D R A W I N G. 



109 



Drawing, 

 or Dign. 



Parallel be- 

 tween M. 

 Angelo and 

 Raffaelle. 



Tiii.'in. 



'Correggio. 



ParmeggU- 



DO. 



Tli Carrac- 

 ri. 



considered. He possessed all those parts of the art in 

 a high and respectable degree, particularly the expres- 

 sive, which was his most characteristic and predomina- 

 ting quality : he shews, in his works, a most beautiful 

 and highly interesting chain of well reasoned and hap- 

 pily variegated incidents, a solid, manly judgment, a di- 

 vine enthusiastic warmth, and an expressive energy, 

 which have set him above all the moderns in this branch 

 of the art. 



Raffaelle and Michael Angelo have thus carried the art 

 farther than had ever been done before, and they have 

 never been equalled since. If it be inquired, which of 

 these two extraordinary men should hold the first rank, 

 it will be answered, that if it is to be given to him who 

 possessed the greater number of the higher excellencies 

 of the art, it must be Raffaelle. But if the sublime, 

 which is the highest excellence that human composi- 

 tions can attain to, compensate for the absence of every 

 other beauty, and atone for all defects, then Michael 

 Angelo demands the preference. 



Titian's style of drawing is not remarkable for any 

 excellency : he had but little selection, and was closely 

 attached to whatever he saw that was not grossly faulty 

 in the models he drew from ; his forms, therefore, 

 though well enough rendered, are generally imperfect ; 

 he was ideal and scientific in his colouring only. 



On the contrary, Correggio, besides the charms of his 

 Chiar' Oscuro, gave in his drawing more grace, deli- 

 cacy, and sentiment, than any of his predecessors, though 

 these beauties often degenerate in him to affectation and 

 inaccuracy, particularly in his larger works. In his oil 

 pictures, wherein he could revise and correct, his figures 

 and expressions are better attended to ; and the beauty, 

 grace, and interesting sensibility of his female figures, 

 strongly shew how far Raffaelle was short of him in this 

 class of character. See CORREGGIO. 



The taste of design of Parmeggiano is often an im- 

 provement both on Michael Angelo and Correggio: he 

 frequently possesses the spirit and intelligence of the 

 one, with the grace, sentiment, and sweetness of the 

 other. His figures have much spirit and energy of ac- 

 tion ; they are often singularly beautiful, and almost al- 

 ways graceful ; the articulations of the joints shew great 

 agility and ease; they are of a fine length and beautiful 

 form, and on the whole display great knowledge of the 

 figure. These beauties are, however, often carried to 

 excess, particularly in the extremities, in the move- 

 ments and actions of his figures, which, though the 

 seat of his greatest excellence, are frequently over- 

 powered by too much spirit 



The Carracci formed a new style, by uniting all the 

 parts of the art which had separately been cultivated by 

 their predecessors, without giving particular attention 

 to any one; and though they have not equalled the 

 grandeur of Micliael Angelo, or the expression of Rat- 

 tat-lie, the grace and chiar' oscuro of Correggio, the 

 strength and fine distribution of colour of Titian, their 

 works in gi-neral combine more excellencies than had 

 ever been brought together before. Agostino's style of 

 design ia better selected from nature, more large and 

 noble, than that of Ludovico ; and, from the great per- 

 fection he has displayed in many of his pictures, it 

 must be regretted that he dedicated so much of his 

 time to engraving. 



The .-tyle of Annibal is like that of Ludovico, of a 

 noble and enlarged character, and savours little of the 

 poverty of defective individual nature : he improved 

 greatly on his arrival at Rome, on seeing the great 

 works of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, and above all 



of the antique, which opened to him new treasures of 

 ideal beauty, of which before he had but a faint con- r J^-' si K^ 

 ception. The Farnese gallery clearly displays this ad- 

 vantageous change of style ; and there is every reason 

 to think, that his great talents, now transplanted to a 

 more genial soil, would have appeared in still greater 

 splendour, had not his career been terminated by a pre- 

 mature death. The vigour which Raffaelle and Michael 

 Angelo disseminated over the Roman school, (which 

 was indeed very transitory), would have perished with 

 their immediate disciples, had it not been for the Ca- 

 racci and their followers, who for some time kept up the 

 credit of sound design, against the meretricious practices 

 of low imitation, and the trite, flimsy, and vague inven- 

 tion of the scholars of Carravaggio and D'Arpino. 



The highest rank among the disciples of the Car- 

 racci must be given to Guido and Dominichino. The Guido - 

 great aim of the former was sweetness, beauty, and 

 divine grace in the airs of his heads, and the atti- 

 tudes of his figures. He is ranked with the greatest 

 artists of any age since the revival of the art. His style 

 was peculiar to himself; the tender, the pathetic, the 

 devout, in which he could display the sweetness and 

 delicacy of his thoughts, were the subjects in which he 

 excelled. In expressing the different parts of the body, 

 he had a remarkable peculiarity of manner : he usually 

 designed the eyes of his figures large, the nostrils some- 

 what close, the mouth small, the toes rather too closely 

 joined, and without any great variety ; the heads of his 

 figures are accounted not inferior to Raffaelle, either for 

 correctness of design or engaging propriety of expres- 

 sion. His most distinguishing talent lies in that mo- 

 ving and persuasive beauty, which proceeds not so 

 much from a regularity of feature, as from a lovely air 

 he gave to the mouth, and a modesty of expression which 

 he had the art to place in the eye ; and in these qualities 

 he has never been surpassed. Dominichino has been Dominiclii- 

 distinguished for fine character, strong and moving ex- no. 

 pression, sound drawing, and simplicity and variety in 

 the airs of his heads. In these respects he is little in- 

 ferior to Raffaelle ; his attitudes, however, are but mo- 

 derate, his draperies are stifly cast, and his pencil 

 heavy. The design of Nicolo Poussin is simple, pure, N. Poussiu, 

 and correct ; he lived and conversed so long with 

 the antique, that his works throw us back entirely 

 to those times, and have more the appearance of an- 

 cient paintings than those of any of the moderns. His 

 best works have a remarkable dryness of manner, which, 

 though by no means to be recommended for imitation, 

 seems perfectly to correspond with that ancient simpli- 

 city which characterises his style. With the severe Rubens. 

 and rigid manner of Pousshi may be contrasted the 

 florid and gay style of Rubens. Notwithstanding 

 the amazing splendour of colouring, the magnificence 

 of his composition, and the ease and dexterity of his 

 execution ; his drawing is coarse and vulgar, without 

 dignity or character : and, in short, nothing can be 

 farther removed from the true principles of legitimate 

 art, and the purity and chasteness of the antique, than 

 tlie general style of his design. His manner was fol- Vand ke 

 lowed by a numerous train of disciples, at the head of 

 whom is Vandyke, who possessed ;J1 Rubens' excel- 

 lence, with more grace and correctness. 



The Dutch school has never directed its aim to any Dutch 

 thing but imitation of individual nature ; but, as far as schooL 

 that goes in the representation of drolls, conversations, 

 landscapes, and sea pieces, and in seizing those tran- 

 sitory effects of light and sunshine, m beauty of co- 

 louring and chiar' oscuro, and in the mechanical dexte- 



