XXXIV 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



Holland we, JW good protestants, purchased 

 j.irtur.-s .in.l l.nrrowed artists; and something of 

 the literal spirit of that plodding and unpoetic 

 people is still visible in our works. 



( hi the roiitiiient, as well as in Britain, paint- 

 ing suffered an eclipse from the Reformation, 

 and the political and moral changes which it 

 wrought. The lofty aspirations of the Romish 

 church had been equalled by the miracles 

 wrought by art; and all that was bright in 

 heaven, or dark in hell, was revealed to the 

 people in pictures, which continue to astonish 

 the world. But the lofty pretensions of the pope, 



" Holy at Hun ic. here antichrist," 



were rebuked by the reformers. Art lowered its 

 tone, too, and exhibited more of earth and less 

 of heaven ; processions of princes and peers, by 

 land or water, took place of those of apostles 

 and angels ; instead of a madonna seated on a 

 blue cloud nursing the offspring of heaven, we 

 had a queen of France or of Spain seated on 

 velvet, and feeding the heirs of these kingdoms 

 by proxy ; for glimpses of paradise, we had 

 interiors of palaces ; and for glorious landscapes, 

 with angels ascending and descending, art sup- 

 plied us with cows grazing in meadows, and with 

 boats fishing in the Zuyder Zee. To many this 

 change was welcome ; for minds literal and un- 

 poetic rejoice in scenes which require no exer- 

 cise of the imagination. To art it was injurious ; 

 for it reduced its labours to a better sort of 

 portrait- style, in which a map was given of the 

 land, and a fac-simile taken of its people. It is 

 the duty of art to exercise our memory less than 

 to elevate our minds ; for, of itself, what can the 

 noblest statue or the brightest picture tell us? 

 but for Homer and history, who would under- 

 stand the Laocoon or the Apollo ? This is true 

 of the pictures of Rubens, as well as of those o( 

 Rembrandt. " The former," says Fuseli, " com- 

 pounded, from the splendour of Paul's Veronese 

 and the; glow of Tintoretto, that mannered mag- 

 nificence which is the element of his art, and the 

 principle of his school ; he first spread that ideal 

 pallet which reduced to its standard the variety 

 of nature ; and, once methodized, whilst his 

 mind tuned the method, shortened or superseded 

 individual imitation. Rembrandt was a genius 

 of the first class, in whatever relates not to form. 

 In spite of the most portentous deformity, an<j 

 without considering the spell of his chiaroscuro 

 such were his powers of nature, such the gran- 

 deur, pathos, or simplicity of his composition 

 from the most elevated or extensive arrangemen 

 to the meanest and moat homely, that the bes 



cultivated eye, the purest sensibility, and the 

 nost refined taste dwell on them, equally en- 

 thralled. Shakspeare alone excepted, no one 

 combined, with so much transcendant excellence, 

 so many (in all other men unpardonable) faults 

 and reconciled us to them." Yet lofty as this 

 iraise is, the heavenly halo which hovers over 

 he works of Angelo, and Raphael, and Correg- 

 io, refuses its full lustre to the productions of 

 ! iul M.MIS and Rembrandt : art was on its descent. 

 Petronius said bitterly it was easier to meet 

 with a god than a man in Rome : in London, it 

 ivas easier to meet with a man than a god. The 

 sublime creations of Greece and of Italy evoked 

 no kindred genius in Britain. In vain pictures 

 >y Raphael and statues by Phidias were placed 

 jefore our eyes ; we looked, we applauded, but 

 sought not to embody from our eventful history, 

 and our more than glorious poetry, shapes and 

 scenes worthy of the national genius. The 

 terrors of popery seem to have paralyzed us ; 

 native art was all but extinguished by the change 

 of religion ; our efforts were faint and feeble. 

 Jamesone in the north, .and Cooper, and Walker, 

 and others, in the south, reminded us, by minia- 

 tures and life-size portraits, that art breathed at 

 least, if it could not move. Nor can it be said 

 that the presence and example of the unrivalled 

 Vandyke had a happy influence. How noble, 

 how heroic, and how graceful his heads still 

 look, when compared with the most fortunate 

 efforts of his British brethren ! Nor were there 

 any to contest the pre-eminence with either Lely 

 or Kneller. Thornhill, it is true, imagined that 

 he was the reviver of historic art in England. 

 He united with two foreigners, Verrio and La- 

 Guerre, in filling our mansions and palaces with 

 mobs of gods and goddesses from the heathen 

 mythology. Venus, in nudity, walked a minuet 

 with a countess in a hooped petticoat ; Apollo 

 sought to inspire with eloquence a marquis in a 

 full-bottomed wig ; and Minerva and Diana 

 walked barefooted on the gravel of St James's 

 Park, between Charles the Second and Lady 

 Castlemain. This was a sort of picturesque 

 painting, which had the outward form without the 

 sentiment, and was equally deficient in natural 

 truth and historic propriety ; yet Evelyn speaks 

 of those prodigies of absurdity as miracles of 

 genius, even after he had seen some of the 

 noblest pictures of the great masters of Italy. 



A new era was at hand. A succession of great 

 architects, sculptors, and painters arose, who 

 asserted the dignity of British art. The first, 

 and perhaps the ablest, of these was Sir Christo- 

 pher Wren. Accident called out his genius in 

 all its splendour. The great fire of London 



