1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



189 



These works will show that the Italian masters selected individual nature 

 — no doubt tlie finest examples, but always individuals. How, indeed, is it 

 possible to give that character which tlie art demands, without individual 

 nature, whereon to raise that structure of life and energy, that endless variety 

 of forms and colours, those varied costumes with all their particularities ? 

 Again, look to the landscape and architecture, with those effects of atmos- 

 phere which give such reality to the historic scene — how is it possible to 

 make the figures belong to these (and to these they must belong), if the 

 forms are to l)e perfected with so much ideal beauty that tliey become the 

 only unnatural things in the picture ? 



Painting will have men nearly as they are ; give them mind to any extent, 

 give them overflowings of life and soul — but they must look like men, for 

 the art will have it so, as it had it in all the great Italian examples. Let 

 sculptors revel in their ideal world, but we must live in a real one if we wish 

 to be painters. This brings me to the immediate point of my subject, 

 without which these remarks would be impertinent — the groundwork of de- 

 sign existing in the English school, but only the groundwork. This I con- 

 sider to be rather in the charm of nature as a cliaracteristic, than in the 

 mere artistical power of drawing academically well ; for the one may exist 

 without the other, but in the design I am explaining they must exist together. 

 Its grand principle is in the natural, correct, and graceful building up of the 

 figure. Reynolds is great in this, although he is thought to be so bad a 

 draftsman, while thousands of inferior artists succeed in the academical part; 

 all France and Italy, indeed, abound with them ; in the latter country, even 

 children learn to draw according to the trick before they learn to read or 

 write. Reynolds aimed at something higher. It is true he gives us slovenly 

 and ill-defined extremities, (the result, not of ignorance, but of his numerous 

 experiments) but he never gives us a figure ill built up, or without the irre- 

 sistible charm of nature ; and this I find, more or less, the characteristic of 

 the English school, in contrast to every other. It may have defects in the 

 details of its drawing, it may have unsightly forms, it may have trivial and 

 vulgar subjects, its greatest excellence may be in portraits — in fact, it may 

 deserve most of the abuse which befalls it, but the charm of nature is never 

 wanting. Now this praise cannot be bestowed on any other modern school ; 

 and small as it is, yet it is a genuine morsel, to be found in all the great 

 Italian works from Raffaello down to Claude (who may be considered an 

 Italian) in all of which you find the charm of nature. This is the real base- 

 ment of good design in painting ; and although l)ut a basement, yet it is one 

 whereon we can raise, if we please, any kind of structure in art ; we can 

 safely ;ise the antique — we can even deal in the grand forms of Michael An- 

 gelo with impunity, but always with this guide. It was this enabled the 

 great English sculptor, Flaxman, (the greatest and most universal artist of 

 modern times) to find out the essentials of Greek art, which the French have 

 ever missed. But in painting it was more difticult to be found. The Italians 

 found it, and carried art to perfection, for in the imperfections they had the 

 courage and taste to leave it; which imperfections the French, in trying to 

 take away, removed also the key-stone of art — they left out the charm of 

 nature. In modern painting, perhaps, no one has gone so securely towards 

 high art as Reynolds, but he stopped short; and in carrying the thing further, 

 others ceased to have this solid characteristic, and we have ceased to care 

 about their works. Yet we care about Reynolds as much as ever, with all his 

 faults. Why is this ? — he has the charm of nature. On the contrary, 

 Lawrence, with fine qualities and a feeling for nature, sunk under the influence 

 of fashion ; and we may trace to him the long throat, small head, and little 

 feet, with much of the mawkishness of modern English art. Wilkie may 

 he regarded as the most perfect painter of the English school. He not only 

 had nature, though not in all her charms, but he applied all the fine principles 

 of art ; he concentrated them, and produced a style new, as it was a com- 

 bination of several never before combhied ; he took Raffaello 's power of 

 expressing the subject, his elegance of composition and even design, with 

 Rembrandt's force and Tenier's mechanism, all bound together by the charm 

 of nature. 



This has to be done in English historical painting. The same principles 

 must be extended and raised as we see them in the Italian schools. So far 

 we are moral cowards in art, that in avoiding the errors of the French we are 

 content to be like little children, fed with spoon meat. In our painting we 

 are in leading strings, whilst we are full grown men in other things. This 

 must arise principally from our strong feeling for nature when we attempt 

 painting; for we tremble at the brink of a classic influence, because we fancy 

 it is not to be carried out with nature. The same with highly imaginative 

 works — we fall short by becoming tame and mawkish ; so that portrait, laud- 

 scape, and domestic scenes arc the only things left to our wilful cowardice, 



and these, as we do them well, we are determined shall be the only things 

 we will do at all. 



But T\ov the historical field is opening to us in painting of the new Houses 

 of Parliament, aiul we shall lie forced into a bolder and more manly style of 

 design. Let us not look at the French, or think that we are in danger of 

 falling into their excesses, for we are ml — it is «o< in ws, if we wished for 

 it; indeed, it is our fear of it which keeps us back. Let us, then, venture 

 on the boldness of Italian art, that is, to do things without caring for the 

 defects, but only thinking on the real and actual power which lies in the 

 sphere of painting, and of how little ve have yet exercised it. Our ancestors 

 may not have been so handsome as the Greeks ; but they were quite as manly, 

 as full of genius, and have left us, not works of art, but enduring principles, 

 institutions, laws, and a history of which we have now to moke works of art. 

 To tills purpose Greek art would not be desirable, if we could have it. 

 EngUshmen transformed to Greeks would be as absurd as Greeks transformed 

 to EngUshmen. The Germans have succeeded in creating a style of design 

 that is independent of the antique, though not nearer nature than the Italian, 

 or with so much beauty. We, with our strong feeling for nature, may go 

 still further, for we may use the antique as the Italians did, to make it our 

 own : but it must be to gain something like power in design — something 

 which shall shun the Gallic-Greek on the one hand, and, on the other, the 

 influences of English fashion, both equally prejudicial to art. Surely here, 

 as everywhere else, there are fine individual specimens of nature, if the artist 

 will but take time to seek for tliem, for the English are considered to be a 

 fine-looking people. In the great church processions of Rome, where there 

 are many of all nations joined with the Italians, I always thought the Irish 

 monks the most historic looking men. Yet, judging from modern exhibitions, 

 one would think the English but an ordinary race, from the sovereign down 

 to the artizans and beggars. Our women are considered to be the most 

 beautiful in the world, whatever we may paint and Ihink them ; for in modern 

 English art they are shown in every degree of languishment and lassitude, 

 from the " Betrotheds" to the " Forsakeus,''— all of which, I should say, 

 were the productions of the most immoral peopb in the world, even more 

 so than the French, who only disgust, did I not know they were meant to 

 represent high-minded English women, virtuous as they are accomplished. 

 All this arises from defective design, for as it cannot produce style, it pro- 

 duces fashion ; and so a hideous monster, in the shape of taste, becomes the 

 order of the day : — hence these ambiguous ladies, and gentlemen as their 

 companions, with pocket-hook faces, .k very little honest drawing will 

 remedy all this, but it must be drawing alone on a cartoon, for colour and 

 effect will paralyze it. Let us have a touch of bold art once more, even as 

 good as Reynolds, and we shall see fashion bow to it as it did to him. 



ON THE FORCE OF THE WIND AND SEA. 



Observed at the Delaware Brealcroater in 1830 and 1831, Kith some sug- 

 gestions concerning the transverse sections of Breaknatcrs. By 

 Ellwood Morris, Civil Engineer. 



(From the American Franklin Journal.) 



That the force of the sea and wind often operates with tremendous 

 energy against objects which re.sist their action, is a fact well known; 

 to measure this force with precision is from the nature of things im- 

 possible, and hence it is only by a close attention to the observed 

 effect produced by the waves of storms, upon opposing objects, that 

 the engineer is enabled to form a proper idea of the energies of an 

 agitated sea, when roused by gales to the assault of works raised for 

 the protection of harbours. 



To form a well sheltered harbour upon a site fairly exposed to the 

 ocean, is one of the most difficult problems which can be proposed for 

 solution by the engineer, for such is the difficulty of forming a stable 

 barrier against the sea, that notwithstanding all that has been done in 

 erecting sea-works under the direction of the ablest minds, we can at 

 this dav scarcely, if at all, point to an artificial harbour in a dangerous 

 roadstead, which has realized the expectations of its projectors. 



To appreciate, properly, the active forces which we are to counter- 

 vail, is the first step in framing plans for sea-works; and to add 

 another to the number of observed facts bearing upon this subject, is 

 the object of the present article. 



In the years 1830 and 1831, the writer (then assistant engineer at 

 the Delaware Breakwater) had occasion to notice particularly, the 

 severity of the action of storms upon such portions of that work as 



