1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER A.ND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



85 



great original ; they wanted the soul that animated li is statues : and 

 the exquisite essences, which Canova extracted from Grecian art, had 

 evaporated in the attempt to transfer them. That the works of any 

 eminent modem artist may be consulted with advantage we freely 

 admit: they serve as a guide to the ascent of an eminence difficult of 

 access; they inspire the artist with ardour; and encourage, while 

 they urge him onward by their counsel and example. They are so 

 many auxiliaries to the other powerful excitements to glory; and 

 their combined influence has fired the breast of our talented country- 

 man, and raised him to the proud eminence from which his genius 

 (Gibson) sheds such lustre on his name and on his country." 



Our author seems to have forgotten our distinguished countryman, 

 Mr. Baily, who, says a recent writer, " is one of those instances, too 

 frequent in the history of art, in which the rewards of genius of the 

 highest order have been too long deferred, and too sparingly be- 

 stowed. Gifted with a sense of beauty, akin to the spirit of his 

 great countryman Flaxman, and a boldness of conception not unworthy 

 in some of its exhibitions, of the greatest of sculptors, Michael An- 

 gelo, he has yet been destined to see men, less highly endowed, step 

 before him into the light of patronage, and commissions pass by his 

 neglected studio, on their way to foreign lands." " It is not to be 

 doubted," continues the writer, " that had Baily been found by his 

 countrymen in the metropolis of his arts, his genius must, amid the 

 strong lights of the everlasting city, have long ago secured for him, 

 in spite of his English name, those triumphs which it is as little to be 

 doubted yet await him." It appears to us that the removal of our 

 Baily from the eternal city, is something like transplanting a rare 

 exotic out of a warm and genial clime, to a cold and sunless country, 

 where if it but chance to put forth its buds, a hard and a killing frost 

 nips them ere they blossom and bear its precious fruit. Abb> du 

 Bas, in his reflections on poetry and painting, has collected a great 

 many observations on the influence which the air, the climate, and 

 other such natural causes, may be supposed to have upon genius. 



Before we close this interesting book, we are tempted to make one 

 or two more extracts, which will fully prove the Count's abilities for 

 the task he has undertaken. In describing the Triumph of Apollo, 

 a bas-relief by the celebrated sculptor Thorwaldsen, the Count 

 observes : 



" This bas-relief represents Apollo attended by the Graces and by 

 Cupids, as he conducts the Muses, eminent poet's, and promoters of 

 the fine arts to Mount Parnassus. The first figure is Hyperion, the 

 father of Aurora ; he is on the wing, bearing a torch, and is conducting 

 the winged Pegasus. Apollo appears seated in his chariot, drawn by 

 the horse of Helicon; his brow is wreathed with a laurel crown, and 

 in his hands are his harp and plectrum. With impassioned air be 

 sweeps the silver strings, which fill heaven with melody, and render 

 the very stones harmonious. Next follow the Graces, entwined with 

 festoons of flowers, and conducted by an infant Love, while the god of 

 the Cyprian bowers is on the wing, and scatters roses on their decoy 

 path. The fair daughters of Jupiter and 1' nphrcsyne appear in unveiled 

 loveliness, and glide along with the lightness of summer zephyrs. The 

 first among the Muses is Calliope ; presiding, as she does, over elo- 

 quence, she holds in her hand a scroll, such as Demosthenes might 

 have thundered from as he paced with earnest step the solitary beach 

 of his native Attica. Euterpe, as she plays her favourite lute, joins 

 Terpsichore in the merry dance. Thalia and Melpomene follow, with 

 the characteristic symbols of comedy and tragedy, the pedo or pas- 

 toral staff, the mushe and club. Erato, the muse of love, is crowned 

 with roses, and attended by a winged genius with a harp, the golden 

 strings of which he touches lightly with his dimpled fingers, and the 

 air resounds with the soft sighs of the votaries of Erato. Polyhymnia 

 is known by her meditative air, and presiding, as she does, over song 

 and rhetoric, she holds in her hand a scroll. Urania is at once recog- 

 nized by the globe as the Muse of Astronomy ; and Clio, the Muse of 

 history, follows, and is inscribing with a pencil of light, on the annals 

 of Fame, the names of those whose exploits have entitled them to 

 immortality. Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, follows near to 

 Clio; she is closely draped, and moves with slow and maternal air. 

 At a short distance from her is Homer, the father of heroic song, who 

 is preceded by a winged genius bearing a palm branch and a wreath 

 of flowers, emblems of his pre-eminence and renown. The venerable 

 bard lifts his sightless eye-balls towards heaven, the source of his 

 inspiration; and, whilst his fingers sweep the strings, his lips give 

 utterance to those epic strains which enrapture gods and men. 

 "Homer," says a modem writer, "transports us to a new and ever 

 fresh creation, in which, though much is calculated to astonish, all 

 appears real, substantial and imperishable. Olympus, with its deities 

 on their golden seats, lies open to our view, in form as palpable as the 

 glorious tuwers of Troy, the sacred Scamander, and Ida with its hun- 

 dred springs. Prodigies become familiar to us! " 



Such is a brief outline of the bas-relief before us, which combinfll 

 so many classic beauties of such various characters, that even the 

 disjecta membra delight us ; but, to catch the spirit of this sublime 

 creation, let us but cast an eye over it for a moment as a whole, and 

 we shall thus learn to appreciate its surpassing excellence, and to 

 estimate, as we ought, the genius of the man whose creative power 

 invented, and whose artistic skill executed, "The Triumph of 

 Apollo." 



We will conclude our extracts with a description of the " Terrestrial 

 and Celestial Love," abas-relief by Gibson, R. A. "This relief is com- 

 posed of two figures, one representing Terrestrial the other Celestial 

 Love, under the forms of two winged Cupids. They are both contend- 

 ing for the soul, under the form of a butterfly, the emblem of the fair 

 Pryene, who was about to be immolated on the altar of Venus. Ce- 

 lestial love appears in the act of descending from above ; he his 

 rescued the soul from Terrestrial Love, and is staying his hai 

 prevent its pollution at so foul a shrine. In the struggle, Heavenly 

 Love has triumphed over earthly desire ; and holding aloft the divine 

 Psyche, he plumes his ethereal wings to bear her aloft to purer nil 

 brighter realms. Terrestrial Love holds the torch of Hymen, which 

 he has lighted from the flame burning on the impure altar of Venus ; 

 and at the foot of the altar are the fatal instruments of his power, the 

 bow and arrow, and also a pine-apple, the symbol of love. 



"This bas-relief is an illustration of one of the tenets of the Platonic 

 philosophy. Plato compared the soul to a small republic, of which the 

 reasoning powers were placed in the head as in a citadel, guarded by 

 the senses, and the tumultuary portion he placed in the inferior parts 

 of the body. He was the first heathen philosopher who maintained 

 the immortality of the soul upon solid arguments, deduced from truth 

 and experience; and he held that the soul, being an emanation from 

 the Divinity, can never remain satisfied with objects or pursuits un- 

 worthy of their divine original. According to Plato, supreme happi- 

 ness is attainable by removing from the material and approaching 

 nearer to the intellectual world, or, in other words, by governing the 

 passions according to the principle of the moral law, and thus, by the 

 practice of virtue, exalting ourselves to an imitation of the Divinity, 

 from whom the soul has proceeded, and to whom, when its affections 

 are thus purified, it is finally to be united in supreme felicity. The 

 beautiful moral thus conveyed by this exquisite composition is too 

 obvious to be dwelt upon. Who has not experienced the struggles of 

 the sensual with the spiritual man? and who has not felt, within his 

 breast, those lofty aspirations which lift the soul above the debasing 

 influence of unholy desire, and fix its affections on another and better 

 world ? Nor is the idea of two Cupids struggling for the soul recom- 

 mended by the simple beauty of its moral alone, but also by its classic 

 taste, for the ancients recognised a celestial as well as a terrestial 

 Venus. " I will not assert," said Socrates, "that there are two Venuses ; 

 but as I see that there are temples consecrated to the celestial as well 

 as to the terrestial Venus, and that they sacrificed in the former with 

 ceremonies more sacred and with victims more pure, I presume that 

 two goddesses of that name do exist. The vulgar Venus inflames the 

 passions, and the heavenly Venus invites to viituous actions.' 



" It were superfluous to" dwell on the artistic merit of this relief; it 

 evinces a mind cast in a classic mould, and possessing a deep and 

 refined sense of the beautiful in conception as well as in form ; nor 

 can the harmonious lines of the composition be too much admired or 

 too highly praised." 



• From our extracts we are sure our readers will agree with us, that 

 the sculptors of Rome have good reason to congratulate themselves 

 on having found in Count Hawks le Grice one who has not only 

 brought their productions favourably before the public, but is 

 likely to perpetuate their memory. We are indebted to 1 'liny and Pau- 

 sanias for a knowledge of some of the noblest pn ces o1 ancient 

 sculpture, many of which have perished; and whatever may be the 

 fate of the works which the Count describes, he is very likely to 

 transmit to posterity their merits, and the honoured names Of their 

 authors. We understand that the author has received numerous 

 literary distinctions from various learned bodies; and we have no 

 hesitation in saying, that his « Walks through the study more than 

 justifies the opinion held of his merits. The style is characterised 

 by an elegant simplicity and classic purity, and the «ork is enricned 

 throughout with such felicity of illustration and fecundity of inven- 

 tion, as shed a golden glow over its pages and the productions which 

 they describe. 



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