The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the schools of elegance; and it is not without reason that the best performances in this lower school are valued higher than the second-rate performances of those above them; for every picture has value when it has a decided character, and is excellent in its kind.But the student must take care not to be so much dazzled with this splendour as to be tempted to imitate what must ultimately lead from perfection.Poussin, whose eye was always steadily fixed on the sublime, has been often heard to say, "That a particular attention to colouring was an obstacle to the student in his progress to the great end and design of the art; and that he who attaches himself to this principal end will acquire by practice a reasonably good method of colouring."Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of colouring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual transition from one to another, present to the eye what an harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be remembered that painting is not merely a gratification of the sight.Such excellence, though properly cultivated where nothing higher than eleganceis intended, is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work aspires to grandeur and sublimity.
The same reasons that have been urged why a mixture of the Venetian style cannot improve the great style will hold good in regard to the Flemish and Dutch schools.Indeed, the Flemish school, of which Rubens is the head, was formed upon that of the Venetian; like them, he took his figures too much from the people before him.But it must be allowed in favour of the Venetians that he was more gross than they, and carried all their mistaken methods to a far greater excess.In the Venetian school itself, where they all err from the same cause, there is a difference in the effect.The difference between Paulo and Bassano seems to be only that one introduced Venetian gentlemen into his pictures, and the other the boors of the district of Bassano, and called them patriarchs and prophets.
The painters of the Dutch school have still more locality.With them, a history piece is properly a portrait of themselves; whether they describe the inside or outside of their houses, we have their own people engaged in their own peculiar occupations, working or drinking, playing or fighting.The circumstances that enter into a picture of this kind are so far from giving a general view of human life that they exhibit all the minute particularities of a nation differing in several respects from the rest of mankind.Yet, let them have their share of more humble praise.The painters of this school are excellent in their own way; they are only ridiculous when they attempt general history on their own narrow principles, and debase great events by the meanness of their characters.
Some inferior dexterity, some extraordinary mechanical power, is apparently that from which they seek distinction.Thus, we see, that school alone has the custom of representing candle-light, not as it really appears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate objects to a spectator by day.Such tricks, however pardonable in the little style, where petty effects are the sole end, are inexcusable in the greater, where the attention should never be drawn aside by trifles, but should be entirely occupied by the subject itself.
The same local principles which characterise the Dutch school extendeven to their landscape painters; and Rubens himself, who has painted many landscapes, has sometimes transgressed in this particular.Their pieces in this way are, I think, always a representation of an individual spot, and each in its kind a very faithful but very confined portrait.
Claude Lorraine, on the contrary, was convinced that taking nature as he found it seldom produced beauty.His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he has previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects.However, Rubens in some measure has made amends for the deficiency with which he is charged; he has contrived to raise and animate his otherwise uninteresting views, by introducing a rainbow, storm, or some particular accidental effect of light.That the practice of Claude Lorraine, in respect to his choice, is to be adopted by landscape painters, in opposition to that of the Flemish and Dutch schools, there can be no doubt, as its truth is founded upon the same principle as that by which the historical painter acquires perfect form.But whether landscape painting has a right to aspire so far as to reject what the painters call accidents of nature is not easy to determine.It is certain Claude Lorraine seldom, if ever, availed himself of those accidents; either he thought that such peculiarities were contrary to that style of general nature which he professed, or that it would catch the attention too strongly, and destroy that quietness and repose which he thought necessary to that kind of painting.
A portrait painter likewise, when he attempts history, unless he is upon his guard, is likely to enter too much into the detail.He too frequently makes his historical heads look like portraits; and this was once the custom amongst those old painters who revived the art before general ideas were practised or understood.A history painter paints man in general; a portrait painter, a particular man, and consequently a defective model.
