240 
PAINTING. 
tures which are alluded to. “ Thofe artifts who paint 
Ifaac on his knees before an altar, with Abraham behind 
him, who raifes a knife in the a< 5 t of fliriking at him, de- 
fcribe Ifaac imperfectly. Before Abraham lifted his arm, 
Ifaac was not proftrate at the altar, but lay on it, as clearly 
appears in the book of Genefis, where it is faid, that Abra¬ 
ham, after having built an altar, bound Ifaac, laid him on 
the wood , and then took the knife to fay him. Gen. xxii. 
9, io. In feveral pictures, Jefus is feen on the crofs, with 
a perfpeCtive view of the city of Jerufalem behind him, 
in which place are reprefented pyramids, domes, cupolas, 
and obelifks. This is a grofs blunder; becaufe at Jeru- 
falem, and all eaftern cities, the tops of the houfes were 
fiat and open ; there company walked, held afi'emblies, 
and celebrated the feall of tabernacles. The Virgin 
fhould not be painted with a book on the table, when the 
angel Gabriel falutes her ; nor Ihould St. John the Evan- 
gelilt, when he wrote his Revelation, be reprefented 
young ; nor Jefus be made to recline his head on the table, 
as if afleep, at the fupper with his apoftles. St. James is 
ridiculoully reprefented by feveral, with a pilgrim’s ftaff 
in his hand, and {hells hung about him,_becaufe catholics 
go in pilgrimage to St. James of Compoftella in Galicia. 
In the collection of the French king there is a celebrated 
picture, in which Jefus is reprefented at table, in the caf- 
tle of Emmaus, with two of his difciples; one with a 
flouched hat, with broad brims hanging over his back, 
and a huge chaplet round his wailt; the other has a fcarf 
or fhoulder-belt on his coat. They are ferved by a man, 
who wears a kind of handkerchief which only covers 
half his head; his arms naked to the elbows, like a cook ; 
and by him Hands a page, who has a little hat with a fea¬ 
ther in it, according to the prefent Venetian faftiion.” 
Perhaps the blunder of painters moll fufceptible of 
raillery, is that of reprefenting Mofes with horns on his 
head, when he defcends from Mount Sinai with the tables 
in his hands. This is copied in many engravings, which 
are very common. Chevreau explains this blunder: it is 
owing to one in the Vulgate, which, however, was not 
deteCled by St. Jerome. The noun keren, in Hebrew, fig- 
nifies “ horns ;” and the verb karan “ to emit rays,” or 
to glitter. When the Jews (obferves Chevreau) come 
into our churches, they laugh at us for reprefenting 
Mofes like Satan. Our verfion renders the palfage, not 
that Mofes came down “ with horns on his head,” but 
that the fin of his facefoonc. Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30. 
An ancient painter called Galaton gave likewife a fine 
proof of his genius in this line, by reprefenting a great 
number of poets greedily quenching their thirft in the 
waters guftiing from the mouth of Homer. And to this 
allegory, according to Guigni, Pliny has an eye, when he 
calls that prince of poets the fountain of wits. 
The mythological tafte of the learned Pouflin is w'ell 
known ; but Rubens feems to claim the merit of having 
prefented to the world a {till greater number of fupreme 
abfurdities in this learned ftyle : nor is it eafy to con¬ 
ceive a more heterogeneous mixture of circumftances, 
real and imaginary, facred and profane, than the Luxem¬ 
bourg Gallery, and the other works of that great maker, 
perpetually exhibit. . Thus he has united the queen-mo¬ 
ther in council with two cardinals and Mercury. Nor is 
there lei’s impropriety in his making Tritons and Nereids, 
in another piece of the fame gallery, fwim to the queen’s 
velfel through the galleys of the knights of St. Stephen. 
Such freedoms are equally difgufting with the prophecies 
of Sannazaro’s Proteus concerning the myfteryof the in¬ 
carnation, or the Indian kings of Camoens reafoning with 
the Portuguefe on the adventures ofUlyffes. 
Mr. Strutt has detefted fome fingular improprieties of 
our Saxon painters. He writes, “ They were far from 
having the leaf: idea of any thing more ancient than the 
manners and cuftoms of their own particular times. They 
put Noah, Abraham, Chrift, and king Edgar, all in the 
fame habit; that is, the habit worn by themfelves at that 
time ; and in fome manufcripts illuminated in the reign 
of Henry VI. are exhibited the figures of Meleager, Her¬ 
cules, Jafon, &c. in the full drefs of the great lords of 
that prince’s court.” In ohe of thefe manufcripts, the 
erudite artift having heard fomething about Hercules 
and his lion’s {kin, he has covered the fhoulders of his 
athletic beau with a hide of that noble animal, but it is 
made to hang upon a fplendid load of filk and gold em¬ 
broidery ! 
In the third volume of the Tranfaftions of the Man- 
chefter Society, we have an enumeration of fome very 
curious violations of coftume, and of common fenfe. 
“ When Raphael, in his cartoons, introduces monks and 
Swifs guards; when he puts into a boat more figures 
than it is evident the boat could actually contain ; when, 
in the chaftifement of Heliodorus, who attempted to de- 
fpoil the temple of Jerufalem, pope Julius II. is depicted 
as being prefent; when, in the Donation of Conftantine 
in the Vatican, a naked boy is placed confpicuous in the 
fore-ground, aftride upon a dog, in the immediate pre¬ 
fence of the pope and the emperor ; when Venetian fena- 
tors are introduced while pope Alexander excommuni¬ 
cates Barbarofla; when Ariftotle, Plato, Dante, and Pe¬ 
trarch, are brought together in the School of Athens, to 
omit the minor improprieties of {hoelefs apoftles, See. 
every perfon muft acknowledge thatfuch offences as thefe 
againft truths fo obvious, if they do not arife from a de- 
fedl of underltanding, are inftances of inexcufable care- 
leflnefs. In like manner, when the fame great mafter 
paints the dreams of jofephand his fellow-prifoner in 
circles over their heads; when fimilar contrivances to 
exprefs future events are ufed by Albani, Parmegiano 
and Fufeli; is it not evident that no poffibility can make 
the fiftion true, and that real and feigned exiftences are 
unnaturally introduced in one narration ? 
“ When Polydore choofes to reprefent the death of 
Cato, and expofes to the fpe&ator the hero of the piece 
with his bowels guftiing out; when Paul Veronefe, at a 
banquet painted with his ufual magnificence, places be¬ 
fore us a dog gnawing a bone, and a boy making water : 
however fuch difgufting circumftances may be forgiven in 
the chef d'oeuvre of a Michael Angelo, had he reprefented 
thefe inftead of the horrible figures of his Day of Judg¬ 
ment, the performance of an inferior artift cannot atone 
for them. So alfo, when Paul Veronefe introduces Be- 
nediftine monks at the Marriage of Cana ; when, in a 
picture of the Crucifixion, he puts the Roman foidiers 
in the jerkins of the. 16th century, and adorns their heads 
with turbans; when Guido, in a painting of Jefus appear¬ 
ing to his mother after his refurreftion, places St. Charles 
Borromeo in a kind of defle in the back-ground as wit- 
nefs to the interview; when Tintoret, at the miracu¬ 
lous fall of manna, arms the Ifraelites with fufils ; and 
Corregio appoints St. Jerome as the inftrudtor of the child 
Jefus ; common fenfe revolts at the impropriety, and we 
are compelled to exclaim, Quicquid ofendis mi hi. Jlc, incre » 
du his odi! 
“ When fo great an authority as fir Jofliua Reynolds 
contends for the rejeftion of common fenfe in favour of 
fomewhat which he terms a higher J'enfe; when he laments, 
indirectly, that art is not in fuch high eftimation with us, 
as to induce the generals, lawgivers, and kings, of mo¬ 
dern times, to fuller themfelves to be reprefented naked, 
as in the days of ancient Greece; when he defends even 
the ridiculous aberrations from poflibility, whigh the ex¬ 
travagant pencil of Rubens has fo plentifully produced ; 
it is not furprifmg that the artifts of the prefent day 
fhould be led to rejedf the company of common fenfe, or 
that fir Jofhua’s performances fhould furniflt examples of 
his own precepts. For inftance, Mrs. Siddons is repre¬ 
fented by fir Jofliua in the character (as it is faid) of the 
Tragic Mufe ; ftie is placed in an old-faihioned arm-chair; 
this arm-chair is fupported by clouds, fufpended in the 
air ; on each fide of her head is a figure not unapt to fug- 
geft the idea of the attendant imps of an enchantrefs : of 
thefe figures one is fuppofed to reprefent Comedy, and 
1 the 
