmen who deluded, or of heroes who ble.d at a nation's call ! Look round all Europe—revolve the page of history from Osymandias to Pericles, from Pericles to Constantine—and say what age, what race stretched forth a stronger arm to raise the drooping genius of art? Is it the public's fault if encouragement is turned into a job, and despatch and quantity have supplanted excellence and quality, as objects of the artist's emulation ? And do you think that accidental and temporary encouragement can invalidate charges founded on permanent causes ?"
In recommending a provisional establishment for the encouragement Of art, he continues- sary incentive to artists : they ought indeed to be, they sometimes are, the result of superior powers; but accidental or partial honours cannot create genius, nor private profusion supply public neglect. No genuine work of art ever was or ever can be produced, but for its own sake ; if the artist do not conceive to please himself, he never will finish to please the world.
" We have now been in. possesssion of an academy more than half a century ; all the intrinsic means of forming a style alternate at our commands ; professsonal instruction has never ceased to direct the student; premiums are distributed to rear talent and stimulate emulation, and stipends are granted to relieve the wants of genius and finish education. And what is the result ? If we apply to our Exhibition what does it present, in the aggregate, but a gorgeous display of varied powers, con- demned, if not to the beasts, at least to the dictates of fashion and vanity ? What therefore can be urged against the conclusion, that, as far as the public is concerned, the art is sinking and threatens to sink still deeper from the want of demand for great and significant works ? Florence, Bologna, Venice, each singly taken, produced in the course of the sixteenth century alone, more great historic pictures than all Britain taken together, from its earliest attempts at painting to its present efforts. What are we to conclude from this ? that the soil from which Shakspeare and Milton sprung, is unfit to rear the genius of poetic art ? or find the cause of this seeming impotence in that general change of habits, customs, pursuits, and amusements, which for near a century has stamped the national character of Europe with apathy or discoun- tenance of the genuine principles of art 2"
And in conclusion-
" But if the severity of these observations, this denudation of our pre. sent state moderates our hopes, it ought to invigorate our efforts for the ultimate preservation, and, if immediate restoration be hopeless, the gradual recovery of Art. To raise the Arts to a conspicuous height may not perhaps be in our power ; we shall have deserved well of posterity, if we succeed in stemming their farther downfall, if we fix them on the soild base of principle. If it be out of our power to furnish the student's activity with adequate practice, we may contribute to form his theory ; and criticism founded on experiment, instructed by comparison, in pos. session of the labours of every epoch of art, may spread the genuine elements of taste, and check the present torrent of affectation and in- sipidity."
This second series of lectures contained in the present volume, are equally worthy with the first of the fame of FUSELI and of the study of the artist ; to whom they will afford the most valuable instruc- tion. To the student they throw a stronger light upon the glorious achievements of the great masters, while they afford to the connoisseur a wider basis, and a more lofty standard by which to appreciate the merits of various degrees and qualities of excellence.
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