583 



GUIENNE GUILD. 



artists against foreign painters, he returned once 

 more to his native city, never to quit it again. At 

 Bologna, he finished the chapel above mentioned, 

 painted two beautiful pictures for the church Dei 

 Mendicanti, an Ascension of Mary for Genoa, and a 

 number of others for his native city and other 

 places, particularly for Rome. While in Rome, 

 Guido had established a school. In Bologna, the 

 number of his pupils amounted to 200. He now 

 worked mostly in haste, accustomed himself to an 

 unfinished, affected style, became negligent, had 

 many things executed by his pupils, and sold them, 

 after having retouched them, as his own works ; and 

 all this merely to satisfy his unfortunate passion for 

 gambling. He often sold his paintings at any price, 

 and became involved in pecuniary embarrassments, 

 which were the cause of his death, in 1642. 



If we analyze Guide's productions, we find his 

 drawing not always correct, rarely powerful and 

 grand, his attitudes without much selection, some- 

 times not even natural. Yet his drawing has a grace 

 peculiar to him, a loveliness consisting rather in the 

 treatment of the whole, than in the execution of the 

 parts. This grace and loveliness are often to be 

 found only in his heads. His ideas are generally 

 common, the distribution of the whole rarely good ; 

 hence his larger works have not a pleasing effect, 

 and are not so much valued as his smaller works, 

 particularly his half-lengths, of which he painted a 

 great number. The disposition of his drapery is gen- 

 erally easy and beautiful, but often not in harmony 

 with the whole piece, and with the nature of the 

 substance which it is intended to represent. An ele- 

 vated, varied, distinct expression is not to be looked 

 for in his works. For this reason, he rarely succeed- 

 ed in adult male figures, in which power and firm- 

 ness are to be represented. The best are from his 

 early period. But Guido's element was the repre- 

 senting of youthful, and particularly female figures. 

 In them he manifested his fine instinct for the delicate, 

 graceful, charming, tender, and lovely. This is 

 shown particularly in his eyes, turned towards heaven, 

 in his Madonnas and Magdalens. His colouring is 

 rarely true, often falls into yellowish, greenish, and 

 silver gray, yet is generally agreeable, and proves 

 the very great ease and power with which he man- 

 aged his pencil, which, however, often degenerates 

 into mannerism. Guido not only worked in relievo, 

 but also executed some statues, and a considerable 

 number of etchings, with his own hand, which exhi- 

 bit ease and delicacy, and are much esteemed. It 

 might almost be said, that his drawing, in these en- 

 gravings, is more correct and noble than even in his 

 paintings. Among the number of his pupils, who 

 remained more or less faithful to his style, are distin- 

 guished, Guido Congiagi, Simone Contarini,Pesarese, 

 Francesco Ricchi, Andr. Streni, Giovanni Sementi, 

 G. Bat. Bolognini. 



The most celebrated work of Guido is his Aurora, 

 painted on a ceiling in the hall of the Rospigliori 

 palace at Rome. It represents Apollo in his car, 

 attended by the Hours, and preceded by Aurora. 

 There is also a fine painting of a Magdalen by this 

 artist in Chiswick House, belonging to the Duke of 

 Devonshire, of which there is an engraving by Sir 

 Robert Strange. Equally celebrated is a painting of 

 Lot and his daughters, in the collection of a gentle- 

 man at Yarmouth, also engraved. In the gallery of 

 the Louvre are several, of which the finest is the 

 centaur Nessus carrying off Dejanira. 



GUIENNE. See Arjuitania, and Department. 



GUIGNES, JOSEPH DE, a French writer, distin- 

 guished for his knowledge of the Oriental languages, 

 which he studied under die celebrated Stephen Fotir- 

 mont, was born at Pontoise, in 1721. lie was up- 



pointed royal interpreter in 1745, and, in 1753, was 

 chosen a member of the, academy of belles-lettres, 

 He applied himself particularly to the study of tlifl 

 Chinese characters ; and, comparing them with those 

 of the ancient languages, he thought he had discover- 

 ed that they were a kind of monograms, formed from 

 three Phoenician letters, and therefore concluded 

 that China must have been peopled by an Egyptian 

 colony. The Journal des Savans, and the Memoirs 

 of the Academy, lie enriched, during the space of 

 thirty-five years, with a great number of contribu- 

 tions, which display profound learning, great sagacity, 

 and many new views. At the age of near eighty, he 

 was reduced to poverty by the revolution ; but, even 

 in this situation, he retained his equanimity, his dis- 

 interestedness, and his independence, which would 

 not allow him to receive support from any one. He 

 died at Paris, in 1800. Among his numerous works, 

 the first place belongs to his Histoire Generale des 

 Huns, des Turcs, des Mogols et des autres Tartares 

 Occidentaux (five volumes, 4to). In this work, the 

 materials for which he had drawn from valuable, and, 

 in part, untouched stores of Eastern knowledge, to 

 which he had gained access by a profound study of 

 the languages, much light is thrown upon the history 

 of the caliphates, of the crusades, and, generally, of 

 the Eastern nations. As regards industry, he has 

 given us no cause to complain ; but we often feel the 

 want of a careful style, of a nice taste, and a just dis- 

 crimination. The language frequently shows marks 

 of neglect. A better taste would have given a more 

 powerful translation of the peculiar Oriental expres- 

 sions. He needed a more philosophic mind to under- 

 stand fully the poetry of the East, to lay open the 

 causes of events, to point out the most striking- 

 circumstances, which he has often slightly passed 

 over. De Guigne"s, like Herbelot, drew from a large 

 number of manuscripts, and, like him, often falls into 

 repetitions and sometimes contradictions. His Me- 

 moire dans lequel on prouve que les Chinois sont une 

 Colonie Egyptienne is of great value. Translations 

 of the Chou King (by father Gaubil), one of the sacred 

 books of the Chinese, and of the military Art among 

 the Chinese (by Amyot), were revised and published 

 by De Guignes, besides other pieces, and twenty-eight 

 papers in the Memoirs of the Academy, and contribu- 

 tions to the Notices et Extraits de laBibliotheque royale. 

 His son Christian, born in 1759, was likewise skilled 

 in the Chinese language and literature, and wrote 

 several dissertations upon them. His Chinese diction- 

 ary, with the definitions in French and Latin, is a mas- 

 terpiece of typography, and is generally esteemed. 



GUILD ; a society, fraternity, or company, asso 

 ciated for carrying on commerce, or some particular 

 trade. The merchant guilds of our ancestors answer 

 to our modern corporations. The societies of trades- 

 men, exclusively authorized to practise their art, and 

 governed by the laws of their constitution, played a 

 very important part in the middle ages. Few insti- 

 tutions show the progress of civilization in a stronger 

 light than that of guilds, from the first rude mixture 

 of all kinds of labour, its division, the establishment 

 of corporations, the corruption of these by privileges, 

 which are in some cases highly absurd, down to their 

 total abolition, and the restoration of liberty to human 

 industry. Though the division of labour is compara- 

 tively of recent date, yet the division of the people 

 by occupations is one of the oldest and rudest politi- 

 cal institutions of which history makes mention. 

 These divisions by occupations or castes (q. v.), 

 generally took their rise, however, from a difference 

 of national origin, as with the Egyptians, Indians, 

 &c. The Romans had various mechanical fraterni- 

 ties (collegia et corpora optficum) which might be 

 compared to modern guilds, as they had the right to 



