370 Modern Pictures. [Ocr. 
“paper on “ Oxp Picrurss,”* to which the present paper is offered, if 
not exactly as a reply, at least as a set-off. What we mean is, that great- 
ness of size, if carried beyond a certain point, is positively destructive 
of the particular effect sought to be produced by it: to say nothing of 
the certain and quick mechanical destruction which it entails upon itself. 
The work in question—the Vision of Joseph—has (together with some 
glaring defects) very great and striking merits: but if the latter were 
tenfold more in amount than they are, and the former were altogether 
removed, the picture itself could not hope to live for half a century, nor 
the painter to be remembered by it during half that period. In fact, 
those who paint for immortality have more chance of attaining their 
object, even by painting miniatures in rings, than by the opposite extreme, 
of covering acres of canvass. Mr. Haydon seems at last to have disco- 
vered this truth, though twenty years too late for his own fame, no less 
than for the future character of British Art ; and we sincerely hope that 
Mr. Lane will not be blind to it, even fora single day. If he should be, 
and should determine to paint two more such pictures as the Vision of 
Joseph, the hopes that his friends and the public have a right to conceive 
in regard to him will be worse than dissipated—they will be contradicted. 
Without entering into a minute detail of the various points of this 
striking work, we will say, generally and without qualification, that all 
the merely natural portions of it merit commendation, and that all 
the super-natural portions merit, if not absolute condemnation, a most 
limited portion of praise indeed. The group on the mattrass on the right 
—of Joseph, the Madonna, and the infant Jesus—are executed in a 
masterly manner; and the characters of the two former (but par- 
ticularly that of the Virgin) are conceived with great feeling and truth. 
We cannot, however, approve of the new manner of treating the principal 
figure, Joseph ; who is represented, not as receiving the holy dream into 
the recesses of his mind while asleep, but as literally awakened by it, and 
gazing upon it with his bodily senses. We do not see that, by this mode 
of treating the subject, sufficient is gained to excuse the incongruity: for 
all the other novel portion of the picture might have been introduced 
just as appropriately, in the ordinary and (so to speak) natural mode of 
treatment. The portion to which we allude is that which represents not 
merely the angel who comes to bid Joseph take flight into Egypt to 
avoid the massacre of Herod, but that massacre itself. Now, so far from 
there being any thing objectionable in this latter, it is not only the most 
poetical mode of treatment, but it increases the subject matter in a vast - 
degree, and ina most effective manner. But by making Joseph literally 
see all this, instead of dream it, the artist has changed into a miracle that 
which need not be regarded as such, and which claims and receives our 
human sympathy in the exact proportion that it is mot so regarded. There 
is another portion of this work, the conception of which we can. as little 
approve as that to which we have just alluded. We mean the introduc- 
tion of the gigantic figure, who has been struck to the ground by divine 
influence, just as he was about to fulfil the (not yet existing) mandate 
of Herod, by destroying the Holy Child. There can be little doubt 
that all this exceptionable matter, together with the host of supernatural 
objects which occupy the whole upper portion of the canvass, was intro- 
duced chiefly, if not entirely, on account of the enormous scale on which 
the artist had determined to execute his work. But, notwithstanding 
the scope which all this has given to the display of design and execution, 
* Vide MontuLy MaGazine, yol. vi., page 26. 
