LECTURES ON ART. 
 
LECTURES ON ART, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY, LONDON. 
 
 HENRY WEEKES, R. A., 
 
 PROFKSSOR OF SCULPTURE, AUTHOR OF THE I'KI/K Tnr:ATISK ON 
 THE FINE ARTS SECTION OF THE GKllAr 
 EXHIBITION OF 18")L 
 
 WITH A SHORT SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 
 
 LONDON: 
 BICKERS AND SON, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.(\ 
 1880. 
 
I 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Life of the Author i 
 
 Introduction ^3 
 
 Lecture I. — Introductory 21 
 
 II.— Composition 43 
 
 III. — Beauty 68 
 
 IV. — Taste 87 
 
 v.— Style iio 
 
 VI.— Idealism and Realism in Sculpture . . . . i34 
 
 VII.— Colour in Sculpture i55 
 
 VIII.— Education ^79 
 
 IX. — Portraiture 
 
 X.— Sir Joshua Reynolds. No. 1 224 
 
 XI.— Sir Joshua Reynolds. No. II 247 
 
 XIL— Sir Joshua Reynolds. No. Ill 271 
 
 XIIL— Chantrey, Behnes, and Gibson 294 
 
 XIV.— The Early History of Sculpture 318 
 
 XV.— The Early History of Sculpture. Hero- 
 dotus 340 
 
 XVI.— The Early History of Sculpture. Continua- 
 tion OF Herodotus 3^1 
 
 XVII.— The Early History of Sculpture. Pliny . . 383 
 " xVIIL— The Early History of Sculpture. The Scrip- 
 
 " ... 405 
 
 TURES ^ 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 ENRY WEEKES, born at Canterbury in the year 
 1807, was the only son of Capon Weekes, who 
 for forty years held an appointment in Messrs. 
 Hammond and Furley's Bank in that city. At a 
 very early period the boy gave indications of talent : school- 
 books are still in existence with allegorical designs drawn on the 
 inside of the covers ; and play-hours spent by his companions in 
 boyish games were by him devoted to copying any old print or 
 picture he could find in the family cottage. 
 
 Weekes was sent by his father to the King's School at Can- 
 terbury, where by studious application he gained many dis- 
 tinctions, and also (according to his own account) many black 
 eyes — for he was not a favourite with his schoolfellows, who, 
 after the manner of boys, did not comprehend his retiring, 
 thoughtful ways. He used to say, with some pride, that he 
 never during his school days made use of a "crib," but plodded 
 honestly through his Greek and Latin ; so that he came out 
 well at the half-yearly examinations. The cap and gown of the 
 King's scholars, now so familiar to residents in Canterbury, were 
 
2 
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 adopted in his time ; and he has been heard to relate that the 
 first day he appeared in them he was hooted and pelted so 
 vigorously as to be obliged to take refuge, covered with mud, 
 in a friendly house, and ignominiously slip home after dark : 
 this resentment to novelty, however, quickly subsided, and the 
 scholars were allowed to come and go in peace. 
 
 About 1816 his father sent him to France for a time, where 
 he acquired a fair knowledge of the French language — in those 
 days a rare accomplishment — and which in after years proved of 
 great service to the young artist. The boy was about twelve 
 years of age when he attracted much attention by modelHng 
 (on an enlarged scale) the St. George and the Dragon from a 
 crown piece. His father, with critical discernment, did his ut- 
 most to encourage this evident artistic power ; but limited 
 means threatened at one time to turn the scale against his 
 boy's career. Fortunately, a legacy of ^£^300 from a member 
 of a family to whom services had been rendered enabled him 
 to article his son for five years to Behnes, one of the most 
 eminent portrait-sculptors in England ; thus, at the age of fifteen, 
 he may be said to have made his first start in life. Coming to 
 London, he found himself in the great city with very little 
 money in his pocket ; but with a mind filled with an enthusiastic 
 love for his art, and a fixed determination to succeed. His 
 experiences as a residential pupil were not such as often fall to 
 the lot of young men. Behnes, although an artist of great 
 ability, neglected and lost sight of the object of his pupils' en- 
 gagements with him. His pecuniary embarrassments were such 
 that his house was constantly without the ordinary necessaries, 
 not to say the comforts of life. In addition to this, he im- 
 posed upon his pupils many tasks in connection with the work 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 3 
 
 in his studio, thus occupying time which ought to have been 
 devoted to study. Weekes has often said that he learned more 
 holding a candle for Behnes while modelling than by any 
 actual instruction he received from him. Fortunately, however, 
 the young artist's mind was not of an order to allow opportuni- 
 ties to pass from want of a good example. 
 
 In the year 1823 he became a student at the Royal Academy, 
 and was a regular attendant at the evening life-school, gaining 
 on one occasion the silver medal for the best model from the 
 antique ; and there is no doubt that at the end of the five years' 
 term he had made rapid strides in his profession, and was fully 
 realizing the promise of his childhood. On quitting the studio 
 of Behnes, the immediate necessity of earning his own living 
 presented itself. Nothing daunted, Weekes shouldered his 
 tools, and proceeded to make the round of the studios, in order 
 to obtain work as a carver with any of the celebrities of the 
 period. Fortune favoured him at the first effort. 
 
 Early in the year 1827 he found himself at the back door of 
 Sir Francis Chantrey's studio in Eccleston Street, Pimlico— who 
 was then in the zenith of his successful career— and sent in his 
 name as an applicant for work. While waiting a reply, there 
 occurred an incident which, though trivial in itself, might be 
 called curious. One of the workmen, a stone-cutter, amused 
 • himself by jokingly inquiring of the young candidate, Avhether 
 he had come to buy up the whole place;" a remark singularly 
 verified some years afterwards, when this same stone-cutter 
 worked under and received wages from the subject of his good 
 humour. After introducing himself to Sir Francis, his services 
 were accepted; this was a cause of great satisfaction, as it 
 enabled him to become independent of his father, and in some 
 
4 
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 measure to repay him for the very great efforts he had made 
 for his advancement. Once in the studio of Sir Francis, he felt 
 he had obtained a wide field for his energies, and an oppor- 
 tunity for developing the talent he possessed. Chantrey soon 
 perceived the ability of his young modeller, who rose high in 
 his esteem, both on account of his skill and industry. Com- 
 missions accumulated rapidly, and many friendly acts proved 
 his appreciation of his assistant's talent, among them the 
 important gift of a residence with a small studio attached, 
 adjoining his own. There Weekes worked on his own account, 
 often till the small hours of morning, executing commissions 
 which even at this period were obtained. This early success 
 was a source of pride and satisfaction to the good father to 
 whose discernment and faith in his son's genius it was in some 
 degree due. He had turned a deaf ear to the remonstrances 
 of friends and advisers, who considered his allowing the boy to 
 follow Art as an occupation "a mad scheme." Those who 
 have limited incomes will readily understand the self-denial 
 and difficulty there must be in educating a son for a profession, 
 when the return for pecuniary outlay must necessarily be far 
 distant ; but the father had his reward, for he lived to see his 
 hope realized, and " the child" prove " father to the man " who, 
 in his turn, reverenced his parent, and always spoke of him with 
 grateful feeling for the many sacrifices which had been cheer- 
 fully made for his advantage. Weekes's first public work was a 
 sundial placed on the Dane John at Canterbury, for which the 
 citizens of that place subscribed ^£250. It is much to be re- 
 gretted that, owing to neglect, and probably its exposed position, 
 it is now a mere wreck. This was followed by a bust of the 
 late Lord Harris, a fortunate subject for so young an artist. 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, 5 
 
 In 1830 he was threatened with a great calamity. While 
 taking a posthumous mask, he unfortunately became inoculated 
 with poisonous matter; his eyesight in consequence was de- 
 spaired of for many weeks, and his health for some time gene- 
 rally impaired : thanks, however, to a robust constitution, and his 
 previous abstemious habits, his recovery was not long delayed, 
 the only evil result being a slight weakness in one eye, which 
 lasted for many years, but without seriously affecting his comfort. 
 
 In 1837 Weekes was honoured by a command from the 
 Queen to execute a bust of Her Majesty in marble, to be pre- 
 sented to H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent as a birthday gift. 
 This was the first portrait of Her Majesty taken after her 
 accession to the throne. On the death of Sir Francis, in 1841, 
 his will disclosed a further proof of the esteem with which he 
 regarded his assistant, by a legacy of ^1,000, and a special 
 request to his executors that " Henry Weekes should be allowed 
 to complete his unfinished works." By means of this munificent 
 bequest and a further sum borrowed on mortgage, he succeeded 
 in purchasing Chantrey's studio, with the adjoining property, 
 and so placed himself at once before the pubHc as his late 
 employer's successor. 
 
 In this position he had no cause to complain of want of 
 patronage, the first commission being the marble statue of the 
 Right Rev. Daniel Corrie, Bishop of Madras, for St. George's 
 Church, Madras ; followed by that of the Marquis of Wellesley, 
 for the East India Company. 
 
 Among the chief works of this period of his career are those 
 of Dr. Goodall at Eton; Lord Bacon, for Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge; the Earl of Auckland, for Calcutta; and General Sir 
 Edward Barnes, for Bombay. 
 
6 
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 In 1850 was exhibited the first of those ideal works which^ 
 while affording him an opportunity for displaying his power of 
 realizing the beauties of outward form, appeal most directly 
 to poetic conceptions of Art. The Suppliant, representing a 
 mother with her child seeking help, added much to the fame of 
 the artist, and eventually led to his election in 1851 as an 
 Associate of the Royal Academy. His reputation, however, 
 rests principally on his portrait-busts. These are too numerous 
 to record, but amongst the many may be mentioned those of 
 the late Duke of Marlborough, Professor Sedgewick, Sir Corne- 
 wall Lewis, His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir 
 Roderick Murchison, Professor Green, Henry Toby Prinsep, 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie, Charles Buller, Lord Hammond, and Sir 
 Moses Montefiore. In this branch of Art he possessed the 
 happy faculty of drawing out the mind of his sitter, and thus- 
 stamping on the features that truthfulness of character and 
 delicacy of expression essential to good portraiture. 
 
 About the year 1852, Sir Percy Florence Shelley, Bart., 
 intrusted him with the execution of a posthumous bust of his 
 mother, Mrs. Shelley. This gave rise to a friendship with Sir 
 Percy and Lady Shelley, to which he always alluded as one of 
 the most pleasant experiences of his life. The munificence of 
 the poet's son enabled him shortly afterwards to engage in an 
 ideal work in which he strongly sympathized — a monument to 
 Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, for Christ Church, 
 Hampshire. This is considered by many as decidedly his 
 finest production. An intense admirer of the poet, the sculptor 
 seems to have thrown his whole genius into the subject : the 
 touching attitude, the deep and unaffected grief of the group, 
 is most effective, while its powerful composition and simplicity 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 7 
 
 seem to strike the sweetest chord in the gentle poet's Hfe. 
 Owing to the prejudices of the churchwardens and others to 
 the unorthodox opinions of Shelley, difficulty was experienced 
 in obtaining a fitting site in the church : a compromise was 
 arrived at by the artist consenting to remove the work at his 
 own expense if it should be disapproved by the congregation, 
 and the monument is now one of the Art treasures of the 
 county. This was followed, in 1857-8, by The Mother's 
 Kiss, a picture of natural affection, carried out with much 
 feeling and delicate treatment; and The Young Naturalist, 
 an elegant figure of a girl standing amidst the rocks and sea- 
 weed on the seashore, and holding a star-fish in her hand : the 
 artistic idea aimed at in the latter statue will be best described 
 in the artist's own words : — 
 
 ' ' Where end the searchings of her wondering mind ? 
 Where most begin and all must end at last, 
 Simple or Sage, Philosopher or Fool : 
 He who with deep-laid thought in vain essays 
 By finite means the infinite to probe ; 
 And he who more contented waits that time, 
 When, falling to earth and bursting with decay, 
 This mortal husk gives forth at one bright shoot 
 The promised tree of knowledge and of life : 
 Where wind up all the workings of their brain ? 
 Where, but with this poor child upon the shore, 
 . Who by more easy paths arrives at once 
 
 At the one truth that nothing can be known." 
 
 The Sardanapalus executed for the civic authorities in 1861 
 may be cited as a bolder type of poetic conception ; and the statue 
 of John Hunter, for the Museum of the College of Surgeons, 
 a later work, a fitting example of dignity and thought in por- 
 traiture. 
 
8 
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 In 1863 Henry Weekes was elected to the full honours of 
 the Royal Academy, and as a member of the Council took an 
 active part in advancing all measures tending to improve 
 education in Art. He considered Sculpture to be insufficiently 
 recognized as a distinct Art in the schools, and endeavoured to 
 obtain for the student modellers a better method of studying 
 under proper instruction from members of their own particular 
 branch; at the same time, strongly suggested a larger expen- 
 diture under this head on the part of the Academy, and 
 deprecated any movement of economy in a body which he 
 considered rich enough, and sufficiently well established, to 
 benefit in a greater degree all grades of Art in this country. 
 Acting on this idea, he came forward in 1869 as candidate for 
 the Professorship of Sculpture, previously held by Westmacott : 
 an election took place, which resulted in his appointment. 
 This event decided him at once to go to Italy, and acquaint 
 himself with the celebrated sculptures of antiquity, so that 
 he might write and speak with the authority of personal 
 experience and observation. A previous journey through 
 France, Holland, and Belgium had given him an intimate 
 knowledge of the Dutch and Flemish schools. He returned 
 from Italy deeply impressed by the grandeur and beauty he 
 had seen, but not so enthusiastic as many, who, carried away 
 by the idea that all antique work is perfect, condemn aS worth- 
 less much that is admirable in modern Art. At the end of the 
 first term of his Professorship (five years) he was re-elected 
 without opposition, and again visited Rome, taking Venice on 
 his return. This journey was undertaken for the express pur- 
 pose of gaining fresh material for his discourses, and so avoid- 
 ing, as much as possible, repetition. 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 9 
 
 Previous to this pleasure trip, he had completed his group 
 for the Albert Memorial, entitled " Manufactures," and under- 
 taken a commission for a full-length recumbent figure of Dr. 
 Sumner, late Bishop of Winchester, for Winchester Cathedral, 
 which may be considered his last important work. 
 
 There is no doubt that on his second return from Italy the 
 fatal malady from which he had suffered for many years began 
 to undermine his strength and energy ; indeed, from that time 
 his public duties were only carried out by a determined mind 
 overcoming much physical suffering. 
 
 In 1876 all idea was relinquished of executing any more 
 commissions, and he retired for some time to Ramsgate, the 
 pure air of the east coast being recommended as likely in some 
 degree to restore his shattered health. There he met with 
 much single-hearted kindness from Sir Moses Montefiore, who, 
 on all occasions, was most indefatigable in cheering him with 
 his society, and among many acts of courteous consideration 
 sat to him for his own bust, thus affording the artist an excellent 
 subject and a means of passing the time in a light and pleasant 
 manner. His fast-failing powers induced him, in the beginning 
 of the year 1877, to return home, and from that time he was 
 confined to his room, and bore with fortitude and resignation 
 the sufferings which, on the 28th of May, brought to a close, at 
 the age of seventy, a life, uneventful perhaps, but clearly in- 
 dicating the result of that rare mental combination, fixity of 
 purpose with a well-balanced, yet poetic mind. By his death 
 English Art has lost one of her most devoted and conscientious 
 students. 
 
 Henry Weekes was about the middle height, his head large, 
 the forehead high and square, features rugged and irregular, but 
 
lO 
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 thoughtful and expressive. Upright and true in thought, word, 
 and deed, he expressed his opinions fearlessly and with decision 
 on all subjects within the scope of his experience; while his 
 simple, kindly manner, remarkable powers of conversation, and 
 freshness of idea gave a charm to his society, rare as it was 
 delightful. Merit alone was a sufficient pass to his friendship, 
 securing at all times a hearty welcome to those who sought it, 
 and ready assistance to young students struggling to tread in 
 his footsteps. When the reward of a studious, practical 
 life had placed him in the foremost rank among English 
 artists, he used his influence in endeavouring to inspire others 
 with the same love and respect for the true worth and 
 lofty aims of Art. His writings show an earnest desire to 
 raise the tone of the English school. He saw with great 
 regret the utter absence of knowledge and consequent want of 
 appreciation among the masses ; but he never lost hope that 
 the time would come when proper instruction would produce a 
 more general recognition of the beauty and ennobling power of 
 true Art. 
 
 His discernment of genius in the young students was in most 
 cases singularly exemplified by their success in after years. 
 Brought much into contact with them at the Royal Academy 
 Schools and other places, he was a general favourite, bearing in 
 mind — 
 
 " How hard it is to climb 
 
 The hill, where Fame's proud temple shines afar." 
 
 A kindly word of encouragement here and there, and an error 
 or two pointed out quietly and judiciously, did more good, 
 perhaps, among the light-hearted students than many lectures. 
 He made a principle of the old saying, " Know thyself," con- 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. n 
 
 sequently, was fully aware of his own failures; and, like most 
 artists of ability, he could never carry out his ideas to his own 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Although at times thrown back by the disappointments and 
 the usual vicissitudes of an anxious calling, he had sufficient 
 cause to realize — 
 
 " What a glory doth this world put on 
 
 For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth 
 
 Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
 
 On duties well performed and days well spent ! 
 
 For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, 
 
 Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings. 
 
 He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death 
 
 Has lifted up for all, that he shall go 
 
 To his long resting-place without a tear." 
 
 A few days before his end, he expressed himself as contented 
 with his career, and thankful for all the blessings he had ex- 
 perienced during his lifetime. The sculptor of the statue of 
 John Hunter and the Shelley monument has, by those works 
 alone, secured a living reputation, and a name of which his 
 family is justly proud. 
 
 J. E. W. 
 
\ 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FINE ARTS— THEIR VALUE AS HELPING 
 TO PROMOTE CIVILIZATION. 
 
 O great progress can be made in civilization with- 
 out some attention to the Fine Arts; for the 
 natural love of the beautiful, and the intuitive 
 feeling for imitation which Providence has planted 
 within us, will, sooner or later, evolve itself in one or other of 
 the different callings connected with them. 
 
 As man emerges from the simple state of barbarism, and 
 enters into the more complicated one of educated life, things 
 that tend to gratify the eye, to ornament the abode or person, 
 to mark distinction of rank, or possession of powder or wealth, 
 become almost as much positive requisites as are the mere 
 necessaries of life to the unsophisticated savage. As nations 
 advance, labour and enterprise create wealth, and society be- 
 comes in consequence more artificial and intricate in its phases, 
 employments more numerous and varied, customs and manners 
 more costly and refined. By the wealth thus gained, man seeks 
 to surround himself with luxuries of all kinds ; every sense or 
 feeling with which he is gifted must not only be gratified, but 
 its power, as far as possible, increased ; the ear must be regaled 
 
14 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 by more delicious sounds, the eye by more pleasing forms ; that 
 which was previously constructed solely for use, has to be made 
 ornamental in its shape, agreeable in its appearance, as well as 
 appropriate to its purpose. 
 
 In this love of imitation, and desire to impress all around us 
 with beauty, lies perhaps the germ from whence the Fine Arts 
 have sprung; but by degrees they'have been found to possess a 
 greater purpose than the simple gratification of the eye : to con- 
 tain a language which, by appealing to our natural sympathies 
 or religious impressions, and connecting itself with our historical 
 recollections, or our poetical imaginings, serves to raise us both 
 morally and intellectually, as well as to soften down the aspe- 
 rities of our character, and increase our enjoyment ; and hence 
 their value. 
 
 To the real lover of the Arts their power over the mind is so 
 self-evident, that the admitting their worth as a means of civili- 
 zation seems but assenting to a truism : it is nevertheless a 
 curious fact that few nations, whether ancient or modern, have 
 paid less attention to them than the English ; and that even 
 now, when we have at length roused ourselves into something 
 like a consideration or love for them, and are endeavouring to 
 attract public notice towards them by the formation of public 
 galleries and the estabHshment of Government schools, men 
 yet exist, eminent in science and literature, sincere and upright 
 in all their thoughts and words — in fact, leaders in society, whom 
 the world justly respects — who not only are indifferent to them, 
 but who openly assert that the cultivation of the Fine Arts tends 
 in no way to ameliorate mankind ; that, on the contrary, it is 
 often the means of debilitating them, by lending to their vices 
 and luxuries a gilded covering that renders them more attractive. 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 15 
 
 Their argument is based on examples, found in history, of 
 rulers who, while they have been the most liberal patrons of 
 Painting and Sculpture, have shown themselves tainted with 
 the grossest crimes, as in the instance of Leo X. ; or on times 
 when, while the Arts have flourished, nations have othenvise 
 been fettered both mentally and physically. 
 
 It is urged, and with truth, that the most impure religions 
 have been those that have most aided in the advance of the 
 Arts ; and that those creeds or religions have found in them a 
 powerful instrument whereby to instil false doctrines into the 
 minds of the ignorant. Grant that the Arts have been in former 
 days subservient to these purposes, and that, while lending 
 themselves to the aid of superstition, they received in return an 
 encouragement which brought them to their greatest height, 
 does it follow that they are to be accused of fostering the im- 
 perfections of mankind ? As well might Literature, whose birth 
 was perhaps even earlier than that of Art, and which was cer- 
 tainly united with it, be said to have debased humanity. Art 
 was then but the slave to the feelings and opinions of the time ; 
 and as such was more or less obliged to lend itself to the task 
 imposed upon it, whatever that might be. It was but the re- 
 flector and promulgator of the knowledge it found around it. 
 In its earliest times, when connected with pagan history and 
 religion, it was neither the founder of the creeds, nor did its in- 
 fluence tend to strengthen or increase their impurity ; on the 
 contrary, we shall find that it was the means of bringing forward 
 those features or points out of which good arose, and of ren- 
 dering the vile parts less effective in their operation. 
 
 Take, for instance, the Greeks, under whom the Arts maybe 
 said to have first risen from a mechanical employment into an 
 
i6 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 intellectual pursuit ; and whose system of theology was but a 
 deification of the different feelings and attributes of humanity ; 
 whose gods were emblems, not merely of the virtues, but of the 
 vices of their worshippers. Did Architecture or Sculpture, the 
 two Arts in which they most excelled, make their habits more 
 immoral, or the poetical allegories of their Pantheon more de- 
 basing ? It is true that that nation, by throwing the halo of re- 
 ligious worship over certain vices, removed from them the odium 
 of the public voice ; and that the Arts, in some instances, were 
 called in to assist in making their debauched ceremonies more 
 inviting; but this formed only an exception to the general 
 rule ; and it may be even there a question, whether they did 
 not tend rather to soften the grossness of, than heighten the 
 zest for the impurities. 
 
 The remains of ancient Art which have come down to us 
 show clearly, notwithstanding here and there an example to the 
 contrary, that the intent and purport of the artists was to raise 
 the populace intellectually, to excite them to deeds of patriotism 
 and valour, and to love of the noble and heroic. The conten- 
 tion of Neptune and Minerva which should most benefit 
 mankind, the labours of Hercules, the maternal affection of 
 Niobe, are subjects the contemplation of which must elevate 
 the character of a people, and are alone sufficient to prove that 
 the value of the Arts, as a means of advancement, was both 
 understood and appreciated. The lesson, too, which Art conveys 
 by portraying heroic virtue, was increased in force by showing 
 the opposite side of the page ; vice was exhibited, as in the 
 instance of their Silenus and Satyrs, in its most natural, as well 
 as most expressive and abhorrent forms. Men were taught, 
 while looking at them, that by the practice of vicious habits 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 17 
 
 they lowered themselves to an equality with the beasts of the 
 field, connected themselves with them, both in form and cha- 
 racter assumed, essentially, if not positively, the likeness of 
 inferior creation. 
 
 We might go further in our argument for the well-working of 
 Art in ancient Greece ; we might descend from the beautiful 
 fables under which her moral code of laws was veiled, and ask 
 the reader to remember that the statues of her warriors and 
 heroes, her poets, orators, and philosophers, erected in such 
 numbers in her public places — their forms idealized while their 
 names were deified, to meet the belief that the beautiful in 
 person was indicative of the noble in mind — served to raise in 
 the beholders a spirit of emulation, a desire to obtain the like 
 honours by the like means. 
 
 The same feeling pervaded Roman Art; courage in war 
 was instilled into the people by the figures of their generals ; 
 bodily energy and activity by the statues of the victors in 
 the games ; Roman stoicism by the suppressed agony of the 
 dying gladiator. 
 
 In the medieval— or, as they are called, the dark ages— when 
 Art revived, and became again the handmaid to religion— the 
 cause which has always been her best nurse— can it be said to 
 have obstructed the advance of civilization? nay, can it be 
 denied that it was a powerful medium of imparting knowledge, 
 both religious and moral? Called in by the early Christians as 
 an assistant to their worship, it became with them a visible link 
 between their prayers and the invisible throne to which they 
 were addressed, that concentrated their thoughts, helped their 
 imagination, and heightened the enthusiasm of their devotion. 
 It was, it is true, afterwards perverted by priestcraft from this 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 purpose, and instead of an assistant to devotional feeling, and 
 an instructor in Christian knowledge, it was itself made the ob- 
 ject of idolatry; but this cannot be said to have been the fault 
 of Art, but of those who abused God's gifts by working evil out 
 of good. We are apt, too, while dwelling on the superstitions 
 which crept into Christianity under the dominion of the Roman 
 Catholics, when Art flourished so luxuriantly, to forget that with 
 this evil much good also arose ; if the Paintings and Sculptures 
 belonging to that Church tended to propagate the fallacies of 
 priestcraft, it must be acknowledged that they propagated also 
 much of the true history and Gospel of Christ ; and now that 
 we have printing to help us to spread knowledge, we are apt to 
 underrate the effect they had, in the days previous to that 
 invention, in educating the people. We should recollect that 
 they formed almost the only medium in the early ages through 
 which glimpses of holy or profane history could be caught by 
 the vulgar ; that it was through them, if not wholly, at any rate 
 in a great measure, that religion was taught, and its doctrines 
 impressed on the mind. 
 
 Had Art been the originator, or even the chief promoter, of 
 the evils hinted at, they would have been found to grow with 
 its growth, and to have fallen with its decay ; instead of which 
 we find them existing the strongest at times when Art was in its 
 infancy; and rather weakened than otherwise in those days 
 when it attained its highest point of excellence. Reason has, 
 however, now so firmly established her throne amongst us, that 
 there can be no further danger of the Arts being again perverted 
 to the wrong purposes they formerly were ; and they who differ 
 from, as well as they who assent to the religion under which 
 the great works of ancient days were produced, may now look 
 
THE FINE ARTS. 19 
 
 upon them without the sUghtest danger of being led backward 
 in their judgment by the associations with which they are con- 
 nected, or by the thoughts which they suggest to the imagination : 
 and it may be fairly asked if, now that time has cleared away 
 the filth which had accumulated around jhem, they are not 
 found to possess much that may yet serve to direct us in the 
 course we would wish to pursue. 
 
 Rejecting, however, for the sake of argument, the Fine Arts 
 as a means of moral and intellectual improvement, and admit- 
 ting them merely as a study by which forms and colours are 
 made the more to gratify the eye, their value may yet be urged 
 as tending to multiply our enjoyments. By a proper under- 
 standing and thorough appreciation of what is termed taste, 
 works of comparatively little manual labour are made to convey 
 purer and more exquisitely refined pleasure than others upon 
 which years of toil have been bestowed, but in which that quality 
 is wanting. That there are principles by which taste is guided, 
 and by which the essentially sublime or beautiful may be distin- 
 guished from the merely strange or fanciful, no one who has at 
 all studied the arrangements of Nature can deny; and it may 
 with justice be contended, that in endeavouring to search into 
 those principles, and in promulgating them, we are but carrying 
 out the intention of Providence, who, while He has made all 
 things suited to their purpose, has at the same time made them 
 agreeable to look upon, and has given us, not only a sense of 
 enjoyment from beholding them, but also an intellect to under- 
 stand the system by which this double purpose of utility and 
 beauty is accomplished. 
 
LECTURE 1. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 HE law laid down by the Royal Academy to the 
 lecturer on Sculpture is, that he shall explain the 
 principles of style and form in the Art, and its 
 peculiarities of composition ; and he is very pro- 
 perly restricted, in common with the other professors, from any 
 comment on the opinions or productions of living artists. 
 These simple, and at the same time excellent rules, it is scarcely 
 necessary to observe, I purpose thoroughly adhering to. I 
 trust, however, to be able, without infringing in the least, even 
 on the last admirable clause, to point out in this, my first 
 lecture — intended merely as an introductory one — certain in- 
 fluences which surround at the present moment the Art itself, 
 and tend to direct its style, as well as the purposes to which it 
 is applied, thinking as I do it may not be amiss that the 
 student should, even in the beginning of his career, thoroughly 
 understand them. I shall have to speak of matters connected 
 indirectly, rather than directly, with the Art. A lecturer on 
 Sculpture, depending as he does for success partly on judg- 
 
22 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ment, and partly on imagination, can hardly be expected to 
 lay down rules or expound principles with the same definite 
 precision as one who has to speak of the laws of an exact 
 science, where cause and effect are more clearly and decidedly 
 traceable to each other. Laws in the Fine Arts should in fact 
 at all times be dealt with liberally — should be looked upon, not 
 as objects for over-strict observance, but simply as cautions to 
 those who are rich in genius, while at the same time they supply 
 proper and wholesome restraints upon those who are but poor 
 in that respect. In this particular it may perhaps be said that 
 they differ in no very great degree from laws on other 
 questions with which we have to do in our general career of 
 life. Be that as it may, it is certain that in Art a too great 
 dependence on, or a too close adhesion to them tends often 
 quite as much to weaken as to strengthen the merits of an 
 artist. 
 
 The student should look upon them as does the skater on 
 the notices put up for his safety on the ice, which say to him,, 
 thus far shalt thou go and no further ; but within the limits left 
 to you, you may cut what figures you please. A lecturer, too,, 
 labours under this difficulty. There is an opinion prevalent 
 among professional men that writers or preachers on Art are 
 generally those who know the least about it. This is not 
 altogether a prejudice, nor altogether founded on fact ; but it 
 would be difficult to sustain such an argument when we 
 recollect Reynolds, Eastlake, and Leslie, and many others 
 almost as eminent, as writers on Painting, and Flaxman on 
 Sculpture : at the same time it is quite true that there are men 
 who, feeling that they have little or no chance of gaining a 
 reputation by their works, hope to obtain one by writing or 
 
INTR on UCTOR V. 2 3 
 
 talking on that which they cannot carry out, and so impressing 
 the world with a sense of their learning and theoretical know 
 ledge ; forgetting that in Art at least, whatever may be done in 
 other things, theory and practice can never be entirely sepa- 
 rated. These are the men who put forth difficult problems for 
 solution, and try to make an Art appear complicated and 
 difficult to comprehend whose very essence is its simplicity ; 
 and hence the little value that has of late been placed on 
 theoretical talkers. On the other hand, there are sculptors who 
 do not write or speak of their profession, though fully under- 
 standing it both in theory and practice; but who are so 
 engaged with their works as to have no time for putting their 
 ideas together — hardly, indeed, time for defining them clearly to 
 themselves. These, in consequence, rarely devote themselves 
 to expounding in words what they can so much better illustrate 
 by their models ; though it might be as well, even for them- 
 selves, if they occasionally did so. Ideas placed side by side 
 on paper enable the sculptor to view clearly their bearing one 
 upon another, and he thereby knows at once, or at least better 
 ascertains, what are true and what are false; and he arrives also 
 at a more accurate notion of the extent of his knowledge of his 
 Art, theoretically as well as practically. I will venture to 
 recommend to the student the practice of putting down his 
 thoughts in writing, if it be only for this reason— it will serve 
 him as a species of self-examination, that will, if fairly and 
 honestly done, save him from many besetting sins, especially 
 that one to which we are all so liable, the bending of theory to 
 practice, rather than practice to theory. It will serve him, too, 
 as a defence for his Art against the many temptations— and their 
 name is legion— that arise from without, from the momentary 
 
24 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR V. 
 
 prevailing whims or fashions of the day. I have said that 
 Sculpture is a simple Art, perhaps I shall be better understood 
 if I say that it is a restricted one — restricted in its means and its 
 effects. If I define it as the Art of expressing ideas by means of 
 form, I know I shall be uttering something very like a truism ; 
 but you will have, within this simple definition the Alpha and 
 Omega of all its rules. But, simple as it is, it involves much more 
 than at first appears. It involves the sculptor going with his 
 Art into those pure forms of Nature herself, which are at all 
 times more or less expressive of her purpose ; and it involves 
 his rejection of many artificial ones which fail in this cha- 
 racteristic. It involves, too, the rejection of such as depend for 
 their power on colour, as well as of many means, such as aerial, 
 and I may almost say linear perspective, both of which the 
 painter has at his command. I have said that Sculpture is a 
 restricted Art ; I will repeat it, because I know it is the fashion 
 at this moment to take this as a reason for looking down upon 
 it as an inferior one — an assertion hardly worthy of a denial. 
 It is forgotten that it is this very restriction that protects it from 
 the many degradations in style to which the sister Art is liable, 
 and that confines it to the higher walks, and keeps it com- 
 paratively pure and true to its text. To say that Painting has 
 risen to the highest style in a country is simply to assert that it 
 has approached nearer to that of Sculpture ; that it is resorting 
 to the strict rules of composition, to purity of form, to scientific 
 knowledge of the human figure, and to expression ; in short, to 
 the very few things that Sculpture has to feed upon. I am not 
 saying that the two Arts may not owe something to each other, 
 but they can never amalgamate ; for they have necessarily, for 
 their own preservation, distinctions of feeling : but were a treaty 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 25 
 
 of commerce to be established between them, I beheve Painting 
 would be much more a gainer by it than Sculpture. 
 
 Painting, however, is with us naturally and necessarily the 
 prevailing Art of the two, and the consequence is, that its in- 
 fluence is more felt on our Sculpture than is the influence of 
 Sculpture on our Painting. I think I shall best show this by a 
 comparison of the circumstances under which modern Sculpture 
 has to work with what it had under the ancient Greeks— the 
 nation who may be said to be the representatives of antique 
 Sculpture, inasmuch as they carried it to the highest pitch of 
 excellence. Let us compare the two from this point : it is ever 
 well to look truth in the face, though it may not help to flatter 
 our prejudices or to enlarge our prospects of success. My 
 object, however, is not to discourage, but rather to direct your 
 course of study. 
 
 First then, the Greeks had, at the time Art flourished with 
 them, no public Press. Do not think that in claiming this as a 
 cause of their greater success I am silly enough to enter into a 
 discussion on the criticisms now passed on our productions ; 
 quite the contrary, here I have nothing whatever to do with 
 them : what I wish to convey to you is, that in the Art of 
 Printing the world has discovered more powerful means of 
 disseminating, not only general knowledge, but those principles 
 of taste, and that feeling for the pure and beautiful, which, 
 previously, it was the province of Art, almost alone, to incul- 
 cate. In modern times Sculpture must, I fear, in consequence 
 abdicate, in a great measure, if not wholly, her title to be a 
 teacher, and be contented with the rank of illustrator; whilst of 
 old it was, if not the only one, at any rate one of the chief 
 means of instructing the masses in that refinement for which. 
 
26 
 
 INTR on UCTOR V. 
 
 amidst what we should now call comparative ignorance, Art- 
 loving Athens in particular was so distinguished. Need I re- 
 mind you how it stood in her temples and in her public places, 
 accustoming the eye to the contemplation of the beautiful, and 
 imbuing with the love of it a people, themselves examples of the 
 highest and most beautiful race of mankind, and believers in a 
 creed that held physical beauty to be ever more or less united 
 with, or indicative of, moral and intellectual excellence? In 
 attributing to our Art the important office of teacher in ancient 
 Greece, I am of course quite willing to acknowledge the equal, 
 if not more powerful aid of her poetry, dramatic or otherwise, 
 of her public oratory, and schools of philosophy ; the latter es- 
 pecially. There seems, in fact, the same searching after abstract 
 truth in the works of Plato as is found in ancient Greek Art, 
 so much so that his name has become synonymous with purity, 
 a word which expresses better than any other the characteristic 
 quality of antique Sculpture. Art was with these, and they with 
 Art, and all were so bound together in their religion that, while 
 each did its part in the one whole, it would be difficult to say 
 which tended most to the advancement of taste or the civiliza- 
 tion of mankind. Springing from the same love and belief in 
 the beautiful, they worked together, alike in their simplicity of 
 style and in their end and aim, and were all equally restricted 
 in their means of spreading ideas. The poetry of Greece ap- 
 pears to me as if it could only belong to a nation great in the 
 Art of Sculpture. 
 
 The impersonations of the " Iliad" and "Odyssey," the heroes 
 of the terrible tragedies of ^schylus and Euripides, and the awful 
 figure of the self-blinded OEdipus of Sophocles, stand out so dis- 
 tinctly from one another, that they seem each a statue in him- 
 
INTRODUCTORY, 27 
 
 self, whether represented on their primitive stage, with the 
 simple attendance of a chorus, or when carved in marble, with 
 their appropriate accessories to explain their meaning and cha- 
 racter. The superiority of the early Greeks in their dresses, 
 never as in modern days driven by the whims and fancies of 
 fashion from the true principles of beauty,' and always allowing 
 the just proportions and natural actions of the human frame to 
 be visible to the eye ; their innate love of glory ; their athletic 
 games, and the comparative simpUcity of their mode of warfare, 
 which depended on personal courage more than now, and so 
 admitted better of sculptural representation and commemo- 
 ration, have all been argued, with justice, to be causes of their 
 superiority in Sculpture. I need not, therefore, descant on them 
 at present, but I have laid stress on their religion, because I 
 think religion has been, and ever will be, the greatest mover and 
 elevator of Fine Art, and more especially of the Art of Sculpture. 
 Now if you agree with me on this point, I fear you will be com- 
 pelled—seeing, as you must, that we have lost in a great measure 
 that influence— to attribute to that loss the changes, whether 
 for better or worse, that have taken place in more recent days, 
 and the want of that elevated character which so distinguishes 
 later productions from the best antique ones. Art may be de- 
 scribed to be with us in a state of transition, perhaps it can 
 hardly be said to be ever otherwise 3 but I beheve I may say in 
 England its end and aim are not well defined, at least as regards 
 Sculpture ; and that consequently our school is vibrating between 
 one extreme and the other, hardly knowing exactly where is the 
 proper balance of equilibrium. In evidence of this we see 
 works showing great talent-nay, almost genius, and yet quite 
 unfit for the Art to which they belong; designs which, if 
 
28 
 
 INTR on UCTOR K 
 
 painted, might have formed the first step on the ladder of repu- 
 tation, but which in Sculpture, to say the' least, are out of 
 place, because they are in direct contradiction of her unvarying 
 principles, or, in other words, out of her natural limits. These 
 examples become more pernicious from their possessing other- 
 wise no inconsiderable excellence, and I confess I see more 
 danger to the Art from this than from any other source. 
 Painting and Sculpture have always a tendency to go hand in 
 hand together ; but it is equally necessary for the well-being of 
 both that each should strictly observe, not only the laws which 
 are common to the two, but also those which serve to regulate 
 the distinctions one from another. 
 
 With the old nations, it may, I think, be fairly stated that 
 Sculpture took the lead. We have but few remains of either 
 antique Greek or Roman Painting ; but what we have indicates 
 it as secondary in importance, and shows it partook much of 
 the feeling of its sister Art, and that both worked together to 
 convey to the multitude the same solemn and impressive ideas. 
 They were both employed almost wholly by the same severe 
 mistresses, Religion and Philosophy, and were each too high 
 and pure in themselves to contaminate one another. The same 
 may be said of the revival of Art in Italy, except that in the 
 latter case. Painting stood at least upon an equal footing with 
 Sculpture. In our own days, and perhaps more particularly 
 with us at home, Painting has taken the decided lead. It is 
 but natural she should do so ; her works are more suited to the 
 times, and can be produced at a cost more adapted to the 
 enormous increase in the value of labour. There are other 
 reasons, which I need not go into, that have given her the ad- 
 vantage. That Painting has made rapid advances of late, no 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 29 
 
 unprejudiced observer will, I think, deny, and the danger is of 
 Sculpture bending the severity of her style to that of her 
 younger and more popular sister, in order to gain a share of her 
 popularity. 
 
 Painting is no longer the severe Art it was in the best days 
 of ancient Greece and Rome and mediaeval Italy : she has 
 stepped down from her lofty throne to become, perhaps, more 
 entertaining, more amiable, more generally interesting. With 
 us she may be said to be tending towards the realistic, or, at 
 any rate, to be working between it and the ideal. I do not 
 myself feel, as many do, that this is altogether a disadvantage. 
 That, however, is not the question I am called upon to discuss. 
 My province is to warn the student in Sculpture that his Art 
 cannot, has not even the means of following Painting in all 
 these grades. The legitimate ramifications through which she 
 does descend are different from those of Painting. The high 
 walks of both are of course in the regions of poetry and 
 history, sacred and profane. Sculpture may embrace por- 
 traiture, and again go down into decorative and ornamental 
 Art, and so unite herself with manufactures. But she cannot 
 take within her grasp, as Painting does, the familiar and 
 domestic, nor condescend to the absurd and grotesque — at least, 
 not without a loss of self-respect fatal to her position and call- 
 ing. With the Egyptians it formed, in connection with Archi- 
 tecture, a record of their history, and resolved itself into a series 
 of national portraiture, accompanied by symbols illustrative of 
 the events of the period; as it did, indeed, often with the 
 Greeks when in unison with their monumental inscriptions, 
 the grand difference being that with the former people we have 
 at the most but an abstract of the national character, and often 
 
30 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 positive individuality; whilst, with the latter, we have an 
 abstract of the beautiful, derived from the study of mankind 
 in general, and not belonging to any particular type or race. 
 It can hardly be denied that the pagan mythology of the 
 Greeks — which consisted of a separate deification of the human 
 passions or characteristics, and insisted that, in the personifica- 
 tion of them, an appropriate expression should be given, with- 
 out loss of beauty — it cannot be denied, I say, that such a 
 religion was, for the purpose of Art, vastly superior to the 
 Christian belief, even in the days when that belief grew into so 
 luxurious a state, and resorted in so magnificent a manner to 
 Art in aid of its devotion. It stands, in fact, to reason, that a 
 people who personified their deities by sculptural representa- 
 tions of perfect human beauty must carry an Art depending 
 for its excellence on that beauty to a higher pitch than a people 
 with a religion like our own, which, though wonderfully superior 
 in all important points, looks upon the Godhead as hardly 
 capable of being conceived, much less represented to the eye, 
 and which does not lay claim to personal attractions in any 
 of its leaders or advocates ; hardly in the Divine head that 
 links our humanity with its Creator. It is to this cause, I 
 confess, that I attribute a certain inferiority in Christian Sculp- 
 ture, not excepting the Art of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 centuries, which Michael Angelo carried to such a height. 
 That Sculpture then rose from the dead under its great leader, 
 must be admitted, and that it rose with new attributes, with a 
 grandeur and gorgeousness of conception quite its own, and 
 quite distinct from the pure unobtrusive simplicity of old Greek 
 Art. For this, however, its new attributes of splendour and 
 magnificence can hardly, in my opinion, be considered as a 
 
INTROD UCTOR V. 31 
 
 fair and sufficient substitute, though the change of one quaUty 
 for another may, I should say, be fairly assigned to a change in 
 the feelings and circumstances of the times. 
 
 The old classic sculptors never departed from their one 
 principle, Beauty ; but the mediaeval ones had, in many instances, 
 to convey in their Art much that must tend to deteriorate from 
 the excellence of the human form. They had frequently to 
 portray the effects of mental and bodily suffering, their creed • 
 itself consisting, speaking broadly, of an abnegation of self for 
 the benefit of others. I do not stand before you to preach on 
 the differences of religion ; I have only to show you the various 
 effects they have, and have had, on the Art of Sculpture ; and 
 looking at the two great distinctions I have endeavoured thus 
 shortly to put before you, you will not, I presume, differ from 
 me as to the superiority of the old pagans, who, even when re • 
 presenting by symbols their vices, gross as they were, never 
 forgot the one keystone of the Art, Beauty. Even the aid 
 which the religion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries gave 
 to Art you have not, nor can you reasonably expect to have 
 now. Some things indeed of the present day, to which I am 
 compelled to allow an equality, if not a precedence, may be 
 argued to be to a certain extent antagonistic to its full develop- 
 ment in modern times. Science, for instance, which is making 
 such rapid strides, and which, as far as our purpose is concerned, 
 may be described as a building of one fact upon another for 
 the discovery of still further facts, naturally trains the minds of 
 those who devote themselves to it to accept of nothing in their 
 researches that can be understood by imagination ; the only 
 word in their dictionary coming at all near to it, and that not very 
 near, being experiment. This creates, in a country like our own, a 
 
32 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR V. 
 
 numerous and most influential class of men, with judgment 
 strong from its being constantly exercised, and with little 
 imagination, because that faculty is rarely called into play, and 
 they are consequently but little disposed to enjoy or feel the 
 beauties of an Art depending greatly on that imagination for its 
 charms, and whose beneficial qualities are not so direct as those 
 of their own pursuits. Sculpture, in fact Art generally, must take 
 its place in a more compHcated state of society, with other things 
 more or less valuable. 
 
 Perhaps I am dwelling on this too long, but I wish the student 
 clearly to see that he can hardly hope to bring back again an 
 age of Sculpture similar to that of ancient Greece or Rome or 
 even to that of mediaeval Italy. The sculptor must endeavour to 
 adapt his work to the circumstances and feelings of the period 
 in which he lives, and this, I firmly believe, may be done 
 without any degradation of style or treatment. 
 
 In asking the public to become admirers of illustrations in 
 Art in which only the most learned feel an interest, and that a 
 secondary one, is asking an impossibility. Sculpture, from its 
 very nature, can never perhaps become exactly popular; but it 
 need not hold itself aloof from its admirers, and expect to be 
 courted without any return, or while affecting a coy avoidance 
 of their tastes and feelings. It admits only of subjects of a high 
 character, but it has an ample choice of such in the sacred 
 writings with which our religious feelings are connected, and in 
 the history and poetry of our country. Evidence of the inexpe- 
 diency of choosing subjects of a pagan character for Sculpture 
 may be shown from the preface to Bulwer's novel of " The Last 
 Days of Pompeii : " it does not seem quite the sort of book to 
 quote from, but you will recollect it is the work of a classical 
 
INTRO D UCTOR Y. 33 
 
 scholar ; the remark, too, he makes appears to me to the purpose. 
 He says, " The greatest difficulty in treating of an unfamiliar and 
 distant period is to make the characters introduced live and 
 move before the eye of the reader." He is speaking, of course, 
 of the difficulties in Literature, and I think I am not taking too 
 much upon myself in saying that the words " live and move 
 before the eyes of the reader " may be translated to mean the 
 having that association with our own feehngs necessary to create 
 a due and proper sympathy within us. The same difficulty 
 exists in Art as well as in Literature, perhaps in a greater 
 degree, for a reason which I will explain. We have not the 
 liberty of introducing things which may connect the work with 
 our every-day hfe, because our effect has to be produced at once 
 by one scene or representation — to be accomplished, so to 
 speak, by one stroke of the pencil or chisel — and the contact 
 between the sublime and the commonplace, the ideal and the 
 realistic, would be too close. In Literature, where the author 
 arrives at his purpose by many strokes of his pen, and through 
 a series of scenes, he may have that aid, may make use of both 
 the ideal and the real, and may resort to contrast between the 
 two to strengthen his effect ; but he never brings them into 
 immediate proximity, as the sculptor would be obliged to do 
 were he to resort to the same system. In the sublime tragedy 
 of " Macbeth" there are passages, never perhaps given on the 
 stage, nor in fact hardly fit to be so given, which bring us back 
 to our earth, Antaeus-like to rebound with renewed strength and 
 energy into the regions of imagination. And in the poetical 
 drama of " The Tempest " we have Trinculo and Stephano to re- 
 mind us that we are but men, whilst sustaining the lofty flight 
 of the soul into those unknown regions through which the 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR V. 
 
 author carries us. I say nothing of friend CaUban : he is sub- 
 lime in his ugHness moral and physical, and might therefore, 
 both in Art and Literature, be brought, if only by way of con- 
 trast, into the immediate presence of the beautiful. 
 
 The Greeks have produced a Greek Art, the Italians an 
 Italian one, and if Sculpture is to be at all successful in Eng- 
 land, the character of it must be such as will mark it as English. 
 Antique Art will still not be the less valuable as an instructor 
 in the principles of form, and as inculcating that constant devo- 
 tion to beauty which is ever its prevailing feature ; and the 
 great Art of the middle ages will again instruct the student in 
 imparting to his work mental power. 
 
 The two, but more particularly the first, will most probably 
 ever be the chosen school-books of the pupil ; but he can no 
 more expect to become an original sculptor, and to establish a 
 permanent reputation by repeating, or more feebly imitating, 
 ideas already portrayed in them, than he can expect to be- 
 come a poet by writing in a dead language, or by adopting the 
 old but obsolete system of the ancient dramatic and epic 
 writers ; nor will a recurrence to the more modern feeling of 
 the Italian mediaeval school answer his purpose any better. 
 
 England must in Art be English, if she would hope to retain 
 a mark of distinctiveness hereafter, and if not poetical in her 
 Art the birthplace of Shakespeare and Milton can have no ex- 
 cuse to offer. It is the nature of the young aspirant to ex- 
 cellence in Art to cast aside old rules and obsolete ideas and 
 thoughts, and to be sick and weary of a preaching-up the 
 antique ; and in this way, if he be a genius, he often arrives at 
 new views of Nature and new beauties in Art, entirely of his 
 own creating, or, more properly speaking, discovering : but it 
 
INTRO D UCTOR V. 35 
 
 is in after-life, when he has obtained his highest degree of ex- 
 cellence, that he learns to curb those views by rules derived 
 from what has gone before, and so becomes a leader instead of 
 an abject follower of others ; and by this time it will be well 
 for him if he retain the opinion that neither what is old nor 
 what is new is entirely without merit or without error. 
 
 The progress of Art may be likened to the ocean-tide, which, 
 though gradually advancing, consists of numberless undulating 
 waves, all carrying us perhaps in the right direction, yet some- 
 times sending us down as well as hfting us up ; and points 
 which, to the young and ardent, appear radiant with light 
 while on his voyage, become to the old and experienced, looking 
 at them as he does from the opposite end, so many shadowed 
 rocks that threaten destruction. The truth is, as usual, between 
 the two. 
 
 Restrain the beginner in Art too much by rules, and he be- 
 comes tame and spiritless, a mere parrot-Hke repeater of what 
 even to himself has no meaning ; remove all rules from him, 
 and all those principles of his Art which the experience of ages 
 has laid down as incontrovertible, and his imagination runs 
 wild into the incongruous and absurd. In the former case his 
 work dwindles into the imbecile and idiotic ; in the other it 
 runs, uncurbed by judgment, into the region of madness. 
 
 Macaulay touches on the subject of change in a manner that 
 may be well worth your attention. He says, speaking of the 
 two great parties that represent the differences of opinion on 
 national matters : " Not only in Politics, but in Literature, m 
 Art, in Science, in Surgery and Mechanics, in Navigation and 
 Acriculture-nay, even in Mathematics, we find this distmction. 
 Everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to 
 
36 
 
 INTRO D UCTOR V. 
 
 whatever is ancient, and who, even when convinced by over- 
 powering reasons that innovation would be beneficial, consent to 
 it with many misgivings and forebodings. We find also, every- 
 where, another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in specula- 
 tion, always pressing forward, quick to discern the imperfections 
 of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and in- 
 conveniences which attend improvements, and disposed to give 
 every change credit for being an improvement. In the senti- 
 ments of both classes there is something to approve. But of 
 both the best specimens will be found not far from the common 
 frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted 
 dotards : the extreme section of the other consists of shallow 
 and reckless empirics." I am now only, so to speak, introducing 
 myself to you, in order that we may thoroughly understand 
 each other ; and I may say that I do not expect you to follow 
 me blindly in all that I shall assert. Were you to do so, you 
 would be giving up your own independence and that right of 
 judgment which no artist can afford to rehnquish, for by the 
 constant use of it it is that the pupil advances to be the 
 . master, and that, having become a master, he still continues to 
 be a pupil. A professional lecturer has ever an unconscious 
 tendency to colour his discourse with the prevailing tints of his 
 own practice : he is in this respect, however, neither better 
 nor worse than his fellow-workers, for we are all more prone 
 to bend principles to practice than practice to principles, 
 and to advocate with more or less fondness our own par- 
 ticular walk. I wish you to place yourself not far from the 
 frontier, where, as Macaulay says, the best men are found ; to 
 weigh fairly my words, neither entirely rejecting nor hastily ac- 
 cepting them. You will thus, whatever may be the result, be 
 
INTRO D UCTOR Y. 37 
 
 exercising your judgment; and by a comparison of your own 
 thoughts with those of others arrive in all probability at what 
 is right; and the very effort at comparison will be of service in 
 carrying you onward in the path of truth, I wdll now speak to 
 you of what is generally understood amongst us by the term 
 proper tone of mind ; and I am induced to touch upon it from 
 a belief that a due cultivation of it will help to improvement 
 in your Art more than is generally admitted. 
 
 The same good feeling I ask of you whilst hstening to me 
 will enable you, while looking at and examining the works of 
 your fellow-competitors, to see what is good in them, to under- 
 stand their intention, and to appreciate their ideas and struggles 
 after excellence. 
 
 The professed critic, who, it would seem, ought not, or at any 
 rate does not appear to perceive anything but errors and de- 
 ficiencies, loses, I firmly believe, by the constant habit of 
 looking at everything with a jaundiced eye, all pleasure, I 
 would almost say all knowledge, and most certainly all love for 
 Art ; but the artist himself must ever keep up those pleasurable 
 sensations which he derives from his Art, as they are ever the 
 greatest incitements to an earnest following of his calling. 
 What he does with delight to himself he will be sure to do 
 best, and what he accomplishes' without that delight will ever 
 be reckoned among his comparative failures. 
 
 The Art of a man of refined and liberal mind always indi- 
 cates refinement : there are artists, indeed, w^ho exhibit hardly 
 any other quality ; but it ever redeems them from the common- 
 place, and makes them, though perhaps technically inferior to 
 many others, deservedly favourites ; whilst others, with far more 
 academic knowledge, and far more power with their brush or 
 
38 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 chisel, can hardly eradicate from their productions a certain 
 vulgarity inherent in themselves. 
 
 That we have had examples to the contrary cannot be 
 doubted ; the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, though written in 
 an exaggerated style, display a loose code of morals scarcely to 
 be admired, and other cases might be urged by an advocate on 
 the opposite side of the argument : but it should be recollected 
 that the faults of such men were, perhaps, more those of the 
 times in which they lived than of the individuals themselves ; 
 and the greatest sculptor of this country was in himself a justi- 
 fication of the argument that a high tone of mind in matters 
 unconnected with Art is conducive to excellence in Art itself 
 
 Flaxman could not have been the great sculptor he was 
 without having been also the good man that his life shows him 
 to have been ; and it is but too true that we have had 
 instances amongst us of the possession of original genius, the 
 effects of which have been contaminated, if not wholly nullified, 
 by a want of proper balance of conduct and due observance of 
 the ordinary rules of morality and good society. Even eccen- 
 tricities in an artist are only excusable when he has had 
 the misfortune to live at a time or in a country where his 
 productions are wholly unappreciated and unrewarded. The 
 peevish feeling of one so situated can be accounted for, if not 
 fully justified ; but when Art takes its proper place, and obtains 
 its due recognition, as it is gradually doing with us, the artist 
 becomes, so to speak, a full member of the world about him, and 
 is called upon accordingly to assimilate himself to the manners 
 and customs of that world. Pardon this. It is a common 
 saying, and perfectly true, that in the works of everyone there 
 is a certain amount of likeness to himself : this likeness is some- 
 
INTROD UCTOR Y. 39 
 
 times physical, but quite as often, or oftener, mental, very 
 frequently both ; and this resemblance is not very difficult to 
 perceive by those who study them with this view. The subjects 
 chosen, as well as the mode of treatment, show it : through and 
 in them may be seen the man of pure and elegant mind or the 
 gross sensualist, the thorough man of the world or the careless, 
 indifferent being, the good-natured humorist and the hard- 
 hearted satirist, the man who sympathizes strongly with his 
 fellow-man and the cold-hearted, miserly being who has but 
 one strong sympathy, and that for self. 
 
 No better motive need be urged to the student than this for 
 a general cultivation of his mind, at least not by a lecturer on 
 Art j for, in a profession where we are constantly, so to speak, 
 compelled to write our signatures on canvas, marble, or other- 
 wise, it will be quite as well that our writing should be of the 
 very best. 
 
 I have spoken to you of Flaxman ; he was, as you are aware, 
 the first Professor of Sculpture of the Royal Academy of Lon- 
 don. No student will now be able to recollect him filling the 
 office, nor to call to mind the simple yet sincere manner in 
 which his lectures were delivered ; but they are luckily published, 
 and easy to be obtained, and I would sincerely recommend an 
 attentive perusal and study of them. 
 
 There is no harm in my confessing to you that I had for a 
 long time but an indifierent opinion of their merits. Not, of 
 course, that there is one word in the whole of wrong nnport to 
 the Art on which he wrote ; but I fancied them wanting in 
 practical utility as well as in energy or emphasis of diction: but 
 on devoting my attention more carefully to them, I seem to 
 detect clearly what he thought most worthy of attention ; and 
 
40 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 how a pure style in Art could, in his opinion, be best cultivated, 
 and first principles most clearly laid down and explained. He 
 knew that his Art was a truly simple one, simple in its theory, 
 simple in its means and in all its modes of practice, simple and 
 unaffected in all the ideas it attempts to portray. He believed 
 that unaffected simplicity and singleness of purpose was one of 
 its greatest charms, and he knew no complicated mode of argu- 
 ment or abstruse theories that could be brought to bear upon 
 , it. He had no invaluable secrets to keep from the student, 
 and his language as well as his mode of delivery were conse- 
 quently clear and unaffected ; his meaning as honest, straight- 
 forward, and simple as he was in himself both as a man and as 
 an artist. In his lectures he touches upon the history of the 
 Art in Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the more modern 
 one of our own country, referring you to the writings chiefly of 
 Pliny for the former, where are found more allusions to cele- 
 brated works and to artists of high reputation than in the 
 pages of any other classic writer; and where it is curious to 
 read what are evidently authentic records of facts and names, 
 amidst much on other subjects that can, now that our know- 
 ledge has advanced, only be looked upon as curiosities of a 
 dark age, as mere hearsay traditions, or the pretended wisdom 
 of the most ignorant quacks. 
 
 This, however, tends to show the importance which Art then 
 possessed in comparison with other things. Flaxman in his 
 lectures coupled with the surer experience of a later time some- 
 thing of the simple mode of expression of the old classic writers 
 of whom he was so fond. After a chapter or two on the 
 history of his Art, he expatiates in a short, but it must be 
 admitted, somev/hat vague manner on its first principles, style 
 
INTR OD UCTOR V. 4 1 
 
 and beauty; gives certain instructions on the proportions of 
 the human figure, adding some valuable rules as to the extent 
 and limit of its movemients, and the successive changes of 
 equilibrium of which those movements consist. These, with 
 some hints on the fall of drapery, and its lines, whether at 
 rest or affected by air or other influences, are all that he appears 
 to have thought necessary. Here, in fact, you have the most 
 valuable part of his writings, because the most practical. He 
 seems to have felt that the student must endeavour, modelling- 
 tool in hand, to work out the rest for himself as best he can in 
 the Schools of Art, where always the most important part of his 
 study takes place. After all, perhaps Flaxman taught more, 
 certainly produced more effect, on the English school of Sculp- 
 ture by what he did than by what he said. 
 
 Example, in Art particularly, is ever more powerful than pre- 
 cept ; the more so that the teacher passes away whilst his works 
 remain. You will perhaps ask, if this great man has told us all 
 that is necessary for our Art, why are you here to trouble us 
 further on the matter ? his words are published, and we can 
 read them in our quiet, leisure moments. Do so by all means. 
 The question is a fair one. My undertaking to give any further 
 instruction may appear like vanity, but it is not so ; I do not 
 profess to put forth new ideas upon an old Art. Perhaps too 
 many have already been put forth, at any rate I have, I confess, 
 had some anxiety about the general tone of thought which 
 pervades at this moment the public mind with regard to Sculp- 
 ture, and which is showing its evil influence, if not in our 
 schools, at any rate in our annual exhibitions and in our public 
 monumental works. Of these, however, it would be dangerous 
 to speak. Besides, I fancy I have another excuse. With 
 
42 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 all my sincere admiration for Flaxman, the best writer on 
 Sculpture we have, I cannot help thinking that he is, as I 
 have before hinted to you, sometimes vague and indefinite. He 
 is perhaps a little too fond of referring to celebrated works as 
 examples of what he advocates rather than of giving the reasons 
 for which they are so much and so justly admired. He puts 
 them forward, but he makes but little attempt at analyzing 
 them. He lays strong stress on moral and religious qualities 
 as influencing the Art, and in this he is right. At any rate, the 
 doctrine is characteristic of the man, and thoroughly exemplified 
 in himself; but the words lofty, noble, dignified, and such like, 
 may be very appropriate qualities, and yet the naming of them 
 may help the student but little in imparting them to his own 
 works. 
 
 Perhaps I may be able, in my more commonplace and less 
 poetical language, to go more into detail, and to enter more 
 closely into causes, and thereby show how these excellences 
 are attained. If so I shall be able to say that " I have done 
 the State some service," and shall be contented with the result. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 HE rules of Composition are more strict in Sculp- 
 ture, just as the Art itself is more limited in its 
 means, than Painting. Discord, or want of har- 
 mony, becomes more evident when form alone has 
 to be depended on, instead of, as in the other Art, where line, 
 colour, and a fixed light and shade not only help to make up 
 the whole, but often serve to conceal the faults and shortcomings 
 of one another. I propose, therefore, to give you my ideas on 
 Composition in Sculpture, and will begin by presuming that the 
 student has succeeded in attaining the power of imitating 
 Nature, and of selecting from such Nature the common or 
 representative from that which is merely individual ; and that 
 he is able to convey what he has thus learnt properly to see and 
 feel into his model. The first thing he will do is to search out 
 a subject to illustrate, and naturally, almost unconsciously, he 
 will select one that harmonizes most with his inward feelings, 
 or that appeals most strongly to the nature within him. In 
 this, however, he is not wrong, as he will for that very reason go 
 farther with it than he would with any other : for the individu- 
 ality expressed in his works will, after all, be the footmark by 
 
44 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 which he will be recognized in the path of Art, and I know of 
 no rule in Sculpture that need interfere with or obliterate it. 
 
 There are other points in the choice of a subject besides its 
 affinity to the artist ; it must be suitable to the Art itself — a 
 suggestive, not wholly an imitative one. The thought conveyed 
 must suggest other thoughts, not only other, but higher and 
 better thoughts; and it must be adapted to the means and 
 materials employed in the Art so as to be capable of Sculp- 
 turesque treatment. Let us examine what subjects are appro- 
 priate or not to Sculpture. 
 
 A proper selection often goes far towards the success of the 
 work : it will not altogether secure it ; but a bad selection nega- 
 tives all chance of success, however good may be the workman- 
 ship. The ancient mythological deities were, to the ancients, 
 all appropriate for Sculpture ; but sympathy with them, as I have 
 before said, we have to a great extent, if not altogether, lost. 
 They are still associated, it is true, with their beautiful literature, 
 and as such form the intellectual treat of the classic scholar ; 
 but the public at large hardly cares for them — scarcely looks at 
 them. Yet their suggestiveness is not altogether gone, as you 
 may prove to yourselves if you read the beautiful lines of Byron 
 on the so-called "Dying Gladiator." They serve well to show you 
 that Sculpture is, or ought to be, rather a suggestive, than an 
 imitative Art ; and I place great dependence on Byron's views, 
 because I believe his to have been just the sort of imaginative 
 mind that could thoroughly appreciate the abstract beauty of 
 Sculpture, notwithstanding that often, in his sarcastic moods, he 
 ridiculed the Art. It is well too, sometimes, to look out of the 
 profession for opinions, and, as Burns says, " see ourselves as 
 others see us." It will be going somewhat aside from my sub- 
 
COMPOSITION. 43 
 
 ject— Composition-if I say that the statue is not intended, after 
 all, to represent a gladiator. The trumpet lying on the base 
 shows it, I think, to be a dying herald, and its commonplace 
 sort of features, with its rough, uncombed, matted head of hair 
 indicate it as belonging to a barbarian race. In this respect, 
 too, it corresponds with various heads in the galleries of Italy 
 which have originally had, or at any rate have assumed, the 
 name of Barbarian Chiefs. The professional gladiator of the 
 Romans was, like our prize-fighter, a trained man, and aware of 
 the necessity of keeping his head closely cropped in order not 
 to give a hold for his antagonist. You may see this in a most 
 interesting Mosaic pavement in the Lateran, where a series of 
 portraits, some full-sized heads, and some whole lengths of 
 gladiators are given, and where not only the general character 
 of the men themselves, but also the various weapons and modes 
 of offence and defence resorted to in the fights are faithfully 
 represented. There is no exaggeration in them, but they give 
 evidence of the wonderful development of the human form 
 obtained by the cultivation of their athletic games. 
 
 Returning to the word suggestiveness or association, I may 
 mention that Hawthorne, in his admirable resuscitation of the 
 Praxiteles Faun, in his novel called " Transformation," where 
 it forms the gem of the book, acknowledges that the character, 
 thus almost created, is in reality suggested by the figure in 
 question. But read it : see how poetically suggestive the statue 
 becomes when its suggestive qualities meet with a suitable mind 
 for their recipient. He paints him as a wild gentleman (the 
 statue is that of a gentleman) pure and free from sin, living in 
 his isolated chateau, drinking Falernian wine that does not 
 inebriate, and as having, by virtue of his purity, a certain affinity 
 
46 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 with the lower order of beings that enables him to understand 
 their language, and conv^erse with them in their own tongue. 
 He becomes, in fact, in the novelist's hands, the representative of 
 primitive man ; not so perfect or so separated from animal life 
 as is the Scriptural Addm, but sprung from the lower orders, 
 more intimately connected with them, and yet a step higher 
 than they are. Like Adam, too, crime brings to him conscious- 
 ness and knowledge, and at the same time separation in the link 
 that ties him to the inferior beings. 
 
 I have dwelt on this because it shows that Sculpture is, or 
 rather ought to be, suggestive in its character, rather than con- 
 tent itself with that which it can never be without degradation — 
 simply imitative. 
 
 You will tell me, perhaps, that while asserting that heathen 
 subjects have almost lost association with us, I have argued in 
 the contrary direction; but you must recollect that in the 
 instances here alluded to association comes to us second-hand 
 through the poets, and arises quite as much from the mode of 
 treatment as from the original source itself. The pagan 
 mythology has ever been the favourite in Sculpture owing to 
 its admitting more freely and consistently the use of the 
 nude j but I would advise the student rather to avoid it than 
 otherwise. 
 
 There are subjects connected with Biblical history at least 
 as suitable, and that derive suggestive power from that history, 
 and thence again to us from their connection with our rehgion ; 
 and that are, at the same time, well fitted for Sculpture. There 
 are some, however, even there where the bad so prevails over 
 the good, where so little light can be seen through the wretched 
 darkness, that they become, in my opinion, totally unfit for 
 
COMPOSITION. 47 
 
 illustration in Art, whether Painting or Sculpture, and yet they 
 are very often chosen. 
 
 Take, for instance, the murder of the innocents ; the horror of 
 the thing is so overwhelming that there is no room for the soul 
 to rise again into the light of the good. Sermonizers may 
 perhaps be able to extract good from it, as some of them seem 
 to have the knack of doing from everything that is written or 
 related, historically or otherwise ; but such men appear to me 
 rather to resemble, in this faculty, the conjuror, who, after 
 twisting about his bag in all directions so as to convince you 
 there is nothing in it, manages to extract, or to appear to 
 extract, egg after egg from that which before was so evidently 
 empty. The impression, nevertheless, is left strong upon you that 
 the bag was always empty, or, in other words, the eggs never in it. 
 
 I will give you another example from a different source, 
 where no real good is attained from the same mistake. The 
 starvation of Count Ugolino and his family. The best thing 
 that can be said in its favour is that it is part of history, and an 
 illustration of a most beautiful poet. Could you write an entire 
 history of the man, you might, perhaps, extract good from it 
 altogether, but in Art you have to deal with a part only, and 
 give the suffering by itself, and suffering is not the proper 
 province of Art to represent; on the contrary, there must 
 always be a certain amount of pleasure resulting from it, or it 
 fails in its purpose. 
 
 Flaxman has, by his simple outhne, indicated the awful 
 character of this scene as strongly as any artist who extx 
 touched upon it, but then it is only one among many of his 
 illustrations of Dante, and so takes but a part of a whole, 
 serious, but not irretrievably sad. 
 
48 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 In Sir Joshua Reynolds's version of it, standing alone, the 
 misery is as terribly depicted as it can possibly be. In one 
 sense of the word it is one of his finest works, yet no one would 
 wish to Hve with it. Michael Angelo has chosen it, too, as the 
 subject of a bas-relief ; and as such fine modelling was never, 
 before or since, concentrated within so small a compass, for 
 this reason it is, and perhaps ever will be, a favourite with 
 artists, more so than with outside lovers of Art. There is to me, 
 too, a mistake in it besides choice of subject which belongs to 
 treatment. • The personification of starvation hanging over the 
 victims is positively disgusting, and the disgusting is very far 
 from the sublime. 
 
 I will readily acknowledge my inability to model a figure so 
 full of power, so undeniably true to Nature ; but I cannot so 
 readily acknowledge the propriety of its representation in Art. 
 Avoid this sort of subject if you can ; they are rarely, only under 
 very peculiar circumstances, admissible : the better they are 
 treated the more offensive they become. A little consideration 
 will at once enable you to detect them, and distinguish them 
 from the truly heroic. Recollect the rule in dramatic poetry, 
 that crime should be kept behind the scenes, in order that the 
 moral may be brought more to the front ; it is equally applicable 
 to your Art. Let your " Macbeth " finish with the death and 
 punishment of the murderer, but never drag his bloody head 
 upon the stage to gratify a morbid taste in your audience, and 
 so convert the subHme into the horrible. The two are very 
 far apart from each other. 
 
 It may not be amiss here if I give you my ideas respecting 
 line and form as found in Nature. We shall come soon enough 
 to the studio, where we have to put on our working-dress, take 
 
COMPOSITION. 49 
 
 the modelling-tool in hand, and treat of the executive part of our 
 Art. I am no despiser of that, nor do I agree with persons who 
 call it the mechanical portion ; indeed, no one would venture to 
 use the term who knew anything of that delicate touch of the 
 hand which emanates so directly from the brain, and produces 
 in its result that ever-varying undulation of surface so charming 
 in Sculpture. The head of Medusa turned flesh into stone by 
 its gaze, but a true sculptor can turn stone into flesh by his 
 touch. I wish, however, to prepare your mind for the work. 
 For my present purpose I shall take form and line as expressing 
 two separate and distinct meanings. I shall describe form as 
 representing the bulk of the whole, that which is contained 
 within certain cubic measurements comprehending the entire 
 object, more or less geometrical in shape. I shall define line 
 as meaning the general direction of that form, whether hori- 
 zontal, as in repose ; perpendicular, as in life but quietude ; or 
 slanting, as in action more or less violent ; and I shall describe 
 it as undulatory, angular, varied, or continuous, according as it 
 partakes more or less of these characteristics. 
 
 Do these forms and lines make any general impression on the 
 eye, as found in Nature without reference to Art, and irre- 
 spective of the aid of the definite character given to them by 
 their possessor? I find the pyramid or cone, when standing on 
 its base, conveys firmness, stability, immovability ; and I feel 
 that if standing on its apex instead of its base, it creates the fear 
 of instabihty, and seems to belong to the volatile or airy. I 
 fancy that an equal-sided cube, from its possessing no variation 
 of parts, becomes monotonous, and consequendy unpleasant ; 
 whilst an unequal parallelogram gives pleasure from that very 
 variety. I can understand that the horizontal is significant of 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 repose, or, if you will, of death ; and that, when carried without 
 variation to a great length, it produces the feeling of infinity, 
 which is always accompanied by grave thoughts. A long-drawn, 
 continuous note in music affects you in the same manner, while 
 again in both Arts, Music and Sculpture, quick changes of note 
 and rapidly varying lines give action, lively sensations, and 
 excitement. 
 
 Regular or geometrical character is ever more or less present 
 in Nature ; her forms in the higher orders are all composed of 
 duplicate parts that coincide with each other, and it is only in 
 the lower and vegetable kingdoms that any great departure 
 from this regularity takes place : here, however, it is not wholly 
 abandoned ; many trees as well as other things convey very dis- 
 tinctly in their general outline an approximation to regular 
 forms by which they may be recognized one from another 
 even at a distance; and when examined more closely, their 
 leaves are arranged with more regularity than is at first evident. 
 Regularity is never wholly lost sight of even in them, for with- 
 out it would be confusion ; though the complete form indicated 
 by each is only approached, never attained : were it to be com- 
 plete, a monotonous formality would be exchanged for one of 
 Nature's chiefest charms, variety. 
 
 Here I think you have some of the principles of composition 
 in Sculpture. It should partake of geometrical regularity in a 
 degree, and variety in a degree ; more of one and less of the 
 other, according as the subject is one of quiescence or action, or 
 according as it is of a joyous or sombre nature : both, however, 
 I apprehend, must ever be present. The design may partake 
 of a kite-like shape, as in the instance of the Apollo Belvidere, 
 where the extent is greater in the upper than in the lower part. 
 
COMPOSITION. 51 
 
 and where the greatest quantity is given by the drapery on the 
 side to which the action tends ; and the tree, serving for sup- 
 port, is placed on the opposite side, to help the impression of 
 action by throwing the whole more out of the centre of gravi- 
 tation. 
 
 You have another example of an approximation to geo- 
 metrical form serving as a balance to the most violent action, 
 as expressed by an endless variety of serpentine lines — the 
 group of the Laocoon and sons. 
 
 Its somewhat mechanical arrangement has been much criti- 
 cized, owing to its apparent formality ; but it appears to me not 
 only in harmony with the rule I offer to you, but gaining by 
 that harmony a power that seems to lift the actors in the very 
 agonies of death above that death. 
 
 The dignity of the father and priest is maintained by it, 
 even under the terrible circumstances in which he is placed ; 
 and the necessary sculpturesque character is preserved. 
 
 Sculpture, too, should partake of a geometrical character, even 
 in a greater degree than is found in Nature, as it is ever more 
 or less connected with Architecture, whose forms are purely 
 geometrical, never imitative. The equally balanced composi- 
 tion of the Laocoon and sons is justified also by the place in 
 which it was found. 
 
 A large but shallow niche is shown in the Baths of Titus 
 in Rome, from out of which the work was taken, and it 
 explains at once in the most simple manner why the three 
 sculptors, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, sacrificed 
 almost everything in the way of effect for the sake of the 
 front view, the only one that could be well seen. Pliny men- 
 tions this group as belonging to the Emperor Titus, and as 
 
52 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 preferable to any other production of the Art of Painting or 
 Sculpture. 
 
 Formality of composition prevailed in Egyptian Sculpture 
 almost to the exclusion of variety : Egyptian Sculpture may in 
 fact be termed semi-architectonick. Figure after figure is repeated 
 in their temples with scarcely a deviation either in character or 
 attitude, and the figures themselves are so designed that the 
 limbs on either side are the same, and thus what I term a geo- 
 metrical arrangement is intentionally kept. I am not advising 
 the going back to that extreme treatment, which was rather, 
 perhaps, the result of a limited knowledge and over-rigid rules 
 with regard to their Art, combined with some other restrictions 
 derived from the nature of their materials; but you cannot 
 deny that a great impression is made by this severe monotony. 
 The Egyptians were, in comparison with the Greeks, uninstructed 
 in the human figure, and the laws of caste prevented any great 
 advancement, but you must not look at their works as wholly 
 primitive : they had a feeling for the sublime and beautiful as 
 well as the Greeks, though in an inferior degree, and were not 
 wholly without the power of representing movement ; for we 
 find it in some of their very small works, and frequently in the 
 coloured intaglios on their walls, where are depicted their 
 battles, their processions, their adorations of their gods, and 
 their homage to their rulers. If absent from their larger pro- 
 ductions, it is not altogether from the difficulties they had to 
 deal with, but because they felt that action tended to diminish 
 the solemn grandeur of their higher personages. Try yourself 
 to model an Egyptian face or figure without an original before 
 you : you might succeed, but I doubt if I should myself, in 
 giving their expression and beauty, and that calm yet not un- 
 
COMPOSITION. 53 
 
 amiable indifference which seems to look down on the petty 
 passing events of the moment with the placid smile of beings 
 to whom a thousand years are but as yesterday. Their animals 
 are wonderful examples of the seizing of true character by 
 means of a few principal, but well-deftned, truthful lines, and 
 an omission of all unnecessary detail. 
 
 From the severe repose of Egyptian Sculpture, we may turn 
 to a Greek, or, more properly speaking, Greco-Romano ex- 
 ample that exhibits exactly the opposite quality: the Fight- 
 ing Gladiator, or, as it is perhaps better named, the lesser 
 Ajax. Here one long, continuous, slanting line, created by 
 an extension of the body and limbs in the same direction, 
 and making, with the base on which the figure stands, rather 
 an acute angle, conveys the idea of most energetic movement, 
 the only opposing line in the whole composition being the thigh 
 of the advanced leg, sufficient to convey the impression of sup- 
 port, but not sufficient to impede the idea of rapid motion. 
 Had, by any arrangement of drapery or otherwise, this opposing 
 line been made longer or more important, the effect of action 
 would have been defeated. Of the admirable proportions and 
 learned modelling contained in this figure, or of the just balance 
 in all its parts, I need not now speak : every artist, painter, or 
 sculptor acknowledges them; but I would advise no student 
 to be drawn into excess by an over-admiration of its compo- 
 sition. Action, which is a constant losing and recovery of the 
 balance, is a succession of poses so rapid that no one singly 
 makes any strong impression on the eye. A man cannot really 
 represent in himself the fighting hero for more than a part of a 
 second. A model may place himself in the pose, and hold him- 
 self in it, but his limbs soon begin to tremble, and his muscles 
 
54 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 to relax ; and, what is worse, you feel he is acting : and so it is 
 to a certain extent with the figure ; the permanent character of 
 a statue is antagonistic to great action, though it abides well 
 enough with more gentle movement, and is completely at home 
 with repose. 
 
 There is another reason why strong action is objectionable in 
 Sculpture : you rarely, if ever, can give the cause — at least, not 
 in a single figure ; and where you have strong movement, you 
 are bound, I think, to give the motive in order to make it in- 
 telligible. Most of the best works of Sculpture consist of single 
 figures, and in that respect it is like portrait-painting. You 
 have often noticed how fond inferior men in that department 
 are of strong action : their generals wave their swords in the 
 air ; their orators extend their arms, or screw up with intense 
 energy the scroll of paper in their hand, as if advocating the 
 most profound principles and uttering the most patriotic senti- 
 ments ; but to whom the sword points, or what it is to cut, un- 
 less it be the curtain always ready at the back of the head, I 
 do not know, nor can I say where are the rebels against common 
 sense the noble orator is addressing. 
 
 At any rate the cause is absent, and the effect consequently 
 becomes unintelligible, if not ludicrous. In figures grouped 
 together, there are, of course, more means of indicating the 
 cause of action than in single ones, though in the latter it may 
 be made sufficiently evident. In the two different statues of 
 the Discobolon the cause in both is given by the presence of 
 the disk in the hand ; and in one of them, supposed to be a copy 
 from a bronze, action of a very energetic kind is portrayed, con- 
 trary to what I have ventured to assert — namely, that Sculpture 
 deals best with repose. Excuses, however, have been made for 
 
COMPOSITION. 55 
 
 it by assertions that it was probably a record of the manner of 
 throwing the disk peculiar to some celebrated player. Qui 
 s' excuse s' accuse : both figures are excellent, but the eye likes 
 to dwell more on the gentle, quiet one, who is watching the 
 course of his disk, than on the one who is making the cast. 
 There is a quiet sentiment, however, very superior to this, and 
 more in unison with the feeling of Sculpture, which tells, perhaps, 
 the history of a life, or the poetry of an ideal creation. The 
 rest and weariness portrayed in the Farnese Hercules give 
 more of the grandeur of the demi-god, and speak more elo- 
 quently of his immense labours and overwhelming strength, 
 than do the representations of him when carrying off the Cretan 
 bull on his shoulders, or contending for life with the Nemaean 
 lion. Each of these last brings him before you only as in one 
 of his triumphs, but the tired giant leaning on his club, with the 
 skin of the lion hanging about it, seems to speak of all he has 
 undergone, and of all he has overcome. Antique Sculpture in 
 its composition restricts itself generally to two figures, seldom 
 using three for a group, and scarcely ever exceeding that num- 
 ber — at least, not in its efforts in the round. Relievos come 
 under different rules ; they have more licence from their nearer 
 affinity to Painting. 
 
 The Niobe and Children, and other works of a like kind, can 
 hardly altogether be considered as groups or figures in the 
 round; they are certainly free from their backgrounds, but 
 filling, as they undoubtedly did, the pediment of a temple, they 
 come more under the regulations of reliefs, from their being seen 
 only from one point of view— the front— and from their being 
 composed solely for that view. There is, after all, in this cele- 
 brated work scarcely more than one group of two figures, the 
 
56 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 mother and child in the centre, the rest are, with one exception, 
 of minor size and value, distinctly single figures. This group 
 of the mother and child, placed in the middle of the compo- 
 sition, makes, when viewed in front, a nearly perpendicular line, 
 to which the diagonal lines formed by the attitudes of the chil- 
 dren converge, following, generally speaking, the line of the 
 roof of the building. This is the necessary formality of which 
 I spoke to you as tending to unite in feeling Sculpture with 
 Architecture. 
 
 The variety in this great work I am sure you will acknow- 
 ledge as both sufficiently evident and beautiful. The centre 
 group, too, not only becomes the more important by the close 
 union of the two figures, mother and child, and so concentrates 
 in itself the chief interest of the whole, but by its being in every ' 
 way more in quantity than the rest and from its line being 
 comparatively more perpendicular than any of the others, it 
 conveys the impression of support to the apex of the pediment. 
 There is a figure of a dead son which makes a short horizontal 
 line on the base, but this, perhaps, is only one of those minor 
 deviations necessary to prevent a too close approximation to 
 mechanical arrangement. 
 
 I have already endeavoured to suggest to you that the same 
 deviations, but not utter departures from geometrical forms, 
 intentionally exist in Nature herself. The figure of the dead 
 son may have, however, served to fill up one of the acute angles 
 at the extremes of the pediment, as may also another beautiful 
 fragment of a naked boy \ in which case their lines would both 
 have been in complete harmony with that of the other children. 
 Pliny speaks of this work as belonging to the Temple of the 
 Sosian Apollo — that is to say, of an Apollo brought from 
 
COMPOSITION, 57 
 
 Selucia by Sosius— but seems uncertain whether it is the 
 work of Scopas or Praxiteles ; perhaps of both, for I find the 
 second group of the father and son not only secondary in size, 
 but of inferior design and workmanship. 
 
 The mother and daughter in the centre is one of the finest 
 examples of Greek Art, and one of the very few containing 
 what we understand by the word pathos. That this quality 
 should be rare in pagan Art may be easily understood by a 
 study of the manners of the people. Stoicism was founded by 
 Zeno, and carried on, with little modification, by Epictetus; 
 nor were the Epicureans much more in favour of it, even in 
 their early days, before their creed became the by-word of 
 voluptuousness. To give way under trouble, to show sensi- 
 tiveness under injustice and misfortune, was with them a 
 weakness which received but little sympathy. Pathos, though 
 a Greek word, belongs more in its meaning to Christian than to 
 pagan Art. Pathos, however, was not wholly absent from 
 Greek Art, for we read also in Pliny of a painter named 
 Timanthes, who was much extolled by the orators for his 
 picture of Iphigenia, represented as standing at the altar 
 awaiting her doom : and Pliny says of it that on the counte- 
 nance of all present grief was depicted ; but that, having already 
 exhausted all the characteristic features of sorrow, the artist 
 adopted the device of veiling the countenance of the father, 
 finding himself unable adequately to give expression to his 
 feelings. This must have been deeply pathetic, as must also 
 have been another work recorded by the same author, by 
 Aristides of Thebes, a contemporary with Apelles, who painted 
 a captured city, in which was represented an infant crawling 
 towards its wounded mother, who, though at the point of death, 
 
58 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 has all the appearance of being aware of it, and of being in 
 dread lest the child should suck blood in place of milk from 
 her exhausted breast. 
 
 I must not omit a remark that Pliny makes upon the former 
 of these two artists, Timanthes, though it hardly belongs to 
 what I am now treating of — Composition. He says of him : 
 
 There is always something more implied by his pencil than is 
 expressed." This, whether true or false, proves at any rate 
 a knowledge in Pliny himself of the right principles of Art — 
 that it should suggest to the intellect, rather than deceive the 
 senses : though there are numerous anecdotes told in his work 
 that might lead to the contrary argument, such as animals being 
 deceived by clever representations of themselves — all mere 
 fables, perfectly untrue and absurd ; for, independently of the 
 want of the necessary sense to detect the effect of chiaro-oscuro 
 and colour, the eyes of animals are, I believe, so placed in their 
 heads as to render them incapable of receiving that impression 
 of rotundity from a fiat surface which we ourselves gain by 
 practice, and which is much aided by the invention of the 
 stereoscope. 
 
 Turning back to my observations on the composition of the 
 Niobe group, I may say that the same rules are evident in the 
 western pediment of the Temple at ^gina, a cast of which is 
 in the British Museum. In this, too, the figure of Minerva, 
 perfectly upright, serves the same purpose of support, whilst the 
 combatants over the body of Patroclus, on either side, bend 
 more or less towards that centre \ and three dying figures, 
 Patroclus in the middle at the base, and one at each end, help 
 what may be termed the geometrical balance. This work is, 
 however, more primitive, earlier in date than the Niobe, and 
 
COMPOSITION, 59 
 
 the- mode of composition is too clearly exposed : it wants the 
 necessary variety to conceal the geometrical arrangement, but 
 variety is a charm that comes late into Art. I know but of one 
 remarkable exception to what I have before said of groups in 
 antique Sculpture being confined to three figures— the Tying of 
 Dirce to the Bull, in the Borbonica Museum of Naples ; but 
 though finely modelled, it does not appear to me to be success- 
 ful in its lines and arrangement. 
 
 The figures seem astray from one another — too far apart, not 
 quite to harmonize — or in other words, hardly to have a principal 
 line running through them. There is something of the kind in 
 the front view, but there the accessories, consisting of a dog, a 
 very small figure, and some rocks, become too important. You 
 can have no better rule in Sculpture with regard to accessories 
 than that implied by Flaxman, where he says : " Even in basso- 
 relievo, a tree or two, some rude stone, a flat column, or a wall 
 slightly marked in the background, must indicate a forest, a 
 mountain, or a palace, without detailing a portrait of their com- 
 ponent parts." That Sculpture confines itself in its compositions 
 to two, or at most to three figures, is not owing wholly to the 
 limits of the material in which it has to be carried out ; it may 
 be partly due to that, and partly to the circumstance that the 
 means by which it acts are also limited. The sculptor has form 
 only to deal with, instead of form and colour; and has, in con- 
 sequence, to make that one do the work of two, and is obliged 
 to study that form in all its details so as to render it fitted to 
 express unaided the higher sentiments of the human character. 
 This, of course, increases immensely the difficulty of his calling. 
 
 There is another reason why he should not, even if he 
 could, multiply the quantity of his work beyond a certain range. 
 
6o 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 Sculpture is ever more or less, even in its highest walk, a 
 decorative Art ; it is architecturally decorative. In ancient 
 times it formed a decorative part of the temples, as it did 
 again in the mediaeval times of our churches ; later days have 
 brought it into our public streets, and, to a certain extent, into 
 our houses, where it holds the same office. A colourless work 
 requires colour around it to set it off to advantage. Could 
 an interior be composed entirely of colourless marble — walls, 
 floor, ceiling, and everything — the result would be anything but 
 pleasing, however well furnished it might be with Sculpture of 
 the same colourless tone. 
 
 The business of Sculpture is to stop at intervals the play of 
 colour in other objects ; to serve as a rest for the eye from too 
 great glare of colour, whether produced by highly-tinted orna- 
 mentation, or from too continuous a line of rich pictorial Art. 
 I have no hesitation in saying that were the Sculpture in our 
 annual exhibitions judiciously mixed in the rooms with the 
 paintings — were it dotted along the walls at regular intervals, 
 it would not only add to its effect, but the very paintings them- 
 selves would be benefited by it, as the contrast would give a 
 resting place for the eye from the excitement caused by the 
 constant changes of colour. 
 
 The experiment was tried with thorough success in the first 
 Great Exhibition of Paris. I shall do good if I make you feel 
 that, from the above-mentioned causes. Sculpture tells better in 
 comparatively small quantities, and when viewed in conjunction 
 with other things, than when collected together by itself, as is 
 sometimes done in the few houses where Sculpture-galleries are 
 expressly provided for it. 
 
 There are many things which tend to aid Composition ; de- 
 
COMPOSITION. 6 1 
 
 fining the word as arranging lines and forms so as to render 
 them expressive of their purpose — drapery, for instance, 
 whether covering the whole figure, or, as in many known ex- 
 amples of the antique, serving merely as an accessory to the 
 nude, acting as a support, or for filling up unnecessary hollows. 
 It should generally follow the principal line of the figure or 
 group, so as to emphasize that line; but it may somedmes 
 serve the purpose of opposidon by its folds going in exactly 
 the contrary direction, so as to bring out in stronger effect par- 
 ticular parts in contact with which it is seen. 
 
 Opposition lines, however, it stands to reason, should always 
 be the weakest or most secondary ; otherwise they would take 
 the place of the principal ones, and counteract and nuUify the 
 intention and harmony of the whole. They may be used with 
 more freedom where strong action has to be expressed, as they 
 tell of the difficulty contended with in representations of 
 combats, feats of strength, and things of that kind ; but where 
 elegance, gentleness, or repose is intended to be conveyed, 
 they must be introduced with the greatest possible caution- 
 hardly suffered to obtrude themselves at all. 
 
 Drapery covering the surface of a figure should be so com- 
 posed as to indicate by its lines and the comparative strength 
 of its parts the action of the body and limbs, as well as the 
 divisions of the human frame beneath it. In Nature it is merely 
 a piece of covering employed for the sake of display, comfort, 
 or decency; in Art it has other purposes, it has to help the 
 understanding of what it envelops. 
 
 The groups in the British Museum from the Parthenon, 
 called Ceres and Proserpine and The Fates, are good lessons 
 in the composition of drapery. The folds assist the fomb of 
 
62 
 
 COMPOSITION, 
 
 the figures, follow the movement of the limbs, give roundness 
 and distinctness to the parts by their varying depths, and play 
 about the surface, imparting life and movement to the whole 
 without ever once counteracting in the least the one simple 
 line which they all combine to make. The material to be used 
 in a work affects in a great degree its composition ; for example, 
 marble enables you to display all those inner details which 
 help the effect of the general outline, and which more or less 
 become, in some view or other, part of that outline. 
 
 The sculptor will do well, too, so to design his figure or 
 figures that the parts shall be tolerably soHd, as little liable as 
 possible to accident, and that they shall help to give one 
 another the necessary support for durability. No general rule 
 can be laid down for this, the student must be left to his own 
 ingenuity, and to the contemplation of the examples found in 
 the antique, of which there are many. The difficulty exists, 
 and the artist in marble has to contend with it, and he must, 
 while contending with it, conceal as far as he can his plan of 
 battle. 
 
 These precautionary measures become unnecessary when 
 dealing with bronze ; here the substance used is durable enough 
 for any effort of relief or fragility of parts ; but other necessities 
 arise. 
 
 A work in bronze has to depend almost wholly upon what is 
 termed its sky-line, or positive contour ; not, again, that neglect- 
 ing the interior parts can be tolerated, for they all in their turn 
 become a part of that sky-line : but the idea must, as far as 
 possible, be expressed by what we understand by the word 
 silhouette — that is, a marginal line or contour filled up by blank 
 space with all inner forms omitted. This arises of course from 
 
COMPOSITION. 63 
 
 the dark colour of bronze hiding the inner details ; so much so 
 that in certain lights they become, in large works seen from a 
 distance, almost invisible. 
 
 Our cHmate in this respect is peculiarly unsuited to bronze ; 
 but the effect is the same more or less in all countries. What 
 therefore has the artist to do in this case ? He has so to design 
 his statue or group, so to arrange his drapery and secondary 
 parts, that they shall display the human figure, its action, its 
 proportions, all and every part and parcel thereof, as the 
 lawyers say, clearly to the eye, by the exterior line alone, un- 
 aided by the dark interior that it surrounds. This renders 
 many compositions well suited to marble quite unfit for bronze, 
 as for example draped statues sitting in chairs, where the 
 chair constitutes so much of the outline as to do away, when 
 that outline is given alone, with the idea of a human figure 
 being within it. This has not in some instances been duly 
 attended to in the bronzes in our public streets. You have an 
 instance of another kind of error in our public memorials ; the 
 figure of Havelock in Trafalgar Square has at its back one of 
 those trees so often used in antique Sculpture for the purpose 
 of support in the marble ; the artist has, in the instance here 
 alluded to, used it in the metal-work, where it is not only quite 
 useless, but quite in the way of that good outline so necessary 
 in works of a dark colour. The sculptor was a man of great 
 ability, but without the power of sober, concentrated thought. 
 The placing of the tree by him so inappropriately behind the 
 statue reminds one of the Chinese tailor, who, on having a coat 
 given him for a pattern, imitated the patches of the old in the 
 new. 
 
 You have admirable examples of judicious treatment for 
 
64 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 bronze in a small figure of Hercules with the Apples of the 
 Hesperides in his hand, and in another of Apollo, in the British 
 Museum. The tree in one and the drapery in the other are 
 kept free from the figure, leaving its outline intelligible from all 
 sides, so that the simple naked form may be distinguished, 
 unassisted by any interior parts, almost from any distance. I 
 know of no ancient Art in which the principle is better under- 
 stood or more thoroughly carried out ; and I would advise the 
 studying them with this view, and, if you like, in connection 
 with some more modern works in bronze, a comparison with 
 which will tend to impress the lesson more strongly on your 
 minds. I am aware that modern costume scarcely admits of 
 this simple, clear treatment ; but you will find that no attempt 
 has been made towards it — on the contrary, that some of them 
 run into the opposite error; that no resemblance can be 
 obtained of a living man from the extreme outline alone, but 
 that the modeller has laboured in some instances to obtain a 
 solidity, which might be useful in marble, but is positively de- 
 trimental in bronze. Sculpture always requires a certain 
 amount of bulk under any circumstances, and dark objects 
 « appear to the eye less than light-coloured ones ; so that in 
 bronze it is requisite to be additionally careful not to run into 
 meagreness. Quantity gives dignity, but over-attenuation is 
 always objectionable. 
 
 The example of what I shall, for the sake of argument, call 
 attenuated form in antique Art, is the beautiful recumbent figure 
 of Hermaphroditus j but the union of the form with the mattress 
 on which it is lying reconciles us to its wire-drawn weakness of 
 frame, which, if standing up with its outline free on all sides, 
 would be scarcely bearable. I am not advising attenuated 
 
COMPOSITION. 65 
 
 treatment for bronze, but a free and open arrangement, so that 
 nothing may be lost, but every part distinct and intelHgible at 
 once. There are still other things that affect Composition be- 
 sides these. Works that are to be viewed from a distance 
 require still more distinctness of form and line than even those 
 that are to be seen nearer. The sculptor should recollect that 
 he cannot resort, for the separating his Composition into parts, 
 to the means the painter has in colour and in fixed light and 
 shade. 
 
 Two shapes, say of the human frame, of nearly equal size and 
 character may, with the colourist, come in such close contact as 
 to be in effect only one ; and yet he can indicate the necessary 
 separation between the two by differences in their natural hue, 
 or by clothing them in opposite colours, and thus make them 
 sufficiently distinct from one another. He uses these means 
 often for this purpose, as he often does the reverse for the 
 preservation of breadth ; but the sculptor can only resort to 
 contrast of texture, to an opposition of highly detailed drapery 
 with one of great breadth, or at the most to a deepening, by 
 means of sharply cut folds or otherwise, of those divisions 
 which, under any circumstances, are left to him. There are 
 splendid illustrations of this rule in the Metopes of the 
 Parthenon. With every temptation for close grouping which a 
 subject like the contest of the Lapithae and Centaurs affords, the 
 sculptor (Phidias recollect) has, with very few exceptions, kept 
 the two figures contending with each other separate from one 
 another, distinct in their outline to a degree that would be 
 almost singular, and even unnatural, did we not know his 
 reason for so doing, namely, that his story had to be told by 
 form alone, and to be read from afar ; and that, consequently, 
 
 F 
 
.66 
 
 COMPOSITION. 
 
 every letter in his words had to be given in large type, and with 
 large spaces between. 
 
 I have endeavoured to take a very practical line in this short 
 prospectus on Composition, and to give you a few simple rules, 
 all that I believe are necessary for an Art in itself most simple, 
 and for that reason the purest and most grand. It is hardly 
 necessary to tell the student that the more poetical the subject 
 the more poetical will be his illustration of it, presuming — and it 
 is a great presumption — that the grasp of his mind is equal to 
 the task. 
 
 Let him take our own poets and historians if he can for 
 illustration, or let him create within himself independently his 
 own subject, and give forth his own original thoughts: he will 
 still have the antique to guide him in style, to teach him what 
 he may take for his purpose, and what he should avoid. I have 
 ventured to assert that it is upon a single graceful, undulating 
 line running through the whole that he must depend for the 
 expression of that idea, and for that harmonious beauty which 
 shall attract people to his work ; and I believe the few hints I 
 have given on line will serve him for the relative quality and 
 force of parts. 
 
 His means may appear poor to him at first sight, but practice 
 in the use of them will show him that he has all that is neces- 
 sary, and that the restrictions under which he works save him 
 from many temptations to vicious habits in Art which he would 
 otherwise be liable to. 
 
 Sculpture can never be popular, for it can never descend low 
 enough to pander to popular taste; but there is enough of pleasure 
 in it for the true lover of Art. Let the student thoroughly believe in 
 it, and act up to that belief, and he will find his reward elsewhere. 
 
COMPOSITION. 
 
 67 
 
 The great Flaxman was a true believer. His immediate 
 recompense, in a worldly sense, was far less than that of his con- 
 temporaries ; but his name is now growing higher and higher, 
 whilst many who, in point of popular appreciation, were far his 
 superiors are sinking into oblivion. If you cannot look at 
 your Art in this light you are no true disciple, and had better, 
 for your own sake, as well as for the sake of the Art itself, turn 
 your back upon it and go your way. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 OUR great Flaxman says, in his lecture on Beauty,, 
 that it is not merely an imaginary quality, but a 
 real essence; and goes on by declaring that 
 doubts can scarcely be entertained that there are 
 principles of Beauty, because various opinions prevail in 
 different countries on the subject. i 
 
 The assertion undoubtedly is correct, though the latter part 
 of the sentence fails to prove the truth of the former ; and, if so,, 
 it certainly follows that it is the business of the student to 
 ascertain what are those principles, that he may be guided by 
 them in his work. 
 
 It does not follow because Flaxman was the greatest designer 
 in Sculpture of modern times that he was the clearest exponent 
 in his Art. He felt strongly within himself the truth of what 
 he wrote, on Beauty particularly, for his works are imbued 
 with it ; but his writings appear to me to deal in rhapsodies, 
 and in allusions to illustrious examples of it, rather than in pro- 
 pounding principles beneficial to the student to understand. 
 
 I need scarcely say that he was well acquainted with the his- 
 tory of Sculpture, and with the finest works of the ancients. 
 
BEAUTY. 6sr 
 
 and seemed to believe, indeed did believe, that a studious con- 
 templation of them was the best help to producing the Hke ; 
 but how is it that it never occurred to him to ask, did these old 
 workers of miracles carry out their purpose by divine inspiration 
 alone, or had they any natural laws by which they were bound, 
 or rules that led them to the right and repelled them from the 
 wrong? I think they had, and my reason for so thinking is 
 that the highest epoch of Sculpture was coeval with that of the 
 profoundest philosophy in Greece, the country which put forth 
 in Sculpture the most glorious specimens of Beauty, whether 
 human or divine ; and that I find by the writings of Plato and 
 others that all questions — what is Beauty? among the rest — were 
 subjected to the most searching analysis, nothing accepted on 
 faith, nor admitted but on the most conclusive proof. Flaxman 
 must have felt this himself, for he was well acquainted with 
 these writings, but he does not in his lectures set forth anything 
 of the kind to the students. The best things his pen has left 
 us are on the proportions of the human figure, on action, and 
 on drapery : these are all practical, and though he ranges them 
 under the head of Science, they might not inappropriately come 
 under that of Beauty. His discourse on the last word, I am 
 sorry to say, I must pronounce to be vague and ineffective. 
 
 This is said in no spirit of disrespect to Flaxman, who stood 
 far above us all in that dreamland of imagination from whence 
 flow the great fountains of genius. That he was master of the 
 question he was discussing I have already admitted : perhaps 
 he gave too great credit to his audience for possession of that 
 intuitive perception which he had himself, and so did not care 
 to be too explicit ; but the business of the lecturer is to explain 
 and illustrate; his province is the reason, not the imagination; 
 
70 
 
 BEAUTY, 
 
 and to this alone he must appeal, though he may desert by it 
 one of the most charming domains of his Art. 
 
 He cannot create genius, cannot always follow it through 
 the wide range it takes in its flight ; but he may point out the 
 boundaries of the road, as well as some of the difficulties that 
 beset it j and for this reason an inferior man may often be a 
 better exponent of his calHng than one who exercises the highest 
 faculties in it. 
 
 With this short prelude, I will proceed to give you my ideas 
 on Beauty — a word so important in Sculpture that without it all 
 value ceases, and Fine Art becomes nil. Its importance here 
 is greater than in Painting, because of the restrictions within 
 which Sculpture has to work. It cannot resort to colour, only in a 
 degree to character, and not at all to ugliness, which in Painting 
 is often made a vehicle for the stronger conveying of expression, 
 and so must never desert its one Calypso on her solitary island, 
 on whose smiles its happiness depends. By Beauty I do not 
 mean female charms alone — a limited term, included in that 
 vaster range of Nature, where, if properly studied and under- 
 stood, a universal Beauty will be found to exist. Woman's 
 loveliness is a part of the question more studied perhaps by 
 sculptors than any other, and more brought under our notice, 
 but still only a part — though a prominent one, because the 
 nearest to us — of a whole, coming under one rule that is 
 applicable to everything, whether appealing to our sight or 
 through any other of our senses. 
 
 Few artists, when talking of Beauty, are able to lay down any 
 theory or principle that will comprehend the whole question : 
 the generality of them rather dream of, than think about it, and 
 content themselves with referring to the antique, seldom 
 
BEAUTY, 71 
 
 troubling themselves to consider from whence or how that 
 antique obtains its beauty, or whether there is not a still greater 
 source from whence it is derived. 
 
 I am not certain that I shall myself be able to lay before you 
 a theory that shall be altogether unexceptionable. Many objec- 
 tions can be raised against it, objections that may at first appear 
 insurmountable, but which, I fancy, when viewed in a broader 
 light, will be found to be mere sophistry — the quibbHngs of a 
 narrow-minded arguer, who looks at things through the shadow 
 of his own personal prejudices. If I myself set before you 
 these objections, it will be rather to show you that I wish to 
 consider the question from all sides than to signify my belief 
 in them. At any rate, if my theory be not a sound one, it shall 
 be one of a practical kind, useful to the sculptor in his calHng — 
 one that will save him from many errors, and show him, when 
 he may find himself at fault, which way to turn by the help of 
 his own arguments. I do not myself pretend to be the origi- 
 nator of it, but I have given it my earnest consideration, and 
 found it to be the only doctrine I can convince myself is sound. 
 Far cleverer men have upheld it before me : hght seems, indeed, 
 to have dawned on the subject with those old Greek authors 
 who wrote upon it in the presence of the beautiful examples 
 belonging to their time, and since handed down to us; and 
 their chief incitement to the study of the question seems to have 
 been a belief that physical Beauty was indicative of moral 
 excellence — a theory not altogether unsound, for though we 
 often find strong instances to the contrary, they may be, after all, 
 exceptions that prove the rule. 
 
 I am inclined to think that the old Greeks were correct in 
 their ideas. We look upon a handsome face and are attracted 
 
72 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 towards it ; but though we may find ourselves sometimes 
 deceived, we shall allow that, generally, personal beauty is 
 accompanied by a corresponding elevation of the mind, and 
 that ugliness portrays a degradation of the moral powers : at 
 any rate, the latter, if not always the original cause, is ever more 
 or less the permanent expression or effect of such. The sculp- 
 tor knows this, for he turns it to his own purpose in his art. 
 
 What few weaknesses there appeared to me at first sight in 
 my theory have all vanished on a more careful and compre- 
 hensive view of it as a whole; and I will here venture to remind 
 you that an arguer on a question of this kind has no right to 
 separate it into parts, and to consider them one by one irre- 
 spective of the others : he must look at it altogether, and 
 endeavour to find out what reference each has to the whole, and 
 how they all act together to accomplish one object or intention. 
 An artist may examine the fragment of an antique statue, may 
 admire and find beauty in it — it is rarely that he does otherwise; 
 but unless he has the whole figure before him, he has lost the 
 meaning which the original sculptor intended by it : so, in the 
 considering of questions of a general nature, like the one we are 
 now discussing, unless he can gather up the fragments within 
 his own mind and put them properly together, he will fail to 
 perceive how they fit one into another, and create an entirety 
 appropriate as well as beautiful. 
 
 Though puzzling enough when first put, the question, 
 What is Beauty? like Columbus's egg, is simple when the 
 answer is once given ; it is this, Beauty is utility. By adopting 
 this as your basis, you of course drop at once the idea that 
 there is in Nature any one centre the divergence from which is 
 a departure from Beauty — though this ridiculous notion has 
 
BEAUTY. 73 
 
 before now been set up. No such thing exists ; each object has 
 its own peculiar Beauty, quite separate and independent of any 
 other : were it otherwise, one of the greatest beauties of Nature, 
 variety, would be weakened, if not totally lost. 
 
 Flaxman, whose lectures I have abused in such reprehensible 
 language, seems to me, perhaps unconsciously, to incHne in one 
 sentence to the doctrine that Beauty is utility. While illus- 
 trating his subject from the heathen mythology, of which he 
 was so fond, and giving the distinctions of Beauty that existed 
 between the gods, he says : " Pluto continues the likeness of 
 the Saturnian family; his eyes have a spectre4ike stare." Had 
 he slightly altered his words, and said his eyes are large, and 
 the pupils dilated, he might have claimed for him the suitability, 
 as well as the sublimity, that should belong to the ruler of 
 Hades. 
 
 Flaxman speaks, too, of the difference between the Beauty of 
 the Apollo Belvidere and that of Apollo the companion of the 
 Muses, and again between that of Bacchus and Mercury ; and 
 then, while claiming for them a family relationship one with 
 another, acknowledges a divergence from that supposed centre 
 of Beauty of which some persons talk. If this divergence exists 
 in the human figure, how much greater must it be between 
 creatures belonging to different classes, and whose purposes are 
 from their very nature opposed to each other. 
 
 Hogarth argues that the serpentine line he conceives himself 
 to have discovered as the essence of Beauty is the key to the 
 whole question ; that all things containing Beauty must be com- 
 posed chiefly of it— must represent it either in their forms or in 
 their movements; and that in all combinations of Beauty, 
 whether of Nature or Art, this line must prevail. 
 
74 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 I would advise you to read him : he is right ; but in my 
 opinion right only as far as he goes. His view is a limited one, 
 applicable perhaps in a minor degree to Art, but involving in 
 no way that general view of the question I am anxious the 
 student should take. Were everything in Nature to bend itself, 
 or be bent, in the direction of this line, what a sameness would 
 be produced ; and I can scarcely conceive that increase of 
 Beauty would in any way take place. Arguments such as he 
 uses, though good enough in themselves as laying bare certain 
 portions of a question, create a disinclination to examine it as a 
 whole, and so narrow the boundaries within which the artist 
 works or the philosopher thinks. Hogarth has picked up a 
 stray piece of the truth, and carrying it home to his studio, has 
 converted it to his own use, without inquiring to what it be- 
 longed, or from whence it was derived : nevertheless he argues 
 well as far as that fragment will allow him ; he admits utihty to 
 be the key to the argument, and lays great stress on variety, 
 which he illustrates by curious examples, such as the sticking 
 of patches on a lady's face irregularly. His writings are in fact 
 more interesting from their portraying so visibly the character 
 of his paintings and the manners of his day than for any very 
 profound searching into the question he is discussing. He takes 
 it up as an artist, and confines himself in it to what concerns his 
 profession. Many of the examples, too, of what he considers as 
 belonging to Beauty appertain really to fashion, or to what is 
 quite as bad in Art — affectation ; but I think you will agree with 
 me that in his paintings, great as they are in other respects, 
 there is nothing of what we understand by the words pure, 
 simple Beauty. He hardly was able to feel the value of that, 
 and the time in which he lived was adverse to it. Nature was 
 
BEAUTY, 75 
 
 then either hidden from sight under the mask of fashion, or 
 rendered squaHd by the effects of poverty and vice— at any rate, 
 it was under these two aspects that he alone viewed her ; and 
 considering the powerful moral he drew out of her, it was the 
 better for his fame that he did : but what was meat to him was 
 poison to the sculptor. Fashion is bad enough even when in- 
 troduced into Hogarth's work, where it is made to tell for a pur- 
 pose ; but of all vices destructive to real Beauty, affectation is the 
 worst. It takes away that unconsciousness which is one of its 
 greatest charms, and seems to ask for an admiration which, for 
 the very reason that it is asked, you are inclined to deny. Affec- 
 tation appears to me to be easily defined, and therefore easily 
 avoided. It consists in making the action or expression of your 
 figure greater than the cause indicated requires, and in creating 
 an appearance of its being more interested in the mode of doing 
 its work than in the work itself. It is the over-display of the 
 very line Hogarth so advocates. The motive is different : not 
 the end to be accomplished by the act, but the display of personal 
 attractions supposed to exist in the doing of it. For this reason 
 Sculpture, which aims more particularly at simple Beauty, should, 
 of all the branches of Art, avoid it. The student should read 
 Hogarth's writings, understand what he means by his line of 
 Beauty, and never entirely lose sight of it ; but he should not 
 place it so uppermost in his mind as to become the primary in- 
 stead of a secondary object. If he does, what he puts forth will 
 be affectation also, for his motive will be a display of his own 
 personal powers rather than the expression of what is intended 
 by the nature of his subject. 
 
 The principal study of the sculptor is the human figure, and 
 to understand clearly in what consists its excellence or Beauty 
 
76 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 is one of the most important lessons he has to learn. Let us 
 test it by the rule I have laid down — that Beauty is utility, or, to 
 put it to you in words more applicable to your Art, that the 
 Beauty of your work must lie in the representing all the organs 
 of the living being you are endeavouring to portray in the state 
 most suited to the use they are intended for. I must say, first 
 of all, that the following out of this rule does not lead to 
 exaggeration. 
 
 There is a balance of parts in the figure of man which tends 
 to the carrying out of purpose better than an undue magnitude 
 of any one faculty, an overwhelming increase of which would 
 lead to the destruction of others. This law, applicable to 
 everything, is more particularly so to him, as he is of a 
 compound nature, constituted of many powers, and conse- 
 quently in no one so great as other animals, made with one 
 faculty chiefly developed in them ; yet it is by these combined 
 powers that he becomes the master-work of creation. You will 
 ask, If this Beauty of which you speak is utility, how is it that 
 man is not twice as large, twice as strong, twice as wise as he 
 is ? You acknowledge a purpose, surely that purpose would be 
 doubly carried out by double means, and, according to what 
 you assert, a double Beauty be created. Neither would be the 
 case. He is, it is true, made to be monarch of all he surveys, 
 but he is, after all, only a sort of viceroy, a part of a still greater 
 system, of a more comprehensive whole. 
 
 Were more powerful faculties allotted to him, he would 
 resemble those fabled giants of old who endeavoured to upset 
 the laws of the universe and assail heaven by their brute 
 force, instead of being — as he is now, even in spite of himself — 
 a regulator of that balance which runs through all Nature. In 
 
BEAUTY. 77 
 
 taking him thus separately, you are again considering a part in- 
 stead of a whole. There is sufficient in him as he is to illus- 
 trate my theory that Beauty is utility. Examine him from head 
 to foot, and you will find the two, Beauty and Utility, running 
 hand to hand all through. His head is on high, above that of 
 all other creatures, that he may look out straight forward on the 
 world ; his features are compact, contained within the smallest 
 possible compass, that none may be liable to injury; his eyes 
 deeply set under his brow to protect them from the light, and 
 that they again may be exposed as little as possible to danger ; 
 his nose, for the same reason, may be said to be most beautiful 
 when, like that of the Greek statues, it is perpendicular, with 
 little or no projection, and so less exposed to injury ; his mouth 
 comparatively small, from his requiring it only for the mastica- 
 tion of food, and not, like other carnivorous animals, for the 
 seizing of its prey j his hands, perhaps of all his features the 
 most beautifully formed, not only answer this purpose, but 
 many others, such as indicating, feeling, &c.: they are placed 
 independently by his side, not required, like the Umbs of other 
 creatures, for sustaining the body or for promoting movement, 
 but at liberty to perform whatever the will may dictate through 
 the nerves; while his feet are finished by a fringe of toes that 
 render his step firm and prehensile, and make him safe on that 
 small space on which he stands, and which give him such 
 superiority over the lower animals, who have to describe a 
 larger circle in their turnings. Yoa must have observed how, 
 without any exception, the chest is represented in antique 
 Sculpture, large and full, square and prominent, to a degree 
 which is at least not common among ourselves, who, generally 
 speaking, pay less attention to physical education and to the 
 
BEAUTY. 
 
 full development of personal strength in our youthful days. Not 
 even in such effeminate figures as the Antinous is this departed 
 from. This must have been done not merely because the 
 Greeks and Romans cultivated by their athletic games more 
 numerous examples of this kind of Beauty, but because they 
 knew that to be strong, to be healthy and useful, a man must 
 have ample room for his breathing apparatus as well as for the 
 organ for the circulation of the blood through the system, or 
 at any rate, as they were not then supposed to have made the 
 Harveian discovery, for that palpitation which they were aware 
 continued on all occasions, and was increased after violent 
 exertion of every kind. You will recollect that their authors 
 tell us it was only when the youths in their games had gained 
 the victory three times that a statue was erected of them, repre- 
 senting as near as possible their actual form and figure — a sure 
 indication that they looked upon Beauty and power as one and 
 the same thing, and that they did their best to cultivate both. 
 
 You have in your Antique Academy a cast of a statue 
 alluded to by Pliny which appears to me one of this kind and 
 of exquisite Beauty, yet not wholly devoid in its proportions of 
 individuality. It is supposed to represent, and has been 
 designated as the Runner, from the length of the legs. Our 
 jockeys study after a like fashion their favourite animal. They 
 call what they admire, and what they seek to produce by 
 breeding, the points of a horse ; but it is much the same thing. 
 Beauty and Utility combined : and by devoting what little brain 
 they possess to the subject, they manage to obtain a fine animal, 
 with elegance of form and power of action. This again, 
 following the old custom, they perpetuate by a portrait when 
 successful. They seem to be more earnest in their endeavours 
 
BEAUTY. 79 
 
 to obtain perfection on their ground than' we sculptors are on 
 ours, for these portraits come so completely up to their 
 standard of excellence that there appears to me no difference 
 between any of them. Individuality seems lost or absorbed in 
 that ideahty of which they are such enthusiastic advocates. I 
 have heard of a painter of race-horse portraits, who could give 
 a likeness of a Derby winner without ever seeing the animal at 
 all, and who only required to be informed of his colour and of 
 how many white fetlocks he had, if any ; perhaps, too, he had to 
 ascertain whether there was a spot in the middle of his fore- 
 head, — of the horse I mean. 
 
 You must acknowledge, I think, that here the two, Beauty 
 and Utihty, go together; the only objection we can make is, 
 that while the utility is shown as a fact by the result, the idea 
 that Beauty accompanies it is an artificial one created within 
 ourselves, and arising out of our own associations with the 
 fact. This may be true ; we are convinced that the intention or 
 purpose is accomplished in a greater degree where such-and- 
 such qualities are present, and the satisfaction we receive from 
 that success gives us a pleasure which we associate with and 
 attribute to the forms themselves. All mental sensations are 
 more or less matters of association — associations which it is very 
 difficult, if not quite impossible, altogether to separate. 
 
 I might go on with the illustration of my theory that Beauty 
 is utility bypointing out that in mankind — the most perfect speci- 
 men of Beauty in Nature — utility is carried to a higher extent 
 than in any other class of beings. I might speak of his compact- 
 ness of shape, by which he possesses greater variety of action, 
 if not greater power in any one of them. I might say that our 
 structure enables us to run with the stag and to swim with the 
 
So 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 fish, to live in a greater variety of climate, to provide a greater 
 number of things necessary to us, and even to suffer for a time 
 circumstances under which no other animal could exist : but I 
 will claim, as aiding me in my argument, that illness, the effect 
 of luxury, or any other vice, not only tends to destroy Beauty 
 in the human form, but to do away with the power of performing 
 the functions allotted to it. We recognize at once the deterio- 
 ration of Beauty when this takes place, though we have no 
 fixed rule, independent of association of ideas, that tells us that 
 one is pleasing to the eye and desirable, and the other is not. 
 
 This leads me to another source from whence the sensation 
 of Beauty is derived. What we call causes are in themselves 
 but the effects of other causes, less apparent and more remote : 
 we see the nearest, as it most concerns us, but do not look back 
 to the other, for the reason that it belongs to the more general 
 order of Nature, and does not apply immediately to ourselves. 
 
 The belief that utility is Beauty, and Beauty utility, is the 
 more proximate one, as well as the most applicable to the study 
 of the artist; and the results which the sculptor will arrive at by 
 the consideration of each in unison with the other are all that 
 his Art requires : they will lead him towards the Temple of 
 Beauty by an easy road which, otherwise than this, has no direc- 
 tion-posts beyond figures standing by the wayside, who, unless 
 he lay down for himself some principle of this kind, speak, 
 perhaps, in a language he cannot understand. 
 
 I have for this reason put it to you as a source of Beauty, 
 but I must not have you believe that it is the primary source, 
 or that you are at your journey's end. You may rest here, and 
 quench your thirst at the fountain of Truth ; but if you wish to 
 go the whole road, or at any rate as far back as possible to the 
 
BEAUTY. 
 
 8 
 
 great first cause least understood, you must proceed further : 
 you must take into your thoughts the question whether there 
 is not a faculty placed within all Nature which attracts towards 
 itself the beautiful and repels the ugly or defective. 
 
 I put this to your consideration briefly, because it is beyond 
 the line of demarcation within which I am bound to keep — my 
 Art ; but it is worth to you, even as artists, a moment's reflec- 
 tion. It is Darwin's theory put into different words. Whether 
 you believe in him or not is no concern of mine here. I am 
 not ashamed myself of saying that I do, and that I consider 
 him one of the profoundest philosophers of his time; and 
 for this reason I would have you read him : you will, whether 
 you go with him altogether, only in part, or not at all, be the 
 better for it — better even in your Art, for it will teach you to 
 see Beauty in things which you may perhaps, from ignorance 
 of their propriety, have deemed ugly. He will show you, or 
 teach you to find by inference, Beauty in almost all creation- 
 Beauty, if not in every individual specimen of Nature, as a part 
 of a whole where Beauty presides. If you follow him, you will 
 have to acknowledge, too, what with the rest is equally a truth, 
 namely, that there are not only different degrees of Beauty, but 
 different degrees in the power of perceiving the Beautiful. 
 
 What is beautiful to us may make no impression of the kind 
 with the lower animals. We are supposed to possess an intellect 
 that enables us to study the construction, and understand in 
 part the formation of everything that is put before us ; we 
 make use of much, if not all, that surrounds us, and by com- 
 prehending its make and its meaning, are enabled to bring it 
 more into our service. In the limited sphere in which other 
 living creatures move, they have only to find Beauty in the 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 BEAUTY, 
 
 class to which they belong, and the reverse in those which 
 their nature calls upon them to avoid. Ask the toad what is 
 Beauty, and he will tell you it is his mate. This is an old say- 
 ing, and if you look upon it in this light you will find more 
 philosophy in it than you at first imagined. You will tell me, 
 perhaps, this is instinct ; and I will say to you in return, that I 
 know of no meaning to the word except limited reason, though 
 I am aware that some translate it differently. 
 
 The untutored eye is apt, I think, to be offended at the 
 sight of many objects made, as everything is, with perfect 
 suitability to purpose, because it cannot perceive the Beauty 
 that is in them ; while the educated one looks with pleasure 
 on them, from understanding their habits, the places they have 
 to fill, and the contrast they form to other objects by which 
 they are surrounded. 
 
 Beauty is often derived in Nature from association, and it 
 may be gained in Art by the same means, in the like manner 
 as it may be heightened by contrast. The elephant in its 
 narrow cage is a huge, unwieldy creature, awkward in his move- 
 ments, ungainly in his form, discordant even in his voice ; but 
 when he rears his trunk on high in his native forests he becomes 
 from his ponderous size a part of the subHme, which is only a 
 higher or more religious order of Beauty. The lean, lanky 
 camel, with his straggling shape, seems to possess, when with us, 
 but little claim to Beauty ; yet, when traversing the bare, sandy 
 plains of his own country, and seen against the lurid sky that 
 belongs to it, must present a long, undulating line and stately 
 movement of the grandest and most effective kind— a line which 
 
 I even squatty little Hogarth would acknowledge to be beautiful : 
 
 1 
 
 I his spongy feet, suited to the soft, yet hot ground on which he 
 
BEAUTY, 83 
 
 is doomed to tread, become there beautiful from their appro- 
 priateness ; while his long limbs, unconnected by flanks that the 
 air may pass freely over and under him, and so relieve him as 
 far as possible from the effects of heat, show to the student who 
 understands, that he is the work of the Creator of the Beautiful. 
 Associations are not always of a material kind. Forms that of 
 themselves afford little or no pleasure may connect themselves 
 with poetry, suggest histories of the past, excite religious feel- 
 ings, or bring back remembrances on which the mind loves to 
 dwell. They may be made, when thus united, to appeal through 
 the eye as sound does through the ear, and so become the 
 music of your Art. I do not mean to say exactly that this is 
 a part of that omnipresent Beauty I am endeavouring to ex- 
 plain to you ; it is one you create within yourselves, belonging 
 p'erhaps to that intuitive power given to you of deriving pleasure 
 from everything that surrounds you. If so, it comes in with the 
 rest in aid of that love of the Beautiful which is planted within 
 us for the improvement of our race. But the observation is not 
 wholly of an impracticable nature in your Art : on the contrary, 
 it may be used to the gaining great emphasis in your work, to 
 the raising up, by the magic of association the highest thoughts 
 of the beholder, and to the bringing forth a Beauty, indefinite it 
 is true, but for that reason not the less real. It is with this 
 feeling that I would have you as artists look upon Nature ; you 
 will then find but little in her that is not beautiful, and that 
 little you will learn to take as a contrast which heightens the 
 sense of what is beautiful, and so keeps the appetite for it eager 
 and healthy. 
 
 I might illustrate this to you by alluding to a style of Art 
 which prevailed for a short time, but which, from the want of 
 
84 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 this contrast, and the variety consequent on it, is now but little 
 thought of. 
 
 The French painter, David, well acquainted with the correct 
 proportions of the human figure, endeavoured to reduce all his 
 figures to his one rule of Beauty ; to make every one whomsoever 
 he might represent, of the same length and breadth, and all his 
 faces of the same character — at least when portraying ideal men 
 and women, and often when treating of portraiture. The eye 
 feels, when contemplating his productions, that they are false tO' 
 Nature, that one Beauty in her, variety, is absent, and so turns 
 away from them disappointed. We have had amongst ourselves 
 one^ if not more artists who have fallen into the same error. 
 Westall was a man by no means without talent, and yet his 
 figures, from the want of this variety, impress us with the idea 
 of being mere automatons : he painted but one being, now a 
 child, now a youth, and now an old man ; but always one and 
 the same creature, differing only in age, and in the circum- 
 stances in which it was placed. Howard, who had great imagi- 
 nation, great power of design, in my opinion was led astray in 
 the same manner. It is probable that these men failed com- 
 paratively, not from lack of ability, but from want of a compre- 
 hensive view of the word Beauty; they looked upon it as a 
 something to be extracted from all around and concentrated 
 into one shape or form which should at all times be alike. 
 
 Not so did the old Greek sculptors. They studied Nature as 
 a whole, saw in her the charm created by variety, and knew 
 that without it they could not convey in their works the same 
 impression ; they considered merely what /were the faculties 
 necessary to each individual subject they had in hand, and how 
 best those faculties were to be represented, or the impression of 
 
BEAUTY. 85 
 
 them best conveyed to the spectator. There does not seem to 
 me any similarity, beyond the circumstance that both are 
 human, between the softened-down, indistinct anatomy of the 
 Apollo Belvidere, and the agony-marked muscles of the Lao- 
 coon; the one is a divergence from the other in feeUng, in 
 treatment, in Beauty, in everything. In the antique, the 
 Fighting Gladiator is distinct from the Discobolon, and still 
 more distinct from the effeminate Antinous. 
 
 The matronly Niobe in no way resembles the Milo Venus, 
 any more than the latter does the Medici charmer : each is 
 beautiful in itself, and increases its Beauty by being a full and 
 faithful type of the phase it represents. If I am right in this 
 view, it will show, I think, the student how necessary it is to 
 well consider these questions, and to make up his mind upon 
 them. The proper settling of them leads on Art of every kind; 
 men in the commencement take only a partial view of them, 
 but by degrees, by experience, arrive at a clearer one. I do 
 not mean to tell you that I have got to the end of the question 
 I am now discussing, but by putting before you my ideas, you 
 may probably progress a step further, and by comparison arrive 
 at something still better, more correct. The refuting a false 
 theory will sometimes help to prove a true one. 
 
 You may object to all this, by telling me that I am no further 
 on with my subject than when I first began, and that I have 
 given you nothing of service ; but I hope I have shown you that 
 this is the key-note which must run through all the music of 
 your Art, and that it will be the standing-place from whence 
 you will send forth all you may produce in a calling which pre- 
 tends to give Beauty by selection, and to represent Nature in 
 her various classes, and not by her individual examples. 
 
86 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 By studying how each of these classes is constructed, what is 
 the separate purpose for which it is formed, and what are the 
 peculiar means it possesses to carry out that purpose, you will 
 learn to exhibit in your model all those excellences combined, 
 you will show the being you wish to represent in its most com- 
 plete state, and with none of those deficiencies arising from 
 weakness or other defects that belong to individuals rather 
 than to a class, and have nothing to do with the general 
 character of it. Your work, whatever it may be, will thus 
 become what is called classical, or more properly the beautiful 
 of its kind. To do this you must study, not the individual 
 being you are copying, but the class to which it belongs, 
 whether man or beast ; for without such study you cannot 
 understand how its frame is adapted to the fulfilment of what 
 it is called upon to do in life, and how it differs from others 
 who have difi"erent duties to perform and different places ta 
 occupy : you will thus, too, be relieved to a certain extent from 
 the study of the antique, which is, after all, only a translation, 
 and be able to read the lesson in the original language of 
 Nature herself. 
 
 Whatever is the subject you are endeavouring to model, 
 looking at it as a class, you will find there is a Beauty in it 
 belonging to itself and differing from all others, and that that 
 Beauty, whether of shape or colour, is its propriety, its adapta- 
 biHty to an end, its utility. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 HE old saying, De gustihits non est disputandiun^'' 
 seems to imply that there is no principle that can 
 be laid down on the word Taste — that we recog- 
 nize it when present without knowing in what it 
 consists or from whence it is derived. This is, to a certain 
 extent, true ; for what is good Taste in one work of Art becomes 
 exactly the contrary in another, and thus it is that its natural 
 shape is so difficult to define. I will endeavour, however, as 
 far as possible to lay down certain rules respecting it, and will 
 venture to state, first of all, that Taste is an attribute of Beauty, 
 and then go further into the question. I will ask you to admit 
 that Taste is a quality appertaining to Beauty in various ways : to 
 her dress and other accessories, to her movements and actions, 
 to the modulations of her voice, to the sentiments uttered by 
 that voice, as well as the terms employed for conveying those 
 sentiments. It may be said to be a grace imparted by the 
 education of the mind to the body which reflects itself back 
 from the body to the mind. The only basis for the much-used 
 Latin sentence is, that Taste has no principle; that it is of such 
 a vague, fickle, and uncertain character, that no foundation can 
 
88 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 be made for it, no definition given of it, no rule applied to it by 
 which the true can be distinguished from the false : in short, 
 that every one must be allowed to settle questions relating to it 
 according to his own whims and fancies, without either 
 previous consideration or study. This, in fact, is its meaning. 
 Reynolds says of people of this way of thinking that they sup- 
 pose that their powers are intuitive, that under the name of 
 genius great works are produced, and under the name of Taste 
 an exact judgment is given, without knowing why, and without 
 being under the least obligation to reason, precept, or expe- 
 rience. 
 
 I remember hearing once a conversation between Chantrey 
 and the great Duke of Wellington, who had come to visit his 
 studio, and more particularly to look at an equestrian statue. 
 Chantrey, who on such occasions was always anxious to impress 
 his visitor with his wisdom, made a long speech to the Duke, 
 explaining in many words his reason for representing the horse 
 standing quietly with all his feet on the ground, alleging, per- 
 haps with some amount of good sense, that it gave the rider 
 more importance. To this the Duke replied, somewhat curtly, 
 "Mr. Wyatt makes his horse galloping, and you make your 
 horse standing still, and it is all a matter of Taste altogether." 
 The answer was not a profound One, though it may be said to 
 illustrate the practical character of the Duke, who always took 
 a straightforward view of every question, and who probably felt 
 that Taste was not one he was called upon to study or decide. 
 It represents, too, a very general opinion on the matter, and even 
 of some writers on the subject, who argue that, because each 
 race of mankind has its own standard of beauty, because the 
 African likes that of his lady-love better than any other kind, 
 
TASTE, 8^ 
 
 there can be no definition or decision on matters of Taste; 
 forgetting that man increases in beauty as he rises in intellect/ 
 There are but few writers on Taste in English literature. 
 Addison is among the earliest, though he says but little about 
 it, and that little relates mostly to the manners and customs of 
 what was then termed polite society. He is right, nevertheless, 
 in the ninety-third number of the "Spectator," where he says: 
 "A man that has a taste for music, painting, and architecture, 
 is like one that has another sense when compared with such 
 as have no relish for those Arts." His Taste, however, or 
 perhaps I had better say the Taste of the period, was, whether 
 with regard to literature or Art, of a pompous, inflated kind; a 
 system of gross adulation and flattery prevailed through both. 
 I will give you a specimen from a poem by him on Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller's picture of George L, wherein he says, speaking of the 
 likeness of that monarch on his coins — 
 
 To bear this form, the genial sun 
 Has daily, since his course begun, 
 Rejoiced the metal to refine, 
 And ripen 'd the Peruvian mine." 
 
 This, though not perhaps deemed too much in that day, espe- 
 cially coming from a man who held high offices under Govern- 
 ment, would now, I fancy, be considered, to use a vulgar term, 
 as coming it too strong ; but if we endeavour to call back the 
 manners of that day, and some time after — the dress, the 
 ceremonies of the Court, the rigid line of demarcation kept up 
 between the different grades of society, the over-florid style of 
 oratory practised in public debates, the heavy, but profusely 
 decorated vehicles used for conveyance of the rich — made, as it 
 would seem, expressly to move slowly, in order that they might 
 
90 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 be gazed at by the low and abject ; if, in short, though speaking 
 of English Taste, we recollect that we have, not long since, 
 passed through the period of the gorgeous Louis XIV., in whose 
 school decoration became the end in Art instead of a secondary- 
 aid, and when people seemed to move more for the sake of 
 attitudinizing, and displaying their dress and ornaments, than 
 for the sake of the real purposes for which life and movement 
 were given them, we shall find everything of a piece. Taste 
 had degraded herself, not from poverty or distress, but from 
 over-luxury and abuse. Works of Art were made solely to 
 carry a load of ornament which, in Art-manufactures, often 
 obstructed, rather than aided, their purposes. We may take a 
 hint on this point from Nature herself, the Mistress of Taste, 
 who introduces no feature for the sake of decoration alone, 
 but who makes everything at one and the same time agreeable 
 to the eye, and suited to its use. It is true that in colour there 
 is often a variety which serves only to give pleasure to the 
 beholder, and where, as far as we know, a dull monotony would, 
 for everything else, do as well ; but that neither crowds the 
 surface as ornament does in the Louis XIV. school, nor inter- 
 feres with the distinct expression of each part. 
 
 Literature in those days went crawling on her knees in the 
 dedication of her works to the great and powerful, and Art 
 strained its imagination until it lost all bounds and ran into 
 the absurd and ridiculous to compliment them in her pictures 
 and to commemorate them in her monuments. Literary inde- 
 pendence was not redeemed until a much later period. Honest 
 old Johnson dealt a hearty blow for it in his letter to Lord 
 Chesterfield, a letter which ought to be printed in gold ; and 
 Burns gave the final help in the dedication of his works to the 
 
TASTE. 91 
 
 noblemen and gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt, wherein he 
 says, after addressing them in courteous but manly language, 
 " I was bred to the plough, and am independent." I have 
 accused Literature of debasing herself, but I cannot say much 
 better for Art: her outrageous allegories are well described by 
 Addison in the following lines from his poem to William III. : — 
 
 *' Thus, when the forming Muse would copy forth 
 
 A perfect pattern of heroic worth, 
 
 She sets a man triumphant in the field 
 
 O'er giants cloven down, and monsters kill'd. 
 
 Reeking in blood, and smear'd with dust and sweat, 
 
 Whilst angry gods conspire to make him great." 
 
 The affected attitudes, misappropriations of material, and 
 fulsome epitaphs then used in Sculpture may be seen and read 
 in all our public buildings. Westminster Abbey is full of them, 
 and there is a monument to the great Duke of Marlborough in 
 the chapel at Blenheim which surpasses them all in bad Taste. 
 All that, however, is past : nous avons change tout cela. Mr. 
 Addison, you may stand down ; your writings are well enough 
 for the time you lived in, but what was then thought Taste 
 seems to us now mere bombast and affectation. In your day 
 it assumed a bold, obtrusive character, whereas true Taste, as we 
 have since learnt to feel, should always be of a modest nature — 
 should assert itself in a diffident, retiring manner — not as claim- 
 ing our chief attention, nor as pretending to be the primary 
 object, but as a sort of cheerful helper, contented never to in- 
 trude itself, but to be found when sought for ; willing to make 
 things pleasant by seeing that everything is in order, and re- 
 moving any incongruous dirt or rubbish that may be lying about 
 — a patient servant, not a domineering master. 
 
92 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 Curiously enough, among the early writers of our Academy 
 whose works are published, Reynolds is the only one who takes 
 Taste singly and by itself for his subject, though the word occurs, 
 of course, in all of them. Can this be urged as a proof of its 
 evanescent nature? He speaks well, however, upon it, as he 
 does on most, if not all things. In the seventh discourse of 
 Sir Joshua, and in the seventh paragraph, you will find these 
 words : *' To speak of genius and Taste as in any way connected 
 with reason or common sense would be, in the opinion of some 
 towering talkers, to speak like a man who possessed neither ; 
 who had never felt that enthusiasm — or, to use their own in- 
 flated language, was never warmed by that Promethean fire — 
 which animates the canvas or vivifies the marble." A text is 
 often given twice, why should I not do so on this occasion? — 
 the words are quite worthy of it : " To speak of genius and Taste 
 as in any way connected with reason or common sense would 
 be, in the opinion of some towering talkers, to speak like a 
 man who possessed neither ; who had never felt that enthu- 
 siasm — or, to use their own inflated language, was never warmed 
 by that Promethean fire — which animates the canvas or vivi- 
 fies the marble." We may agree with this, as it admits that 
 Taste is amenable to reason and submissive to rules, and not 
 that wayward creature she is so often represented to be ; and 
 we will not attempt to cross-examine Sir Joshua, as we shall 
 probably not gain anything by it : he deals in generaUties, and 
 the official reserve appertaining to him as President of the 
 Royal Academy will, there is no doubt, protect him from any 
 question we can put to him. 
 
 Having summoned Reynolds, I must call up Hogarth, for 
 otherwise the fiery little man will be jealous, and he is not one 
 
TASTE. 93 
 
 to offend, as Churchill and Wilkes would tell you were they 
 here. You will know him when he comes before you from the 
 portrait painted by himself, where he is represented seated, and 
 working at his canvas with an earnestness that puts us all to 
 shame ; and by the admirable bust of him by RoubiHac, both 
 in our National Portrait Gallery. The bust I would advise 
 you as sculptor-students to look well at, not merely for the fine 
 modelling, but for the real energy it displays, and the quaint 
 costume of the head : it brings the man strongly before you 
 with all his peculiarities, and, as should all good portraiture, 
 brings also the time itself in which he lived. 
 
 Diverging a Httle from the subject in hand, I may say, indeed, 
 that I feel there are not only dresses, but faces, which betray in 
 themselves the periods to which they belong. This remark — 
 though perhaps out of place here, but which, as appertaining to 
 character, comes so naturally when speaking of Hogarth — must 
 of course be taken cum grajio ; but it is nevertheless true, and 
 the reason may be given for it without any great departure from 
 sound logic. If certain modes of thinking prevail, if certain 
 vices predominate in individuals, every physiognomist will ac- 
 knowledge that they leave their stamp on the face of the 
 thinker or sinner, and if on the individual, why not more or less 
 on the whole ? To take an extreme case, carry your memory 
 back to the days of Charles II. ; not only is the head of the 
 King himself strongly expressive of his tendencies, but you will 
 find among many of his satellites the same characteristics. 
 Friend Pepys partakes of them, and he acknowledges himself 
 in his writings to be somewhat addicted to strong drink, and is 
 described as a man having experienced softness. 
 • Returning to Hogarth, with whom we are now dealing, he calls 
 
94 
 
 TASTE, 
 
 his book " The Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing 
 the fluctuating ideas on Taste ; " a bold title, not that he can 
 for a moment be accused of wanting Taste : the way, indeed, in 
 which in his " Marriage a la Mode " he ridicules the prevaiHng 
 rage for mutilated mock antiques, Dresden china, and other 
 vii'tiiosi curiosities, shows that he had a soul superior to the 
 follies of his day, and capable of conceiving something of a 
 higher nature than what was then in vogue among the cogno- 
 scenti. 
 
 It should be recollected, however, that the works he executed 
 belonging to the higher walks of Art^ where pure Taste and un- 
 impaired beauty are more particularly required, were exactly 
 those in which he failed : the simply natural was indeed so hid- 
 den under the highly artificial in his time, that it can hardly be 
 expected he should have a clear conception of its being the 
 very essence of true Taste and beauty. I will give you an ex- 
 ample of his mode of arguing illustrative of this. He says : " Let 
 any one chalk the line (here he refers to one of his diagrams) 
 on a flat surface, beginning at either end, and he will move his 
 hand and arm in a beautiful direction ; but if he chalks the same 
 sort of line on an ogee moulding of a foot or two in breadth, his 
 hand must move in that more beautiful direction which is dis- 
 tinguished by the name of grace, and according to the quantity 
 given to those lines, greatness will be added to grace, and the 
 movement will be more or less noble." He then goes on : 
 " Gentle movements of this sort, thus understood, may be made 
 at any time and anywhere, which, by repetition, will become so 
 familiar to the parts exercised, that on proper occasion they 
 make them as it were of their own accord." 
 
 This appears to me the true teaching of the dancing-master ; 
 
TASTE. 95 
 
 the making of a so-called graceful line the end and aim of an 
 action or movement, so pernicious to all principles of pure 
 Taste, so opposite to the proceeding of Nature, who always 
 depends for her mode of doing a thing upon the impulse 
 given by the thing itself, and never thinks of how she does it, 
 or how she is looking whilst doing it. The dancing-master is 
 as far off in his teaching of graceful action, or, in other words, 
 in the inculcating of true Taste, as is the most boorish clown ; 
 farther, perhaps, for as he has gone beyond it into the region 
 of affectation, he is never likely to turn back, whereas the other 
 may possibly be'advancing towards it. True Taste is the result 
 of education, but it is not the education of the body but the 
 general education of the mind which imparts unconsciously its 
 own refinement to the movements of the body, and so distin- 
 guishes in appearance and manner the real gentleman from the 
 uneducated lout. But let Hogarth go on with his own story. 
 He proceeds soon after with these words : " As to the motion 
 of the head, the awe most children are in before strangers till 
 they come to a certain age is the cause of their dropping and 
 drawing their chins down into their breasts and looking under 
 their foreheads as if conscious of their ow^n weakness, or of 
 something wrong about them. To prevent this awkward shyness, 
 parents and tutors are continually teazing them to hold up their 
 heads, which, if they get them to do, it is with difficulty, and, 
 of course, in so constrained a manner that it gives them pain, 
 so that they naturally take all opportunities of easing themselves 
 by holding down their heads, which posture would be fully as 
 uneasy to them were it not a relief from restraint. There is 
 another misfortune in holding down the head, that it is apt to 
 make them bend too much in the back ; when this happens to 
 
96 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 be the case they then have recourse to steel collars and other 
 machines, all which shacklings are repugnant to nature, and may 
 make the body grow crooked. This daily fatigue both to the 
 children and parents may be avoided, and an ugly habit 
 prevented, by only, at a proper age, fastening a ribbon to a 
 quantity of plaited hair, or to the cap so as it may be kept just 
 in its place, and the other end to the back of the coat, of such 
 a length as may prevent them drawing their chins into their 
 necks, which ribbon will always leave the head at liberty to 
 move in any direction but this awkward one they are so apt to 
 fall into." Strange to say, the man who indited this foolish 
 stuff yrites immediately after : " But till children arrive at a 
 reasoning age, it will be difficult by any means to teach them 
 more grace than what is natural to every well-made child at 
 liberty." It would be difficult indeed ! 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, the finest painter of children in the 
 English, if not in any school, who entered into — old bachelor as 
 he was — all the graceful feelings, all the unaffected movements 
 of infancy, and who painted childhood in all its innocent sim- 
 plicity, would agree with him in this difficulty — would tell him, 
 perhaps, that of all their engaging actions there was none more 
 so than the one he wishes to put an end to in this barbarous 
 and tasteless manner ; but Sir Joshua could paint a child, whilst 
 Hogarth never, that I am aware of, attempted one, at least not 
 one having the joyous, healthy spirit of the young within it. 
 From the works of Reynolds sculptors may learn much in the 
 way of Taste. **Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse" would, if 
 well translated into marble, make one of the finest statues 
 known ; and all his portraits become representations of high- 
 bred people, not from the presence, but by the absence of all 
 
TASTE. 97 
 
 affectation. From the satirical style of Hogarth sculptors can 
 gain nothing, it is totally opposed to the pure feeling for Taste 
 which they are called upon to advocate in their Art ; nor have 
 they anything to do with the absurd customs of his day : we are 
 becoming less artificial, have left off bob-wigs and twisted 
 queues, have ceased to dock horses tails, and almost to cut 
 dogs ears, have learned, or are learning, that Nature knows how 
 to construct her creatures so that neither addition nor subtrac- 
 tion on our part can improve them either in appearance or for 
 use — are in short approaching, though slowly, to that feeling for 
 pure Taste, and those simple forms more particularly applicable 
 to the Art of Sculpture. Of this cutting and maiming of Nature 
 there is one example in antique Art, and only one. The hog 
 manes in the horses of Night and Morning of the Parthenon, 
 and in the frieze of the same temple. No doubt the fashion 
 prevailed in the best time of Greek Art, for we find it frequently 
 resorted to in their marbles : the sculptor's excuse, I presume, 
 for this apparent departure from good Taste, would be that it 
 enabled him to give a clear, decided line that would tell at a 
 distance, and to avoid minutiae which would under the same 
 circumstances create confusion. 
 
 Looking to those works in which Hogarth really excelled, he 
 may be said to have had sufficient Taste to prevent his being vul- 
 gar in any case except where he wished to make vice more ugly 
 by that vulgarity. His book, it must be confessed, indicates a 
 hard struggle to free himself from the fashionable ideas on 
 Beauty and Taste then prevailing ; but they were too strong 
 for him. Not too strong when with his palette in hand he put 
 forth his bitter satire on the vices and foUies of his day, but too 
 strong when he took up his pen to lay down rules for a Taste 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 that should survive all the pollutions of fashion, and become 
 from its own principles perpetual. The student should have 
 illustrations before him when studying his writings, which I 
 would quite advise him to do. The work I believe is to be 
 found in the Academy Library. 
 
 To Hogarth too belongs the credit of being the first of the 
 many essayists who wrote on Taste. At or soon after his period 
 Reynolds, Burke, Alison, and Payne Knight : the two last, 
 and the latter in particular, seem to labour to tread in his foot- 
 steps ; but they both bring so much to bear upon it, that the 
 footmarks themselves become effaced by the multitude of things 
 that are brought to travel over the road, and so leave no im- 
 pression behind them. You will agree with me that lectures are 
 often too long; I am sure these men's writings are. The analysis 
 they undertake is so compHcated, that it sometimes appears to 
 me a stirring up of the mud which makes the stream less trans- 
 parent, rather than a sweeping away of the weeds so as to 
 render the depths clearer and more visible. Alison divides 
 the various theories on Taste into two classes. The first he 
 describes as that which resolves the emotion of Taste directly 
 into an original law of our nature ; which supposes a sense or 
 senses by which the quaHties of Beauty and Sublimity are per- 
 ceived and felt as their appropriate objects, and concludes 
 that the genuine object of the Arts of Taste is to discover and 
 imitate those qualities. To this first class he says belongs al- 
 most all the theories of Music, Architecture, and Sculpture re- 
 sorted to by artists, and those whose habits of thought lead 
 them to attend more to the causes of their emotions than to 
 the nature of the emotions themselves. The second he de- 
 scribes as that which resists the idea of any new or peculiar 
 
TASTE. 99 
 
 sense ; and supposes some one known and acknowledged prin- 
 ciple, or affection of mind, to be the foundation of all the 
 emotions we receive from objects of Taste. This hypothesis 
 he declares to be most natural to retired and philosophic minds ; 
 to those whose habits have led them to attend more to the nature 
 of the emotions than to the causes which produced them. 
 
 He then declares his intention to employ in his inquiries 
 illustrations derived from Nature rather than Art, justifying him- 
 self by saying that if the Fine Arts are in reaHty x\rts of imita- 
 tion, their principles are to be sought for in the subjects which 
 they imitate. He goes on to speak of the power association of 
 ideas has on our appreciation of the Beautiful; declaring, I 
 think properly, that this association, as appeaHng to the imagi- 
 nation rather than the judgment, is stronger in the young than 
 in the old, where sensibility has been weakened by more criti- 
 cizing habits of the mind. This he illustrates by allusions to 
 scenes in Nature which derive Beauty and Power from their 
 connection with glorious deeds and great events ; or by their affi- 
 nity to the earlier and happier days of the spectator. He de- 
 clares that hues and forms, and even colours and sounds, have 
 no inherent Beauty in themselves beyond that of fitness, but are 
 agreeable to the eye or ear only as we associate them with 
 pleasant ideas. For example, we admire the undulating forms 
 because they are expressive of flexibility, of tenderness, and 
 weakness : and that angular and rugged forms are disagreeable, 
 not from their own self-constituted properties, but because they 
 represent rigidity, immovability, and opposition. In short, he 
 seems to lay down association of ideas as the key to all those 
 emotions of pleasure or the reverse, which we receive from the 
 ^ contemplation of objects, whether of Nature or Art : and these 
 
lOO 
 
 TASTE, 
 
 emotions of Taste he describes as of a complex character, as con- 
 sisting of a pleasure which excites the imagination, and so raises 
 a continuous train of thought within the mind, in distinction 
 to a simple sensation such as joy, grief, &c., where no such 
 train of thought follows. One or other of these many simple 
 sensations must first, he declares, be produced, for to them does 
 the more complex one of Taste owe its existence. I would have 
 you read him, for I believe he is, after all, the best writer on the 
 word Taste we have ; and if he argues in a different manner from 
 what you, as artists, naturally expect, I must remind you that 
 he places himself among those thinkers of the second class, 
 those, as he says, whose habits have led them to attend more 
 to the nature of the emotions than to the causes which produce 
 them. 
 
 Artist writers like Hogarth, Reynolds, and others, stand na- 
 turally in the other class, but it does not follow that their method 
 is the best, though I admit the difficulty of professional men 
 pursuing ideas and modes of argument which tend so thoroughly 
 to upset their preconceived notions. I would advise your 
 studying both methods : the first class, to which artists belong, 
 is of course the simplest, perhaps the most practical, the most 
 serviceable to their calling ; but I fancy the latter goes deeper 
 into the question of Taste, and lays more open the basis upon 
 which it is founded. At any rate, you will have become 
 greater travellers in the paths of truth by paying attention to 
 them both. He concludes his argument on this portion of his 
 subject by saying that the object of the Fine Arts is to produce 
 this emotion of Taste, and that the only subjects that are in 
 themselves proper for the imitation of these Arts, are such as are 
 productive of some species of simple emotion ; and that where 
 
7ASTE, loi 
 
 the subjects are of a contrary kind, the method by which alone 
 they can be rendered either beautiful or sublime is by the ad- 
 dition of some interesting or affecting quaHty. 
 
 I gave you in my last lectures a case in point in the Dying 
 Gladiator, though the association was, I confess, in that in- • 
 stance, distant ; brought to bear upon the statue as much by the 
 genius of the poet whom I quoted to you, as from any direct 
 intention in the sculptor. 
 
 I will now give you another case of a more modern work, 
 which association of ideas has rendered more than usually popu- 
 lar, and where the credit of that association is due to the artist 
 alone — Turner's towing up of the old " Fighting Temeraire.' 
 The sun setting on the calm water in this splendid picture 
 speaks of the peaceful end of its glorious career, whilst thfc 
 moon faintly indicated amid the fading light, tells of the coming 
 night and hours of rest. The blood-red reflection on the water 
 and the flag still faintly fluttering at the mast-head, remind one 
 of the battle and the breeze, whilst the little tug dragging up 
 with busy force the mighty leviathan, seems to suggest the 
 finishing of war and the coming of more happy days of peaceful 
 industry. Turner, rough and ungainly as was his exterior, was 
 inwardly both a poet and a painter. 
 
 I will not venture to discuss his great merits as a colourist, 
 for were I to do so your Chairman would rise up from his seat 
 and stop my presumption ; but will content myself with saying 
 that he rarely omitted the use of association in his magnificent 
 works. He was right. There is nothing that renders Art so 
 impressive, or that makes it cling so long and so closely to the 
 memory. Let me give you another instance, belonging this 
 time to Sculpture. In the Palazzio Torlonia near Rome, there 
 
T02 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 is, or rather was before the revolution, when it may have been 
 destroyed, a curious head and naked torso, representing ^sop, 
 who was, as you know, deformed. The body is so truthful in its 
 representation, that it may even possibly have been copied in 
 the marble from a cast from Nature ; so correct is it in all its 
 details that you can trace with ease the various twistings of the 
 parts under the skin, and satisfy yourself how they have been 
 obliged to make room one for another in their ill-constructed 
 home, so as to dwell together in peaceful harmony, after their 
 rough tumble into life. The head, however, partakes in no way 
 of this distortion j on the contrary, it is of the most elegant 
 kind, its refinement heightened by that beseeching expression 
 common to such unfortunate beings, which seems to plead so 
 strongly, though silently, for sympathy. What was the sculptor 
 to do in this case ? He could not represent him as a strongs 
 well-made man, for that would have been false altogether, and 
 to modify the evil would only be going half-way, which would 
 have nullified all effect. There remained but one alternative : to 
 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as 
 if upon oath in open court. And he has done so, leaving that 
 truth to work out its own effect by calling up appropriate 
 thoughts and associations in those more happily situated, or 
 who may have a chord within their own hearts similarly un- 
 strung. He has done well. It is one of the most impressive pro- 
 ductions I ever remember : with the ignorant and unfeeling it 
 sometimes, perhaps, raises a smile j but I beHeve it causes many 
 a sigh from persons more seriously inclined and better ac- 
 quainted with grief. The mind immediately turns, when 
 contemplating this fragment, to the history of the poor unshapen 
 slave, unhappy, as St. Jerome says of him, in his birth, unhappy 
 
TASTE. 103 
 
 in his life, and unhappy in his death, but whose talent eventu- 
 ally served, as far as we can learn, to free him from his bonds, 
 and to send him as a trusty envoy from a king to a neighbouring 
 Power. Recollections of his genius recur associated with our 
 earhest thoughts and happiest days: the croaking frogs rise 
 again to the surface of our memory, discontented once more 
 with their Log King, and obtaining to their sorrow King Stork. 
 We have still, I fear, our wolves in sheeps' clothing, though we 
 do not follow yEsop's example of hanging them ; and some of 
 us yet, like the poor dog, let go our meat to catch at a shadow. 
 His fables are still clear and distinct in our remembrance; their 
 insight into human nature, so true, so pleasant to read, imparted 
 to us under such quaint shapes, tinged, perhaps slightly, with a 
 bitterness that ever belongs to genius under misfortune, making 
 their satire more pungent, and even more delightful to our 
 imagination. This is powerful association. 
 
 Payne Knight is not a writer that I can well recommend for 
 your study ; he appears to me of all others anxious to accumu- 
 late words, to multiply them for the sake of lengthening, not 
 strengthening, his argument \ and I scarcely think he adds much 
 information on the question. He seems to me, too, to be more 
 desirous to refute Burke in his opinions than to get at the truth ; 
 against him he appears, in fact, to have had something very like 
 a personal spite, as well as a sneaking sycophancy towards 
 Reynolds ; and he made some mistakes in his evidence before 
 the Committee of the House of Commons in his examination 
 respecting the Elgin marbles, which showed him to have had 
 little real taste for Art, though we must give him credit for 
 being a scholar. I will not, therefore, weary you by bringing 
 him before you, but go on to say that I can fully comprehend 
 
104 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 the difficulty of artists believing in Alison's theory of association 
 of ideas being the true foundation of Taste. I think myself 
 that he goes too far in this view of the question ; that he starts, 
 as do many other writers, with a, preconceived idea, not al- 
 together a wrong one, and then labours hard to bring every 
 argument to bear in the direction of that idea. You have with 
 him one view, and only one view, of the question, a good one 
 may be, but not quite comprehending the whole, nor altogether 
 unobjectionable. Association is an affair of sentiment and 
 feeling, very different words from Taste. It may be good Taste 
 for the sculptor to choose a subject that possesses that power 
 within itself, but there the connection appears to end. That 
 association of ideas has a powerful effect, however, in making 
 us love or hate an object whether of Nature or Art, cannot be 
 denied. The serpent is one of the most graceful forms in 
 Nature, represents in itself more than any other the pure line 
 of Beauty, yet we all look upon it with abhorrence. Alison 
 might, indeed, have used the creature as strong evidence in 
 favour of his argument ; though he has not done so, he brings, 
 however, quite enough to bear upon it. Wordsworth seems to 
 feel the strength of association in that poem where he describes 
 himself carried on high as in a dream, and wandering among 
 far-off unknown worlds, marvellous to behold, but wanting to 
 him in the charm of association. From these, feeHng no plea- 
 sure in them, he returns to his mother earth, declaring — 
 
 Long have I loved what I behold, 
 The night that calms, the day that cheers, 
 The common growth of mother Earth 
 Suffices me — her tears, her mirth, 
 Her humblest mirth and tears." 
 
TASTE. 105 
 
 In the same poem, "Peter Bell," he describes under that name 
 a wild, wandering, savage fellow, who has had a dozen wedded 
 wives, and indicates his want of association with Nature by the 
 much discussed lines : — 
 
 ' ''In vain through every changeful year 
 Did Nature lead him as before : 
 A primrose by a river's brim 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And it was nothing more." 
 
 The idea is not only poetical, but philosophically true. 
 Wordsworth, indeed, has often been described as the phi- 
 losopher poet, though I doubt much if he does not go a little 
 beyond even poetical truth when he makes the rough, hard 
 Peter repent and become a respectable man. Repent I mean 
 of his sins, not of having married twelve wives. Hannibal 
 is said to have softened the rocky Alps by vinegar, but neither 
 acids nor alkalies ever softened the heart of a hard, unfeeling 
 man in his old age. Shelley, though so dreamy a poet, under- 
 stood well the word association, he feels its power in his beau- 
 tiful fragment addressed to the moon : — 
 
 * ' Art thou pale for weariness, 
 Of climbing Heaven and gazing on the Earth, 
 
 Wandering companionless, 
 
 Among the stars that have a different birth, 
 
 And ever changing ; like a joyless eye 
 
 That finds no object worth its constancy ? " 
 
 All these questions I must leave, however, to your decision ; 
 they are difficult ones. I sometimes think that Alison, as well 
 as other writers, has made a mistake between Beauty and 
 Taste, and confounded the two in his arguments ; perhaps I 
 am wrong, but they appear to me different things. Beauty 
 
io6 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 represents the thing to be admired, Taste the power which we 
 have more or less within us of admiring or appreciating it. I 
 shall I think be more practical, more useful to you, if I go a 
 little further away from this definition, and resume the first 
 description which I ventured to submit to you — namely, that 
 Taste is an attribute of Beauty, appertaining in various ways to 
 her habits, to her movements, to the modulations of her voice, 
 and to the sentiments uttered by that voice — in short, to all her 
 thoughts and actions. I am compelled from my position to 
 descend a step lower yet on the ladder ; my business is to con- 
 fine myself to that Taste which belongs to Sculpture alone. It 
 signifies nothing whether I define Taste as the power that is 
 within us of appreciating the Beautiful ; or whether I designate 
 it by its effect, as displayed in the Beautiful ; both are of the 
 same growth — the one is the stem, the other the flower, and 
 both spring from the same root. Now I am on the ground. 
 Well, then, to begin I will first say that Taste should be appro- 
 priate in its character, suitable to the expression intended 
 by the thing to which it is applied. 
 
 For instance, if the expression of the work, say in Sculpture, 
 be grave j the taste, the design, the treatment, the accessories 
 m.ust be expressive of the same feeling; the design must partake 
 of more regularity, and of less variety : the forms must be more 
 geometrical and less irregular; the lines more parallel, more 
 simple, more of the perpendicular, and less of the undulating 
 kind ; such lines being conventionally suggestive of quiet, sober 
 ideas, and calm immovability. What is called ornament must 
 be altogether omitted or used with the greatest caution, orna- 
 ment being ever more or less suggestive of gaiety, conceit, 
 frivolity. Such ornament as you may please to use should be 
 
to a certain extent in itself suggestive of the same grave idea ; 
 you may call to your recollection many that will answer to this 
 description. The poppy-head helps out, when so used, the idea 
 of sleep or death. The hour-glass suggests time, and the winged 
 globe eternity. If on the other hand the subject be of a joyous 
 character, more flowing, more undulating lines may be intro- 
 duced, and shadows may be divided to a greater extent; as 
 flowing lines and multitudes of parts indicate motion and lively 
 impulses : and quick movement is one of the modes of ex- 
 pression to which joy and gladness have resort. In instances 
 where a certain sensuous feeling is implied, as in a Bacchante 
 dance, fuller, more rotund, forms may be admitted than in cases 
 where pleasure of a more refined or intellectual nature is repre- 
 sented, and these in themselves will create more flowing lines. 
 Ornament may be brought in more profusely, because, as I have 
 before said, it is indicative of gaiety, frivolity, and conceit : but 
 here I think caution should be taken not to go too far. It will as- 
 sociate itself with this class of subject better than with any other, 
 but still it is apt to degenerate style under any circumstances, 
 when used without some reserve. It may even sink the work 
 down, if carried to excess, into a lower class. If the figure be 
 primary, and ornament secondary, the work will belong to pure 
 Sculpture; but where ornament is primary and the figure 
 secondary, it becomes merely decorative Art. The connecting 
 chain between the two, though a long one, may nevertheless be 
 traced from one end to the other. 
 
 I have thus indicated what I call the appropriate character 
 of Taste in Art, and this appears to me the chief feature the 
 sculptor has to observe. That it should be of the most 
 retiring, unobtruding kind, contented with the pleasure pro- 
 
io8 
 
 TASTE, 
 
 duced without displaying the means by which that pleasure 
 is obtained, I have already hinted to you; and in this, 
 and in its never resorting to means out of the limits of Art, 
 consists its other quality, simplicity. Sculpture if good is 
 always simple; it has a single purpose, a simple idea to con- 
 vey in all it does, and the Taste by which the expression of that 
 idea is accompanied should, indeed must, be equally simple. 
 We have many words to express this quality : fewness of parts — 
 simplicity of line — singleness of effect — breadth of style, &c. 
 Try and call to your mind the works of permanent reputation, 
 you will find them all partake of this quality. It is the want of 
 this fewness of parts that renders many of our Court dresses, 
 the Robes of the Garter for instance, so difficult to treat in 
 Sculpture, where light and shade cannot be resorted to, to con- 
 ceal or subdue unmeaning portions. The eye wanders among 
 the ribbons, the ties, and the decorations, even when skilful 
 treatment is shown in them, until it forgets altogether the man 
 within them. Two things are here contending for supremacy, 
 the man and the dress : and the man dwindles into insignifi- 
 cance; his head becomes a meaningless block, and his whole 
 figure a mere tailor's dummy, made to carry the robes and for 
 no other purpose. There are I believe no Knights of the 
 Garter in the room, so I may say without fear of offending, that 
 this proves how necessary it is in Sculpture to keep chiefly to 
 simplicity of Taste. Nature has to convey many impressions, 
 many feelings by the same object ; and for this reason admits 
 of deviations in the expression of that feeHng, which prevents 
 perhaps its being complete in any one case. For instance, the 
 same landscape becomes cheerful and gloomy, gay or sad, 
 according to the atmosphere under which it is viewed, or the 
 
TASTE, 
 
 associations that are annexed to it by the movable objects 
 within it. Nature is like a diorama constantly moving before 
 us, ever changing; sometimes sad and sometimes gay, but Art 
 deals with but one idea at a time, and that idea a permanent 
 one \ everything within it has therefore to work in harmony 
 with the rest to promote that idea; and nothing must be 
 admitted that does not in some way or other help that idea. 
 There is one thing that unites the two, Nature and Art. Both 
 impress themselves on our mind as beautiful only when one 
 beautiful idea prevails over the whole. In Nature we may 
 excuse inaccuracies of expression, not merely for the reason 
 before given, but because she has more powerful means of 
 Beauty which makes us forget her errors, or if you do not Hke 
 the term when applied to her, her inaccuracies. In Art we 
 expect everything to assimilate to one purpose ; not only 
 because she is less powerful than Nature, but because her 
 errors of expression and taste are wilful ones. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 ORDS are more or less indefinite in their meaning 
 and admit of wider and more comprehensive trans- 
 lation, according to their context with other words, 
 or their association with ideas previously existing 
 in the minds of their hearers. Among them all there are, 
 perhaps, none more difficult to explain than the word Style. Ap- 
 plicable to many things, totally unconnected with each other, it 
 becomes for that very reason alone in itself misty and indistinct. 
 
 With these its many phases we have, however, but little to 
 do. Our business is with Style in Sculpture. I am not 
 certain even within this limited range of so grasping the 
 question and keeping it motionless before you, as to give you 
 the opportunity of taking a clear and correct photograph of its 
 general bearing and effect on the Art I am professing to teach ; 
 but I will place it before you as one that appears to me of a 
 practical character, useful in the carrying on of the work in 
 which you may be engaged. By referring to the meanings 
 appended to the word Style by Walker, we shall find how large 
 is its range, how wide its divergence from any centre that can 
 be marked out for it. While other words have to content 
 
STYLE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 themselves in his dictionary with explanations of scarcely more 
 than one line, it appropriates to itself some seven or eight : 
 and this is to me additional evidence of the difficulty 
 of confining it to one simple idea we can all under- 
 stand and accept. It is easy to call a spade a spade; but 
 it is not so easy to explain what constitutes Style, or in 
 what consists its import. Walker puts among other things 
 as its signification "manner of writing," with regard to lan- 
 guage, manner of speaking appropriate to particular character, 
 title, appellation. All this may be right, at any rate is enough 
 for him who is not required to go into lengthy definitions, but 
 merely to throw out such suggestions as will, when united with 
 others, be the seed of future comprehension. His task is 
 merely to give the first movement to the train of thought, and 
 then leave it to proceed over the different points to the end of 
 its journey, by its own impetus. Mine, however, is a more 
 responsible one, for though travelling on a loop-line, and on a 
 narrower gauge. Style in Sculpture, I have to accompany, if not 
 guide, you, past the different stations, to the terminus from 
 whence you alight, and go each your own road to your final 
 destination. I think I may be allowed therefore to take a 
 wider range in my definition. Many expressions suggest them- 
 selves to me as helping to that object, yet few accomplish it 
 thoroughly. Propriety of treatment is one; it comes near to 
 Style, but fails for want of strength. What is propriety of treat- 
 ment in one work of Sculpture becomes exactly the opposite in 
 another ; and so it is with Style : in this respect, in fact, they 
 seem one and the same thing; but mere propriety scarcely 
 reaches far enough ; we want more steam, something that will 
 carry us beyond that. 
 
112 
 
 STYLE, 
 
 Truth is another word that seems akin to it, inasmuch as 
 neither truth nor Style can be exaggerated or carried to excess : 
 but then the same may be said of Beauty, and indeed of every 
 word of abstract meaning. Power of expression comes nearer, 
 enters more into the inner meaning of the word. 
 
 I have done wrong perhaps in omitting one of the definitions 
 attached by Walker to Style, the one from which it seems 
 to have been derived, " a pointed iron used anciently in 
 writing on tables of wax," the implement corresponding in 
 short with our pen. Whether the ancient writers derived more 
 Style by the use of this instrument, and by the deep impression 
 they had to make with it on their material, I will not stay to 
 argue with you : but I think we may acknowledge Style to be 
 the instrument of power by which we convey emphasis of 
 expression in our work and render intelligible forms which 
 would otherwise be both meaningless and purposeless. There 
 is another word which artists are in the habit of associating and 
 even of confusing with Style, Manner, which when repeated 
 again and again is designated as Mannerism : a feature by 
 which we are too often enabled to distinguish the productions 
 of one man, and even of one age, from those of another, but 
 there is a wide difference between it and Style. Style advances 
 whatever it is attached to, makes its intention more evident, 
 increases the force of its expression, as well as frees it from im- 
 purities which in no way help the object it has in view, while 
 Manner, or Mannerism, on the contrary, serves no good purpose; 
 is in fact most frequently merely the mirror in which the artist, 
 or may be the period at which he lived, is unconsciously 
 reflected. That Style and Manner are frequently so mingled 
 one with another as to render it difficult to separate them, or 
 
STYLE. 113 
 
 to distinguish which is which, I will confess ; but the simple 
 test I have here put to you will, I think, if carefully attended to, 
 though perhaps not serving as an exact definition, show what is 
 Style and what is not, and even tell in what proportion 
 Mannerism, if any, is introduced. This question you will do 
 well to constantly consider, as it tends to elevate what you may 
 send forth, and keeps it free from much that is detrimental to 
 excellence, though at the same time highly seductive to the 
 young mind. I wish to be the more impressive in this advice 
 to you because I cannot help fancying that at this moment 
 there is a more than usual quantity of Mannerism passing for 
 Style in the world of Art, and that sculptors are mistaking one 
 for the other and running after the wrong thing, by affecting 
 peculiarities and imitating weaknesses belonging to past ages, 
 and quite out of place in the present day. I am not saying this 
 in any invidious spirit ; on the contrary, I am ready to acknow- 
 ledge that many fine works are put forth among us, that carry 
 out with powerful emphasis the spirit that is within them \ 
 simply because the treatment of every part is in unison with 
 that spirit, and serves to elucidate the meaning intended by 
 the sculptor; but the weed of Mannerism is growing at the 
 same time among us — Mannerism, I fancy, not derived even 
 from the best time of Art : and I feel that it is my duty to pro- 
 test against it. 
 
 There is not much use, however, in my treating the subject 
 after this fashion. Arguing from analogy may, perhaps, instruct 
 you how to prove the soundness of your thoughts, and so far 
 be of service, but is rarely of a practical nature. Let me, there- 
 fore, proceed to apply the test I have given, that Style is a 
 quality which tends to further the purpose of a work, and that 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 S7 YLE. 
 
 Mannerism is not, to examples well known to us, and to which 
 we are accustomed to turn when thinking of the subject before 
 us. I ought, out of respect to antique Art, where, looking at 
 it as I do, I find Style abounding and Mannerism scarcely ex- 
 isting, to allude to it first ; but I prefer, for the sake of being 
 clearly understood, plunging at once into an age where both 
 prevailed together in nearly equal measure. 
 
 With the name of Michael Angelo we unconsciously associate 
 the word Style, and almost as invariably the word Manner; 
 and that he was great, if not the greatest of masters in the 
 former, is as certain, I think, as that he was the abject slave of 
 the latter. I shall endeavour to explain his Style presently, 
 but will begin by saying that Mannerism in him became less 
 detrimental than with other men, from its being the reflection 
 of a stronger character, the self-assertion of a mind with fewer 
 weaknesses and with nobler impulses ; still it was Mannerism, 
 for it appertained to the man, and not properly speaking to the 
 works he sent forth. Those who can look with a cunning eye 
 on what he has left in Sculpture, and even in Painting, will read 
 with as great facility as in a written biography the gloomy, re- ■ 
 served being whose pride amounted to contempt, and often 
 brought him into collision with those about him, but whose 
 mental grasp took in, and almost conquered, the loftiest things 
 that come Avithin the province of human intellect. His statues, 
 indeed his figures in general, rarely look at the spectator : they 
 seem unconscious of his presence, and as belonging to a world 
 of their own, with which he has no communication or right of 
 entry. Buonarotti condescended to copy no one, not even the 
 antique, the pure yet unassuming truth, there so much a beauty, 
 appeared to him tame and ineffective : the redundant form of 
 
STYLE. 115 
 
 the Farnese Torso was the only specimen on which he bestowed 
 his admiration, and that because he found in it a reflection of 
 the Titan shapes he had conceived in his own brain; the 
 sculptor of that fragment, he seemed to confess, was the Michael 
 Angelo of his day, and the only one worthy of being remem- 
 bered. His ideal of grandeur and beauty was not that of the 
 old Greeks, the calm consciousness of power in whose gods 
 restrained them from asserting it by over-action or undue dis- 
 play of expression. The conception he took of the beings of 
 a higher world was rather that of the giants of old, creatures 
 more of the earth than of the skies, and yet who rebelled against 
 heaven and claimed it as their own. He was himself a giant of 
 a rebellious spirit, rebelled often and openly against the fickle- 
 ness of his rulers, for whom he had to labour. If what I have 
 here spoken of, and asserted to be equally evident in the man 
 as in his works, partakes as much of error as of truth, it will 
 prove to you all the more that it is Mannerism and not Style, 
 and how frequently, as I have said before, Manner sets up a 
 pretension to Style. 
 
 There is something to be said on the other side. I would 
 not have you think that Michael Angelo would have been better 
 in every way without his Mannerisms ; if they do not all tell in 
 favour of his works, they at any rate tell of himself; and with- 
 out them he would not have been so universally recognized, nor 
 so long and distinctly remembered. 
 
 Style is the gold that is the mark of genius, and Mannerism 
 the colour by which you distinguish from whence it comes, but 
 I would have you remember, as your old friend Fuseli is said to 
 have told the students of his day, "there is but one Michael 
 Angelo." His Manner may be one thing, and Henry Weekes's 
 
ii6 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 another, so that any Manner we may adopt may serve, by re- 
 flection of ourselves, to lower our Art until it falls below the 
 ordinary range, instead of leaving it, as in Michael Angelo's 
 case, far above the horizon of Art. 
 
 We will now take one of the very few finished works left by 
 Michael Angelo, if, indeed, a work can be called finished 
 originally intended to be part only of an immense monument, 
 and one of many other figures of a like size and kind. The 
 Statue of Moses is, however, complete in itself, deficient in no 
 point of conception, and wanting in no touch of the chisel. We 
 shall see, when tried by our test, what there is in it that belongs 
 to Style, and what that appertains to Manner : of the latter 
 there is, in my opinion, less than in any other production by him. 
 
 That Michael Angelo has chosen to take the Israelitish type 
 of face in his statue instead of, for the sake of beauty, trying to 
 approach the conventional one of the antique, as other sculptors 
 would have done, belongs to Style, as it helps to portray more 
 strongly the nationality of the great leader, and to associate 
 him more closely with the stirring event with which he was 
 connected — the liberation of his people from the oppression of 
 their masters. It forms, too, a relief from that monotony created 
 by the repetition of the same type of feature, so universally- 
 found in old Greek Art. The turning the face away from the 
 spectator belongs also to Style, for it gives the dreamy absence 
 so characteristic of men of thought, especially of those who, 
 as is said of Moses, are weak in power of speech, and ac- 
 customed to seek within themselves for their counsel. 
 
 Its proud expression may not be quite in consonance with 
 the description given of the great Jewish leader, who is said to 
 have won the appellation of Meek, a doubtful one when applied 
 
STYLE. 
 
 to the man who slew the Egyptian in his anger, and afterwards 
 dashed the Tables of the Law to pieces in another fit of rage, 
 when he found his followers deserting the great doctrine he 
 had taught them, and turning back to the foul profanations of 
 their ancient masters. 
 
 I am not certain, indeed, to which of the two, Style or Man- 
 ner, this haughty expression of the face and erect carriage of 
 the head belongs. I may claim it as part of Style, by asking 
 you how could the statue of a great lawgiver, and of one who 
 led a nation out of slavery, through a long line of country where 
 every mile was beset with dangers and difficulties almost insur- 
 mountable, be portrayed without it ? If we follow the text lite- 
 rally, it is inconsistent with it, and I have given you hints that 
 will convince you, I think, that the source from whence this 
 hauteur sprang was Michael Angelo's own personal character 
 rather than that of the subject he was treating. Looking at it 
 from this point, it belongs partly to Style and partly to Manner ; 
 yet how impossible it would have been to introduce an ex- 
 pression of meekness into it. The effect would have been to 
 nullify all that we so admire : the effort, in fact, to introduce 
 such a complicated character into the statue, would have been 
 trying at that which is beyond the reach of Art. Sir Joshua 
 tells you, you will recollect, in his lectures, that all expression or 
 character in Art must be of a simple kind, and that any attempt 
 at a combination of more than one in the same face or figure 
 was beyond its sphere. He was right, and here is an example 
 of the truth of his assertion. 
 
 I need not advocate to you as belonging to Style the decision 
 with which Michael Angelo portrayed the anatomy, as all that 
 relates to Style is derived from the most'profound knowledge ; 
 
ii8 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 nor the grand flow of the beard, helping as it does to emphasize 
 the line, and indicate the position of the statue ; nor again the 
 strong shadow he has thrown, by the means of his drapery, over 
 the more advanced knee, in order to call attention to the action 
 of the leg, so that the eye may catch every portion of the pose, 
 and take in the meaning of what it sees at once. All this you 
 will acknowledge without my assistance, and will appreciate the 
 more the more you study the design and method of the work. 
 I have told you already that there is in my opinion but little of 
 Michael Angelo's usual Mannerism in the figure of Moses, and 
 therefore shall not dwell here on his over-bent wrists and 
 undue marking of veins in his extremities: over-charged as 
 these peculiarities generally are, they do not obtrude themselves 
 so offensively as in many other of his works, because they are in 
 harmony with and serve the purpose of the figure ; we will put 
 them down in this instance to the credit of Style. Not so in 
 his less successful statue of David ; here the hard, marked joints^ 
 the rigidly defined tendons and protruding veins of the hands, 
 contradict the impression of youth, obliterate the poetical idea 
 of the simple shepherd boy playing on his harp, with no higher 
 notion of warfare than the use of a sling and a stone picked out 
 of the bubbling stream ; but who hereafter was to soften the 
 anger of Saul by the pathos of his music, become the ruler of 
 Israel as well as the leader of her hosts, and sing in strains of 
 the loftiest poetry the praises of his Maker, and the beauty of 
 His works. 
 
 That these pecuharities of Manner in the statue do not 
 appear so marked in the marble as in a cast, one of which 
 you have in the Kensington Museum, you will readily be- 
 lieve. The open air of the Piazza, where it formerly stood,, 
 
STYLE. 119 
 
 but whence it has now, I beheve, been removed, softens down 
 the anatomical markings, so that they who have never seen 
 the original have to make great allowance for the difference 
 in this respect between the semi-transparent marble and the 
 opaque plaster. All good workmen have to calculate on this 
 difference ; still it cannot be denied that in Michael Angelo's 
 David, the anatomy, though correct in itself, is overdone ; it 
 springs indeed from that over self-assertion that belonged to 
 the sculptor, and which showed itself not only in his artistic 
 efforts, but in every other thought and action of his life. We 
 must in this instance, I fear, put something down to the debit 
 side of Manner in his ledger of fame. That the figure is an 
 awkward one I will confess, but this may have arisen from its 
 having been cut out of a block already commenced upon for 
 another statue, and where in consequence many parts of the 
 marble had already been cut away, though it is scarcely an ex- 
 cuse for the outre treatment and exaggerated style in the mo- 
 delling. The extremities in youth, especially in youths who 
 promise to grow to the full size of manhood, are at all times, I 
 am aware, large and somewhat ungainly; but in this case 
 Michael Angelo has carried truth to a point which becomes 
 offensive, which destroys the elegance of the statue, and con- 
 veys the idea of rude fact instead of abstract truth. It is de- 
 rived, it should be recollected, not from the study of ancient 
 Greek Art, or preconceived notions of beauty, but from the 
 constant contemplation of the elegant, though perhaps some- 
 what attenuated forms of the Florentine youth then and now 
 existing. You may fancy that the dolce far niente, of which you 
 have heard so much in connection with Italy, enervates their 
 young men : but such is not exactly the case. They are not 
 
120 
 
 STYLE, 
 
 heavy feeders, and are in consequence light in their figures ; 
 the muscles, if not large, are clearly marked, more clearly even 
 in their youth than are those of the Saxon : their dark com- 
 plexion, too, gives those markings an appearance of greater 
 strength than does that of a colder climate. You have had, I 
 know, Italian men as models in your life-school lately, and can 
 but have remarked how distinct their anatomical markings are, 
 notwithstanding what we perhaps are wrong in feeling, a certain 
 want of bulk. The faces of the ItaHan workman and peasant, 
 especially those of Florence, are refined beyond anything which 
 we can conceive, perhaps because they are descendants of a 
 great though fallen people, and are imbued with a sort of 
 poetical education derived from association with better days. 
 . " Punch " in arguing that trouble was the parent of ugliness, by 
 no means an untenable doctrine, exclaimed, " What horrors we 
 shall become under the income-tax ! " May not I therefore argue 
 that noble associations leave behind them remains of what is 
 grand and beautiful ? At any rate, such is the figure we may 
 suppose to have been in the mind of Michael Angelo when he 
 created his David — Italian, not Greek. Its head, if well studied, 
 will be found full of strong character and executed with a firm 
 chisel in a masterly style ; its expression is of a haughty kind — 
 Michael Angelo was haughty. Is not this an illustration of an 
 old-established truth intimately connected with both Style and 
 Manner, and as applicable to Sculpture as to other branches of 
 Art, which is well put in Lord Lytton's novel of "Kenelm Chil- 
 lingly," where he makes him say to an amateur artist, "Nature 
 has no voice except that which man breathes into her out of his 
 mind ; the sketch you are now taking is rather an attempt to 
 make her embody some thought of your own, than to present 
 
STYLE. 
 
 121 
 
 her outlines as they appear to any other observer"? You will 
 object perhaps to the head of David as a whole, and with justice, 
 by saying that it is too large, and that its over-size helps that 
 lean gaiicherie so offensive in the figure. You will with equal 
 justice compare it in your mind with the small head universally 
 used in the antique, and turn your thoughts may be, to that 
 grand example the Theseus, the only one among the larger 
 works of Phidias in this country which has the head still re- 
 maining. You will be right in asserting that in all cases the 
 Greeks kept the shape of the skull in their statues clear in the 
 midst of the hair ; and that the hair is almost always with them 
 close, so as not to interfere with its general form, or is so relieved 
 by deep cuttings as to give as much as possible the impression 
 of lightness. The Apollo Belvidere, a copy of a Greek statue, 
 shows this principle not only by the way the hair is arranged, so 
 as to exhibit the real size of the skull from almost every view, 
 but also by the elaborate manner in which the locks are relieved. 
 
 That the old Greeks were right I need scarcely say ; if proof 
 were needed, Michael Angelo's fiead of David, where the hair 
 stands out in large and heavy masses, so much so as to convey 
 the impression of its being far too large, would give it. Hardly 
 any dexterity of execution can in fact counteract the effect of 
 heaviness in marble under such circumstances ; the solidity of 
 the material becomes your master, try what you will, and the old 
 Greeks knew this. 
 
 Michael Angelo does not seem to me to have taken this into 
 his consideration : the head of David has, as I have said before, 
 the appearance of being too large, too heavy, and this apparent 
 over-size or over-weight arises chiefly from the too great projec- 
 tion and quantity of the hair ; but surely some excuse for this 
 
122 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 may be found in the way the heads of the Lazzaroni of his 
 native country are covered. We may call to our mind their wild, 
 uncombed crops \ how they stand out in not unpicturesque, yet 
 generally over-grown masses, and recollect that Michael Angelo 
 was accustomed to contemplate their handsome faces encircled 
 by these rough yet effective frames. At any rate, it shows how 
 even this self-concentrated artist, the greatest of all, whether in 
 Style or Manner, who expressed his own self in his works more 
 than any other artist, looked out from the window of his mind 
 upon that which was about him in order to help and assist the 
 thoughts that were within. Yet I must, I fear, put down the 
 over-charged head to Manner and not to Style, because it is 
 derived from local associations, and not from well-considered 
 principles of Art ; and because moreover it helps in no degree 
 the beauty or expression of the statue. Other thoughts than 
 these suggest themselves connected with the statue of David 
 and with Style. The eye refuses to accept a figure of such 
 colossal height as a true representation of the stripling, who by 
 his slender form and minute 'size excited the ridicule of the 
 giant with his spear like a weaver's beam, when he came out to 
 battle with him; and the question naturally arises. If David was 
 as tall as this, what must Goliath have been ? The whole gist of 
 the story is indeed lost by the portraying of the heroic boy on 
 so large a scale. It makes us feel if not the impossibility, at 
 least the imprudence, of attempting to impress the character of 
 youth on a statue of such vast dimensions. I am not aware that 
 it has ever been tried in the antique. In the group of the Lao- 
 coon, the sons are diminutive in comparison with the father : I 
 dare not say they are not too diminutive, for they represent 
 almost grown-up lads, and yet would scarcely reach his 
 
STYLE. 123 
 
 shoulders if standing upright by his side. The children in the 
 Niobe group are, it is true, somewhat larger than life, but then 
 the figures of the father and mother, with whom they are placed, 
 form a scale by which they can be measured, and so the eye is 
 satisfied: not so with Michael Angelo's David, we have no 
 scale with him, and are compelled to measure him by himself 
 alone. 
 
 I have brought this well-known work to bear upon my argu- 
 ments on Style, not altogether that you should admire it, for I 
 have hinted to you that in my opinion it is not wholly success- 
 ful, but that you may be able to give it fair, unprejudiced judg- 
 ment. Amid all its faults it has many beauties, and still more 
 evidences of the peculiarity of the mind from whence it is 
 derived. I have endeavoured to show you from what source 
 those peculiarities of Style or Manner, whichever you may please 
 to call them, have sprung ; and how they have been modified 
 by outward influences. If you read me right you will at least be 
 able to enter more deeply into the thoughts of the Goliath of 
 Art, and into the amount of strength he put forth, and it will 
 prevent you, I trust, from, like David, throwing a stone at him. 
 I might descant much further on the greater works of this great 
 sculptor, the Medici Monuments, and point out to you how the 
 veihng the face under the depth of the helmet adds to the 
 mysterious thoughtfulness of the figure of Lorenzo, and so be- 
 comes a part of Style^ and how the too great length of neck in 
 that of Julio becomes Mannerism from its assisting in no way 
 either its dignity or effect. I might call your attention to the 
 over-development of muscle in his painting of Christ in his 
 grand work of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, and 
 again in the Statue of Christ in the Maria sopra Minerva 
 
124 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 Church at Rome. Michael Angelo peopled the world of his 
 imagination with giants both mental and physical — he acknow- 
 ledged acquaintance with nothing less than them — and the 
 ponderosity of form with which he sometimes invested them 
 was the exuberance of an imagination, which, like the helmet 
 in Walpole's romance of the " Castle of Otranto," grew until it 
 became too large for the dwelling which contained it. I might 
 warn you by the example of his successor, Bernini, against an 
 exaggeration in Manner which, if it did not in his case altogether 
 destroy genius, became a vice that tended to lower the Art by 
 leading it away from its right path, the expression of abstract 
 truth. 
 
 My object this evening is, however, rather to give you a true 
 idea of the meaning of the word Style, or to speak more 
 modestly, to show you what is my idea of it. With some it 
 implies simply excellence of treatment in contradiction to the 
 absence of that quality, and they read it as a Mannerism always 
 the same, and equally applicable to the carrying out in Art of 
 all subjects : they talk of a Classical Style, and think this is the 
 only adjunct that can properly be attached to it. There are 
 other meanings to the word than this, or rather its meaning is 
 capable of great extension. There is the Severe Style, perhaps 
 pretty much, though not quite, the same thing as the Classical ; 
 then there is the Gothic Style, which, clinging to a certain extent 
 to the Classical, has its own peculiar mode of expression. Then 
 again the Simple and the Florid Styles, which, it is not too much 
 to say, are directly opposed to each other ; and the Domestic 
 Style, which contradicts and entirely sets at defiance the Classi- 
 cal ; and I might even add to them the Grotesque Style, which 
 hardly claims relationship with any of them. I will endeavour 
 
STYLE. 125 
 
 to explain the difference between them, and the requirements 
 of each. 
 
 The Classical Style would be the line we should adopt in our 
 work when the subject to be treated belongs to the classical 
 days of old, when it associates itself with the grand old bards 
 whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of time, or 
 whose conceptions are of that lofty nature that they admit of 
 no minute detail, or dwelling on petty things : our illustration 
 of them should then be in the same Style, severe and simple, 
 not like every-day nature, but like a something which we all of 
 us more or less endeavour to conceive, and even long to be 
 about us \ but which can only exist ideally within ourselves, 
 more or less clear, according as we are capable of entering into 
 the feeling of the poet, or of becoming part of it ourselves. 
 Even here some slight variety is admissible; for instance, when 
 treating of a subject from Homer or any other Greek poet, I 
 would advocate a certain amount of imitation of Greek Art in 
 the working out of draperies, and other accessories, and even 
 close adhesion to the type of humanity represented in the 
 Sculpture nearest to the time and belonging to the country of 
 the writers. 
 
 The association thus gained will connect your representation 
 closer with them. An illustration in Sculpture from Homer or 
 Hesiod should, I think, be in every way Greek in Style, in Treat- 
 ment, in Manner, in fact in everything. Your Flaxman will 
 show you this: his designs from the "Iliad," from the "Odyssey," 
 and ^schylus might from their manner be the production of 
 an old Greek sculptor : not so his Dante — there he is less Greek, 
 more Italian, less severe, more fantastical ; he deals with things 
 that scarcely come strictly within the province of Sculpture, 
 
126 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 gives more licence to his imagination, and resorts to wilder 
 forms, and often to vague indications of ideas hardly capable 
 of being expressed by real modelling, though well enough 
 understood when suggested in mere outline. The error modern 
 imitators of Greek Art generally commit is exaggerating the 
 tendency to straight lines and the repetition of them prevalent 
 in the draped figures of the ancients. Thorwaldsen's admirable 
 works run into this fault. In a design from Milton you are 
 again relieved. from the necessity of imitating Greek Art, no 
 longer called upon to use the Classical Style, understanding the 
 word as I do, as meaning imitation of the old Classics of Art ; 
 but you are required to be equally severe and simple in your 
 conception and in your treatment. Your ideal personages must 
 in one sense of the word have nothing of the realities of life : 
 they must know nothing of costume of any sort ; such allusions 
 to it as exist in the poems themselves may be put down as 
 defects, though perhaps unavoidable ones, that bring them 
 nearer to every-day life, and so lower their ideality. You must 
 content yourself in your clothing of them with the difference 
 between light and heavy drapery, according as their character 
 is suited to one or the other, and recognize in no way the 
 immense varieties of texture so admirable in the representation 
 of subjects of a more familiar Style. No angels, at least none 
 with wings, were ever known to buy silks at Swan and Edgar's, 
 or run up bills at Howell and James's. 
 
 The Gothic Style, as I have said before, retains some con- 
 nection with the Classic by preserving its quiet simplicity as 
 well as its grace of line in the general attitude of its figures, and 
 the arrangement of their draperies : that it has much of 
 Mannerism cannot be denied, arising, I think, often from the 
 
STYLE, 127 
 
 mistake of the workers in it, who have fancied that rudeness 
 and exaggeration of form necessarily belonged to it. This 
 peculiarity, however, appertains only to the more decayed 
 periods, and not to the time when it rose into beauty and 
 Fine Art, as in the days of Edward I. That it had then and 
 has now a Style of its own is certain, for it had to express, and 
 does express, the tone and feehng of a religion quite distinct 
 from that of the Greeks ; less earthly or sensuous, more pure 
 and ethereal, more divine. For this reason the human form in 
 it is at all times comparatively suppressed or concealed in folds 
 of drapery which serve but slightly to convey its proportions and 
 movement. The nude is hardly admissible, at least not in the 
 larger examples of the human figure, just as humanity, whether 
 represented by the passions or by thefuU development of physical 
 strength, is put aside by the religion Gothic Art represents. 
 
 I have asserted that the Gothic Style retains, or should 
 retain, the grace of line of the Classic, but I must quahfy this 
 by saying that this is subdued by a more rigid feeling. It 
 rarely goes thoroughly into the flowing, for the reason that it 
 has little to do with movement. Life has generally ceased 
 where Gothic Art begins its story, so that her figures either lie 
 in the attitude of death, or stand motionless awaiting the future 
 resurrection into life. They no longer belong to the anxieties 
 of this world, and are, therefore, never shown as engaged in its 
 busy occupations or its ever-recurring troubles. For this reason 
 the upright and the horizontal line ever, more or less, prevail. 
 It avails itself, too, of portraiture of a more literal kind than 
 does the Classic, its object being most often to preserve the 
 true representation or likeness of those who have in life sur- 
 passed others in their efforts to gain that Kingdom where they 
 
128 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 are now supposed to have gone. The Gothic, too, has no pre- 
 scribed rules of physical beauty, and, therefore, admits with less 
 reserve character of all kinds, whether it be to carry out 
 expression or to preserve individuality ; and when thus dealing 
 with portraiture it has this advantage over the Classic, it marks 
 more distinctly the different periods of time to which its repre- 
 sentations belong, and so lends stronger aid to history. I am 
 speaking, of course, of monumental and religious Art, the only 
 things in my opinion to which the Gothic is appropriate. In a 
 domestic or homely sphere it always appears to me, perhaps 
 from my ignorance, out of place, and unsuited to the purpose. 
 There is generally a meagreness in statues that are intended to 
 adorn a Gothic building, arising from their being chiefly placed 
 in niches almost too narrow to contain them ; and in this there 
 is much that comes under the denomination of Mannerism. 
 Still, even here some pretension to the word Style may be put 
 forth, since it aids a sentiment or purpose; it shadows forth 
 that self-mortification which characterizes, more or less, all 
 creeds, but more especially the early Christian one, the origi- 
 nator of the Style. 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to you if I say, en passant, that I 
 believe the recumbent monumental figures in our middle age 
 churches were all carved from efiigies, placed upright against 
 boards (by efiigies I mean masks or faces, not improbably 
 taken from death, and dressed in the real garments that the 
 individual wore in life), and that from the model thus ingeniously 
 put together, the stone or alabaster was at once wrought. I 
 hold this opinion partly from my knowledge that it was the cus- 
 tom in those ages to carry the body of the deceased dressed in 
 his or her robes or other habiUments, in procession to the 
 
STYLE. 129 
 
 churches, a custom which would have naturally induced their 
 sculptors to adopt this method in their work, and partly from 
 the extremely literal copying in all matters of costume which we 
 find in them. My feeling that these, so to speak, models were 
 placed upright while being carved from is drawn from the fact 
 that they are without that natural plomb or fall which would 
 take place in the drapery in the horizontal position, and from 
 my own experience that a model placed upright is more handy 
 than a horizontal one, and so more likely to be chosen by such 
 as the early Christian Church were in the habit of employing — 
 for the most part men the utmost extent of whose capacity did 
 not reach beyond literal copying. You will think that I am 
 speaking disparagingly of Gothic Monumental Art, but such is 
 not exactly the case. Nobody can be more impressed with the 
 solemn grandeur of these records of the past in our splendid 
 cathedrals than I am : they compel in me when in their presence, 
 as I believe they do in every one, that highest of all praise, 
 silence. But then it should be recollected that this awe so 
 imposed upon us does not come from the statue alone; it arises 
 in part from the magnificent structures within which they are 
 placed, and from the religious associations connected with those 
 structures, and again from historical records of a lofty kind 
 belonging to the person commemorated. 
 
 Add to this the influence of sacred music, which is often heard 
 in their presence, and you are no artist if you do not feel your- 
 self subdued by a feeling that takes you away from the every-day 
 commonplaces of life into something higher, and belonging to a 
 better world. You will complain that this is mere sentiment — 
 sentimentality : perhaps it may be so, but if you have not this 
 within you you will never be sculptors in the true sense of the 
 
 K 
 
STYLE. 
 
 word, and no laying down the laws of the Art either by lectures 
 or otherwise will make you one. Sentiment governed by reason 
 is a most valuable faculty, especially in Art ; while sentiment 
 alone is a misleading madness. Remove these sacred monu- 
 mental figures from their associations, carry them out into the 
 open air, and you will find they have lost half, if not all their 
 charm, for they are most of them poor as works of Art, and do 
 not, when thus alone, contain within themselves that charm 
 which the old Greek Sculpture does, even when transported to 
 a foreign country and seen in the fragmentary state we now 
 behold it in. The Goths were, it is my belief, greater architects 
 than the Greeks, but it would be idle to assert that they were as 
 good sculptors : there is no reason, however, why the finest works 
 should not be combined with the Gothic Style, for they can be 
 made quite compatible with it, and it will be for you who have 
 the benefit of education to produce them. 
 
 Even the Florid Style, which, from my dislike to it as somewhat 
 debasing Art, I feel much inclined to stigmatize with the title of 
 Mannerism, is sometimes admissible — in fact, must be acknow- 
 ledged to be, under some circumstances, the most appropriate : 
 for instance, in the decoration of the theatre, the ball-room, 
 and other places of amusement. Surely when so placed it is 
 more in unison than any other with that elevation of the spirits 
 which is supposed to pervade the scene. 
 
 The severe, unaffected, Classical Style, would be a damper on 
 our enjoyment under such circumstances, when we are not look- 
 ing coldly on at real life, but taking, so to speak, a glance at it 
 through the coloured glass of our imagination. 
 
 Shakespeare, in his poetical drama of " The Tempest," seems 
 to give us a view of it in this Florid Style. He elevates, by his 
 
STYLE, 131 
 
 poetical imagination, the scenes he portrays, and so leads us 
 away into a realm of Ideality more florid, more enjoyable than 
 the Reality we are compelled every day to take part in. You 
 must do the same with your Art, or at any rate furnish your 
 portion in that enjoyment, and you will do it best by bending 
 it to the same feeling. 
 
 It is under such influences that high and ornamental Sculp- 
 ture most frequently join hands together, and are present, not 
 as real personages, or as representatives of particular ideas, but 
 as decorations of a scene created for the transient pleasure of 
 the moment. Your lines may now flow with greater freedom, 
 your figures perform their parts with less reserve than on other 
 occasions — your Style may, in short, be Florid. It is here, if 
 anywhere, that colour may be introduced into your statues as 
 well as into the ornaments about them. The danger is of their 
 becoming sensuous ; but the refinement, whether of design or 
 execution, which you will introduce will keep that down in the 
 same way as the great Dramatist has done in the fairy tale I 
 have just alluded to. There are scenes and characters in that 
 which connect it with the lower features of humanity, and so 
 preserve a relationship to the Real, which no imaginative work, 
 whether of Art or Literature, should be entirely without ; whilst 
 there are others, the creation of a poetic fancy, which serve to 
 lift us upwards into the realms of Ideality, and make us the 
 better for the enjoyment we receive. You will say I am myself 
 soaring into the region of rodomontade, and losing the prac- 
 tical : perhaps I am. I will descend and tell you that you need 
 not feel yourself so strictly bound by rule in this Style as in 
 the others. Your forms are not required to be so true to the 
 modesty of Nature as they are generally; they may be made 
 
132 
 
 STYLE, 
 
 more effective by a departure from truth, or at any rate an exag- 
 geration of fact. With those proportions which Nature has 
 given to different objects of her creation you may deal freely^ 
 altering them to suit your own purposes of expression or effect. 
 I will put before you Cellini as the highest example in this 
 walk of Art. Strictly speaking, he is an ornamentalist, but he 
 sometimes attempts high Art, where there is often with him a 
 lack of correct proportion — for instance, in his statue of Perseus, 
 where the over-ornamentation hardly hides from a practical eye 
 the want of proper balance of parts. Sometimes, indeed, in his 
 metal works, he uses this freedom as a licence which serves the 
 Style to which his work belongs, and so answers the purpose he 
 has in view : he is rarely, if ever, quite natural, though always 
 Florid in his Style, and always effective. 
 
 Of the Grotesque Style I need not say much ; it springs out of 
 the last-named by excess, when sculptors of talent get drunk with 
 their Art, just as an extra glass of brandy extracts out of one 
 man wit, while it makes another additionally stupid. 
 
 There are those, however, who have been great in it, as in 
 other Styles, as for instance, the man I have just named ; but it 
 was in him, I think, the result of an overwhelming conceit acting 
 upon a mind of original genius, but debauched by excesses of 
 another kind. 
 
 I will content myself, therefore, with warning you to avoid this 
 feeling, — this Style. If you have Cellini's genius, the abstaining 
 from it will make your Art better ; if you have not, I know by 
 experience what the just one drop more will produce. 
 
 I will finish my lecture by alluding to what I call the Domestic 
 Style, equally admissible with any other in Sculpture, though 
 only available for subjects coming under the term indicated. 
 
STYLE, 133 
 
 Your appeal must be made here, not to the head, but to the 
 heart. You have to do with the homely feelings, the domestic 
 occupations and enjoyments of e very-day life, and your treat- 
 ment may in consequence be more literal, your tale more clearly 
 and simply told, your dresses in the female figure may be more 
 -closely copied, though never without something of that grace of 
 line on which Hogarth so lovingly dwells. They accommodate 
 themselves readily to it — indeed, often possess it without any 
 treatment or alteration in Art, as may be seen by any artist who 
 does not shut his eyes to the beautiful about him. You have 
 in this Style the opportunity of introducing more details, and 
 they may often be made to help the story you wish to indicate. 
 The sahots of the French peasant will tell of her hard path 
 through life, and the coarse yet neat material in which she is 
 -clothed will speak of her lowly wants and contented mind, while 
 ■engaged in the most loving and pleasure-giving occupation of a 
 fond mother. In the male figure, however, servile copying of 
 costume is apt to run into the ugly and ungainly; the harsh 
 material of which it is composed, the tasteless shapes into which 
 it is cut, the awkward bearing of the wearer, and the rough usage 
 it is liable to, all render it unfit for representation in Sculpture. 
 Avoid it as well as you can ; without the most liberal treatment 
 it is apt to jar rudely against the key-stone of your Art, which 
 should never be lost sight of — Beauty. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 IDEALISM AND REALISM IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 OU may think it strange that I should commence 
 my lecture by a dissertation on the relative value 
 of Idealism and Realism in the Art of Sculpture. 
 The principles of the profession are so self-evident, 
 its mode of working so simple, that there is little or nothing 
 required from a lecturer, and still less that can be taught by him 
 in words alone. It is this that, in my opinion, renders the 
 lectures of Flaxman, who showed by his works such thorough 
 knowledge of the theory of his Art, so ineffective compared 
 with those works, except in some few parts where he treats on the 
 movements of figures and on the flowings of drapery. The theory 
 of Art is, in fact, even when well understood, difficult to convey 
 in language, and practical instruction can be carried on in the 
 schools only, with the modelling-tool in hand, and the clay to- 
 operate upon. The circumstance, too, that the Royal Academy 
 does not think Sculpture worthy of much assistance in that way 
 renders the task of the lecturer at his desk, if not less difficult 
 at any rate less effective. 
 
 I therefore take what I have already named as the subject 
 for this evening, convinced that there is nothing so helps the 
 
IDEALISM AND REALISM IN SCULPTURE. 135 
 
 student in his progress as a thorough understanding of the 
 limits and purposes of his Art, and a due appreciation of its 
 means and capabilities. That a certain amount of both these 
 qualities, Idealism and Realism, is necessary to success in a 
 work of Sculpture, you will readily understand and I will as 
 readily confess j but I fancy I see, in our more recent exhibi- 
 tions, a too great tendency towards the latter— Realism : and I 
 feel it my duty, as your lecturer, to warn you of its tendency 
 to lower the quality of your Art, though it may help to the 
 momentary success of those who most lend themselves to it. 
 This is, at any rate, my opinion, and, if so, I am bound, whether 
 right or wrong, to give it to you. There are dangers in success 
 as well as advantages, and I fancy we are experiencing at the 
 present moment both the one and the other, perhaps not only 
 in Sculpture, but in the other branches of Art as well ; and 
 believing this, it is certainly my duty to warn you against the 
 one, as well as to explain to you the other. 
 
 You may tell me the public taste is leading you towards 
 Realism — that it is looking for it more than for Idealism ; but 
 that is beside the question. The business of the artist, whatever 
 branch of the profession he may be following, is to lead the 
 public in the way it should go, not to let the whims and fancies 
 of the public lead him out of the proper channels of his calling. 
 
 I will confess, indeed I think you will have already discovered, 
 that I am before you as a witness on the side of IdeaHsm, and 
 consequently an unwilling one on the side of Realism. 
 
 I am engaged by the Academy, I believe, to advocate the one 
 and not the other— at least there is an understanding to that effect; 
 and I am sure the Academy is right in laying down this rule for 
 the lecturer. I have never, in fact, heard any artist attempt to 
 
136 IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 uphold the doctrine of entire Realism for Sculpture, unless it be 
 men who, though possessing the faculty of imitating what they 
 see on their canvas or marble, are totally uneducated, and 
 consequently totally ignorant of the theory of Art ; and I will 
 assert this, notwithstanding a tendency that exists at the present 
 moment to Realism in Painting, not altogether detrimental to 
 it. To check in some degree the following of its sister Art in 
 this respect by Sculpture is, in fact, the object of my lecture of 
 the evening. 
 
 Before beginning my argument, I should like if possible to 
 remove an impression which seems to me to prevail just now 
 among some not altogether disinterested in their views, that 
 Sculpture, because of its more simple means, is necessarily 
 inferior to the other Arts. That each professor should feel 
 strongly and love ardently the calling to which he belongs is 
 natural, he would hardly go through his duty in right earnest 
 without that partiality for it ; but he should recollect that there 
 are difficulties as well as advantages in those to which he does 
 not belong, as well as in those which his taste or feeling has led 
 him to practise. 
 
 The simplicity of means of which I have just spoken not 
 only causes difficulties peculiar to the Art of Sculpture, but 
 creates advantages that may be said to be entirely its own. It 
 prevents it, like a Cerberus, from descending to the lower 
 regions of the vulgar and commonplace, and restricts its efforts 
 to the realm of the sublime and beautiful. Depend upon it 
 whenever a work contains no item of either of these two quali- 
 ties, the sublime or the beautiful, it is a failure, however, as far 
 as imitation is concerned, it may be well modelled, or even well 
 arranged. 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 137 
 
 Otherwise than this it can only be placed among the repul- 
 sive, and consequently useless, or in the same category with 
 lap-dogs, and be called a toy, and so serve no higher purpose 
 than that of pleasing old maids or love-sick girls. Sculpture 
 approaches nearer the sublime from the limited means by 
 which it works, in the same way as does Poetry, which always 
 avails itself of the simplest words when aiming at the highest 
 expression. " God said. Let there be light, and there was light," 
 is the most sublime expression contained in that most sublime 
 of all works, the Bible, because it conveys the greatest, the 
 grandest idea by the most simple language. And so it may be 
 to a certain extent with your Art. The more simple the means 
 you resort to, the more broadly you deal with the abstract ; the 
 more you leave it undisturbed by minute detail, the more sub- 
 lime will be the result. The absence of profuse means is the 
 friend that will help you to success, and teach you to walk in 
 the narrow path that leadeth to the right end. As I have 
 before said, I am here more particularly to testify to the cause 
 of Idealism. I will endeavour, however, to be myself the Ser- 
 jeant Buzfuz, ' and undertake, by virtue of my brief, my own 
 cross-examination ; and so I trust you will arrive at the right 
 verdict. I have already, indeed, been compelled to admit the 
 necessity of a certain amount of Realism, in order to give sub- 
 stance to the work ; but I shall hardly succeed in twisting out 
 of myself, even when I put on my wig, that in principle truth is 
 fact or fact truth. You may admire the character of your 
 friend Mr. Gradgrind, in Dickens's " Hard Times," but it will be 
 hard times for your Art when you come to unite in it these two 
 words, fact and truth, under one and the same meaning. 
 
 I will now endeavour to give a definition of the two words 
 
IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 Idealism and Realism, as taken separately from each other, and 
 as applied to our Art. Idealizing, as I understand it, is the 
 abstracting from Nature that which enables the sculptor to 
 represent her meaning and intention in her various departments, 
 whatever they may be, not those mere accidents or pecuHarities 
 that exist in each individual example, in many, if not all in- 
 stances, weak or defective. These defects Idealism omits or 
 supplies the place of, according to circumstances. 
 
 Taking the word in a wider sense, Idealism seems to imply a 
 greater power still — that of creating something that is altogether 
 independent of Nature ; but in this sense there is no such thing 
 as Ideality, or power of idealizing, either in Art or in any other 
 mode of expression. We create nothing, we merely recombine 
 in different modes that which is put before us by a greater 
 power. The true idealist does not turn his back on Nature, or 
 fancy that he can carry out his thoughts without her ; on the 
 contrary, he looks upon her as upon his mistress, sees nothing 
 in her but beauties, and is bhnd to all but her charms. In this 
 respect Idealism and ReaHsm are, after all, not so opposed to 
 each other as they at first seem to be ; for they are both derived 
 from truth, though in one sense it is theoretical truth, in the 
 other simply the truth, or rather, I should say, the fact of the 
 moment. The difference consists mostly in the manner in which 
 Nature is looked upon by the artist— whether with the loving eye 
 of a fond child, or with the sulky scowl of an indifferent cub. 
 
 I have in former lectures endeavoured to persuade you, 
 perhaps not altogether successfully, that utility is beauty and 
 beauty utility. I may say that I continue still to hold the same 
 opinion, and that I have since been pleased by observing that 
 Mr. Gladstone, who, from the universality of his mind, may be 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 139 
 
 said to be an authority in Art as well as in other things, advo- 
 cated very nearly, if not exactly, the same opinion in his address 
 at Greenwich. This utility, or beauty^ is the Idealism I am en- 
 deavouring to explain to you, and for which I would wish you 
 to strive. The abstract of Nature is, in fact, the essence of the 
 abstract Art, Sculpture. 
 
 Idealism is not, as has been sometimes absurdly imagined, 
 the centralizing of all forms into one in Art, but a full and 
 unalloyed display of each in its own department. 
 
 Thus the Ideahsm of the Apollo Belvidere, of the Farnese 
 Hercules, and of the Fighting Hero, is each quite different of its 
 kind — the representative of a different phase in Nature, having 
 a different purpose in view and different intentions to carry out. 
 In every one of them the Ideal is attained by different roads. 
 In the first the muscular display is softened down in order to 
 bring forward the spiritual character, while in the second it is 
 given in a strong and even exaggerated manner, which at once 
 lowers him to the grade of a demi-god; while again, in the third, 
 natural strength is portrayed, and thus he becomes human 
 only, though of the most perfect kind. That there should be 
 more of the Ideal and less of the Real in one than the other, 
 will be obvious to you ; and it may be a lesson to you as to 
 what proportion of one and the other you are called upon to 
 make use of in the different instances of your work. 
 
 You will tell me that the peculiarity of these figures consists 
 in Character, not Idealism, and in a different mixing of that 
 quahty with Idealism. That is true to a certain extent, for 
 Character is a term whose meaning in Art runs very closely on 
 Realism, so closely that, though they are by no means the same, 
 it is sometimes diflacult to separate them. The one is the re- 
 
140 IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 presentation of what belongs to a particular class, distinguishing 
 that class from all others ; the other is the representation of a 
 fact that may belong at any moment to any individual or class 
 and yet be the property of none : but do you not, when en- 
 deavouring to personify such beauty as these examples repre- 
 sent, take an Ideal of each as a centre for your model ? It is 
 because of the absence of individual character that the figure of 
 Adam is so difficult to personify, or rather, because of the wide 
 field in Nature he is called upon to represent. In Michael 
 Angelo's fresco of "The Creation of Man" in the Sistine Chapel, 
 one of the grandest works of Art in existence, wonderful as is 
 the drawing, the figure is, after all, no more Adam than Her- 
 cules, and becomes, from the unavoidable absence of this indi- 
 viduality, the Ideal of physical man. Without doubt Michael 
 Angelo intended it simply as an illustration of the passage 
 *'God created man in His own image," and took the name 
 Adam in its real meaning — the first man. All artists, and 
 sculptors in particular, should study this work, and more 
 especially the figure itself, commonly called Adam ; there is in 
 it a knowledge of form of which the English school of Art is 
 singularly deficient. 
 
 . I need not give you examples of Idealism in Sculpture, the 
 whole antique of Greek Art will serve that purpose. Its thorough 
 Idealism, its complete abstraction of the beautiful from Nature, 
 is the one feature that has given it its superiority over every 
 other age or country. In the best days of Phidias, and even of 
 his scholars, there was but one aim : Nature was looked upon 
 only with one view, that of understanding and representing her 
 meaning and her efforts at attaining perfection in her various 
 grades, whether of animate or inanimate life. Each sculptor 
 
IN SCULPTURE, 141 
 
 may have taken his favourite walk : Phidias may have chosen 
 the more noble, Praxiteles the more beautiful; but each one 
 strove to carry out for himself a something more noble and 
 more beautiful than anything he could find, or hope to find, 
 about him. And it is because their aim was based on this broad 
 principle, and not obstructed by the whims and vagaries of 
 fashion, that it succeeded in producing, and in handing down, 
 a standard of Ideal Beauty which, though not followed at the 
 present moment, is now accepted as such in the same degree 
 as it was in the days when it was discovered. We have heard 
 much of the beauty of the ancient Greek race, and of the 
 manners and customs of that people which tended to develop 
 that beauty among them ; but it would be absurd to suppose 
 that they found perfect examples, and that their Art was merely 
 imitative. 
 
 The god-like grandeur of their Jupiter, the archangeHc 
 elegance of their Apollo, the severe and dignified beauty of 
 their Minerva, were conceptions of the Ideal, derived from a 
 poetical mind fully imbued with the beauty of what is around 
 it, and thoroughly understanding the principles on which that 
 beauty is constructed. Antique Roman Art had still for a time 
 its Ideal in Sculpture, but it was less than that of the Greeks, 
 though in point of execution its works are often equal to 
 them. The fellow-countrymen of Socrates and Plato, who 
 worked out for themselves the Ideal of moral philosophy, had 
 already worked out that of Sculpture, and were superior to the 
 Romans because a more refined, a more imaginative and deep- 
 thinking people, though perhaps hardly so robust. 
 
 In the time of Constantine this IdeaHsm had sunk with the 
 latter people before its antagonist, Realism ; and so Sculpture 
 
142 IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 fell into the matter-of-fact and commonplace, though it had 
 still kept up its rank in the days of Augustus, depending, how- 
 ever, more on elaborate ornamentation and exquisite workman- 
 ship than on Ideal purity of form. 
 
 In the mediaeval ages, when Sculpture rose again after a lapse 
 of years from that long death which had overtaken it owing to 
 the total change in that Ideal which had been its support in its 
 pagan days, it again attained a standing by once more adopting 
 an Ideal of its own. Sculpture was even then still aiming at an 
 Idealism, though of a more religious and spiritual kind, and for 
 that reason less adapted to its means. In the earlier or pagan 
 times physical beauty was the representative of mental excel- 
 lence, whereas in the later Christian ones the absence of beauty 
 was considered almost essential to the presence of moral or 
 religious excellence; at any rate an Ideal of bodily weakness 
 was taken as a standard, and this, apart from association, is apt 
 to connect itself with anything but perfection. 
 
 Michael Angelo, the great man of his time — the representative, 
 in fact, of Sculpture in the middle ages — adopted an Idealism 
 of his own rather philosophical than religious ; and it is this 
 that has made his reputation, as well as created that distinctive 
 character we so reverence in his works. I have said it was an 
 Idealism of his own, not so pure, nor to my mind as lofty as 
 that of the antique, for there is an earthly quality in it that 
 lowers it in comparison with the godlike conceptions of the 
 Greeks. His beings are giants in dimensions, and often giants 
 in mental capacity; but still they are inhabitants of this 
 material world, not entirely creations of that Ideal one we all 
 endeavour to conceive and bring before us. I do not say this 
 to his detriment — on the contrary, it is to his credit, as showing 
 
IN SCULPTURE, 143 
 
 the original grasp of his imaginative mind, and his ability to 
 create for himself an Ideal totally distinct from that of the 
 antique, and representing Nature in a new phase, of which we 
 had, even with the aid of that antique, perhaps little or no con- 
 ception. If the beings he put forth by his Art do not belong 
 to the seventh heaven, they are at least inhabitants of a region 
 higher than our own— creatures that unite in themselves some- 
 thing of a godlike nature, and yet retain a something of our 
 humanity that leads us upwards on our road to that heaven of 
 Art, the Ideal. There is, in truth, just enough of ReaHsm in 
 them to connect them with our own race, while their Idealism 
 leads us to place them on high as belonging to the nobility of 
 Art. That this his Ideal was influenced, perhaps lowered in a 
 degree, by his love of display in anatomy, in which he was so 
 learned, I can hardly deny ; though whether it most helped the 
 Ideahsm or the Realism of his productions it would be difficult 
 to decide : there is much of both in all he did, and it enabled 
 the two to meet in them on higher ground. The outUne-draw- 
 ing called his canon of proportions betrays something of carica- 
 ture, or of what may be termed bravura character : it might 
 almost be quoted as an example, not of the proverb that a 
 little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but of a too great know- 
 ledge being dangerous. That, however, would be an absurd view 
 of the question ; it shows, indeed, how he revelled in his mastery 
 of Art, how he played with it in his work, as a spoilt child does 
 with his toy, until he almost destroys it in his exuberance of 
 spirits. If you care to obtain a photograph of this drawing, you 
 will find in it, in spite of a certain boastful style, every part in 
 its right proportion, and portrayed with a power that could only 
 be derived from the most profound knowledge, accompanied 
 
144- IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 by the most complete command of hand. It appears to say to 
 the beings he created on the Medici Monuments and elsewhere, 
 " See how thoroughly I understand you, and, strong as you are, 
 how thoroughly I am in every respect your master." 
 
 There is no necessity, however, for cautioning the student 
 against the idea that a too great knowledge of anatomy or of 
 any other part of his profession is likely to lead him astray : it 
 did not do so with Michael Angelo, and I will be responsible 
 that it will not with the student ; on the contrary, it was one of 
 the means by which the great artist of the middle ages was 
 enabled to display outwardly that inward Ideal with which he 
 was so strongly imbued, without which means his productions 
 would have been wild and purposeless exaggerations, causing 
 in the spectator the smile of contempt instead of the silence of 
 profound respect. 
 
 I think, however, I may leave the student in full confidence 
 that he will imitate neither the Idealism nor the style of Michael 
 Angelo, though there are some who have, to their own detri- 
 ment, attempted a forgery of it ; but I have found it generally 
 one of the first symptoms of their decay in Art. The original 
 owner of the work has invariably been proved to their cost, as 
 in the fable of the Bees and Wasps, by the work itself ; and the 
 forger has been condemned, like forgers of another kind, to 
 tread, for a certain time at least, in the footsteps of those who 
 are continually striving to get upwards, yet never rise a degree 
 higher. 
 
 It is to the antique that I must refer the student in search of 
 examples of the Ideal ; but he must not look at it after the 
 manner of the antiquary, who, with his eyes placed in the back 
 of his head, always fancies he is advancing while he is really 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 145 
 
 going back. Viewed in this way, the antique has for many 
 years sat on modern Art, Hke the old man on the back of 
 Sindbad the Sailor, weighing down all its efforts at doing good, 
 and perverting it from the right road. The student may take 
 the fine forms and adopt the simplicity of treatment shown in 
 it j he may learn from it the principles of beauty laid down in 
 it ; but he must make his Art express the manners and feelings 
 of the present day, and connect itself with the associations on 
 which our age loves to dwell, and expects it to appeal. By 
 attending to these hints, he will cause Sculpture to serve the 
 purpose for which it was intended, and, I believe, create a new 
 Ideal that shall be recognized equally with the old one, if it be 
 not quite of the same lofty kind. There are other dangers than 
 these from too servile an adhesion to the antique : the student, 
 from a too close following of the classical, may become pedantic 
 in his style, may annihilate within himself that original mode 
 of expression which I would advise him to keep safe and 
 sound in all he does, and may lose all those associations 
 which connect him with those for whom he has to work. He 
 has not only to answer to what is required of him by the public, 
 but to bring forward something peculiarly belonging to himself, 
 by which he may teach that public new modes of thinking and 
 new views of his Art. 
 
 This is quite distinct from following the whims and fancies 
 that may prevail at the moment. In the latter case the Art 
 becomes the servant of the public taste, following the errors of 
 the period, and even helping it downward in its evil course. 
 Without laying too much stress on the notion that Art is, 
 or should be, an instructor, I would say decidedly that this 
 running after the public is not the purpose for which it should 
 
 L 
 
146 IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 be used. The pedantry to which I have alluded arises from 
 the sculptor taking ancient Art instead of Nature as his 
 primary source, and his so becoming a mere manufacturer of 
 modern antiques that pretend to be old without bearing the 
 real stamp of age upon them, and so are valued neither by the 
 antiquary nor by those whose feelings and associations go with 
 more modern days. 
 
 Could we even rival the productions of Art of anci.ent ages 
 by these means we should be doing no good. We should be wor- 
 shipping at a wrong shrine : the Ideal of the Greeks is gone. 
 
 One of the reasons, indeed, I believe, that Sculpture fails 
 to soar in modern times to such a height in Idealism is, not 
 the want of ability in the sculptors, but that either the Ideal 
 itself is completely changed, or has assumed a phase of a less 
 poetic type than of old, or that the world does not look so much 
 to the Arts for expressing it. The Ideal that is now expected 
 is of a more indefinite nature, and for that reason less adapted 
 to the Art of Sculpture. Science has taken the place of the 
 Arts, and created for the thinking man an Ideal of its own, not 
 less sublime or inspiring, but of a totally different kind — has 
 divided, like a prism, the light of modern days into many 
 colours, and Art is but one among the many. Still it is the 
 business of the sculptor to take that one as it is, and display it 
 in the clearest and brightest manner, not waste his days in re- 
 gretting the time when it was almost in itself the representation 
 of that white light, the concentration of all others. 
 
 We have the Dutch school of Painting, in which close imita- 
 tion or Realism is shown, and again, the Italian, in which 
 Idealism is acknowledged as the proper and prevailing feature. 
 Both are appreciated ; but I will say, without fear of contra- 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 147 
 
 diction, that the latter stands, in the estimation of all who com- 
 prehend the real purposes of Art, on the highest platform. In 
 the former. Realism is carried to its fullest extent, though in 
 addition to this, it must be confessed that it contains a painted 
 history and faithful representation of the manners and customs 
 of the people to whom it belongs. This, indeed, to my mind, is 
 the true charm of the Dutch school, though I can hardly say 
 that the Realism which they endeavoured to introduce into 
 their Sculpture, as every one must have observed who has 
 visited the Low Countries, was as successful. 
 
 The latter school, the Italian, rejects to a certain extent 
 Realism, or only takes that much of it as helps it to its purpose 
 of lifting the thoughts to the holy and religious, or, in other 
 words, to the Ideal of the sublime and beautiful. It has an 
 Idealism of its own, whose companion Realism is only so far as 
 it draws with it the sympathies of the spectator, and makes him 
 feel that the lesson intended is applicable to himself The 
 heads and figures of the Disciples in the picture of " The Trans- 
 figuration " are as much conceptions of the Ideal as that of the 
 Saviour Himself, but having just as much of the real in them as 
 shall connect them with every-day humanity, and at the same 
 time retain for them their proper place and relative value in the 
 work. 
 
 The Maniac Boy, too, on whom the chief interest is centred, 
 is not a portrait of individual suffering, but a conception or Ideal 
 that warns us of our infirmities, and excites our fellow-sympathy 
 with trouble. This, the Italian school, is the one which revived 
 the Art of Sculpture in the middle ages, and in that Art it ad- 
 hered even more closely to Idealism, and rejected even more 
 fully Realism than it did in Painting. It was, in fact, by a 
 
I4S IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 strict adhesion to the practice of Idealizing that it attained that 
 greatness which is now recognized as its attribute. 
 
 I am again running back to the advocacy of what I am my- 
 self most fond ; but in doing so I will endeavour to be more 
 practical than I have hitherto been this evening, by reminding 
 you that Sculpture has not within itself the means for Realism 
 that Painting has. It possesses no power in colour, for even if 
 you profess to justify the use of it in the Art, it can be but in a 
 very limited manner, and must be applied at all times to one 
 and the same surface. You will say that the case is similar in 
 this respect with painters and their canvas, but with them the 
 power exists of representing atmospheric effects, distance of ob- 
 jects one from another, and even variety of material, to a far 
 greater extent than in Sculpture. 
 
 The latter Art has little or nothing of linear, and still less of 
 aerial perspective at its command ; nor can it so arrange its. 
 lights and shades as to produce one permanent effect, for they 
 are changing every hour of the day, even when the work itself 
 is immovable : whereas, with the painters, all this is contained 
 within the thing itself, is much the same at all times, and is so 
 arranged by the artist as to act in combination for the express- 
 ing of the one idea he wishes to portray. The purpose to which 
 all these means — light and shade, colour, linear and aerial per- 
 spective — mostly tend is Reahsm, for they serve to deceive the 
 eye, or at any rate to carry out such a degree of deception as 
 shall leave the mind free to contemplate the real motive of the 
 work. That they may be made to serve Idealism in a secondary 
 way must be acknowledged, in the saine way that it must be 
 always confessed that they often, when carried too far, become 
 the means of impeding it. 
 
IN SCULPTURE, 149 
 
 The use of colour in Dutch Sculpture, to which I have already 
 alluded, combined with impurity of form, helps to lower their 
 work by imparting to it a too familiar character ; and the use of 
 perspective, from the circumstance that it must ever be false 
 except when viewed from onejparticular point, serves to take it 
 out of the province of the Art. 
 
 To what, then, must the student resort in the want of these 
 means, or in the Hmited use of them ? To Idealism, the essence 
 of his Art, to which all the powers of imitation he may gain 
 in the schools should be subservient — to the abstract of Nature, 
 which he will best understand by a search into her inner struc- 
 ture, and a contemplation of her many examples, defective 
 though they be when viewed one by one separately. I think I 
 hear you say, You have told us nothing as yet of Realism in 
 Sculpture, though you acknowledged it to be to a certain extent 
 of service in the Art. I will now say something. 
 
 Realism may serve, by contrast, to heighten the Ideal, though 
 it should not form the essence of your work. It is, when 
 joined with that Ideal, a scale by which you may measure and 
 decide upon the amount of Idealism called for in what you are 
 doing. It will help your imagination to rebound from the earth 
 like a ball, and so rise to a greater height in that Ideal than it 
 would by its own natural force ; or it will, when mixed with that 
 Ideal, be the means of modifying parts so as to lead you up 
 gradually to the apex of Idealism to which your statue or group 
 strives to climb. I have already mentioned the picture of "The 
 Transfiguration " as an example of this. The figures of the 
 Apostles may be said to partake partly of Realism, or to consist 
 of a modified Idealism that assists us upwards to the truly Ideal 
 representation of the Saviour, which thus becomes more com- 
 
150 IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 prehensible by the eye being naturally led up by steps to it, and 
 its having the contrast of a lesser Idealism surrounding it. This, 
 you will recollect, is Raphael's work, whom we all know ; but I 
 cannot say if you will recollect the productions of a late member 
 of the Academy, Westall, who, from the want of this modifica- 
 tion of the Ideal in his works, imbued them with a vapid and 
 inane feeling that rendered them uninteresting, and at the same 
 time false to Nature. He had a strong notion within himself of 
 the Ideal, but did not perceive the necessity of modifying it by 
 Character or Realism, so as to connect them with the truth of 
 Nature. This is quite distinct from that peculiarity found in 
 the works of a far greater contemporary artist, Stothard. With 
 him there was an equal conception of the Ideal, but it was 
 tinged, I may say tainted, not so much by Realism as by a 
 certain Mannerism that led him away equally from truth — nulli- 
 fied, in fact, to a certain extent that variety which should, under 
 any circumstances, exist. 
 
 In both it was Mannerism, but Mannerism arising from 
 different sources. In one case it arose from a notion that 
 nothing was admissible in Art but a certain type of Ideal 
 beauty he had conceived within himself; in the other, by an 
 unconscious manner that grew out of himself and increased as 
 age came on, until at last, without obliterating many beauties 
 in his compositions, it rendered all his figures, to a certain 
 extent, alike. I am not comparing the two, for in the essentials 
 of Art there was no comparison to be made. Stothard was one 
 of the greatest composers England has produced, but I cannot 
 say exactly the same of Westall ; though I may excuse him by 
 reminding you that he was not the only one of his time who ran 
 into the error of imagining that Idealism consisted in centraliz- 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 151 
 
 ing all human forms into one. My wish in calling up these 
 departed spirits of the Academy is, that they should give their 
 testimony to the truth of what I am endeavouring to impress 
 upon you, viz., that the Ideal is the gathering together of all 
 the qualities that constitute the essence in Nature of particular 
 characters or divisions, and the throwing aside all that does not 
 belong to them. The examples I have chosen are taken from 
 a different branch of Art from mine, but they are equally 
 appHcable to it. Idealism should be accompanied and sup- 
 ported by Realism in Sculpture as in Painting, the only difference 
 being that in the former Idealism should prevail in a greater 
 degree, as its more essential quaUty. I come sometimes, when 
 dreaming of my Art, to the opinion that it is the same in this 
 respect in Literature, and in case the gentleman engaged on the 
 side of Realism should tell me that dreaming cannot be taken as 
 evidence in court, I will add that I am of the same opinion 
 now, when I am as wide awake as at most times. Take for 
 example " The Tempest," by Shakespeare, one of the most 
 imaginative and truest artists that ever lived — true because he 
 understood so thoroughly the internal anatomy of human 
 nature, and imaginative because he made that knowledge the 
 means of soaring high into the Ideal, without striving to attain 
 that still greater height where no human thought can breathe 
 or live. Where would be the Ideal beings he created in his 
 drama without their earthly contrast ? Should we be able to feel 
 and believe in the tricksy Ariel, who Hes under the cowslip's 
 bell and rides on the curl'd clouds, yet is brought in con- 
 nection with us by having, for a time, to undergo the troubles 
 of humanity ? Should we thoroughly feel and understand his 
 Idealism unaccompanied by the contrast of the drunken butler 
 
IDEALISM AND REALISM 
 
 Stephano, who supplies wine to the imagination, and his jesting 
 companion Trinculo, who adds his sparkle to the beverage, 
 or again, by the monster Caliban, who, buried in the filthy 
 earth of his evil passions, is in himself a true Ideal, though 
 founded on the Realism of human nature ? he lies grovelling 
 below, but is the foundation upon which is erected all that 
 beautiful structure of the Ideal which rises above him. The 
 great magician who regulates the whole knew that, without 
 these accompaniments and contrasts, the human mind could 
 scarcely soar with him into those glorious visions he displays 
 at the marriage of Ferdinand and Miranda — the union of the 
 pure with the beautiful. You may take, again, if you like, the 
 " Midsummer-Night's Dream." Should we enter as thoroughly 
 into the spirit of the mischievous Puck, or see him in our 
 imagination sitting on his mushroom and planning his wicked 
 tricks with the same gusto and enjoyment in the absence of 
 the vulgar being who is taken for a while out of himself, and so 
 becomes the creator of an Ideal, foreign, perhaps, to his every- 
 day nature, but not the less beautiful for the poet to contem- 
 plate ? The Ideal, again, in this instance, is raised still higher 
 from its emanating out of the low and commonplace, in the 
 same way as the conceited clown gains interest with us from 
 his connection with creations of an Ideal kind. Without that 
 association he would be but a real donkey, and might have been 
 sold at Smithfield, instead of having for a while an ass's head 
 placed on his shoulders that lifts him out of himself into a 
 pleasure not properly his own. You may find, too, in the play 
 of "Pyramus and Thisbe," introduced into the piece, a sly satire 
 on that over-classical style which is apt to become a too-pre- 
 vailing feature in Sculpture — that is, if you like to look at it in 
 
IN SCULPTURE. 153 
 
 that light. All this is arranged by the mind of the master, not 
 the work of chance or accident ; and the sculptor may apply 
 the lesson to his Art, and, in my opinion, be a gainer by it. 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to string together a few arguments 
 for your consideration on the relative value in Sculpture of 
 IdeaHsm and Realism — not, perhaps, in the best possible man- 
 ner, but certainly in a sincere and truthful feeling, according to 
 the light that is in me. They are such as have struck me in 
 the course of many hours of quiet consideration— the best I have 
 been able to give. You may find them of some value or of 
 none. I do not mind, indeed, confessing to you an inward 
 suspicion that the question may have been looked upon more 
 in the light of an earnest advocate than in that of an impartial 
 judge; for it is very difficult for me — indeed, for any one, to free 
 himself from foregone prejudices. Of this you have to judge 
 yourselves; you have to give your verdict for or against the 
 argument, or you may imitate the canny Scot, and deliver your 
 verdict as ''not proven." But if my lecture serves only to create 
 discussion within yourselves, you will be the gainer, whether I 
 have been right or wrong in what I have said. You may, if you 
 please — indeed, I should like you to — take me argumentativelyby 
 the collar, and give me a good shake ; and though you will, by 
 so doing, shake nothing much out of an obstinate old fellow 
 like me, you will gain strength within yourselves by the exertion 
 used for the purpose, and so my object will have been gained. 
 
 All I ask of you is, that if you succeed in overthrowing me, 
 it shall be, not by trickery or unfair blows, but according to the 
 rules of fair play in the ring. One word more as postscript; it 
 may, perhaps, like the lady's, contain the chief purport of the 
 letter. Do not imagine me ignorant of the difference between 
 
1 54 IDEALISM AND REALISAI IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 Character and Realism. They are, I know, quite distinct, though 
 nearer allied one to another than to Idealism, and I have, for 
 this reason, ranged them on the same side in the battle, and 
 may be, in some instances, confused them ; but you are at 
 liberty to use which you please, the result in either case will be 
 the same. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 E have just passed through a period when Colour was 
 attempted to be introduced into modern Sculpture, 
 and seemed for a time not unlikely to re-establish 
 itself in the Art. I am not certain, in fact, that the 
 
 experiment has even yet entirely lost its hold, though it can 
 scarcely be said to have made much advance. Perhaps, for 
 this reason, the present day — when the first furore has gone by, 
 and quieter deliberation on the advantages or disadvantages 
 that may arise from its introduction is supposed to be going 
 on — is the proper one for considering the question, as we are less 
 likely to exhibit violent enthusiasm for or bigoted antagonism 
 to it. It may be of advantage, too, to the student to have his 
 mind always thinking, even though he be unable to come to 
 any conclusion, on the subject : I propose therefore to take it 
 in hand this evening. 
 
 You must allow me to commence by bringing before you, 
 first of all, the name of that truly eminent sculptor Gibson, 
 who was, as you know, the chief, if not the only apostle of the 
 doctrine, and to analyze his character as an artist; not with 
 the view of entirely upsetting what he thought or felt, but with 
 the object of allotting to it its due value and proper influence. 
 
156 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 I trust I shall do so in a liberal and modest spirit, giving 
 Gibson credit for all he deserves, and acknowledging the ex- 
 cellence of his refined and truly classical works, as well as the 
 delicate taste with which he tried the siipposed improvements 
 of Colour upon them. That their talent was immense will 
 never be denied, though the presence of genius within them 
 may be a matter of opinion. That I am not altogether inclined 
 to assign to him the last comprehensive word is owing, I believe, 
 partly to the character of the man, and partly to the school of 
 Art in which he was educated. He believed, perhaps was 
 taught to believe, that the old Greeks had attained the ne plus 
 tUtra of Sculpture, and that nothing remained for the modern 
 nations but to follow them in every respect. The doctrine he 
 put forth was, that there was no other road in the Art, and that 
 every attempt at deviation was so much falling-off in excellence — 
 so much straying from the right path. I cannot go so far as 
 that with him, as it would be destructive^of all original thought, 
 of all novelty, and of all chance of establishing a national school 
 of Sculpture. Perhaps it had this effect with Gibson himself, 
 for his productions show little, if any, original conception, stand 
 out in no way as a school in themselves, offer no new sugges- 
 tion to the student ; and it is for this reason that I have ven- 
 tured to deny, or at any rate to doubt, his right to the pos- 
 session of genius. Leaving out, however, this point, there seemed 
 some advantage to a mind constructed as his was in what he 
 inculcated — namely, subservient adhesion to blind adoration of 
 antique Art. It left him free to study those abstract forms of 
 beauty which are the distinguishing features of the old school, 
 and I think I may say enabled him to approach nearer to them 
 than \. erhaps any other sculptor of modern days. His works 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 157 
 
 are of a purer kind than even those of the atelier in which he 
 was bred ; they possess all the finish of Canova with far less of 
 % the affectation and other vices of that great man ; nor were 
 they so unpleasantly rigid as are sometimes those of Thorwald- 
 sen : in short, they were more purely Greek. 
 
 I know, indeed, of no recent sculptor from whom the student 
 can better learn correctness of form or even dignity of style. 
 In this sense they might become a school of Sculpture in them- 
 selves, but then the lesson they teach has been taught before, 
 and we may as well go to the original market for our food as 
 to him who buys it from the same source, and merely retails it 
 to us second-hand. He could hardly be offended at my saying 
 this were he alive, for he openly advocated it, confessed that 
 he derived all he possessed from the antique, and that there 
 was nothing else worth seeking after or obtaining. It was upon 
 this principle that he took up, late in life, the colouring of his 
 statues. I will not be so ill-natured as to say that it might be the 
 dotage of old age, encouraged, perhaps, by the flattery of surround- 
 ing satellites. I do not think it was, for it was characteristic of the 
 enthusiasm with which he pursued his profession through life, 
 and consistent with the doctrine which he held to be infallible. 
 He had found it among the Greeks, and therefore it was right: 
 precedent with him was everything. But then, if we allow this, 
 we may as well throw him aside out of the field altogether; for 
 had he never found Colour among the ancients he would never 
 have attempted it in his own works, and the number of infatu- 
 ated followers does not prove the truth of a religion in Art any 
 more than in higher matters. We can go back to the ancients 
 ourselves, look to the evidence of the same writers which he 
 examined, and judge the question as if no one had attempted 
 
158 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 a revival of it in our own day. I need scarcely waste your time 
 by reminding you that in the Sculpture of all early nations 
 Colour was used — with the Assyrians undoubtedly, and with the 
 Egyptians also, as existing works amply testify. It was but 
 natural that Colour should be attempted ; the thought of inten- 
 tionally omitting it would, in fact, never occur to a primitive 
 people, nor would a colourless statue satisfy the requirements 
 of a mind uninstructed in the true principles of the Art and 
 ignorant of its proper limits. 
 
 The doing away with Colour may require more complicated 
 arguments to justify it ; these, however, we shall, I trust, come 
 to at a later portion of my lecture. That the Greeks resorted 
 to Colour in the best period of their Sculpture is beyond all 
 reasonable doubt. Contemporary authors, Plato and Pliny for 
 instance, make direct allusions to it, give us distinct descrip- 
 tions of the ivory and otherwise coloured statues of Jupiter and 
 Minerva by Phidias — colossal works, whose tints must have ap- 
 proached pretty closely to those of Nature, and have been 
 obtained chiefly, if not wholly, by the use of coloured materials. 
 
 Ivory is repeatedly mentioned as serving for the hue of the 
 flesh, and gold is recorded as having been used for various 
 ornaments on the different coloured garments in which they 
 were invested. There could have been none of that faint kind 
 of tinting, that mere indicating of Colour attempted in modern 
 imitations : the Colours were boldly, fearlessly portrayed. Every 
 means of approaching the appearance of Nature herself was 
 used : glass and even jewels were brought in to represent the 
 eyes, and no means neglected to carry out the impression ot 
 reality, or in other words, to deceive the senses, as far as they 
 could be deceived by representations so much beyond the real 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 159 
 
 size of ordinary humanity. You will say that this is contrary 
 to the doctrine I have laid down to you as having been 
 practised in the best days of old Greek Art ; and so it is, stand- 
 ing by itself : but there was a reason for it. Their colossal 
 coloured statues stood or sat in the midst of the temples — were 
 the presiding deities of the worship carried on within them. 
 There was the crowd of ignorant devotees to be impressed with 
 wonder, to be made to conceive a real presence, and to feel 
 awe at its power ; and to carry out this, it was necessary that 
 every means should be used, that no aid should be omitted. 
 The deity with the Greeks — indeed, with 'all the old pagan 
 nations — though assuming many shapes, was in no one of them 
 an abstract essence, but always a real personification, built 
 upon the highest conception of humanity, because imagination 
 can portray nothing greater ; but still a veritable substance, with 
 far greater power than themselves, but with many of the failings 
 of their own natures. Their gods had not even the omnipre- 
 sence which we attribute to that abstract essence in which we 
 believe, and it was necessary, in consequence, that the being 
 to be worshipped should be positively present, or at any rate, 
 should convey an impression of being so on the followers of 
 the creed. The colossal statues were not a part of the temple ; 
 they were there, and the temples were built for them to dwell 
 and to receive honour in from the faithful. The god or goddess 
 formed no part of the architecture of the temple ; they were the 
 owners of it just in the same way as a man may be the owner 
 of his house. They were, in truth, so large as to be out of all 
 proportion with it. It does not follow, therefore, that, because 
 we have records of Colours being used in these statues, it 
 should necessarily have been resorted to in those that formed 
 
i6o COLOUR IN SCULPTURE, 
 
 the architectural decorations of the temple. It is true that in 
 all more ancient Art, Architecture as well as Sculpture, both 
 Colour and Form are employed for decoration ; but I am inclined 
 to think that with the Greeks it was used in a most reserved 
 manner, and with almost fastidious taste. That the lines of 
 their pediments and other parts of their temples may have 
 been strengthened as well as beautified by Colour, and that the 
 background of the Sculpture within them may have been tinted 
 for the sake of relief, it would be difficult to deny \ but that the 
 Sculpture itself was ever coloured at the time of its execution, 
 I am inclined to disbelieve. There is too much seeking after 
 effect by means of deep cuttings and powerful shadows for 
 that j too much polishing of the surface, as we see by the parts 
 still preserved, to admit of Colour adhering to it. 
 
 It is doubtful if we find any Colour now upon the Greek 
 remains that have come down to us, while it still exists in great 
 brilliancy, and in a most perfect state, on far older productions, 
 such as the Egyptian. But we gain little or nothing in our argu- 
 ment by that, as we have to recollect that a far greater amount 
 of decay has taken place in the Parian marble than in the harder 
 granites and syenites of the latter people. In one instance the 
 polished surface is hardly touched by time, in the other, a 
 tangible thickness has, in most cases, been removed : so that 
 the discovery, or non-discovery, of Colour at the present moment 
 in old Greek Art argues with me neither one way nor the other. 
 There is, however, one circumstance that seems to tell, though 
 only at first sight, in favour of the presence of Colour in the 
 frieze of the Parthenon, one of the most beautiful examples of 
 the best period of Greek Sculpture. The bridles of the horses, 
 evidently, from the holes by which they were fastened, once 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. i6i 
 
 existing, not only in the frieze, but in the horses of the pedi- 
 ments as well, and without doubt composed of metal, would 
 appear far more incongruous against the white marble than 
 they would against the coloured; and I cannot think the 
 architects and sculptors would have tolerated an error of this 
 egregious kind in a building where so much exquisite taste was 
 displayed. But then another question arises : if the figures of 
 the frieze were coloured, what induced them to make the 
 bridles separate? It would have been very easy, in fact far 
 easier to have cut them out of the solid material than to have 
 added them afterwards in a work with so Httle relief in it as 
 this, and Colour would have made them distinct enough for all 
 purposes ; they would, in fact, be in complete harmony with the 
 other parts. The only reasoning I can draw from these trap- 
 pings being metal and separate is, that the reliefs were not 
 coloured — at least, not the figures of it — and that the artists 
 omitted the bridles in the first instance, knowing how such 
 things interfered with that simple beauty of line, that elegance 
 of action, they sought for with such true devotion, and which is 
 so conspicuous in the before-mentioned work. These bridles, 
 I am inclined to think, were introduced by command of some 
 after-lover of a more imitative, matter-of-fact style of Art. Ha- 
 drian is accused of having caused the colouring of the figures 
 of the pediment ; may he not have been the introducer of the 
 bridles in the frieze? I cannot accept the theory sometimes 
 put forth that they were made separate from the rest of the 
 work expressly that they might fall off, for no true sculptor 
 would do that except under compulsion, and if compelled in 
 the first instance to introduce the bridles, he would also have 
 been compelled to execute them out of the solid substance. 
 
 M 
 
i62 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 All these remarks may be reckoned only as so many specula- 
 tions on a question that will never be decided : I give you them 
 as mine, vi^ith the best reasoning applied to them in my power. 
 Other men, with more authority than I can boast of, assert that 
 the bridles were attached to the horses' mouths when the work 
 was first executed, that they were made of gold, and separate, in 
 order that they might be removed in time of war ; but I cannot 
 help fancying that men of this way of thinking, and who are not 
 artists, scarcely appreciate the loss of harmony to the whole that 
 must occur. Naturally, as a sculptor, I give credit for what I con- 
 sider the best taste and the soundest judgment on this point to 
 those who I cannot fail to perceive have exhibited it in all 
 other ways. I see, too, with what constancy they have endea- 
 voured to preserve one uniform breadth of light and clear, 
 decided drawing by the flat surfaces and square treatment of 
 tlie outline^ and I cannot fancy that they would sacrifice these 
 for the sake of a little glitter. It is true that the Greeks intro- 
 duced gold into their marble works ; that they made shields and 
 other warlike weapons of metal in their Sculpture ; but I can 
 scarcely conceive that they would have done what, in this 
 instance, would have so completely counteracted that which 
 they have so carefully aimed at and attended to — unity of 
 effect. 
 
 Several attempts were made and exhibited at the Crystal 
 Palace of colouring in various ways this celebrated frieze, but 
 all of them have appeared to me utter failures, tending to lower 
 and make commonplace and vulgar one of the most refined 
 productions of ancient Art. 
 
 Though many fine examples of Greco-Romano Sculpture 
 have come down in an uninjured state, showing no marks of 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE, 163 
 
 Colour upon them, we may take it for granted that the practice 
 of tinting had not altogether gone out even at that period. 
 Many passages in PUny tend to show this, and indicate also 
 that the colouring was effected, not merely by the use of varied 
 materials, but by different pigments. I must confess, however, 
 that, when treating of this subject, it is mostly in allusion to more 
 ancient Greek Art that he speaks. He names Praxiteles as the ^ 
 perfecter of wax or encaustic painting, and records his having 
 said that he preferred those of his works to which Nicias the , 
 painter had put his hand. This passage, especially when 
 coupled with others, seems to me, indeed, decisive as to the 
 prevalence of Colour in ancient Greek Sculpture, so that we 
 may consider that part of our question settled. The rubbing 
 of wax, and afterwards dry Colour, into the marble appears to 
 me the only method by which some of the lucid appearance of 
 that delicate material can be preserved under the Colour. All 
 opaque painting is of course out of the question, so that I am 
 inclined to think this was the ordinary method of the ancients, 
 and I believe it was the one taken up by Gibson. There are, it 
 is true, many things used for staining, such as tobacco-water, 
 coffee, &c. ; and copal varnish may be employed as a vehicle 
 when tracing out delicate lines of Colour or ornaments on the 
 edges of draperies. All these are, however, so very simple that 
 I need scarcely dwell upon them ; besides, the purport of my 
 lecture will rather, I believe, be to show the hmits by which 
 Colour is necessarily restricted in Sculpture, and the evils that 
 are inherent in it, than to encourage you to practise it. I will 
 go at once into the most commonplace objections to it, because 
 they are perhaps the most direct and practical. Sculpture, as 
 * is proved by the remains handed down to us, is of a far more 
 
i64 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 durable character than Painting. A few centuries cause, under 
 ordinary circumstances, no decay whatever in it ; but then it 
 has for this very reason to undergo an accumulation of dirt which 
 of necessity must be removed by cleaning, and no colouring of 
 the kind I have just named, in fact, no painting of a transparent 
 nature, can withstand this : so that the work, however well tinted 
 in the first instance, must eventually depend for its effect on its 
 form alone. On the difficulty of representing reflected tones of 
 Colour, I will say nothing. It stands to reason, or at any rate is- 
 well known to every one who has studied the changes that take 
 place in Colours by approximation one to another, that the simple 
 Colour of a statue must become false the moment objects im- 
 mediately around it are altered, if, indeed, it can be true under 
 any circumstances. 
 
 I have said that no transparent tinting can be made to last 
 to anything like the duration of the figure itself This objection^ 
 you will tell me, cannot stand good against the practice of using 
 coloured materials, which has been tried not only in ancient 
 Art but in modern also. Even in our own day the fashion is 
 not altogether gone out. The French resort in their smaller 
 works to the combination of ivory and silver, using the former 
 for the flesh, and the latter for the drapery. I cannot say that 
 to me the union is an agreeable one, or in any way an improve- 
 ment on the pure white marble, though undoubtedly it pleases, 
 the many cognoscenti who like to fill their cabinets with the 
 curiosities rather than with the purely beautiful in Art. 
 
 Ivory, when used by itself, is one of the most charming sub- 
 stances possible for the purposes of Sculpture, and were it not 
 so limited in size, would undoubtedly be preferred to every 
 other material. It approaches nearer than anything to the 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 165 
 
 tints of the human flesh, and combines at the same time great 
 strength with fine texture; and is in consequence capable of 
 receiving the most elaborate and most delicate execution. But 
 then you must not combine other materials with it, nor must 
 you introduce in any way contrast of Colour ; for the presence 
 of other tints betrays at once to the eye that it is not the real 
 Colour of the human skin, but only one of the many that go to 
 make up that which is beyond all other things so difficult to 
 represent in Painting. 
 
 Try even to indicate by Colour the eye of an ivory figure, 
 and the whole work loses its refinement, and becomes at once 
 a vulgar, and at the same time unsuccessful effort at imitation. 
 If you agree with me in this, you will no longer consider a 
 simple statuette in ivory as a coloured work. There was, as 
 you may perhaps recollect from his having had specimens in 
 our Great Exhibition, a French artist who introduced coloured 
 materials, such as Egyptian alabaster for drapery and tinged 
 metals for his heads. That they were successful with the 
 peculiar feeling he had for his Art and for the sort of subject 
 he chose, can hardly be denied, though I should be loth to 
 class them as high Art; and Marochetti, as is well known to 
 you, resorted to Colour in some of his heads, particularly in his 
 admirable bust of his Highness Duleep Singh. This he did by 
 tinting, and I ani ready to acknowledge Colour became in this 
 latter instance almost a necessary adjunct to render the effect 
 of the whole complete. Nevertheless, these are to me eccen- 
 tricities which merely by exception prove the rule : they attain 
 their limit immediately, and, though exciting to the fancy for 
 an instant, are ever found to be out of the proper walk of Art. 
 They call forth no followers and establish no new school, and 
 
i66 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 it is as well they should not. The most delightful examples of 
 partially-coloured Sculpture not belonging to the antique are 
 the Delia Robbia works, of which, unfortunately, we have but few 
 specimens in this country, if indeed, we have any good ones. 
 I was perhaps more delighted with them on my visit to Italy 
 than with any other kind of Art : the peculiarly religious senti- 
 ment embodied in them, their purity of line and simplicity of 
 composition, charmed me beyond all else, and the circumstance 
 that their subjects are Christian rendered their appeal to my 
 feelings of a stronger and closer nature. I could wish, indeed, 
 that we had some casts of them in our schools, as they are of a 
 character that would teach the student a style in which he is 
 most likely to be called upon to practise hereafter. In these 
 glazed relievos partial Colour only is attempted. The flesh of 
 the figures is left white, but hints of the nature of the back- 
 grounds are given, such as indicating the sky by a bright but 
 delicate blue, and tinging here and there the wings of the 
 angels that surround the principal figure — the subjects being 
 generally the Annunciation and other Biblical subjects. In the 
 best of them — by Lucca himself, the original discoverer of the 
 method of covering the clay with a vitrified glaze, and in whose 
 works pure sentiment most prevails — the Colour is delicate, well 
 arranged, and never intrudes itself on the eye ; but in the works 
 of his successors, of the same name and family, where this sen- 
 timent is less expressed — which are in fact but copies in the 
 style, the efforts of pupils to carry out the thoughts and feelings 
 of their master — the Colour is coarser, more positive, and offends 
 by attracting the attention from the main purpose of the work. 
 
 I have said that the use of substances containing natural 
 Colours within themselves does away with the want of durability 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 167 
 
 objected to in the system of staining or painting Sculpture. But 
 then another impediment arises, at least in works of a mode- 
 rate size, or that are to be submitted to close inspection : the 
 harsh, abrupt contrasts caused by the joining of one material to 
 the other can never be overcome — does not admit of that blend- 
 ing of parts so necessary to a pleasing effect in Art, and ever 
 existing in Nature. We had an instance of this in the portrait- 
 figure of a black-and-white dog exhibited some time back by 
 the late Mr. Wyatt, executed, I believe, for Lord Dudley : the 
 spots on the skin were represented by inserting pieces of black 
 marble into the white. It was well modelled and highly finished, 
 in fact, in every other respect successful ; but the Colours failed 
 to blend themselves one with another on their margins, and 
 this defect was so prominent to the eye as to spoil the whole 
 thing. Looking at it from this point of view, it was but a very 
 coarse kind of mosaic. The same thing may be said of all the 
 Coloured Sculpture of the later period of the old Roman school. 
 In the busts of the Emperors, which are made of different 
 coloured marbles and porphyries — the head of one and the 
 drapery of another — contrast is too sudden, too abrupt to be 
 pleasing to the eye ; though it must be allowed that in them 
 mere architectural decoration, and not imitation of Nature, is 
 attempted. This objection, though applicable to things to be 
 seen closely, did not, I apprehend, apply to colossal works like 
 those mentioned by Pliny. There the immense size rendered 
 the joinings less prominent, and the joints in the ivory of the 
 flesh, laid on in multitudinous plates, would, from the com- 
 parative smallness of the lines, as well as the numberless repe- 
 ■ tition of them, become insignificant, and the distance from 
 which these statues were viewed would, to a great extent, take 
 
1 68 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 off any abruptness arising from the sudden termination of 
 Colour. The use of gold, too, was, I have no doubt, well under- 
 stood as having the effect of doing away to a certain extent 
 with that abruptness, and bringing the whole into harmony. 
 
 Though the existence of Colour is beyond all doubt in early 
 Greek Art, it would require far more research than I have given 
 the question to decide when it fell into disuse : no allusion, 
 indeed, that I am aware of, exists expressive of the change from 
 coloured to colourless works in the Art. Colour, indeed, can 
 hardly be said to have ever entirely gone out. It held its ground 
 feebly, as I have hinted to you, all through the Roman era ; 
 and in the Byzantine or early Christian style a complete revival 
 of it took place. What little, however, exists of the Art in that 
 school may be said to belong quite as much to Painting as to 
 Sculpture, richly-coloured reliefs in which form is but little 
 understood being the chief remains left to us. Colour held 
 its ground, as you know, all through Gothic Art, that is to say, 
 in its monumental records and in the interior decorations of 
 our cathedrals. It was, indeed, long after the Reformation that 
 it began to pale its face before a prejudice grown up against it 
 in this country as belonging to the older creed. There are 
 some objections to Colour which do not tell, however, in the case 
 of these more recent works ; the material of which they are com- 
 posed is of a coarser kind, so that painting serves as a protection 
 to them instead of hiding any inherent beauty of material. 
 Gothic Art partakes, too, more of a matter-of-fact character. It 
 is often historical, but rarely if ever poetical. I have shown 
 enough the existence of Colour in early Sculpture, and have 
 touched upon the technical difficulties it has to contend with : 
 I must now treat the question from an aesthetic point of sight, 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 169 
 
 by far the most important one, if we are, as I presmne, advo- 
 cates for the advancement of the Art. 
 
 It must have been owing to an objection to Colour of this 
 kind that the gradual, though not entire falling-off of it took 
 place in Roman, if not in Greek Art ; and that it was gradual is 
 a proof that it was not a mere impulse, but the result of a quiet, 
 well-considered opinion. That a too literal rendering of Nature 
 renders a work of Sculpture commonplace, if not still more 
 offensive, I need not urge to you ; and that it destroys the 
 purity of the nude, with which the Art has mostly to deal, 
 requires no argument. 
 
 The absence of Colour in a statue is, in short, one of the pecu- 
 liarities that remove it so entirely from common Nature that 
 the most vulgarly constituted mind may contemplate it without 
 its causing any feeling of a sensuous kind. The eye learns to 
 look upon it, not as a real existence, but as a sort of visible 
 representation of some admirable concentrated essence that 
 excites our admiration, or calls forth our imitation ; and it must 
 have been a sentiment of this kind that caused the gradual 
 disuse of Colour in the old times, as well, perhaps, as the 
 occasional revival of it, when the Arts were subservient to 
 rulers of a less refined taste. These objections to the use of 
 Colour apply less to colossal works, whose magnitude in itself 
 removes them from all proximity to every-day life, and again 
 to smaller works where the variation from the natural size 
 prevents a too near approach to reality. I see, in fact, myself, 
 no objection to the use of Colour in such things ; on the 
 contrary, I think, if applied with discretion, it may serve to 
 remove a certain monotony of which Sculpture is accused by 
 those who do not go much with the Art. In some cases, too, 
 
lyo COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 it may be made to help to unite it with the more coloured 
 objects that surround it, and so tend to harmonize the scene to 
 which it belongs as a whole. When a cheerful expression 
 is desirable — as, for instance, in the sculptural decorations of a 
 theatre, a ball or music-room — Colour, even in the statues, will 
 help to keep up that cheerful feeling. Here I may recommend 
 it, but at the same time must caution the student to avoid the 
 objections already urged. He must not attempt a too near 
 approach to fact, for literal truth, as I have before endeavoured 
 to show, is beyond his reach, and, even if he could accom- 
 plish it, would not be desirable. But there is no reason why 
 he should not introduce slight indications of Colour to relieve 
 the monotonous surface of the marble. The imitation of the 
 colour of flesh I would counsel him to abstain from entirely : 
 it appears to me, as I have said before, out of the natural 
 limits of the Art. But there is no objection to the introduc- 
 tion of coloured borders to the draperies where an increase of 
 emphasis is given to the line of the figure by so doing. The 
 error to be avoided is the use of dark tints that catch the eye 
 too strongly, and so distract the attention from more important 
 points of the work. This is done sometimes in the small figures 
 exhibited in our shops for sale, where otherwise considerable 
 power of design and good taste are displayed. I do not mean 
 those abominable things called Dresden china — the very 
 essences of affectation, and consequently the things to be 
 of all others avoided by the real lovers of good Art — but the 
 more recent efforts, which come under the name of Parian ware, 
 and which partake of purer form combined with more delicate 
 tinting. They are by no means unsuccessful — are indeed most 
 pleasing; and they, at the same time, show that the love of 
 
COLOlfR IN SCULPTURE. 171 
 
 Colour in Sculpture is rather advancing than otherwise. You 
 have heard enough of me on this question, but I believe it will 
 not be wholly without service to you. Many temptations are 
 now being set before you to lead you from the simple feeling of 
 old times, when plaster, terra-cotta, marble, and bronze were 
 looked upon as the only materials necessary for Sculpture, and 
 no others were even sought or desired ; and the consequence 
 was that sculptors vied with each other in producing Form only 
 of the most beautiful kind : they were steadily devoted to that 
 one purpose, and nothing tended to divert their thoughts from 
 it. Now the public taste seems oscillating between Form and 
 Colour in Sculpture : more attention is given to the intro- 
 duction of the latter, and to the discovery of new materials to 
 work upon than formerly. It would not do for me to say that 
 this is a sign of decay in the Art, for I have given evidence to 
 you in this lecture of Colour having existed in the best days of 
 the old Greeks, but I would warn you against lending yourself 
 too much to its temptation : it has before now accompanied 
 decay, and most certainly distracts attention from higher points. 
 Kensington Museum is a condensation of beautiful Colour, 
 almost as beautiful as the airy bubbles which Professor Tyndal 
 exhibited to you lately in his interesting lecture on Light. 
 Nothing can be more instructive than it is in Art manu- 
 facture, for there indeed. Colour becomes of equal, if not 
 superior importance to Form. The examples in the collection 
 of the pure style of Sculpture are, in fact, few, scarcely worth 
 noticing. The directors place comparatively no value upon 
 them, and yet, as we know, they do not confine themselves 
 to the lower grades in their teaching. Their defence, how- 
 ever, for the adoption of Colour is a good one when they 
 
172 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 assert that their schools were established for Art manu- 
 factures. 
 
 The Royal Academy teaches, or ought to teach, only the top- 
 most walk of Sculpture, and therefore cannot advocate what 
 tends to bring it down to the subordinate one. You will have 
 learnt, I think, from what I have told you that I am not an ad- 
 vocate for the application of Colour to your Art, nor am I wholly 
 antagonistic to it. I would have you use it, if at all, with caution — 
 with the utmost reserve, as a thing which you may resort to 
 only on particular occasions and under special circumstances : I 
 would have you look upon it as a sort of temptation to which 
 you are liable, but which you may partake of with moderation, 
 without injury to yourself or degradation to your Art. I am, in 
 short, a timid reformer. I will advise you as did the old fox in 
 Gay's Fables, who, while preaching abstinence and moderation 
 in their appetites to the younger generation that were gathered 
 around him to witness his dying moments, happened to hear the 
 cackling of hens in the distance, and said to them : 
 
 " Go, but be moderate in your food ; 
 A chicken too might do me good." 
 
 The consideration of Colour brings us naturally to the many 
 devices employed in Sculpture to compensate for the want of it. 
 The thickening of the eyelids, and even some additional sharp- 
 ness as well as piojection of the brow, and the deep sinking of 
 the eyes themselves within their orbits so as to gather about 
 them even more shadow than in Nature, and so make up for 
 the Colour which exists in these most attractive parts, are, if I 
 may use the expression, legitimate exaggerations — legitimate 
 because, though not truth in themselves, they convey more the 
 effect of truth in Art than would fact if literally given. In 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE, 173 
 
 Sculpture the edges of the lips, too, should be more decidedly 
 given than in Nature, to compensate for the difference in tint 
 between them and the other parts of the face, especially in figures 
 to be seen from a distance, where, as you will perceive by exa- 
 mining some of the antique statues, they become almost conti- 
 nuous Hues — more continuous, however, it should be recollected, 
 in the plaster casts than in the original marble, owing to the loss 
 of the transparency. In many of the Roman portrait-busts in 
 our Museum you will find the parting of the lips wider — the 
 mouth, in short, slightly open — in order to indicate more dis- 
 tinctly that feature than would be possible, owing to the absence 
 of Colour, were the lips brought closely together. In the treat- 
 ment of hair, the want of Colour should be compensated for by 
 deep cuttings more or less in portraiture, according as dark or 
 light is intended to be represented. This principle may be, in 
 fact, carried almost through every portion of the composition. 
 It may appear a trifle, but at the risk of being thought an old 
 grumbler I will say that I find but little attention paid to the 
 necessity of compensating for Colour either in our schools or in 
 our annual exhibitions, nor are due allowances made for the 
 transparency of materials. Draperies and other portions of 
 dress are modelled with sharp edges and deep under-cuttings, 
 which, in reality, from the light passing through them, can never 
 produce either acute lines or dark shadows : they are copied in 
 this inferior manner after the fashion of casts of Nature, which, 
 however well done, never accomplish a true representation of 
 what they are taken from. 
 
 I have now to take my leave of you for one year, at any rate, 
 and I cannot do so without expressing my deep regret that there 
 should be found so few sculptor-students attending in the 
 
174 
 
 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 schools of the Royal Academy. In the antique rooms there 
 are generally a few, though not so many as I could wish, for no 
 one can be more conscious than I am of the necessity of due 
 study of ancient Art. In Sculpture it is more particularly 
 requisite, more so than in the other branches, for in it select 
 idealized Form is alone admissible ; and it is in the old Greek 
 school only that this is to be found : but it is rare indeed that I 
 have the pleasure of seeing, when I happen to be visitor in the 
 Life School, many, if indeed any gentlemen practising the Art of 
 Modelling. I am aware that the encouragement given to the 
 Art is small ; that there is but little Sculpture-teaching during 
 the year; that the rooms, owing to the seats for the painter- 
 students being fixed, and so preventing that close access to the 
 model necessary for the worker in clay, are inconvenient ; and 
 that gaslight is less suitable for the proper carrying out of Form 
 than daylight : but still, I cannot help thinking that students 
 would do well to persevere and contend with these difficulties, 
 rather than, as they appear to me to do, give way under them, 
 and absent themselves from the study of the nude life. What 
 few studies are made in the Life School by sculptors are 
 generally in bas-reliefs, which of course can improve a know- 
 ledge of the human figure only in one particular view ; while 
 we all know that one of the difficulties of the Art is the com- 
 bining all the views of a figure naturally and truthfully, so that 
 they may form a whole complete and perfect in itself. This is 
 a trial peculiar to Sculpture and Architecture alone ; Painting 
 has it not. I can say myself that I find it one of the greatest 
 obstacles to the satisfactory completion of a work, and I would 
 advise the sculptor-student not only more constant attendance 
 in the Academy Life Schools, but also the making his studies in 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 175 
 
 the round. Bas-relief is a branch of his Art in itself, but it is in 
 my opinion not the one most suited to the student for gaining a 
 thorough acquaintance with the human figure. The purpose of 
 the Life School is to teach the student, after he has become well 
 acquainted with the antique — so well as to be able to distinguish 
 by himself general from individual Form — the endless variety 
 Nature partakes of in the different positions she assumes, as well 
 as through the many influences under which she acts, whether 
 of character or momentary impulses. The removal of the 
 student from the Antique School to the study of the Life is the 
 first step towards making him an original sculptor, and without 
 this step he can never hope to speak his own thoughts, or to be 
 other than an inferior retailer of old ideas. 
 
 The late Mr. Bailey, though not, in one sense of the word, a 
 prosperous man, was one of the most successful sculptors of his 
 time ; and I have heard him say that during a number of years — 
 during the whole of the time, in fact, he was a student in the 
 Academy— he was only one evening absent from the Life School ; 
 and no English sculptor was better acquainted with Form, or 
 with that mobility which exists in Nature than he was. His 
 figure of Eve stands yet almost alone in the English school of 
 Sculpture for beauty of line, for delicacy, and at the same time 
 classicality of form. If indeed we take him by his best works, by 
 those executed before the old, hard step-mother. Necessity, began 
 to press cruelly upon him, we shall find in him much to admire, 
 and much from which good may be learnt. I fear, and the 
 duty I owe to my Art obliges me to tell it to you, we have now 
 no students like him. Our school is comparatively deserted by 
 the sculptors. 
 
 I shall be glad to find that I am so far wrong that you are 
 
176 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 able to say that you pass your time in other academies, and 
 thus are not altogether neglecting the opportunities offered 
 to you. I am aware that many, perhaps most of our young 
 men, are obliged to earn their bread during the daytime by 
 working in the ateliers of others ; if so, the more the reason 
 that they should devote their evenings to the improvement of 
 themselves in the schools thrown open to them. I do not 
 admit any excuse of being fatigued with the day's work. K. 
 young man never feels fatigue, should know nothing of, not 
 even believe in the word j he will learn the meaning of it soon 
 enough, especially if he is a regular attendant at lectures on his 
 profession. I may be told that the requirements of the body 
 call for more even than the work of the day can earn, and that 
 the evenings must be called in to help the many wants to which 
 we are subject. This, again, I do not believe, and to these I 
 would say, do not throw away the golden opportunities of youth 
 for the sake of a few more pence, or slight additional comforts ; 
 but lay by a certain amount of your intellect as capital : it will 
 return you interest, and compound interest, that will double your 
 gains hereafter. I am aware that, during the competition for 
 the various medals which the Royal Academy offers, there is an 
 increased attendance of the sculptor-students; but this only 
 proves that their absence at other times is in a great measure, 
 if not altogether, their own fault. Their flocking in only on 
 such occasions is a species of deception which cannot be ap- 
 proved of — not deception of the Academy, for I fear the mem- 
 bers take such things little to heart; but a deception of the 
 students themselves, and I must say that it shows itself in the 
 result. We have had occasionally, it is true, admirable speci- 
 mens put forth in competition for the Academy's gold medals — 
 
COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 1 allude more particularly to the last trial of strength — but these 
 have, I am convinced, been caused by admirable private tuition, 
 rather than from study in our schools. The copies in plaster 
 from life, however, rarely, if ever, quite please an old, conceited 
 grumbler like myself. They seem to me generally like Nature, 
 but only like Nature when she is looked upon with the jaundiced 
 eye with which I am now looking on the progress of our Art — 
 that is to say, with no appreciation of beauty. They do not serve 
 to elevate Nature, but rather to make more conspicuous her 
 errors and weaknesses : they are usually lower, more ugly than 
 the model from which they are copied, instead of being more 
 elevated, more lovely, and more attractive ; and so become not 
 Greek but Dutch Art. This may appear to you a rather sulky 
 kind of farewell, but it is not meant as such. What I have said 
 to you as students is sincere, and intended for your good, and 
 no man is more competent to speak in this strain than I am, 
 because no one more regrets, now that it is too late, the neglect 
 of the schooling I received, or ought to have received, in this 
 Academy in my younger days ; and there is no one who now 
 feels the ill effects of that neglect more than myself. You will 
 find plenty of people to praise your efforts and term them 
 beautiful, and they will please you, perhaps, more than I do by 
 finding fault ; though they may in so doing be only exhibiting 
 their ignorance of the principles of Art. To point out errors is 
 quite as much the province of the teacher as the directing the 
 way to excellence ; at any rate it is more within his power, for 
 the probability is that he has himself strayed away from the 
 right path more than he has gone ahead in it. 
 
 There is one thing yet I would wish, before leaving, to caution 
 the student against, though I hope and trust there is no occasion 
 
 N 
 
178 COLOUR IN SCULPTURE. 
 
 for my doing so : I mean the looking on his work with too com- 
 placent an eye. When once a man, young or old, gets to 
 fancying that what he does in Art is perfect, he has reached the 
 extent of his stride, and will never advance further, rather 
 indeed go back. I want you to take what is said to you in an 
 earnest spirit of true criticism, and to pay more attention to it 
 than to the flattering, though perhaps sincere, compliments of 
 your friends. You may even learn something from the sarcastic 
 utterances of your enemies. I remember once receiving an 
 anonymous epistle in verse : the words I have forgotten, but the 
 burden of them was, that there was no occasion for the critics 
 to cut up my works, for I cut them up enough myself. The 
 good intentions of the writer I may not unreasonably doubt, 
 but I am certain that his remark was a just one, and I took ad- 
 vantage of it, and set about from that moment to amend my 
 ways, so that, after all, he was one of the kindest friends I ever 
 had. I would thank him for it could I but find out who he 
 was, notwithstanding the profound contempt I feel for all 
 anonymous writers. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 HAVE determined, if I possibly can, to give you 
 this evening a good lecture ; not one in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the word, but one of the kind gene- 
 rally styled as rather personal. My language may 
 appear to you, perhaps, rude ; but if I am to constitute my- 
 self a physician in Art, I must be allowed to give a clear diag- 
 nosis of the disease it labours under, or my prescriptions will 
 neither be believed in, nor productive of good effect. You 
 may reply to me, Physician, cure thyself ; and your reply will 
 not be far from right. 
 
 I will acknowledge in myself the error of which I am about 
 to speak, and am as ready to cry peccavi as anyone. This point, 
 however, after all, is not of much importance, as the tu qiwquc 
 mode of argument merely adds one more to the number of de- 
 linquents in the affair, and is neither justification nor reply. We 
 may arrange that difference after the manner of other preachers 
 of a higher kind, who, instead of using the second pronoun, 
 address their congregations in the first person plural, and 
 say politely, and I have no doubt properly, we have sinned. 
 
i8o 
 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 So I will, if you please, say we Art students, or, to come to those 
 with whom I have more particularly to do, we students in 
 Sculpture are, comparatively with other classes, uneducated ; 
 and still more so if compared with those who, like ourselves, 
 are pursuing highly intellectual callings that require the most 
 earnest efforts of the brain and, in addition, the utmost refine- 
 ment of feeling. This want of Education, against which I am 
 about to raise my outcry, is not the professional Education the 
 student sculptor obtains, modelling-tool in hand, in our Art 
 schools, nor that intermediate one which he acquires, or ought 
 to acquire, of things intimately connected with his pursuit — 
 such as knowledge of costume, appropriate use of material, and 
 of suitable forms to convey the expression he intends ; though 
 of these much might be said to advantage. The absence or 
 presence of them is shown, in fact, in every year's exhibition, and 
 almost in every man's productions. Whilst in one the insight 
 into costume hardly extends beyond the last most fashionable 
 make of a pair of trousers, in another an intimate acquaintance 
 is displayed, not only with the outer garbs of every age and 
 country, but also with the inward habits and feelings of each,, 
 and I need scarcely say how much of true interest is given to- 
 his work by these means. 
 
 These observations may apply, perhaps, more to Painting than 
 to Sculpture, though they are referable to both ; whilst the pro- 
 per application of materials and the due selection of forms may 
 be said to have a more powerful, if not a more immediate refe- 
 rence to the Art I profess. It is not, however, on this point, 
 as I have before said, that I am about to scold, or to utter my 
 complaint j but on the want in the student of that general Edu- 
 cation, that constant reading and comparison of other men's 
 
EDUCATION, 
 
 i8i 
 
 ideas, which enables him to think for himself, and, if not to 
 produce new thoughts, at any rate to avoid the errors of old 
 ones. 
 
 In saying that the student should devote more time to general 
 Education, I am not so unreasonable as to expect him to be 
 master of many languages, or a leader in many sciences. 
 Genius, I am aware, springs from all classes, and generally, if 
 not always, develops itself by directing its energies to one par- 
 ticular point ; and, presuming Art to be his principal pursuit, I 
 doubt much if the advantage would be very great to him were 
 he capable of attaining to all these, though I do not mind con- 
 fessing to you that my inability to dive into works in their ori- 
 ginal tongue, increased by time and forgetfulness, has often been 
 a source of great regret to me. 
 
 We have, however, now excellent translations of the classics 
 and admirable treatises on other subjects that enable us to pursue 
 that general reading I am about to advocate almost as well as if 
 cognizant of the languages in which the works are actually written. 
 I would say quite as well, but that I recollect translations are 
 never either quite so clear or quite so forcible as their originals, 
 and I find myself contradicted by one whom I wish you more 
 particularly to study, and who says : " In speaking of things of 
 this kind, such a measure as leaves out any part whatever of 
 the truth is not altogether in measure ; for nothing that is im- 
 perfect is the measure of anything : though some at times are 
 of opinion that things are sufficiently well when thus circum- 
 stanced, and that there is no necessity for further inquiry. 
 Very many are thus affected through indolence." These are 
 Plato's words, or rather, put by him into the mouth of Socrates 
 whilst speaking of the proper mode of argument. Let the 
 
l82 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 student by all means study that author. I will not deny that it 
 will require of him much patience, that he will find him prolix 
 in style in comparison with the more condensed writers of 
 modern days, and often, owing to inaccuracies of translation, 
 confused and unintelHgible ; nor will I deny that the student 
 will perceive, and perhaps be offended with, a certain pedantic 
 manner — more apparent, however, in the English translation 
 than in the original Greek, where interjectional words are rarely, 
 if ever, omitted. He will have, too, it must be admitted, to 
 encounter certain passages of an objectionable character ; but 
 these the classic student will soon learn, if not to excuse, to 
 look upon merely as the indications of a barbarous age. He 
 will have again another difficulty of no small amount to contend 
 with — to recall to mind, in order to thoroughly appreciate the 
 mine of intellectual wealth laid open to him, how much that 
 he now knows and has long believed in — so long and so en- 
 tirely as almost to appear like instinct — is the accumulation 
 of after-ages. He will, in fact, have to transfer himself mentally 
 to habits and modes of thinking long previous to almost all that 
 he has learned to look upon as ever pre-existent, but it will 
 teach him to become a thinking man, to throw off all prejudices, 
 and never, as the foregoing words indicate, to leave a question 
 without sifting it in all its particles, and examining it in all its 
 various details. 
 
 You will, I am sure, expect me to give, as your lecturer, some 
 reason for my advising you to study that which at first may appear 
 to you so distantly connected with your Art. I might tell you, 
 and truly, nhat you will find in this author frequent allusions to 
 Sculpture, many of them indirect, but for that very reason 
 showing how important a feature the Art was in the age in which 
 
EDUCATION, 183 
 
 he lived, as otherwise these allusions would not have been so 
 often brought into discourses which appertain to moral philo- 
 sophy and questions of State government only. All of them 
 tend more or less to show that in Art, beauty, and not mere 
 imitation, was considered as the sine qua non. Some of them 
 I have quoted to you in my former lectures, when advocating 
 this as the right theory, and endeavouring to prove to you 
 that utihty and beauty go together in Nature and should do 
 so in Art. 
 
 I will now give you some others as evidence of the same 
 idea, and that abstract beauty was ever uppermost in the minds 
 of the Greeks. In Plato's fifth book of the Republic, Socrates 
 is made to say : " That ever was and ever will be deemed a 
 noble saying, that what is profitable is beautiful, and what is 
 hurtful is base." And again, in the same book, as showing that 
 the question of beauty was discussed and a regular theory laid 
 down for the attaining it, Socrates, while discoursing with Glauco 
 on the laws and regulations necessary for the ideal city they are 
 building up in their thoughts, is asked by him to prove the possi- 
 bility of such an Utopian scheme existing, and says in reply : 
 Do you imagine, then, that the painter is in any degree the less 
 excellent who, having painted the model of the most beautiful 
 man, and brought everything most fully into his piece, is yet 
 unable to show that such a man does really exist?" In reply to 
 which Glauco says : " By Jupiter, I do not ! " And again, in the 
 sixth book of the Republic : " Whether, then, do those appear to 
 you to differ from the blind who have neither a clear example 
 in their soul, nor are able — as painters looking up to the truest 
 example and always referring themselves thither, and contem- 
 plating it in the most accurate manner possible — to establish 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 here too, in like manner, just maxims of the beautiful and good, 
 if there be occasion to establish them, and to guard and preserve 
 such as are already established." 
 
 I fear I am wearying you by these quotations, but at the risk 
 of doing so I must trouble you with one more which seems to 
 establish my point. At the end of the seventh book of the Re- 
 public, when Socrates has finished his description of the qualities 
 requisite to the governors of this ideal world of his — attributing 
 to them, as necessary to their fitness, a healthy frame of body and 
 a pure, unselfish tone of mind, both enlarged and cultivated by a 
 general yet severe education; calling upon them to practise tem- 
 perate habits that they may have under their control all their 
 passions, and be above the ordinary temptations of hfe, and to 
 possess a sincere and disinterested love of their country, that 
 they may arrange the affairs of the State, not for the good of 
 themselves, but for the good of others; and, added to all this, 
 requiring them to be imbued with an aptitude to learn and a 
 powerful memory to retain, so that they may be quick to per- 
 ceive what is good in that which is new, and to retain that which 
 is valuable in what is old — when Socrates has finished all this, 
 Glauco is made to say in reply : " You have, Socrates, like a 
 statuary, made our governors all beautiful." Would the point 
 of this repartee be intelligible — would it be in the least appli- 
 cable, except under the supposition that the Greeks in all their 
 Arts, even in portraiture, idealized — looked to beauty as the one 
 end and aim that was to overbalance all else? Would it be 
 applicable to our own statues, in which likeness is considered 
 by some to be the Alpha and Omega, the all and everything ? 
 I fear not. 
 
 One more quotation, and I have done with this portion of my 
 
EDUCATION. 185 
 
 argument. If I tire you, you must recollect I forewarned you 
 that the author's style would sound prolix to our modern ears, 
 and that you must become diggers in the hard quartz before you 
 can discover the pure gold of his writings. The Athenian guest, 
 Socrates, alludes to the fixed laws in Egypt with respect to the 
 Arts, whether of Painting, Sculpture, or Music. He says, in the 
 second book of the Laws : " It appears that the Egyptians formerly 
 knew that young men in cities should be accustomed to beautiful 
 figures and beautiful melodies, and it is one of their institutions 
 to exhibit in their temples what these are, and what the qualities 
 which they possess ; and besides these, it is not lawful, either 
 for painters or other artificers of figures, to introduce any that 
 are new, or even to think of any other than those belonging to 
 their country, nor is it lawful at present to do this either in 
 these particulars or in the whole of Music. If you observe, 
 therefore, you will find that paintings and sculptures there, 
 which were executed ten thousand years ago [thus it is written], 
 are neither more beautiful nor more deformed than paintings or 
 carvings of the present day, but are fashioned by just the same 
 Art." It may not be much information to you to quote all this 
 as evidence of a question long since decided, and decided from 
 the works themselves, but surely it is interesting to find an 
 opinion of this kind corroborated by an author of ancient times — 
 an almost contemporary one, and, moreover, one that belonged 
 to a nation who, with regard to their Art, were exactly of the 
 opposite way of thinking ; who, instead of fixing laws for the 
 beautiful, were ever seeking in it something higher and higher; 
 whose cry in their Art might truly be said to be " Excelsior ! 
 Excelsior ! " You will, in truth, gather by reading much infor- 
 mation connected with Sculpture. 
 
i86 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 Thus, perhaps, you will come to the conclusion by inference 
 that the Greeks made their models in wax, as is not improbable 
 supposing they used small instead of full-sized ones. Of what that 
 wax was composed, whether made by the bees of Hymettus, so 
 often brought forward for the purpose of comparison with man- 
 kind, we know not j nor is the question altogether of much impor- 
 tance, as it is one of antiquarianism rather than of practical utility. 
 
 You will be confirmed, too, in your belief that these right- 
 thinking people in Art avoided perspective in their relievo 
 Sculpture, or, at any rate, used it with the utmost caution 
 and in the most limited manner; not from ignorance of its rules, 
 but because with what is called common sense they perceived 
 that in a work where real or even partial reHef is given, it could 
 only remain true when viewed from one particular point. There 
 are allusions to perspective which show that its laws had been 
 studied, if not by the artists, at any rate by the philosophers of 
 the day ; besides, you will recollect that the Greeks were great 
 geometricians and great architects as well as great sculptors ; 
 and that it consequently could not well have escaped their at- 
 tention. That the rule of abstinence on this point stands good, 
 and forms one of the chief distinctions between antique relievos 
 and mediaeval or more modern ones, I need not say to you. 
 Its soundness is clearly proved even by the departure from it 
 in later works, such as the magnificent gates by Ghiberti, 
 which, notwithstanding the eulogium said to have been passed 
 on them by Michael Angelo, and their splendid design and 
 workmanship, are still, undoubtedly, errors in this respect. That 
 many things tended to foster this simplicity of treatment in 
 ancient Art, I will not deny. Their theatrical arrangements 
 were of the same primitive kind : their stages, though possessed 
 
EDUCATION. 
 
 187 
 
 of considerable breadth, had none of that depth which with us 
 admits of such powerful and charming delusions of the eye. 
 The Greeks had nothing of this : just room enough for the 
 principal, indeed, sole character to stand before the audience 
 and tell his sorrows or his joys, with the chorus, the strophe 
 and antistrophe of the piece, one on each side to say or sing 
 their comments on the tale. This was all that was attempted. 
 Their actors depended not so much on scenic effect as on the 
 power of the poetry ; and I am inclined to think — indeed, am 
 sure — that the two Arts, Sculpture and the Drama, went together 
 in this feeling. You will ask me how I gather all this. I 
 might say that I can perceive in many of their relievos repre- 
 sentations evidently taken from these simple stage effects. I 
 will acknowledge to you that I am aware of no remains of an 
 antique Greek stage existing ; but there is in that city of the 
 dead, Pompeii, that lies like a disinterred carcase of the past, 
 wath all its vices and superstitions exposed to the broad glare 
 of day, one which may be easily and justly deemed similar in 
 its character. The orchestra still stands, the lamps are there, 
 though the lights, the audience, and actors are no more ; but 
 it requires but little imagination to fill up the silence of the 
 scene with the primitive yet classical figures in their tragic and 
 comic masks, chanting, perhaps in a somewhat monotonous, 
 but for that very reason impressive manner, the grand epic 
 poetry to which Plato so frequently alludes— so frequently as 
 to show that the power of rhythm, the music of the voice, the 
 art of oratory or persuasion by the tongue, was considered as 
 one of the most necessary accomplishments of a leader of the 
 people, or, in other words, of an educated man. 
 
 It is not, however, for these allusions— of which I might 
 
i88 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 quote many more if I pleased — that I advise your studying 
 the books of Plato, nor yet because there is matter contained 
 in them that would serve you well for illustration by your Art, 
 though of this there is no scarcity. I will give you a subject 
 from him which, in spite of my dislike to it as pagan, and for 
 that reason lacking the necessary appeal to existing associa- 
 tions and feelings, would, in the hands of a clever sculptor, 
 form one of the grandest compositions known — one that might 
 rival, without being a copy of it, Michael Angelo's " Last Judg- 
 ment " in intricacy of grouping, in display of form, and in variety 
 of attitude. It is a curious fable related at the end of the tenth 
 book of the Republic, of Erus, the son of Armenius, who is 
 said to have died in battle, but whose body remained uncor- 
 rupted, and who saw a vision of the Judgment, of which he 
 afterwards, on his return to life, gave a description. It reminds 
 one, in its dreamy and indistinct grandeur, of the vision of St. 
 John at Patmos, in our book of Revelation. The departed 
 are described as rising from two chasms of the earth, and the 
 judge as sitting between them, sending some to the right and 
 some to the left. The Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, 
 the children of Necessity, and the mistresses of the Past, the 
 Present, and the Future, are portrayed on their thrones sup- 
 ported on eight circles in the heavens, and as distributing new 
 lots to the souls who are again to undergo the labours and 
 trials of life, and who are bound to abide by that lot, the choice 
 being left to them whether to make it happy or unhappy, good 
 or evil, by virtue or vice. These souls then pass on into the 
 parched plains of Lethe, where nought of earth can exist, and 
 after drinking of the River Amelete, where all memory fades, 
 return once more to the troubles and labours of this world. 
 
EDUCATION. 189 
 
 Of these waters of oblivion Eras was not allowed to drink, and 
 so he alone came back to tell the tale. Thus the doctrine of 
 the transmigration of souls is promulgated — a doctrine not so 
 absurd as some may fancy, nor yet entirely obliterated from the 
 minds of imaginative men, even in these later days of more 
 complicated and, perhaps, more enlightened thought. 
 
 It is not even for the sake of these, however, that I advise 
 your tasting the fruit of this tree of intellectual life, nor yet 
 again for the pleasure you may derive from it by imagining 
 yourself walking in the sacred groves and listening to the con- 
 versation of men who, so far removed from these days, are yet 
 the real representatives of pure truth. You may dream, so to 
 speak, of the manners and customs of that ancient period, more 
 delightful, perhaps, when viewed as now with the classical 
 drapery which time and history have thrown over them, than 
 when gazed upon in their naked reality. You may enjoy 
 all this, call up these men searching after truth by discussion 
 and comparison of ideas in the innermost depths of the human 
 mind, and endeavouring to trace it from thence to its first 
 great cause, its true and only derivation. You may wonder 
 that, amidst so much of surrounding ignorance and filth, men of 
 such pure thought and such profound knowledge should arise — 
 men who, though laying no claim to inspiration, seemed to 
 have foreseen the history of nations even up to the present day 
 by the simple process of judging from cause to effect ; so much 
 so that you feel sometimes inclined to turn to their biography to 
 convince yourself that they were not born in the present cen- 
 tury instead of 400 years before Christ, or to ask yourself, Has 
 man changed so little in his general nature that what was true 
 with regard to him so many ages back, and under such diiferent 
 
190 
 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 circumstances, is still equally true of him under all the changes 
 that have since occurred? You may fancy them building up 
 their imagined republics, their ideal commonwealths, that 
 should be permanent because united by laws that were founded 
 on permanent principles. You may imagine them ignorant of 
 the many changes that were hereafter to take place to confound 
 and defeat the millennium they advocated, and in which they 
 all, to a certain extent, believed because they were confident 
 of the good within themselves, and gave credit, as do all right- 
 minded men, not only for the possession of a like good in 
 others, but for the gradual increase of it as intellect advanced 
 and the daylight of the mind became more clear. 
 
 Artists are fond of contemplating these figures, standing out, 
 few in number, from the dark background of a semi-barbarous 
 age that gives to them a prominence, a dignity, a largeness of 
 parts, a statuesque effect, which is agreeable to the educated 
 eye of a sculptor. That they had so little about them to help 
 them in their search after truth, so few accessories to set them 
 off, seems in unison with grand Art of every kind, but more 
 particularly with the great Art of Sculpture, then in the very 
 zenith of its glory. That they were ignorant of the many dis- 
 coveries of after-ages appears rather to add to their power of 
 taking an uninterrupted view of the future before them. That 
 they knew nothing of the needle-gun, the chassepot, the mitrail- 
 leuse, and other scientific and artistic inventions that have 
 since tended to promote civilization and increase the happiness 
 of mankind ; that they were unaware of any more explosive in- 
 strument than their wives' tongues seems to have enabled them 
 to take a larger grasp of greater matters, to look at what they 
 were working at as a whole that should come right at last ; not 
 
EDUCATION. 191 
 
 by the undue prominence of lesser parts, but by a subjugation 
 of them all to one great aim and final effect. 
 
 It is not even for all this that I beg your attention par- 
 ticularly, though not exclusively, to this author, Plato; but 
 because I wish you to be philosophers as well as artists. You 
 can, indeed, hardly be the latter in any degree without being at 
 the same time something of the former ; for Socrates defines a 
 philosopher as one who is desirous of discerning the truth, and 
 your calling brings you in contact with some of the purest and 
 most sublime truths in Nature, and upon these you have to 
 build the philosophy of your Art. The philosophy I wish you 
 to feel and follow is not the indifference of the cold Stoic, for 
 no artist, whether painter or sculptor, can ever be great with 
 that tone of mind : it is rather of the Epicurean kind, of one who 
 loves Nature earnestly, sees propriety and beauty everywhere in 
 her, and endeavours by study to understand the means by 
 which she works as well as the purpose she has in view, looking 
 always upward from Nature's self to Nature's God. You should, 
 like poor Jaques, be a lover of contemplation, a strong sympa- 
 thizer with sorrow, and a bitter hater of cruelty and oppression. 
 You should ''find tongues in trees, books in the running 
 brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything ; " but with- 
 out, like him, wrapping yourself up in the motley garb of con- 
 ceited melancholy. Really good Art requires a high flight to 
 reach, and I would always have you feel a high respect for 
 it ; but artists are apt to make the mistake of thinking there is 
 nothing of equal importance round and about it, whereas there 
 is hardly anything worth knowing that may not be brought in 
 as assistance to it. Standing alone, your professional pursuit. 
 Sculpture, can scarcely be said to be one that tends to 
 
192 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 strengthen your understanding. It is rather one of sentiment, of 
 feeling and refinement ; it helps more to purify than to enlarge 
 your power of thought. It was so, in fact, in Ancient Greece, 
 when there was but little else than it and Poetry to soften the 
 sensuous coarseness of the day ; and I believe this is all it can 
 be expected to do now, but this all is enough. You are bound 
 to use every means in your power in aid of your efforts in your 
 Art, and Education on extraneous subjects will help you almost 
 as much as a knowledge of those matters more immediately 
 connected with your profession. It will help you in two ways — 
 in the unprofessional duties of your life, wherein decisions 
 arrived at or actions taken from sentiment alone are rarely, 
 if ever, sound or judicious ; and it will give you in your Art just 
 that amount of good judgment which will redeem it from an 
 inane, meaningless pursuit. General Education may be likened 
 to a growing of your wings, and instead of your struggling upwards 
 towards your Art, I can fancy you soaring, by its aid and genius 
 combined, to such a height as to be able to swoop down eagle- 
 like upon it from above. At any rate, an increased Education, a 
 more constant reading of other men's thoughts, and a diligent, 
 careful, and at the same time modest comparison of them with 
 your own can be but a source of delight to you if well and 
 honestly carried out, and must, I believe, be of infinite service 
 to you in your work. 
 
 There are those, I know, who argue in the opposite direction — 
 advise your devoting your undivided attention to your Art, 
 urging as examples of their argument and belief, the existence 
 of men who have stood out in distinctive excellence from their 
 competitors without the aid of much general knowledge ; but 
 the doctrine that unprofessional Education is comparatively of 
 
EDUCATION. 193 
 
 little value in Art, though it may apply imperfectly, if at all, to 
 Painting, where we have schools, good in their way, that show 
 no evidence of it — the Dutch for instance — is wholly valueless in 
 Sculpture, which grasps at the highest only. I should, from the 
 career of these very men, gather the contrary notion. I should 
 say that they would have gone much further had they had the 
 help I allude to ; and I should assert with equal confidence 
 that many of their contemporaries might have gained an equal 
 eminence had they been assisted by higher Education and 
 more extensive reading. I believe, in fact, that if ever Art is 
 to advance it will be by the cultivation of the general powers of 
 those who practise it. At any rate, I can say that the men who 
 carried it to its highest point in mediaeval Italy, if not in ancient 
 Greece, were men of learning in other things than that for which 
 they are renowned. They were poets, mathematicians, engi- 
 neers, and inventors of various kinds outside of their Art; 
 studiers of human nature in other ways than on canvas or in 
 marble — in short, philosophers. The theme they were called 
 upon to illustrate was a high one, and they brought their learn- 
 ing to bear upon it, and so became not only great men them- 
 selves, but by these means made their Art itself greater. My 
 object in this lecture is not to concentrate your thoughts wholly 
 on your Art, but to stretch them out beyond it while you pursue 
 your profession. The bond between you and it need never be 
 broken, for the effect will tend to enlarge your field of medita- 
 tion, will enable you to compose things belonging to that Art 
 on a broader, grander scale, and to grasp its principles with a 
 stronger hold. However well the sculptor may model, however 
 skilful may be his hand, he can only, after all, as I have said 
 before, reflect in his work that which is within himself The 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 uneducated one sees only those things that are immediately around 
 him — what is worse, has no means of comparing them with that 
 which has been before : while, on the other hand, the educated 
 one takes within the range of his vision the whole horizon of his 
 profession, looks back from his path upon what has gone before 
 him, and forms his judgment as to what are the causes which 
 affect the style and fashion of the present moment, and have 
 produced the many changes which have taken place in pre- 
 vious times ; and he estimates which of those causes are of a 
 permanent character, and which are merely the vagaries of a 
 momentary impulse. What a safeguard is here for those who, 
 possessing genius, are desirous of handing down their names 
 to posterity instead of prostituting their Art to the immediate 
 whims of a moment for the sake of worldly gain or a temporary 
 reputation ! I wish you to be thinking men. We all lay claim 
 to the faculty of thought, but, like every other power, it may be 
 improved, if not created, by Education. Many of us fancy we 
 are thinking when we are merely talking to ourselves, and while 
 flattering ourselves that we are considering a question in every 
 way, are only, perhaps unconsciously, probing it with such argu- 
 ments as will lead to the verdict we are, from interested motives, 
 most desirous of arriving at. In these self-communings it may 
 be said, indeed, that the wish is father to the thought much 
 oftener than we are inclined either to acknowledge or to per- 
 ceive. Right thought may be compared to the turning about 
 of an irregular cube ; the really considering man examines it in 
 every direction, looks at it on every side, tries it in every view, 
 and after comparing the advantages of, and objections to each, 
 eventually places it on the right base, on which it not only looks 
 the best but will stand the safest. The prejudiced, unthinking 
 
EDUCATION. 195 
 
 man places all his cubes, however different in shape, on the 
 same base. The right thinking I have here endeavoured to 
 portray to you you will learn from a study of the works in 
 question, for in none other do I find such a searching mode of 
 arriving at abstract truth ; and that they treat of moral laws of 
 right and wrong rather than of physical sciences makes them 
 not the less suited to your Art, which appertains, or should 
 appertain, more to the former than the latter. The abstract for 
 Sculpture, the picturesque for Painting, is a good saying, almost 
 a proverb ; you as sculptors should therefore more particularly 
 study these writers. I would have you even try and copy the 
 manner of search after the abstract employed by them in order 
 that you may adapt it to your own calling and requirements, and 
 if possible arrive at the same right result. 
 
 The books of the Laws to which I have already once referred 
 are particularly interesting, for though they consist merely of 
 propositions never perhaps entirely carried out, they contain 
 much of the then existing feeling, and thus throw you into that 
 atmosphere under which your Art once flourished. Their 
 character is Socialistic, for they limit the amount of wealth to be 
 possessed by each citizen ; they treat of the laws of marriage, of 
 the bringing up of children, and of the education of youth, 
 beginning with a remarkable and most suggestive sentence, 
 ■which is asserted to be worthy of being written in paternal 
 temples : " The first year is the beginning of the whole of life 
 to every one." They regulate the mode of buying and selling, 
 fixing certain days of the month for the sale of certain articles, 
 and, as it seems, denying the legality* of the middle-man or 
 broker ; they limit the privilege of foreigners desirous of re- 
 siding with them ; they institute courts of justice for the trial 
 
196 
 
 EDUCATION, 
 
 of causes, and legislate on all crimes, from the greatest — pro- 
 nounced to be sacrilege, and to be so execrable as to be beyond 
 all punishment — down to the smallest peccadillo. Bees must 
 have been an item of considerable importance with the ancient 
 Greeks, the many allusions made to them in Plato show it; 
 and here a distinct law is laid down for their preservation. It 
 says : " If any one usurps a swarm of bees, alluring them by the 
 sound of brass, and thus rendering them familiar to him, he 
 shall make a restitution to the injured person." It declares it, 
 too, to be unlawful to gather apples and pears secretly, and 
 that if any one is detected gathering them who is under thirty 
 years of age, he is to be chastised, but without wounds ; and 
 that the free-born man is not to suffer any punishment for this 
 chastisement : so we may conclude that Greek boys were 
 in the habit of doing much the same as English ones ; and that 
 the law has not been altered since, I know from experience. 
 You will say all this has not much to do with your Art. It has 
 not, but I am trying rather to coax you away from it in order 
 that you may return to it with a redoubled bound. You will 
 find in the writings of the Roman author, Pliny, many names of 
 artists and allusions to celebrated works, also historical records of 
 your profession, mixed up, it is true, with much fiction. These 
 I would undoubtedly have you read, but it is, I think, in the dis- 
 cussions of Plato that you will learn that tone of mind which I 
 have ventured to call the Philosophy of your Art. 
 
 Of the many higher things contained in these books it is not 
 for me to speak, as they do not come within the province of a 
 lecturer on Art. The world has almost decided upon them, has 
 put down the chief speaker in these dialogues and the doctrines 
 
EDUCATION. 197 
 
 he inculcates as the proper precursors of that doctrine of a still 
 higher kind, which we now live under and believe in. Read 
 carefully, and I doubt if you will differ much from this opinion. 
 I have in this, as well as in my former course of lectures, advised 
 your abandoning pagan subjects for your Art, from the want of 
 that sympathy with them in the public mind requisite to create 
 an interest in your work, and I might now, if necessary, give 
 you another reason for so doing. I might prove to you, or you 
 may prove to yourselves by reading Plato's second book on the 
 Kepublic, that even in the very country and at the very epoch 
 when polytheism was the prevaiUng creed, and the gods were 
 represented as changing their shapes as well as their characters, 
 and as acting for evil quite as much as for good, a philosophy 
 had sprung up among thinking men which ridiculed the fables 
 of Homer and yEschylus, declaring them unfit for the common 
 ear as having within themselves an immoral tendency; and 
 which acknowledged for its head or deity a single indivisible 
 Essence or Spirit, unchangeable because in itself perfect, the 
 origin of good and good only. If Socrates could turn up his 
 nose, so admirably constructed for that purpose, at the absurdities 
 then prevalent, imbedded as they were in the grandest poetry, 
 how much more should you turn your back upon them in an 
 Art which, if it would have success, must ever be the mirror 
 of the light of its own day rather than the faint reflector of the 
 dim shadows of past ages ! 
 
 We are by prejudice an aristocratic people, believers in the 
 influence of high birth and long descent, and if I have shown 
 you that your Art grew out of mere imitation into an imaginative, 
 creative power among a people who were themselves the first 
 
198 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 pioneers of independent thought ; that its greatest purity and 
 highest style were attained, and its proper end and aim dis- 
 covered almost contemporary with the first declaration of the 
 existence of the soul, not put forth as a mere dogma of faith, 
 but demonstrated by the unanswerable arguments of sound 
 reasoning ; if I remind you that Sculpture rose to perfection at 
 a moment when the sentence " Know thyself" was read from the 
 Delphic Oracle and discussed in their schools of philosophy — I 
 shall, I hope, at least have imbued you with increased respect 
 for it, and an enthusiasm which will lead you on to loftier 
 aspirations and more strenuous exertions. 
 
 The great Flaxman was a studier of these writings, I believe, 
 in their original language, and I think it is not too much to 
 say that both his character as a man and the style of his works 
 were influenced, if not wholly formed, by that study. If so^ 
 can you have a better example of their effect ? It may not 
 be what is called practical advice that I have given you in 
 this lecture, though it is far easier to say what advice is prac- 
 tical than to define what is not. For my part I can only 
 tell you that I feel strongly that the counsel I have now 
 endeavoured to put before you will be found in the highest 
 degree practical to you, whether as artists or as men, if you 
 do but try it rightly. I am compelled myself to feel it so, 
 as much or more from my want of it as from any partial or 
 imperfect presence of it within me. I would have you be, 
 in your search after knowledge, like the miser with his money, 
 who the more he has the more he requires. There will al- 
 ways be this difference between you and him, that while he 
 is obliged to keep his accumulations to himself, you may give 
 
EDUCATION, 
 
 199 
 
 away as much as you please and yet be never the poorer ; and 
 some of it you may assuredly afford to give to your Art. 
 I would have you to feel and confess yourself, in Byron's words, 
 to be 
 
 '* As a youth 
 Picking up pebbles by the great ocean Truth ; " 
 
 and some of these pebbles, those of the brightest kind, will, I 
 doubt not, be found profitable in your profession. Try. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 N Portraiture, Sculpture departs more than in other 
 walks from the severe style of the antique — is 
 compelled to do so from the necessity of repre- 
 senting in itself the prevalent feeling of the epoch 
 to which it belongs. Yet I think we shall find that, as it ad- 
 vances in excellence, it returns more closely to the simple spirit 
 of old times, and endeavours to carry out its effect by the same 
 means as were then employed — namely, dependence on the na- 
 tural contour of the human frame rather than on a flow of re- 
 dundant and complicated drapery, and reliance on simple atti- 
 tudes and expressions rather than on an affectation of grace or 
 on overstrained action. 
 
 One of the great mistakes that sculptors make, or have made, 
 in this line of Art, is the supposing that the adoption of antique 
 habiliments is the proper method of assimilating their work to 
 that of ancient Art, and in never for a moment discerning, that 
 it is not in any peculiarity or adaptability of the costumes of the 
 old works, but in the thorough simplicity of treatment, that 
 their excellence consists, and that that simplicity is as suitable 
 to modern dress and time as to any other. It is by this sim- 
 
PORTRAITURE, 
 
 20I 
 
 plicity of treatment that a portrait statue becomes thoroughly 
 sculpturesque in its character, in fact, high Art ; whilst a faith- 
 ful adhesion to costume prevents its being in any way false or 
 anachronistic in its effect. 
 
 It is much the fashion with artists and Art critics to run down 
 Portrait Sculpture ; to declare it to be an inferior class of Art, 
 requiring less imagination, less power of thought, and less re- 
 finement of feeling than the Ideal : and I am not altogether dis- 
 inclined to believe that there is some slight foundation for the 
 opinion ; yet I fancy that the power of producing a fine portrait 
 figure is quite as rare as, if not more so than, the faculty of carrying 
 out an Ideal one, and sometimes think that success in one or 
 the other arises rather from a difference than an inferiority in 
 the tone of mind of the producer. 
 
 Whilst one man is imbued with a feeling of beauty which he 
 perceives in Nature, and which he endeavours to condense in 
 his work as a whole, another is impressed with a strong sense 
 of character which he finds in individuals, and which tends, in 
 his opinion, not only to express the distinctions of each, but to 
 produce that infinite variety of which he is more particularly an 
 admirer. Be this as it may, it is to Portraiture that modern 
 Sculpture has mostly devoted its attention, and I may add that 
 in it it has mostly obtained success. I will go further; I will 
 say that it is in this department that its efforts must in future 
 be mostly called forth — a heretical opinion for which I feel 
 myself bound to give a reason. It is this : whilst in ancient 
 Greece Art stood as an instructor of the people on equal, or 
 nearly equal, terms with Literature, owing to the restricted 
 means that then existed of spreading ideas, History and Poetry 
 have now, through the agency of printing, usurped the province 
 
PORTRAITURE. 
 
 of Art of impressing all those ideas of grace and beauty which 
 then belonged to the latter more particularly to impart. It is 
 not too much to acknowledge that both of these are more 
 powerful than Art for this purpose, are less limited in their 
 means, more comprehensive in their grasp, and more universally 
 suggestive to the recipient of their instructions. Every Art 
 must have a purpose, and a purpose adapted to, and required 
 by the epoch in which it exists ; and physical form — material en- 
 tity — is the only thing now left that can be more forcibly im- 
 pressed on the senses by Sculpture than by description. We 
 read in History of the causes that have made a country distin- 
 guished j or in Biography the direction of a man's thoughts who 
 has become eminent by the events of his life ; Poetry sings his 
 praise for his good deeds, or expresses its contempt for his evil 
 acts : but it is by Art alone that we can retain his form and 
 figure as it existed while he lived, and whilst the efforts by 
 which he has made himself famous were being brought to a 
 result. 
 
 How often do we, whilst reading an eventful life, endeavour 
 to picture to ourselves the features of the man who has been 
 the chief agent in the story, or whose intellectual success has 
 enabled him to resist, and may be conquer that decree of fate 
 which at first seemed set against him ! How often do we turn to 
 the representation of him at the frontispiece of our book, in the 
 hope of a moment's imaginary conversation with one who has 
 so excited our admiration or wonder, thinking that by so doing 
 we may gain a yet clearer insight into his character, and a closer 
 intimacy with his brain ! 
 
 This, his physical form, is the one thing which Art can alone 
 perpetuate, and which no verbal description can thoroughly and 
 
PORTRAITURE. 203 
 
 faithfully convey; and it is for this reason that Sculpture, as 
 well as the other Arts, is, and in my opinion ever will be, so 
 constantly employed on this object. I might urge upon you 
 many other reasons, such as family affections, private friend- 
 ships, and mutual admiration, that tend to give an impetus to 
 Portraiture which Ideal Art has not ; and so help in the same 
 direction, but this one reason is to me sufficient. Let us con- 
 sider in what Likeness consists. 
 
 It is not so much by the truthful copying of each individual 
 feature, but in the proper placing them together, that an ac- 
 curate resemblance is obtained, in the same way that the imita- 
 tion of each limb or part of the figure separately will not 
 produce a recognizable portrait so much as the proper uniting 
 of them as a whole. It is, in short, the difference in the join- 
 ing together of the features, one with another, in the human 
 frame that produces that marked individuality which exists in 
 such infinite variety in Nature ; so infinite that, amid the count- 
 less numbers that surround us, we have never yet found, and in 
 all probability never shall find, two people so alike as not to 
 be distinguished when brought in juxtaposition one with 
 another. Were it possible, indeed^ for our features to be 
 separated and placed in a row on the table, I doubt much 
 whether they would be recognizable one from another. Some 
 would appear, perhaps, handsomer, better shaped, than others, 
 but all individuality would be gone, and our friends, while 
 endeavouring to put them together again, would, not impro- 
 bably, assign to us that which did not belong to us, as they are 
 sometimes in the habit of doing whilst picking us to pieces. 
 The same may be said of likeness with regard to the entire 
 figure. It is not each individual part by itself, but a right com- 
 
204 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 bination of the whole that constitutes real resemblance. This, 
 then, the portrait sculptor has more particularly to attend to, 
 he has to take care, not so much that each feature by itself 
 resembles his original, as that each is in its relative position with 
 the others : the least departure from this will more or less 
 diminish similitude, as well as destroy that harmony of parts 
 which exists in the face and figure of every living being, how- 
 ever different his appearance may be from what we term abstract 
 beauty. Do not, when you begin your work, set to with any 
 idea of what is called improving Nature, but rather look up to 
 her with humble reverence. You will always find something in 
 your sitter which your Art cannot reach, cannot come up to ; 
 but you will arrive nearer that something by looking on it with 
 a loving eye than by setting up notions of your own with 
 regard to your Art, which, even if they be correct in themselves, 
 may not be suitable to the individual you are endeavouring to 
 represent. There are other things that help to success in like- 
 ness, if indeed they are not the principal agents in it — the 
 seizing the most characteristic expression and attitude, both of 
 which are in Nature capable of immense changes — are, in fact, 
 hardly for two minutes the same. Still there is always one ex- 
 pression in particular that remains on the memory, and so ap- 
 pears to belong persistently to the sitter ; and most decidedly 
 every man, woman, and even child is more or less prone to 
 one particular attitude, or has some peculiar habit by which 
 he or she is recognized, even at a distance when features are 
 scarcely visible to the eye. It is the absence of this quality 
 that sometimes causes entire failure in photography, where 
 every part of the face or figure must necessarily be correct, or, 
 if not quite correct, at any rate more so than in any resemblance 
 
PORTRAITURE. 205 
 
 produced by fine Art. The photographer takes but one sitting, 
 in all probability knows nothing of his sitter until the moment 
 when he commences his process, and so is ignorant of any re- 
 markable manner he may have of carrying himself, or of any 
 peculiar expression he may be in the habit of putting on when 
 animated by that which interests him, or by what has been the 
 more continuous employment of his life. The artist, if I may 
 so call him, guided by his own notions of grace or dignity, 
 fixes him in an attitude which does not belong to him, and the 
 result is a complete absence of all characteristic likeness. 
 
 The students have this year, again, a most valuable lesson in 
 Portraiture from the Exhibition of Old Masters in the rooms 
 of the Royal Academy : the Exhibition consists, in fact, more of 
 Portraiture than any previous ones ; and I do not see why the 
 sculptors should not take part of that lesson to their Art as 
 well as the painters to theirs. What do we find, and what do 
 we not find, in the examples shown us by the greatest masters — 
 Titian, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Vandyck, Romney, Reynolds, 
 and, I will add, Gainsborough? We find under these great 
 names everywhere truth, but nothing of that looseness of style, 
 that wishy-washy softening of parts, which, under the name of 
 flattery, is so prevalent in modern Art. Flattery in the Por- 
 traiture of recent days means to omit or soften down all that 
 is not considered, according to the notions of the day, hand- 
 some j to indicate, rather than fully imitate peculiarities ; to 
 paint or model the man so as to bring him somewhat closer 
 than he is to the standard of beauty. In short, to rub him out 
 just so far that he may still be dimly visible within the misty 
 halo that surrounds him. There is nothing of this in the 
 old works — at least, there does not appear to me to be ; on the 
 
2o6 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 contrary, every peculiarity of face or figure is truthfully de- 
 lineated and strongly insisted on, every characteristic expres- 
 sion unreservedly portrayed. The attitudes are chosen, not so 
 much for their conventional grace, as for the sake of marking 
 individuality. Some of the positions are, in fact, anything but 
 graceful, though they are always such as belong more particu- 
 larly to the sitter, and designate most strongly his tone of mind 
 and employment in life. There is no shirking in the drawing 
 of any part ; no hiding, or even diminishing, of any feature that 
 may be ungainly, or not exactly according to the rules of beauty. 
 
 The painters have submitted themselves to what they found 
 before them, and have felt that the altering of any one portion 
 would disturb, if not destroy, the harmony of the whole. The 
 consequence is, that these remembrances of the past, these 
 actors on a bygone stage, could they be released from their 
 canvases and brought again to life, would possess all that 
 variety they had in their original existence, would fulfil the 
 same parts, would act and think in the same manner as before. 
 I would instance as an example of this the portrait of a Dancing 
 Lady, not altogether unobjectionable, though the objections 
 seem to lie more with the lady herself than with the picture, 
 which in itself is admirable. I would call your attention to the 
 courage with which the painter, Gainsborough, has portrayed 
 her character, not maliciously, but truthfully; how he has set 
 her before you in her best occupation, or, as I may say, with 
 her best leg foremost ; how fearlessly and unmistakably he has 
 copied the artificial rouge on her cheeks, and given her fasci- 
 nating smile, not altogether that of a pure-minded and high- 
 bred woman, but with something of the serpent mixed with it. 
 
 The lesson of truth I would wish to impress upon you may 
 
PORTRAITURE. 207 
 
 be carried too far in this instance ; but still it is a lesson which 
 will give you courage and enable you to accomplish better 
 things under better circumstances, whether you are working as 
 painters or sculptors. 
 
 I cannot help, too, calling your attention to the portrait of 
 Mrs. Drummond Smith, by Romney, where treatment, a 
 different thing from flattery, has conquered one of the most 
 unmanageable head-dresses it ever had to contend with, and 
 placed under it one of the most lovable countenances ever 
 possessed by woman or portrayed by Art. The sculptor would 
 not be able to reproduce this costume so literally and yet so 
 inoffensively as the painter has done, for the means he has at 
 command would prevent him ; but by studying what Romney 
 has here accomplished, he may learn the value of breadth, and 
 how much can be done by taste to unite the pecuHarities of 
 fashion with the requisites of Art. These wonderful works may, 
 as I have said before, serve as a lesson to the portrait sculptor 
 as well as the portrait painter : the simplicity of background 
 in many of them, the subduing of subordinate parts by means 
 of light and shade and colour, so as to give the face its due 
 prominence, may suggest to him the like, though he will have 
 to attain it by different means. The faithful adhesion to 
 costume, often to an extent that conveys an awkwardness to 
 the figure, may render him more cautious in his departure from 
 it when tempted to do so for the sake of what is called 
 classicality of treatment. The two Arts are separate from each 
 other, but he may recollect that in the different outposts 
 occupied by each, of which Portraiture is one, they come 
 nearer to one another than in those parts where their great 
 strength lies. There is one thing I would wish these fine 
 
2o8 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 examples of Painting not to suggest to the sculptor, and I lay- 
 more stress upon it because I have of late been pained by 
 noticing that painters advocate it as strongly for Sculpture as 
 for their own calling. I mean the dependence on what is 
 called touch. Its pleasing effect in painting can be denied 
 by no artist, whether painter or sculptor, for, besides conveying 
 the impression of a master hand, and imparting the charm of 
 facility, the loose and indefinite surface thereby attained 
 agrees with, arid compensates for the endless variety produced 
 in Nature by the momentary changes of light and constant 
 movement of parts. It helps, too, the transparency of shadow 
 so requisite in all good Art. But sketching on canvas with 
 the brush is one thing, and sketching in clay or marble with 
 the modelling-tool or chisel is another. Accident, even, will 
 sometimes aid the skill of the painter, but in no case will the 
 hard stone lend itself willingly to the sculptor's purposes; so 
 that his efforts in this direction must at the best be but an 
 affectation of facility. There are other reasons besides this 
 which render vague, indefinite, sketchy kinds of treatment un- 
 advisable : Sculpture has to undergo endless changes of light, 
 and to appear well finished, if not effective, in all of them. It 
 does not, like Painting, contain its light and shade within itself, 
 so that touches which are powerful in one light become power- 
 less, if not worse than powerless, in another. 
 
 Could we secure our figures being fixed constantly in the 
 same place, and, like Joshua, make the sun to stand still — 
 neither of the two very likely — it might be otherwise, as then 
 the chiaro-oscuro would be ever, as it is in Painting, the same ; 
 and touches would be effective, and convey the impression of 
 real form at all times. As it is, the sculptor is obliged to ex- 
 
PORTRAITURE, 209 
 
 pose his statue, while working it, to every possible variety of 
 light ; and it is by these means, and these means alone, that 
 he can obtain that degree of finish, that undulating yet solid 
 surface which enables it afterwards to stand the test of any 
 and every light it may have to undergo. Nothing but highly 
 wrought Sculpture will do that. No, the sculptor must avoid 
 in his Art that tricky touch so fascinating in these fine paint- 
 ings, and depend entirely on really honest, laborious workman- 
 ship — not merely mechanical workmanship, of course, but work- 
 manship combined with taste and feeling. I have an idea that 
 the ancient Greek sculptors, in whose statues the highest 
 degree of real finish is displayed, must have submitted them 
 to the influence of open air Hght whilst working on them, in 
 order to obtain that finish ; an experiment never yet, that I am 
 aware, tried by a modern sculptor. The great use that this 
 Exhibition of the Old Masters must be to the portrait sculptor, 
 is to teach him to enter thoroughly into the character of the 
 person he is representing, to dive deep into his mind, to fancy 
 himself, if possible, acting and thinking as would his sitter, and 
 to watch his prevailing habits and peculiar expressions ; in 
 short, to get rid for a moment of his own personality, and take 
 up, as I am convinced these Old Masters did, that of him he 
 is endeavouring to perpetuate in his model. 
 
 One more comment on these old portraits and I have done ; 
 this time a technical one. I wish you to observe their compact- 
 ness, the comparatively small dimensions in which, whether 
 merely heads or whole-lengths, they are contained ; and I will 
 endeavour to show you by-and-by that the same quality is 
 found in all good Portrait Sculpture. And this compactness in 
 one Art may suggest to you to imbue another with the same 
 
 p 
 
2IO 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 excellences. The student in Sculpture may learn from them 
 to give simplicity and breadth to his figures, if not by light and 
 shade, by fewness of parts and by subduing each part so that it 
 may take its proper place and no more. He may learn not to 
 run astray into extravagance of space for the sake of displaying 
 that which ought to be of inferior value. The sculptor has 
 more restraint on him in this respect than the painter, for the 
 marble in which he has to carry out his ideas is limited in size, 
 and, moreover, expensive ; but there are other reasons besides 
 this. A want of reserve in the draperies (Bernini's error), or other 
 accessories, takes from the importance of the head, which should, 
 under any circumstances, whether in Painting or Sculpture, be 
 the attractive point. The eye loses power and becomes fatigued 
 by having to wander over a large and comparatively uninteresting 
 surface. The Roman antique head of Vitellius is an example 
 of strong individuality and truthful Portraiture. That it is 
 coarse, more direct in expression than the paintings of the Old 
 Masters we have been speaking of, arises from the natural pro- 
 pensities, particularly the evil ones — such as gluttony — being 
 more clearly developed, because less restrained by the usages 
 of society in early than in later times, rather than from any 
 change of principle or wish to modify in the more modern pro- 
 ductions. I have mentioned this head to you as an example of 
 faithfulness : I may now set it up as one of economy, and there 
 are many more of the like kind belonging to the antique Roman 
 school. In this instance the sculptor seems indeed to have felt 
 that having obtained all he desired by the head and face alone — 
 after all perhaps not the most agreeable of results — it was unwise 
 to load the bust with the heavy chest and shoulders, which would 
 only have tended to reduce the power of the head, and at the 
 
PORTRAITURE. 
 
 211 
 
 same time render the whole still more objectionable and dis- 
 gusting. The same principle is evident in the antique portrait 
 statues; they are all compact, contained within a simple yet 
 somewhat restricted space, never running astray for the sake of 
 redundancy of Hne or display of unnecessary attitude. Chan- 
 trey used to say that every standing portrait statue should be 
 contained within a shape resembling a ninepin. The observa- 
 tion is not very profound, and must be taken with a licence ; 
 but it is of a practical kind, and serves to express what I have 
 endeavoured to impart to you — namely, the necessity of keeping 
 within bounds in your accessories, and of never departing much 
 from the naked form, even when covered with draperies or other 
 habiliments. Both Greek and Roman portrait statues possess 
 these qualities of reserve, as you will see by examining them, the 
 finer ones more even than the inferior ones. We have had in 
 this country sculptors of no inconsiderable eminence, more or 
 less professedly belonging to portrait Art, and the best are repre- 
 sented in the Exhibition of Old Masters now going on. Some 
 have confined themselves almost wholly to it, whilst others have 
 mixed it up with the other branches; each one, however, is 
 eventually judged of by that in which he is most successful, and 
 classed accordingly. 
 
 We recognize Roubiliac as a portrait sculptor, though he 
 was great in other things ; and we put down Chantrey as such, 
 because there is little that he has left of any value outside of 
 this department; while I may mention Behnes as having 
 devoted his talents still more exclusively to it. If I single out 
 these three names as the most prominent on the list, the most 
 marked in their success, I am not wishing to decry the merits 
 of such men as Bacon, who in his statues of Johnson and 
 
212 PORTRAITURE, 
 
 Howard, in St. Paul's Cathedral, appears to me to have 
 approached nearer to the pure dignity of the antique than any- 
 other modern sculptor. On the contrary, I would urge upon 
 you attentive study of these figures, and set them before you 
 as examples of what I have asserted in the early part of the 
 lecture — viz., that as the Art rises in excellence, it partakes 
 more and more of the pure simple feeling of the antique. Look 
 at them as you like. You may differ from Bacon as to the 
 propriety of investing them in antique drapery; and I think 
 justly pronounce it anachronism, though much might be said 
 in defence of even this. It must be allowed that it brings them 
 into better keeping with the noble architectural frame in which 
 they are enclosed ; and the more than usually uncouth costume, 
 in which the old Doctor himself was clothed in life, might be 
 urged upon you as wholly beyond the power of treatment in 
 Sculpture. You may look at them with all these objections 
 on your mind; still you will not deny that they are fine as 
 works of Art — far more so, at any rate, than many that have 
 since been erected in the building, where correctness of dress 
 has been more duly attended to. 
 
 These two statues serve in my mind to illustrate what I have 
 said in my former lectures, that there is hardly a rule in Art 
 that may not, on some occasion or other, be broken with 
 advantage j that laws are laid down not to compel the student 
 to a slavish obedience to them, but to give to the young the 
 benefit derived from experience, and so sober and bring into 
 rule and order that wild enthusiasm with which, if he be a real 
 genius, he is generally imbued in early life. Here are two 
 portrait statues that have set aside all correctness of costume, 
 and yet it would be difficult to assert that they are not fine, and 
 
PORTRAITURE. 213 
 
 still more difificult to feel that they would have been better if 
 treated in a more literal manner. It is only fair, however, to 
 say that they appear to me exceptional in their merit to the 
 generality of Bacon's works; they have less of his affected 
 ornamental flow of line, while they retain that careful study and 
 finish so admirable in all he did. Though I have singled out 
 three names as more particularly belonging to English Portrait 
 Sculpture, I would not have you think me unmindful of Flax- 
 man, even in this department of the Art : his statues of Nelson 
 and Sir Joshua Reynolds, also in St. Paul's, are remarkable 
 for their severity of style and sedateness of expression. The 
 quantities are well arranged and balanced, and the expression 
 appropriate in both. Nelson looks out upon England's foe 
 with a calm yet severe determination, which assures us of 
 victory and success ; whilst Sir Joshua possesses much of that 
 contemplative character appropriate to him as a great artist as 
 well as a great writer on Art, coupled with that undisturbed 
 repose of mind which belongs to the prudent man of the world. 
 These statues will serve too as examples of how faithful treat- 
 ment of costume may be united with severity of style, and they 
 will well repay the contemplation of the sculptor student. Their 
 limbs may not be so well shaped, nor the whole so highly 
 finished, as in the before-mentioned ones by Bacon ; but they 
 are full of that quiet serenity which is the very essence of good 
 Art, and which is so remarkable in everything that Flaxman 
 wrought ; and they have all that propriety of feeling which is 
 the result of an experienced mind in contradistinction to that 
 untrained energy that accompanies the efforts of youth. The 
 figure of Nelson is remarkable for its severe simplicity, and the 
 way the sculptor has shown his judgment by throwing the cloak 
 
214 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 over the wanting arm, and so reconciled with history an Art 
 which rebels against any defect of this kind, will serve as an 
 answer to many a stupid joke made on the supposed diffi- 
 culty thereby created. I wish I could say that we had more 
 of Flaxman's portrait works in our this year's Exhibition, but 
 the difficulty of moving these things has prevented it. We 
 have, however, a fine example of him in the higher walk of 
 Art, where he shows his power in composition — the Shield of 
 Achilles — and two which belong to the subject I am now 
 treating of. Portraiture, the statuettes of Raffaelle and Michael 
 Angelo. To these I would particularly call the student's 
 attention. They are small in size, but perhaps no two works 
 ever contained, sketches though they be, so much that is great 
 in Art. They are, in fact, admirable instances of that quiet 
 simplicity which should pervade all works of this kind; and 
 this simpHcity of expression is obtained without any loss in 
 strength of character, or any sacrifice of faithfulness in cos- 
 tume. You may read the spirit of each of the two great men 
 represented by them as clearly and distinctly as you would by 
 the most careful study either of their history or of what they 
 produced. I wish, in short, to recommend them most earnestly 
 to the beginner in Sculpture as great works, as things that show 
 him what he should aim at, to whatever department of his Art 
 his efforts may be directed. 
 
 Unfortunately the collection contains this year, with hardly 
 more than one exception besides these, little else than Heads, 
 and this one exception, the statue of Her Majesty, is, I fear, 
 not altogether a successful one. If I observe upon it, it is 
 because I think it may serve as a warning to the student 
 against that error of which I have already this evening spoken — 
 
PORTRAITURE. 215 
 
 the total throwing aside of all costume of the period, and the 
 adopting of that notion of classicality which is supposed to 
 exist in antique drapery, and in an imitation of the style of 
 bygone days. Looking at it as an ideal figure it may be good — 
 I do not say that it is, or is not— but do we find anything in it 
 that reminds us of our gracious Queen ? The face may be like, 
 but for that very reason is entirely out of keeping with the 
 treatment of the other parts of the statue. As a portrait of 
 Her Majesty, it is, I fear, almost worthless, and as an ideal 
 statue it is, from its being to a certain degree a portrait, 
 equally defective. These things when shown in our Exhibi- 
 tions may serve as lessons to the students in two ways — how to 
 advance, and what to avoid. Even the lines of the drapery 
 have become, from their having been so constantly arranged 
 after the same manner in antique works, almost conventional ; 
 they appear, in truth, from this circumstance to belong, and 
 belong only, to the old period of Art, and the rigidity of treat- 
 ment again carries the figure back to that date. 
 
 I will repeat you the words of Sir Joshua Reynolds on the 
 treatment of portrait draperies, as I think they comprehend the 
 entire argument of the question. They cannot, in fact, be too 
 much kept in your minds. He says : — 
 
 " I cannot avoid mentioning here a circumstance in portrait 
 painting which may help to confirm what has been said. When 
 a portrait is painted in the historical style, as it is neither an 
 exact minute representation of an individual nor completely 
 ideal, every circumstance ought to correspond to this mixture. 
 The simplicity of the antique air and attitude, however much 
 to be admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a modern 
 dress. It is not to my purpose to enter into the question at 
 
2l6 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 present, whether this mixed style ought to be adopted or not ; 
 yet if it is chosen, it is necessary it should be complete and all 
 of a piece : the difference of stuffs, for instance, which make 
 the clothing, should be distinguished in the same degree as the 
 head deviates from a general idea ; without this union, which 
 I have so often recommended, a work can have no marked 
 and determined character, which is the peculiar and constant 
 evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished to a high 
 degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that style which we 
 have fixed as the highest." 
 
 We have, however, collected together at this moment many- 
 portrait heads by which the learner may gain much, if he will 
 but study them with care, and without any prejudice as to the 
 comparative reputation of those who produced them. He may 
 examine with advantage to himself the vigorous treatment, the 
 sturdy truth in the head of Dr. Mead by Roubiliac, a head 
 that renders Cromwell's directions to his portrait painter not so 
 ridiculous as we are apt to suppose. He will find no softening off 
 of the features there, but an honest acknowledgment of the 
 peculiarities of face as a whole. He will recognize too the 
 dignity of the lawyer Coke as well as the freedom with which 
 the dress is treated in the grand head of him by the same 
 sculptor, though I fear he will discover the absence, owing to 
 its being posthumous, of that variety of surface, that difference 
 between bone and flesh, always found in good works, whether 
 portrait or ideal, when properly studied from Nature. I would 
 have the student look to it with this idea, and he will see how 
 mechanically the temple bones are given, how hard and inflexible 
 the whole countenance is from this want, even when wrought by 
 the hand of Roubiliac, who, of all modern portrait sculptors, 
 
PORTRAITURE. 217 
 
 was the most famous for representing the undulations of the 
 human face, and for giving that seeming power of movement 
 which it has in reality. The bust is nobly conceived, most im- 
 pressive as a whole ; but deficient in that subtle variety of sur- 
 face which Roubiliac of all men would have given it had he 
 had Nature before him as a guide. 
 
 You will expect me, I daresay, to refer next to Chantrey, an- 
 other deservedly great name in Portrait Sculpture, the more so 
 from my having in my earlier days been connected with his 
 studio. But I am bound here to be no respecter of persons, and 
 to speak the truth as far as I can, at whatever cost, for the benefit 
 of the student. 
 
 Perhaps we have not been lucky enough to get the very finest 
 examples of what this well-known sculptor produced. I doubt if 
 we have, though there is much to praise in what is set before us, 
 and much of which the student may take advantage. Be this as 
 it may, I must tell you that I think the head next to those I 
 have already named most worthy of your notice is that of Dr. 
 Babington by Behnes. Not even Roubiliac's heads excel it in 
 truthfulness to Nature, in that variety of touch, if I must use a 
 painter's term, and in a certain characteristic expression which 
 I feel sure belonged to the Doctor himself, so faithfully is it 
 given. Let the student look at this again, and he may then 
 turn to the before-mentioned Chantrey and make a comparison 
 between the two. He will find in the latter, I fancy, a more re- 
 fined, gentlemanly character, and a more profound expression — 
 and this is no small praise — ^but I fear also he will find less 
 mobility of parts and more mannerism in the treatment, espe- 
 cially of the hair. I am right, I believe, in saying that the 
 expression of his faces is more profound ; but I think I am right 
 
2l8 
 
 PORTRAITURE, 
 
 also in saying that he gave less diversity in that expression than 
 did the other man, Behnes : in short, that he reduced his many 
 sitters to one expression which belonged to himself, and which 
 he imparted more or less to whatever or whomsoever came under 
 his hand. This is a propensity we are all liable to, and one 
 which there is considerable difficulty in avoiding; the best old 
 sculptors have, however, steered clear of it. His draperies too, 
 much as he was admired in his lifetime for them, seem to me 
 hard and inflexible when put by the side of those of Roubiliac, 
 who perhaps erred by a too loose treatment of them. 
 
 If I tell you this as my opinion, it is not that I wish you to 
 be wholly guided by me, but to induce you to make compari- 
 sons for yourselves, when you get opportunities of doing so, as 
 you have at the present moment in our Exhibition. This com- 
 paring the works of different men, and different periods, is one 
 of the best lessons a student can possibly have. You need not 
 always be looking at the antique : that, it is true, will show you 
 in what true beauty of form consists ; but you may learn much 
 from what has been done in later days. Even when a man 
 has failed in a certain point, you may learn from his failure to 
 do otherwise. There is, in short, no better school for practical 
 purposes than an Exhibition such as you have now the oppor- 
 tunity of studying, especially in Portraiture, which must so far 
 always be a modern Art ; or, at any rate, carry with it the 
 appearance of one, since it must represent the day in which 
 the work is wrought. I must content myself with these few 
 observations on the display of this year, trusting that they may 
 afford the means of further and better ones being made by 
 the student himself ; and will conclude my lecture of this even- 
 ing by describing, as well as I can, what appears to me the best 
 
PORTRAITURE, 219 
 
 practical method of carrying out a portrait bust — a method 
 which will, I think, serve equally for a full-length figure. I 
 wish you to understand, however, that I give it you not as 
 having any claim to being the best, but merely as the one I 
 use myself. I have, in fact, heard indirectly that a lady student 
 has expressed a wish that I should do so ; and with this wish 
 I feel myself bound to comply, leaving it to her to decide if 
 it have or have not any value. It may possibly, I think, enable 
 her to get over with more facility the preliminaries of her work, 
 and so devote more patience and attention to the real essence 
 of it — attitude, character, expression, and that harmony and 
 propriety of treatment which renders every part in unison with 
 the whole, while at the same time agreeable in itself. 
 
 When I start with a head from the life, my plan is first of 
 all to make, as correctly as I can, a drawing on paper of the 
 profile, attaching to it such measurements as will secure its 
 being correct in size. Chantrey used Wollston's magnifying 
 camera for this purpose, and so, perhaps, obtained more accu- 
 racy than by the eye alone. But the practice gained by the 
 effort in drawing is worth more to the sculptor than any assis- 
 tance of that kind, so that I do not recommend it. I then get 
 on paper each feature in its place in respect to this view, the 
 facial angle as it should be — a most important point in likeness — 
 and I also make myself master of the size, hardly less important. 
 I then proceed in the same manner with a drawing of the full 
 face, attaching to it again measurements of the width of the 
 head in various parts, of the ears, and as far as possible of the 
 other features. You will tell me, perhaps, that this is a very 
 roundabout way of beginning, and at the same time a very 
 mechanical one ; the latter it certainly is, and I believe for 
 
220 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 that reason the best ; but practice will, I fancy, show you that 
 it is not the former. I then trace this outline profile on a thin 
 board or veneer, and cut that board out so as to form by its 
 edge a sort of mould by which I strike this outline on the clay 
 built up for that purpose, after the manner of a plasterman, 
 when he runs his mouldings along the margin of a room or 
 otherwise. I then convey to the clay the various measure- 
 ments I have made in both drawings, taking care that each 
 feature assumes its relative place, but caring nothing as yet 
 about expression or attitude — my only anxiety being, that the 
 head should be perfectly upright, like a soldier's, that each half 
 is equal in quantity, and that the angles at which the parts 
 fall away from the centre are on both sides alike. 
 
 What have we obtained thus far? A mere block of clay, some- 
 times, but not always, indicating a gleam of likeness, but as 
 yet almost without form and void. You would perhaps prefer 
 rushing to expression, getting your head into attitude, grasping 
 the character of your sitter, and so arriving at the end of your 
 difficulties at once ; but you must recollect, that you have only 
 as yet had about two hours of his time and company, and you 
 will always be called upon for economy in that. 
 
 The cutting out of the profile, the building up of the clay, 
 have all been done in his absence; it is, in short, a preparation 
 for the second interview : but little progress has apparently been 
 made in the first one, but what you have done is correct as far 
 as it goes. You have, in short, a groundwork which places you 
 in ease and comfort for your second sitting — are, in fact, confi- 
 dent that what you have done is, as far as it goes, correct. The 
 head is still stiff and formal in its position, but I need not again 
 remind you that you are not as yet supposed to be well ac- 
 
PORTRAITURE. 
 
 221 
 
 quainted with your sitter, and consequently not competent to 
 decide the very important question of what is the most appro- 
 priate attitude — a question upon which much of Hkeness de- 
 pends. But you will recollect, I am sure, that you have in Sculp- 
 ture an advantage which the painter has not: the power of 
 changing the position of the head, or even entire figure at any 
 moment, without great detriment to what may have been done. 
 Decapitation, by passing a fine wire or string through the throat, 
 is a quiet, painless operation, as useful in our Art as it is in a 
 more honourable one ; twisting of the neck having generally a 
 tendency rather to produce life than to extinguish it. You 
 need not, however, be in a hurry about that, but wait until your 
 model has attained more age and maturity. It is in your 
 second sitting that the real work begins. You have then to 
 arrange the principal depths and shadows of the face, and to 
 give the projections their relative value and effect, recollecting 
 that you have in many of them to compensate by increased 
 strength for the want of colour in your Art. Minuti^ are as yet 
 of no importance, if indeed they ever become so. You have 
 too, while really giving your chief attention to your model, to 
 appear to enter, as far as you can, into conversation with your 
 sitter, so as to draw him out, and induce him to show himself 
 in his natural habit and manner, for without this you will never 
 truly know him as a portrait sculptor should, for he will ever 
 more or less be under constraint, and be sailing under false 
 colours, and you will consequently be unable to portray the 
 inner man on the outer surface of your lump of clay. You may 
 smile perhaps at my putting forth this as one of the difficulties 
 in, and as one of the modes of getting a good likeness ; but it 
 is nevertheless part and parcel of them, and there are many 
 
222 
 
 PORTRAITURE. 
 
 questions involved in it which I need not go into here, such as 
 the necessity for good education among artists, and for a general 
 knowledge of the world among them. Unless you can accom- 
 plish this double kind of task that is imposed upon you, you 
 will have little chance of obtaining what may be termed a cha- 
 racteristic resemblance. You have to feel, really feel, an interest 
 in the remarks of your sitter, to enter into the gist of his con- 
 versation ; in short, to lead him on unconsciously to those sub- 
 jects about which his mind has been most engaged or his ener- 
 gies most exercised. He comes, you must recollect, to your 
 studio generally with a prejudice against sitting as a tedious 
 process, and if you can while away the hour so as to make him 
 forget what he is about, he will be agreeably surprised, and be 
 more likely to recommend others to undergo the same. You 
 will readily believe me when I say that I myself find this ne- 
 cessity of making myself agreeable on such occasions one of 
 the most difficult portions of my labour, and it is for that reason 
 that I impress the importance of it in my lecture. 
 
 It may not, however, be so with you — with some of my audience 
 I am sure, in fact, that it is not. While your sitter is with you, 
 you need not at any time attend to what is called the finishing 
 of your head or figure. Make, if I may use the term, memoranda 
 on it while he is with you ; they may be roughly done, but they 
 will serve your memory when he is gone, and when you are 
 occupying yourself by smoothing the surface, by toning down 
 the too strong markings, and by getting the whole well together. 
 You will thus find yourself well prepared for a further interview 
 when the process has to be repeated, and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 A few more remarks, and I have done. A dark complexion, 
 black hair, and a rich tone of colour, require deep cuttings and 
 
PORTRAITURE. 
 
 223 
 
 strong shadows, while the absence of these quaUties necessitates 
 fainter treatment and greater breadth of parts. A stout, heavy 
 figure will bear heavy drapery, if drapery be used at all, while a 
 thin light one calls for smaller and more delicate folds from the 
 same necessity for harmony as a whole. I am not certain in- 
 deed if Roubiliac has not somewhat sinned by departure from 
 this rule in his splendid head of Dr. Mead; but he was ad- 
 dicted to meagreness, was in the habit, it is said, and I am in- 
 clined to believe, of casting real wet drapery on his models, by 
 which, though a certain amount of fact is obtained, a certain 
 amount of meagreness becomes almost inevitable. I will for- 
 give him this error, however, if his fiery spirit will forgive me 
 the remark I have made until I shall have modelled as fine a 
 head as the one I allude to. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. No. I. 
 
 HE celebrated discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 delivered now a century back, may, without any 
 great impropriety, be termed the Classics of English 
 Art Literature. Though written more expressly 
 for Painting, there is much in them that is equally applicable 
 to all the professions, or, in other words, as useful to the 
 sculptor and architect as to the painter. They are now pre- 
 sented, in fact, annually to medallist students in each depart- 
 ment of Art. A member of our Academy once said that he 
 believed if our professors would but read a portion of these 
 discourses from time to time to the students, it would benefit 
 them as much as, or even more than their own lectures. I am 
 by.no means certain he was wrong. At any rate, it would be a 
 godsend to the lecturers themselves; for it would save them 
 a deal of time, and perhaps in some instances a world of 
 thought ; and the Academy might elect them after the manner 
 of Sir Roger de Coverley, who, when he wished to appoint his 
 chaplain, asked, not for a man of any particular theological 
 knowledge, or power of literary composition, but simply for 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 225 
 
 one who possessed a good clear voice that would make itself 
 heard among his congregation. 
 
 I have no authority, however, for taking to myself this plea- 
 sant, though somewhat idle view of my duties, so shall content 
 myself on this occasion with reading parts of what Sir Joshua 
 says, and with making my comments on those parts as I go 
 on, more especially on those — and they are many — which ap- 
 pertain to the branch of Art I am here to teach. I shall thus, 
 like other great rogues, be keeping within the letter of the law, 
 while I shall appropriate to myself much that is valuable, and 
 of which you will be, without any evil consequences to your- 
 selves I trust, the receivers. 
 
 Before beginning, allow me a moment to bring the great man 
 himself before you. I shall endeavour to do so because I 
 think that from a study of the man, good may be obtained, as 
 well as from a study of his works ; and that a careful considera- 
 tion of his character may lead the student to understand the 
 primary cause from which the great ends accomplished in him 
 were derived, and serve to show how, by imitating his method 
 in life, the like success may be obtained by the like means ; 
 always supposing that the student possesses the like, or equal 
 genius, or in other words the same innate ideas. With innate 
 faculties, a lecturer has little or nothing to do, since they cannot 
 be created by advice, nor indeed by any other mode of tuition. 
 They are, or are not, within us from the beginning ; but though 
 they must pre-exist as a foundation for what hereafter has to 
 be built upon them, whether in Art or in morals, they may be 
 improved or enlarged by cultivation, and made to bear greater 
 fruit by care and attention. This, I hope to show to you, was 
 the case with Reynolds. Born, no doubt, with a natural capacity 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 Sm JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 
 
 beyond that of most men, he made that capacity effective by a 
 strict adhesion to those principles of truth he wrought out for 
 himself by the reasoning power within him. He lived, worked, 
 regulated his time and conduct by rule ; looking steadily and 
 undeviatingly to that ultimate result which he calculated would 
 arise, and with him did arise, from the plan he had laid down 
 in the beginning. Whether he wrote, spoke, painted, or took 
 part in general affairs, there was a constant bearing, either direct 
 or indirect, in all he did on what he conceived to be, as far as 
 this world is concerned, the chief purport of his life ; and hence 
 it was that all his efforts, his thoughts, words, and deeds, be- 
 came united as an army, and charged with combined force and 
 energy on the one position he had resolved to take — that of 
 becoming a great painter, who should hand down to posterity 
 a high reputation in Art. A lesser faculty than his would not, 
 under the same circumstances, accomplish what he did ; but 
 I may say that, cultivated under the same regular system, and 
 governed by the same immutable laws, it would attain a strength 
 that would surpass that of many a man possessing greater 
 original genius, but wanting in his dogged perseverance and 
 steadfast power of looking to one point. 
 
 Genius and talent are undoubtedly, whether in the Arts or 
 in other things, terms that have distinct and different meanings. 
 The one, genius, is that creative power, that innate faculty of 
 which I have already spoken, and which forms, in my opinion, 
 one of the strongest existing evidences in favour of the doctrine 
 of an immaterial and independent power acting upon a ma- 
 terial body to a certain extent subservient to it, but which, by 
 its propensities, often tends to counteract the purposes of the 
 former, and render the accomplishment of them incomplete : 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 227 
 
 the other is that secondary power, which, by acting in concert 
 with the greater one, helps to thoroughly develop its effect, 
 but which is in itself more a matter of education and gradual 
 attainment. It is improved by what it finds itself thrown 
 amongst, grows with what is around it, and constitutes in con- 
 sequence the harvest that is gathered in by academies and 
 other institutions connected with progress. 
 
 We attain talent in the Arts in after-life by the same means 
 as we acquire the power of language in our childhood — by imi- 
 tation of our elders, by copying of the old masters and mis- 
 tresses that have gone before us ; but we cannot imbue ourselves 
 with genius, though it may be said that genius and talent are 
 frequently so intermingled one with another — run often so close 
 together — that it is very difficult to judge of how much belongs 
 to one and how much to the other. The lesser one, talent, 
 however, seems to me to have in the Arts this advantage, that 
 it helps progress more by leaving behind it that which can be 
 more easily conveyed one to another and handed down from 
 generation to generation, than does the greater one, which ad- 
 vances only the happy possessor of it — often tends, in fact, to 
 stay for a time the advancement that would otherwise have gone 
 on but for the diversion from the right course which it almost 
 invariably causes. Reynolds had both genius and talent, and 
 hence his greatness. Could I really call him up to sight at this 
 moment, you would find in him, probably, nothing very striking, 
 for his figure was in no way commanding, nor, as I fancy, was 
 his face remarkable ; but I think you would recognize in him 
 as he stood before you, dressed in his velvet coat and breeches, 
 with his powdered head, and his silver knee and shoe-buckles, 
 a gentleman, perhaps a little out of date now, but still a gentle- 
 
228 
 
 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 man of his day, with none of those ugly eccentricities which 
 made their appearance among us so frequently in the early days 
 of Art, but accustomed to the very best society, and acquainted 
 with all the polite urbanities of highly civiHzed life. You would 
 feel that he was one who entered into that society by a right 
 that was within himself, and not by the patronizing permission 
 of those who were born more immediately within it; and I 
 think I might safely leave in your hands, while he stood before 
 you, the question of how much of the elegant propriety that is 
 found in his works emanated from the original refinement and 
 natural dignity of the man himself. 
 
 What is it that imparts to him such size and importance ? 
 what is it that gives him such vast dimensions now that we look 
 at him through the hazy atmosphere of a hundred years ? Few 
 now seem equal to him. Gainsborough is one that comes near 
 to him in importance : as for the rest, Reynolds appears like a 
 giant stalking among the pigmies of his day. How is this? 
 Hogarth had departed this life, and none had risen to fill his 
 place. Reynolds's paintings shine like suns among the minor 
 constellations that were around him, and that followed in his 
 track; and this is enough to account for his greatness. But it 
 is not all. He was a man of education, not perhaps of much 
 school education, but self-taught; for his father, though a 
 clergyman, is said to have been neglectful of his children. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds was one that looked to a wider sphere 
 than that of mere Art, and gathered knowledge of all kinds as- 
 a bee gathers honey, everywhere in his path, and from all 
 around. A man of thought in more ways than on canvas, and 
 the companion of thinking men, among many who had in them 
 nothing but their Art, and very little thought even in that, he 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 229 
 
 was in himself an example both of the aid which academies give 
 to Art and of the limit by which that aid is circumscribed. 
 That they cannot create genius, did not in his case, is certain. 
 The appropriate expression of his portraits, the elegance and 
 variety of their attitudes and arrangements were his own, ema- 
 nating from the inward dignity and mental refinement of the 
 man, a refinement cultivated and improved by intercourse with 
 others of like, if not of superior capacity. These were the idio- 
 syncrasies that were born within him before academies were 
 founded here, or at any rate before anything like good teaching 
 existed; but the means of expressing those idiosyncrasies by 
 drawing, not then of a very powerful kind, by contrast of light 
 and shade, and by colour, he learned from the schools of Art, 
 or, what is the same thing, from that general school he taught 
 himself in, by his study in Italy and other countries where Art 
 of a previous date had flourished. 
 
 That he was eminently practical you will be convinced when 
 you recollect that in his travels he contented himself with making, 
 by a few lines and smudges, memoranda of the works that most 
 caught his admiration, ^vithout stopping positively to copy any one 
 of them, and that he neglected no lesson which could be learnt 
 from his predecessors in Art of any age or country. You will be 
 certain of this if you call to mind that when he returned from 
 his travels his style was found to be so changed, so much 
 broader, so much more grand and effective, that it inspired the 
 jealousy of his master, Hudson, to say that he painted worse 
 than when he started. 
 
 With all the good that academies do— and no man can afford 
 to neglect them — with all their good, I say, they have a tendency 
 to tone down, if not do away entirely with those peculiarities 
 
230 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 
 
 of thought that mark the genius of the man, and serve to dis- 
 tinguish him hereafter in the history of his profession. In the 
 case of Reynolds the individuality was of too powerful a kind 
 to be annihilated by the training of schools ; but in a weaker 
 temperament the effect might have been to absorb the individual 
 in that uniformity of manner they are apt to inculcate. The 
 student has, then, whether painter or sculptor, to ascertain by 
 communing with himself what are the characteristics of mind he 
 most strongly possesses, and how far those characteristics are 
 suitable to his Art. Having settled these questions, and espe- 
 cially the latter, he has to take care that, while undergoing 
 the education applied to him in his studies, he lose none of 
 that freshness which, if of the right kind, ought to be as con- 
 spicuously displayed in his works when he leaves as when he 
 enters the academy ; and in aid of this he should be careful not 
 to attach himself in manner to that of any particular artist, nor, 
 indeed, of any particular school. If he do this his future pro- 
 ductions will possess originality and knowledge, and both are 
 necessary in Sculpture as well as in Painting. Neither need 
 interfere with the other ; on the contrary, if properly applied, 
 the latter will tend to aid and support the former and to make 
 it effective. 
 
 It is difficult, now that we are surrounded on all sides by the 
 means of instruction, by schools, by museums of ancient Sculp- 
 ture, and galleries of Old Masters, and now that we have re- 
 gularly our annual exhibitions, which, as opportunities of com- 
 paring ourselves one with another, form in my mind one of the 
 most powerful means of advancement — it is difficult, I say, to 
 conjure up in one's imagination the paucity of these things in 
 the time of our first president, and more particularly in his 
 
SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 231 
 
 early days, and the consequent slow progress that Art then 
 made, whether in Painting or Sculpture. The former had almost 
 everything to learn, with scarcely any means at hand to learn 
 from— for examples of the Old Masters were but little seen in 
 England, and when seen were, through neglectful prejudice, 
 but little valued or respected : while the latter. Sculpture, had, 
 what is worse, to unlearn the impurity of style and those florid 
 absurdities that had sprung up in the reigns of the early Georges 
 and still earHer Stuarts ; a task which took her a long time to 
 accomplish, for it was not until much after the date we are now 
 speaking of that she entirely got rid of them. When Reynolds 
 was born there was no Academy of Arts in this country — each 
 man had to struggle on in his profession as best he could by 
 himself; and at the time when the Chair of our Institution 
 was first taken, there existed only two small associations of 
 artists, few of whose names are now even remembered, and 
 who appear to have been engaged more with their petty per- 
 sonal jealousies than with any real desire to advance Art. Pre- 
 viously, and even after our Academy had emerged from this 
 turmoil of temper, the public exhibitions consisted of works 
 the majority of which were of a character so weak as hardly to 
 be believed in now. 
 
 Portraiture constituted their main feature, as may be seen by 
 the catalogues that still remain to us ; and this portraiture of 
 the feeblest, most emasculated kind, as is shown by some few 
 works that have preserved their vitality from their representing 
 persons of note or interest. Reynolds, like most eminent men, 
 has suffered from invidious biographers — from the envy of those 
 who, because they did not shine as he did, have tried to pull 
 him down to their own standard. Cunningham imputes to him 
 
232 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 as characteristics things of which there is no proof : unable to 
 perceive the strict principles practised by Reynolds all through 
 his industrious life, he accuses him of an inordinate love of 
 money in his professional transactions, and hard dealings in 
 his domestic establishment, taking as evidence of the latter the 
 grumble of a discontented servant, and of the former the cir- 
 cumstance that Sir Joshua died rich, while he was the com- 
 panion of men of like, but not superior intellect, with pockets 
 less furnished, though with brains equally full. Detractors are 
 good sportsmen, for they always aim at birds that are the highest 
 on the wing, and in one instance they wounded him deeply, for 
 they drew forth from him a cry of pain and indignation when 
 they imputed to others the merits of the very writings of which I 
 am speaking. This, again, Cunningham repeats, giving to those 
 who sat at Sir Joshua's table and partook of his hospitality 
 credit for the good these writings contain, and even hinting at 
 motives for entertaining his guests unworthy of the poorest artist, 
 and still more so of the greatest portrait-painter England has 
 produced. Reynolds was no courtier, in the worst sense of the 
 .word : his manners were gentle and even engaging, but he 
 neither pandered to the aristocracy for gain nor lost his self- 
 respect for the sake of their favour ; on the contrary, he pre- 
 ferred the society of, and gathered round him men of mind 
 who were poor, and who may almost be said to have hung 
 about his house as to a home which they could scarcely find 
 elsewhere. Even Johnson was poor, as well he might be with 
 his surly independence in that age of sycophancy, for he had to 
 ask on his death-bed of Reynolds forgiveness of a debt of 
 thirty pounds; and what poor Goldie was we all know. Shall we 
 call the President mean after this ? 
 
67i? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 These men, though eminent in literature, did not sell them- 
 selves for a dinner, or make returns for what they ate by puffs 
 in the public papers ; they were too noble for that : besides, it 
 was not the fashion in those days, and Reynolds had no need 
 of them in that way, for his genius drew the world after him 
 without it. No ; what he lent to Johnson and what he may 
 have given to Goldsmith came from a good heart, from a 
 strong sympathy and a noble motive. That he died richer 
 than they did may be ascribed to many reasons : his Art was 
 more called for than theirs, and his productive power was more 
 continuous as well as more energetic. 
 
 Cunningham seems, as any one can perceive who will read 
 his biographies, and more particularly that of Reynolds, anxious 
 to raise Literature at the expense of Art ; in which course I 
 need not tell you I am not desirous to follow him : both can 
 live and prosper without interfering with each other. The 
 truth is, that Cunningham drew the facts he had to deal with in 
 the life of Reynolds from the works of other biographers, but 
 the sneers were strictly his own. 
 
 Reynolds's detractors were incapable of understanding the 
 practical philosophy that ran through his life and works, a 
 philosophy resembling more that of Aristotle than of Plato ; for 
 he built up no broad, almost Utopian theories, indulged in no 
 indistinct visionary ideas of excellence, more sound in theory 
 than in practice, but looked rather at such plain facts as were 
 before him, and drew from them, in the simplest possible 
 manner, results as they applied to himself alone. He seems 
 to have adopted the idea of the first-named Greek philosopher, 
 Aristotle, that virtue, or if you do not like the term, excellence 
 lies in a medium between excesses of all kinds ; that the juste 
 
234 
 
 SIJ? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 milieu is the spot where stands all that is true and permanent in 
 life, and, I think I may add without fear, in Art. The world 
 bestows, perhaps, but little praise on character of this kind ; it is 
 lavish in its commendation of extravagant generosity, and im- 
 parts its sympathy and pity to it, even when that generosity has 
 led to unfortunate results with its possessor ; but it denies the 
 good that may be in that just balance of the mind which 
 induces a man to be moderate, and to guide himself in all he 
 does by certain rules he has laid down as the best for all, him- 
 self included. It applies the words mean, selfish, narrow- 
 minded to that which is after all, perhaps, only proper prudence 
 and well-regulated reserve, and ignores all else because the 
 effects are not so immediately visible to the eye. That Reynolds 
 understood the sentence, " Do unto others as you would they 
 should do unto you," which constitutes the great difference 
 between the Christian and the old Greek philosophy, or that he 
 practised it on a larger, broader scale than others, it is not for 
 me to say. I am not here to judge him in that sense, though 
 I may feel inclined to defend him from the accusations he 
 has undergone from the want of that ostentatious extravagance 
 which is so popular with an unthinking public. With these 
 questions I have nothing to do : my object is merely to show 
 you, with a clear outline and in his right colours, the man who 
 most succeeded in his Art, who laid out the talent with which 
 he was intrusted, and drew from it the highest possible advan- 
 tage and profit; such an one, in my opinion, was Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds. 
 
 The same plain looking at facts appears to me to be illus- 
 trated in his works as in his life. There is no centre of Idealism 
 running through them that seems to make them all more or 
 
SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 235 
 
 less alike, or converge to one central point. That he looked 
 upon Nature with a loving eye, and drew beauty from every- 
 thing that he imitated, is certain; but then it was simply by 
 preserving in his representations the beauty that existed in his 
 original, and by omitting all that did not tend to aid that 
 beauty, that he accomplished this, and produced what appears 
 even more beautiful than Nature herself: he saw through the 
 rough outer surface of the diamond, and removed it in his Art 
 so as to show the brightness beneath, but he did not change 
 its nature. 
 
 His portraits were a sifting-out of the beauty that was before 
 him when he was painting ; not any abstract or preconceived 
 ideality within himself which he endeavoured to impart to his 
 sitter. There is no centre of beauty that can be attained by 
 the study of Reynolds's portraits : they are each separate in 
 themselves, and in consequence have altogether that infinite 
 variety which exists in Nature, and which, after all, is more 
 charming than any one set of form or feature, which, however 
 true to rule or regular in its proportions, can but become 
 monotonous and pall upon the eye when too often repeated. 
 They represent no particular type of beauty, but simply that 
 beauty which existed at the moment before him clothed in the 
 garments of the generation to which it belonged, a generation 
 he may be said to have made famous for its beauty by the 
 means I have here hinted at — that of hiding or throwing aside 
 all that did not properly belong to the beautiful in it. 
 
 You will say to me, perhaps, that as a portrait-painter it 
 could not be otherwise ; that he had likeness and character to 
 give, and that this is the cause of that variety of which I have 
 spoken. But if you look back at any inferior men, either before 
 
236 
 
 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 or after him, you will find that they often lost that variety, that 
 truthfulness to Nature, by attempts at reducing everything to a 
 rule which they had laid down for themselves before their sitters 
 entered their studio. It was so with many of the portrait- 
 painters of Reynolds's day, and it grew afterwards to an excess 
 which was sickening in the poetical and historical works of 
 Westall, and entirely destroyed in them that affinity to Nature 
 which is the sustaining prop in all good works of Art. We 
 have had the same strong propensity to reduce everything to a 
 pre-arranged type in our modern Roman Sculptors : with them, 
 busts, and I may say figures, have become all alike, from the 
 notion that there was one form or treatment that was thought 
 applicable to everything for the very curious reason that it 
 belonged to nothing in particular. You will say that there was 
 but little beauty in them, if any, so that this could not arise 
 from any centralization of that quality ; but it is in one respect 
 the same thing : it is the evil of what is called a school, where 
 everything is made to pass through a sort of mechanical press, 
 and come out with the same pattern marked upon it. Gibson, 
 with all his talent, was, in some instances, a victim to this 
 disease : you recognize with him, not the individual represented, 
 but the individual who executed the work, by certain peculiari- 
 ties, which have no connection whatever with the original, 
 nor even with his time — on the contrary, were gathered by a 
 blind love and fanatic admiration of things appertaining to 
 other ages and other countries. Not so with Reynolds — and 
 what I say of him will be found equally applicable to Sculpture 
 as to Painting — he had nothing at the moment in his mind's 
 eye but his sitter; he endeavoured to understand the indivi- 
 duality of that sitter, whether man, woman, or child; to enter 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 237 
 
 deeply and sympathetically into his or her mode of thinking, 
 peculiarity of action, and expression. He thought of nothing 
 but that sitter ; became himself, in imagination, as far as was in 
 his power, that sitter ; and made his Art the servant of what 
 was before him, to perpetuate all that ought to be perpetuated, 
 but, like a good servant, to be silent or blind to all such things 
 as it were best the world should not know or hear of. By these 
 means he made loveliness more lovely, and even ugliness at- 
 tractive ; and as . for infantine grace and simplicity, he handed 
 that down to us as no other artist, either before or since, has 
 done : and this alone will serve to rebuke the many aspersions 
 that have been cast against him, for to do this he must have 
 been himself in heart a child, though in mind a man. 
 
 I may here say to the young student in Sculpture that the 
 same feeling I have just endeavoured to advocate may be of 
 equal service to him in ideal Art as in portraiture. His efforts 
 at conception should be directed at once to the character he 
 wishes to represent, or to the event he is anxious to portray. I 
 would have him cast aside all recollection of what has been done 
 before, and even to think slightly in the first instance of what 
 has been laid down for his guidance in Art. He will thus 
 retain that rare quality, originality, in what he does ; and the 
 necessities of his Art will, later in the work, if he be but wise 
 and submissive, bring him sufficiently back to what I may call 
 its regulations, and create as strict an obedience as is advisable 
 to the rules by which, in spite of himself, he will feel himself 
 controlled. 
 
 I must, before quoting to you in detail the great Leader, 
 make some remarks of a general nature on his discourses. I 
 have called them the classics of English Art Literature ; they 
 
238 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 are entitled to the expression in two ways : they are not only 
 among the earliest English productions in which anything like 
 principles are laid down to guide the student, but those prin- 
 ciples, as in most early works, are set forth in a very broad, 
 general manner. They go but little, if at all, into details ; but 
 merely lay down such rules as are applicable to every branch 
 of Art. These principles will serve well for the foundation of 
 any train of thought the reader may be capable of building 
 upon them, but they go no further : the mental structure 
 which they may have to support must be shaped by the archi- 
 tect who erects it, according to his own design and taste ; and 
 for this reason alone I may advise the beginner, whether painter 
 or sculptor, the reading them carefully and studying them 
 well, as he will thus obtain for himself something to build upon 
 which will prevent him ever going far astray from what is right 
 and from what is suitable to his purpose, without in the least 
 cramping the genius or talent that may be within him. That 
 Reynolds could not have gone further, I do not for a moment 
 venture to say. It should be remembered that each of these 
 discourses had to be delivered within a very short space of 
 time — scarcely a third of that I shall have to occupy this even- 
 ing — and that they were for this reason necessarily condensed : 
 this, I am certain, will recommend them to your notice. There 
 is one accusation made among many others against Reynolds 
 from which I here feel bound to defend him. He is said to 
 have preached, in these discourses, the grand style of Art, 
 whilst at home he practised a style totally different — a style he 
 himself condemned to an inferior grade under the title of the 
 ornamental or enticing ; and that of this, the more lucrative 
 branch, in which he so excelled, he gave no insight either by 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 239 
 
 what he said or by what he wrote. Is this just? With regard 
 to the first part : every man, I maintain, whether a president 
 delivering his essay at the distribution of medals, or a lecturer 
 speaking to the students in his usual course for their instruc- 
 tion, is bound, when in the Academy, to advocate the highest 
 style only of his calling, whatever may be the particular branch 
 to which he may devote himself at home ; for this higher style 
 contains in the greatest degree all those principles which consti- 
 tute it as the highest, and which spread themselves more or less 
 abundantly through the lower ones, linking them all to it by a 
 tie that entitles them to their share in the words Fine Art. 
 
 An academy is, or ought to be, a fortress held by Art to defend 
 itself from those prejudicial attacks made by the bad taste and 
 uncertain waverings of the outside public upon it. It should 
 lead that taste when it is right, and repel it when it is wrong ; 
 not surrender itself to every momentary fashion that may happen 
 to prevail. That Reynolds was inconsistent in his practice, I 
 deny ; that he discovered within himself, by a sort of intuitive 
 feeling, the walk of Art most suitable to his powers may be true — 
 we all do that, sooner or later in life, I have just advised the 
 student to do the same; but much of the beauty which Rey- 
 nolds imparted to that walk is derived from the higher one he 
 advocated in his discourses. It is indeed, I believe, owing to 
 the presence of what is derived from it that we so admire his 
 productions. Breadth, simplicity of treatment, due subordina- 
 tion of parts, all, in fact, is contained within them that belongs 
 to academic teaching, or is the result of experience in Art; but 
 it is there without in the least interfering with that faithful re- 
 presentation of truth — I do not like to use the word fact — neces- 
 sary to his purpose. They wear the livery of, and are subservient 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 to his walk of Art, but, while attending upon it, attempt in no 
 way to rule or subvert it from its proper course, though they 
 may appear to form part of its outward dignity and importance. 
 Reynolds could point out, and to a certain extent explain these 
 higher and more general qualifications to the students, but could 
 not teach them portraiture : it was not his object to do so, as he 
 could not imagine that all his hearers were to follow that one 
 calHng; though, if we look back to his period, we might find 
 even excuse for such an absurdity. Where, then, was his incon- 
 sistency ? I confess I do not see it. Did he differ in this re- 
 spect from our other presidents ? West attempted a loftier flight, 
 or rather, perhaps, a higher walk ; but from want of power, it may 
 be from a want of academic education, comparatively failed. 
 Had he studied the style Reynolds preached and practised, it 
 might have saved him from that mannerism which has been so 
 fatal to him. Was Lawrence more consistent ? did his works 
 belong more to the grand style ? and yet he taught, when ad- 
 dressing the student, the same doctrine, and even made at home 
 a collection of Michael Angelo's drawings, showing that he 
 admired and felt the dignity of that class of Art, so much above 
 and at the same time so different from his own. Was Shee any 
 better in this respect ? and yet he was one of the brightest scholars 
 that ever filled the president's chair, not excepting even our late 
 much lamented one, Sir Charles Eastlake, whose writings have 
 done more service, not only to Art, but to Art of the highest 
 kind, than those of any man within our memory. Let us not 
 squabble about consistency or inconsistency, but take what is 
 offered to us and be thankful. 
 
 On Reynolds's first discourse, delivered on the opening of the 
 Royal Academy, in January, 1769, I have but little to observe. 
 
SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Days of self-laudation and of hopes since found, by long ex- 
 perience, more difficult to fulfil than to express, are long gone 
 by. We have thrown away our cocked hats, doffed our other 
 habiliments of State and ceremony, and put on our working 
 dresses. We no longer see our president in the chair on occa- 
 sions like the present ; and I don't know that we are e'er the 
 worse for it. All these things have passed away, and may be 
 reckoned among the departed. The morning dreams of Art 
 have vanished, and after all the speculations we have entered 
 into, with our sleeping eyes, there stands before us in broad 
 daylight but two truths — that Life is short and Art long, and 
 that to be really great we must labour hard. Many obstacles 
 have arisen since Reynolds delivered his first discourse, or since 
 he slept with his forefathers, which he probably never anticipated 
 would impede progress : some of them bearing on Painting, and 
 some on Sculpture, and some even on both Arts. For instance, 
 a tendency to imitate the weaknesses of more primitive days 
 and to negative all that has been learnt from the long experience 
 of more advanced times. Then, again, the propensity to amal- 
 gamate the styles of the two Arts, Painting and Sculpture, which 
 ought in both to be separate. When Reynolds was thus speak- 
 ing to the students of the Academy, Sculpture in this country 
 was endeavouring to free herself from those shackles which her 
 sister, Painting, as the more popular Art, had thrown over her, 
 and striving to attain that purity of form and severity of treat- 
 ment which more properly belong to her. 
 
 In the more recent days of Flaxman she accomplished this, 
 though at the sacrifice of some beauties of execution ; yet I am 
 sorry to say that now, a century later, I perceive a return to the 
 error, and that the falling back is not only encouraged by the 
 
 R 
 
242 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 public taste, but even advocated by those who, if they would but 
 for a moment look out of their studios, might possibly take in a 
 broader, more extensive horizon of the Arts. Yet even in Rey- 
 nolds's first address there is much left to us that is valuable. He 
 impresses upon the student the necessity of care, rather than of 
 attempt at facility in execution. He speaks too of the advan- 
 tage of his working in company with his equals, and says that it 
 is from them only that he catches the fire of emulation. He 
 advocates the benefit of a public Academy of Fine Arts being 
 established in a country, and compares it with the drawbacks in 
 Italy at the time of Raphael and Michael Angelo, when no such 
 thing existed, and when the pupil had to depend on private 
 tuition for his progress. I doubt, however, if Reynolds is quite 
 right on this point — right, I mean, in making the comparison, 
 and I might put forth the height to which both Painting and 
 Sculpture reached at that period as proof to the contrary. But 
 the fact is, the system at that time combined the advantages 
 that belong to both private tuition and public academies. The 
 master had many scholars at the same moment, so that they 
 learned, not only from what their teacher said and did, but also 
 from what they saw their fellow pupils doing around them. 
 
 I have not as yet made many quotations, so will venture to 
 give you one which appears rather too appropriate to the pre- 
 sent moment, seems somehow to touch our conscience rather 
 sharply. Speaking in congratulatory terms of the first opening 
 of the Royal Academy, Reynolds says : " An Institution like 
 this has often been recommended upon considerations merely 
 mercantile, but an Academy founded on such principles can 
 never effect even its own narrow purposes." I do not know 
 whether I am over thin-skinned, but it seems to me that if we 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 243 
 
 substitute the words " our Art " for Academy — and in one sense 
 they are the same— it is hitting us hard just now. In short, 
 that some of us are selling for money labour and industry that 
 should go to our credit at the banking-house of Fame and Co.; 
 that, by bending to the popular feeling of the instant, we are 
 parting with the safe securities of our profession for speculative 
 investments, which may bring higher interest for the moment, 
 but which will break down after a while, and leave us minus 
 our capital — sound belief in and strict adhesion to the per- 
 manent principles in our Art. We will let that pass, however, 
 though I can hardly do so with another exceedingly bad habit 
 which seems to me to prevail not only in Sir Joshua's first, but 
 more or less in all his discourses — a proneness to lecture the 
 professors themselves. That they should have required teaching 
 is quite out of the question, and I am sure you will agree with 
 me that Sir Joshua's lectures even in this respect are useless, 
 if not worse than useless ; for it is not by fruitless endeavours to 
 bend into proper shape and arrangement the fixed ideas of the 
 old, so hardened and barked over by age, that they will bend in 
 no way to circumstances, that Art is pushed forward. Pruning 
 and lopping off branches so as to reduce them within proper 
 bounds is the only process of service w^th them. It is not 
 by these means, I say, that Art is advanced, but by nursing 
 and training in the right direction the sprouting ideas of the 
 young, who have to carry on its ramifications through forth- 
 coming times, and upon whose support it must at a future day 
 depend. The only excuse I can possibly make for our presi- 
 dent's presumption, or, to use a mild term, uncalled-for cruelty, 
 in lecturing the masters, is that he may have fancied that his 
 co-members and teachers were as ignorant of the theory of their 
 
244 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Art as were the students themselves, if not more so. Too many 
 years have passed over for us to judge how far this idea was or 
 was not correct. 
 
 We next come to a paragraph of the highest value, not only 
 in itself intrinsically, but as having the authority of so great a 
 master. It will be found, I think, of like benefit to the sculptor 
 as to the painter, perhaps more so, as it refers to the ancient 
 examples set up in our schools, nearly all of which belong ta 
 the sculptor's branch of Art ; and I would strongly recommend 
 it to the notice of the students, because, with my usual ill- 
 natured feeling, I fancy they show at this moment a tendency 
 to err in the opposite direction, to set up their well-meant but 
 crude and ill-digested judgment against the verdict which time 
 has set upon these works. Perhaps I am wrong — I hope I am — 
 but there is certainly a tendency just now to abandon those 
 standards of excellence around which it was formerly thought 
 best to rally. There I go again. Let me quote the passage at 
 once before I get into further mischief. Reynolds says : " I 
 would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the 
 rules of Art, as established by the practice of the great masters, 
 should be exacted from the young students. That those models 
 which have passed through the approbation of ages should be 
 considered by them as perfect and infallible guides : as subjects 
 for their imitation, not their criticism. I am confident that 
 this is the only efficacious method of making a progress in the 
 Arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life 
 finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it 
 may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming 
 on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has com- 
 menced them. Every opportunity, therefore, should be taken 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 245 
 
 to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are 
 the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no genius : 
 as that armour which upon the strong is an ornament and a 
 defence, upon the weak and misshapen becomes a load, and 
 <:ripples the body which it was made to protect." 
 
 That this is sound doctrine no one can, I think, doubt, 
 though it may seem at first sight to inculcate a subservience of 
 thought, irksome and difficult to submit to in the young mind ; 
 but it is simply a beginning at the right end and a deferring of 
 questions which do not exactly concern the student at the 
 beginning of his career, to days of more experience and more 
 deliberate judgment. He proceeds in fact, soon afterwards, in 
 the following words : " How much Hberty may be taken to break 
 through those rules, and, as the poet expresses it, 
 
 ** * To snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art,' 
 may be a subsequent consideration, when the pupils become 
 masters themselves. It is then, when their genius has received 
 its utmost improvement, that rules may be dispensed with. 
 But let us not destroy the scaffold until we have raised the 
 building." Young men are ardent, sincere in what they think, 
 and in what they say ; they have held their opinions honestly 
 but unquestioned, even by themselves, from the first moment 
 when they began to think, but they have never undergone 
 change. We old men know how often we have felt obliged to 
 relinquish reluctantly our early opinions, and how few of them 
 have been found to stand the test of careful analyzation. 
 
 Whether an established law is based on sound principles or 
 is merely a long revered ancient prejudice, as many of them 
 are, will be better ascertained when you have gained the 
 requisite experience. I would say to you in the words of the 
 
24(S S/J? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 great Napoleon to the raw recruit who was eager to advance, 
 " Wait until you have fought a hundred battles." In your case 
 they must be battles of the mind, not easy and uninterrupted 
 marches from one point to another of an argument. 
 
 There is one sentence in what I have just quoted that 
 appears to me so pithy and condensed, as well as so truthful, 
 that I will, even at the hazard of wearying you, give it once 
 more, and so finish my remarks on this part of the first dis- 
 course. It is this : " He who sets out with doubting will find life 
 finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it 
 may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by pre- 
 suming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he 
 has commenced them." 
 
LECTURE XL 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. No. 11. 
 
 OU may perhaps imagine that my occupying you 
 by a second lecture on Reynolds's discourses is a 
 wasting of your time, which might be better em- 
 ployed. You may tell me that you have already 
 read them, and many other books of a like kind, without gain- 
 ing much practical advantage in your professional pursuits. 
 Such may possibly in some instances be the case; for among 
 the few students who are readers in what appertains to their 
 Art, fewer still are, I fear, great thmkers on what they read. 
 
 More attention is paid in our schools to dexterity of the hand 
 and practice of the eye than to the cultivation of the mental 
 faculties, and the enlargement of the scope over which those 
 faculties are to range. Witness the almost entire absence of 
 visitors to our library, where so many fine works are stored that 
 serve to explain the principles of the different professions ; and 
 witness again the want of meaning or purport in many works in 
 our annual exhibitions, which are, as far as execution is con- 
 cerned, admirable. We have, according to my idea, made far 
 greater advances in the shaping of the letters of our Art than 
 
248 67/? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 in the thought those letters are intended to express. We 
 read and hear of many works among the ancients, crude and 
 primitive in execution, yet suggestive of beautiful and even 
 sublime ideas ; while the contrary is, I fear, often — I do not say 
 always — the case with us. We have careful finish, elaborate 
 execution of parts, but seldom much meaning or intention in 
 the whole. Almost the only sculptor among us who is an ex- 
 ception to this censorious criticism is Flaxman. His execution 
 was, at any rate in the latter part of his life, negligent ; the 
 modelling of the parts in his figures can scarcely be put before 
 you as examples of excellence. They are, in fact — I say it with 
 regret — deficient in correctness, or at all events in proper finish ; 
 but the sublime sentiment, the grand purport, the appropriate 
 arrangement, and the well expressed intention of the whole 
 make you forget his defects in modelling and the incomplete- 
 ness of much that he sent forth. He was a man of much 
 reading, was scarcely ever without a book in his hand when 
 not engaged with the pencil or modelling-tool ; had searched 
 far back into the old Greek and Latin writers ; and had dived 
 deeply into the ancient poets, where conceptions are to be 
 found suitable to an Art which deals only with the- most serious 
 and lofty subjects. He loved, I believe, the book I am now 
 recommending to your more earnest study as well as the man 
 who wrote it. I do not mean, in reminding you of this, to tell 
 you that theoretical knowledge alone will enable you to work in 
 the same spirit as he did. It is a different thing altogether. To 
 do as Flaxman did you must be Flaxmans yourselves in other 
 ways than that ; but it will help you to do so by leading you to 
 distinguish in your Art what is of the first value from what is of 
 minor importance. Nor am I advocating neglect of the schools 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 249 
 
 where the more practical part of our Art is taught, but merely 
 an increased attention to the higher portions ; though a quo- 
 tation I shall give from the author now under our consideration 
 might possibly be construed as encouraging such neglect. His 
 intention however is, as you will perceive, merely to discourage 
 the servile copying of individual models, and that lazy habit of 
 unthinking labour which arises from the student resorting to 
 no other mental exertion than is required in reproducing what 
 is placed before him. Before giving you his words, it may be 
 as well you should know that I intend, whenever I may have 
 occasion to quote from him, to substitute, at my own pleasure, 
 the terms modelling and sculpture for those of drawing or paint- 
 ing; as I can scarcely be said in so doing to be perverting 
 his meaning, but merely to be giving it a wider range. 
 
 I will venture, in fact, to assert that were he actually at this 
 moment in the place occupied by our worthy Chairman, he 
 would raise no objection to such use being made of his language. 
 He would not indeed, I believe, even trouble himself to lower 
 his ear-trumpet, as was his habit when Barry began to vomit 
 forth his abusive innuendoes. Now let him speak for himself. 
 He says : " Some who have never raised their minds to the con- 
 sideration of the real dignity of the Art, and who rate the works 
 of an artist in proportion as they excel or are defective in the 
 mechanical parts, look on theory as something that may enable 
 them to talk, but not to paint better ; and confining themselves 
 entirely to mechanical practice, very assiduously toil on in the 
 drudgery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress 
 while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a favourite 
 model. This appears to me a very tedious, and, I think, a very 
 erroneous method of proceeding. Of every large composition, 
 
250 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 even of those which are most admired, a great part may be 
 truly said to be commonplace. This, though it takes up much 
 time in copying, conduces little to improvement. I consider 
 general copying as a delusive kind of industry. The student 
 satisfies himself with the appearance of doing something. He 
 falls into the dangerous habit of imitating without selecting, and 
 of labouring without any determinate object. As it requires no 
 effort of the mind, he sleeps over his work. And those powers 
 of invention and composition which ought particularly to be 
 called out, and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy 
 for want of exercise." 
 
 You have probably read in Dickens's A Tale of Two 
 Cities," the description of the man who, by long solitary con- 
 finement in the Bastile, had lost from want of exercise, from 
 lack of all communication with other people, almost every 
 faculty of his mind. An artist who works silently by himself 
 without an interchange of ideas with other men, without reading 
 or otherwise attaining a comparison of himself with others, 
 falls almost into the same helpless condition. He may make 
 shoes in order to prevent his mind becoming a complete blank, 
 as is said to have done the poor man just alluded to, or he may 
 model figures ; but it will be in his case, as in the other, a mere 
 monotonous, mechanical labour; without variety, without pro- 
 gress : serving well enough to fill up time, but tending to 
 produce nothing that has not been done, and in all probability 
 better done before. You may plead to me that it is best to be 
 practical ; by which I will presume you to mean that it is best 
 always to be with your modelling-tool or chisel in hand, and 
 there can be no doubt that this is the chief thing to be attended 
 to ; but there is a theory as well as a practice. 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 251 
 
 I will quote to you a sentence attributed to Disraeli, which 
 may be worth your consideration, one of those sayings that come 
 under the denomination of proverbs — wisdom condensed. He 
 says : " The practical man is content to practise the blunders of 
 his predecessors." You may do this yourself, you may copy 
 the right and the wrong without knowing the difference, or at 
 any rate without being able to give a reason for the difference 
 between the two, but to become masters you must consult the 
 opinions of others — try and understand the writings and sayings 
 of those who have gone before you, and especially those who, 
 like Reynolds, have shown a broad principle running through 
 all they did. 
 
 Were any other excuse necessary for urging upon you addi- 
 tional study of and attention to what Reynolds has left behind 
 him in the way of advice, I might remind you that every year 
 since he lived has raised his reputation higher, and caused his 
 productions to be more admired. Exhibition after exhibition 
 still finds him at the head of English Art, even after so many 
 years of supposed, and in some instances real improvement : 
 men whom we have learned, not without reason, to admire, 
 falling short when put in juxtaposition and immediate com- 
 parison with him. I might couple too with this the circum- 
 stance that he was the leader and educator of English Art in 
 the days of its infancy, when it more particularly required the 
 experienced head and hand of a foster-father to set it right in 
 its path, and to prevent its going astray. These discourses are 
 the advice he administered in the schools of those days, and 
 has handed down for our guidance at the present moment : and 
 they appear to me as applicable now as at the moment they 
 were written. I will now express my sincere and unqualified 
 
252 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 regret that I am not permitted to confine myself literally to the 
 reading of them. The good of the student is the only object 
 of a lecture ; and such would undoubtedly be attained by that 
 process — as well, if not better than by the one I am now pur- 
 suing. As it is, however, I have to run over them, and that 
 hastily, for they are fifteen in number, and every one of them 
 contains matter more or less beneficial to the Art I profess. 
 
 My object, however, will be gained if I can induce a closer 
 reading of them, and a more thorough belief in and submissive 
 following of the doctrines they set forth in such choice language 
 for the benefit of- the learner. Works of a theoretical kind, and 
 especially old ones like Reynolds's, are, I am aware, as a general 
 rule difficult to wade through j they are dry and uninteresting 
 to the young mind, which has little or no association with the 
 time in which they are written : they are even thought by some 
 to be obsolete. More advanced knowledge is supposed to have 
 superseded and made them useless ; or, at any rate, not worth 
 the reading. All I can, or rather need say, with regard to Sir 
 Joshua's doctrines, is that his works of the brush are not super- 
 seded ; and, until that is the case, there is little likelihood that 
 what he has written with his pen should be without value. The 
 light reader may find but little in them, but the quiet studier 
 will discover capital that will serve him for the whole of a pro- 
 fessional life. My opening lecture was confined to a description 
 of the man himself, and to his first discourse. I have already 
 this evening read one extract from his second, which he com- 
 mences by congratulating the student on his progress during the 
 past year. He pats him on the back, praises him for the im- 
 provement he has made, and goes on by supposing him to have 
 risen to a higher step in his Art, to a step where, according to 
 
S/J? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 253 
 
 his judgment, criticism should begin, the power of selection 
 should be learnt, and even invention cultivated. He seems 
 now inclined to loosen to a certain extent those shackles he 
 had in his previous discourses placed on the student's mind. 
 He no longer requires in him that blind, unquestioning faith in 
 what has gone before him, which he formerly advocated ; but 
 then, he at the same time presumes him to have attained by 
 study a general knowledge of those works which have estab- 
 lished themselves as examples of excellence. On this latter 
 point, however, he will have no mistake, as you will perceive 
 by a paragraph which follows, where he says : " The first de- 
 gree of proficiency is in Sculpture what grammar is in litera- 
 ture — a general preparation for whatever the student may after- 
 wards choose for his particular application. The power of 
 drawing, modelling, and using colours is very properly called 
 the Language of Art." 
 
 In a later part also of the same discourse is another paragraph 
 which appears to me to bear on the same point, and is remark- 
 able as well for its clear definition of the word Invention. He 
 says : " It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man's 
 life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of 
 genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new 
 combination of those images which have been previously gathered 
 and deposited in the memory. Nothing can come of nothing. 
 He who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations." 
 In all this there is sound philosophy, and it is pleasing to find 
 it so authorized, though we may have known before that nothing 
 can come of nothing, without even the additional evidence of 
 a recent amusing picture, that showed us that " twice naught is 
 naught." The mode of study, too, which Sir Joshua recom- 
 
254 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 mends, points out to us the cautious, methodical man who is in 
 no hurry, but goes steadily on, determined to make every step 
 safe and sure as he progresses. It is the old story of the tor- 
 toise and the hare. 
 
 In the second stage of progress, of which he is now treating, 
 he advises the student, and I think wisely, to avoid following 
 the instructions, or I had better say, the style and feeling of any 
 particular master, and, above all, of any modern master. To the 
 question. Upon whom then can he rely ? his answer is : Upon 
 the great masters generally, who have travelled the same road 
 with success, whose works have stood the test of ages, and have 
 a claim to that respect and veneration to which no modern can 
 pretend." 
 
 The duration and stability of their fame, he argues, is suffi- 
 cient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender 
 thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by 
 every tie of sympathetic approbation. The Art itself, he tells 
 us, should now be the student's teacher, and even this should 
 be tried and tested by reference to the great mistress of all — 
 Nature. In Reynolds's second discourse also is repeated an 
 opinion already put forth in his first, one which I have myself 
 frequently set before you — namely, that the student is his own 
 best instructor. I should not again have alluded to it, but that 
 this time the words in which it is expressed have such a strong 
 Johnsonian sound about them that they might well be taken for 
 his. They seem to exhibit that insight into human nature mixed 
 with just a slight dash of the bitter in its spirit, the residuum 
 perhaps left in the mind of the great philosopher by the early 
 struggles of his life, so characteristic of him. Reynolds or John- 
 son (I care not which) says : " Few have been taught to any pur- 
 
S/J? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 255 
 
 pose who have not been their own teachers. We prefer those 
 instructions which we have given ourselves from our affection 
 to the instructor." I can fancy Sir Joshua's enemies picking 
 out such plums as these, and declaring that they detect the 
 cook from their flavour, or in other words, recognize the hand- 
 writing. Yet there is an inconsistency in the circumstance that 
 these very biographers who throw out innuendoes ascribing the 
 merit of these discourses to Johnson, tell an anecdote which, if 
 true, is so completely of the same calibre, of the same tone of 
 mind, that it may be put forth almost as a proof of the author- 
 ship of the paragraph in question. Cunningham relates that at 
 the first meeting of the artist and writer, it was Reynolds's good 
 fortune — why particularly good fortune I do not know — to make 
 an observation which Johnson perceived could only have arisen 
 in the mind of a man who thought for himself. The story is 
 this. Some ladies were regretting the death of a friend to whom 
 they owed great obligations, when Reynolds remarked to them : 
 "You have, however, the comfort of being relieved from the 
 burthen of gratitude." They were shocked at this selfish sugges- 
 tion, but Johnson maintained that it was true to human nature, 
 and accompanied Reynolds home, and this was the commence- 
 ment of a friendship which lasted to old age without interrup- 
 tion. The reasoning set up by the biographers appears to me 
 unfair. Is it likely that men like Johnson and Reynolds should 
 have had such long and interesting gossipings on Art, as well as 
 other subjects, without there growing up between them a simi- 
 larity of expression ? They would not have been Johnson and 
 Reynolds had there not. Besides, the denial both one and the 
 other gave to the base insinuation is preferable to all the sur- 
 mises of envious calumniators. 
 
256 
 
 SIJ? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Before passing over the second lecture I must not omit to 
 urge strongly upon you a bit of advice in it which I think is, 
 beyond almost all else that Reynolds tells us, of service. Its 
 thoroughly practical nature will, I hope, not make you like it the 
 less, yet curiously enough I have never known a student follow 
 it, nor do I ever remember having heard it recommended in 
 our schools. I do not even pretend to have paid attention to 
 it myself, and can only say I wish I had : but simple as it is, it 
 strikes me, now that it is too late for me to make use of it, as 
 one of the most powerful assistants to progress ever suggested by 
 master or followed by pupil. The words are these : "A facility 
 of modelling, like that of playing upon a musical instrument, 
 cannot be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need 
 not therefore enforce by many words the necessity of continual 
 application, nor tell you that the modelling-tool ought to be for 
 ever in your hands. Various methods will occur to you by 
 which this power may be acquired. I would particularly recom- 
 mend, that after your return from the Academy (where I sup- 
 pose your attendance to be constant) you would endeavour to 
 model the figure from memory. I will even venture to add, 
 that by perseverance in this custom you will become able to 
 model the human figure tolerably correct, with as little effort of 
 the mind as is required to trace with a pen the letters of the 
 alphabet." 
 
 I have already recited to you Sir Joshua's opinion that 
 the power of composition is derived from the store of facts ac- 
 cumulated in the memory. That new ideas, so called, are, after 
 all, only an endless change in the arrangement of those facts. 
 That the imaginative mind creates nothing ; but merely recom- 
 bines things after a new order and a fresh fashion, just in the 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 257 
 
 same way as the musician produces a new harmony of sound 
 on the piano, from notes in themselves unchanged. That 
 this opinion is a correct one, I fancy you will feel, from 
 that slight consideration only your profession calls upon you to 
 bestow on it ; and I am confident its truth will be established 
 on your mind by a deeper thinking on the question, such as 
 you would be called upon to give it by a love of natural philo- 
 sophy. I may add too, that it is the more to be relied on from 
 its being that of a cautious, considering man, rather than a 
 hasty, impulsive one. In all this consists the importance of the 
 mode of study recommended by Reynolds. The reproducing 
 your model from memory immediately after you have pro- 
 duced it from life, not only increases your knowledge of the 
 human figure, but it promotes facility of invention by storing 
 up in your memories truths which exist in Nature. By adopt- 
 ing it you will be at once exerting two faculties within you — 
 that of your hand, which after a while will go by itself, or like 
 a child, learn to run alone, if it be only taken care of for a 
 year or so ; and that of your memory, the storehouse from 
 whence you will have by-and-by to draw all the sustenance for 
 your Art. May I hope that the students will adopt in future 
 this method ? — not at my recommendation, but at that of our 
 great first president, to whom we owe so much. I should look 
 upon their doing so as an earnest that a more serious, a more 
 continuous system of study was being carried on than, I regret 
 to say, I find at the present moment in our schools. Young 
 men attend for a while, model one or two figures — sometimes 
 hardly that — from the Antique : or at the best get into the Life 
 Academy, where they stay but a short time, and we then see 
 no more of them, unless it be for a week or two during the 
 
 s 
 
258 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 competition for the medals. The anxiety to earn money takes 
 them off from their studies, from that which is the only foun- 
 dation on which true greatness can be built or a permanent 
 reputation erected ; and this anxiety, given way to in the early 
 part of their career, leaves them in the end at the point where 
 they begin, for the most part mere journeymen, instead of 
 masters and originators in their art. I am quite aware of 
 the difficulty that exists, for I do not go with the Judge, who 
 when the prisoner pleaded the necessity of living as an excuse 
 for his crime, replied, that he did not see the necessity. I 
 have been a journeyman myself, wasted the best part of my 
 life, if not for the benefit of, at any rate in serving another ; 
 and in this there is all the more reason why you should beHeve 
 me when I say that this inattention to education — I am now 
 speaking of the practical part — is the cause why our school of 
 Sculpture does not, in some respects at least, stand so high as 
 that of other countries. You might divide your efforts, stoop 
 at certain moments to pick up your bread when you see it 
 lying before you, and give the rest of your time to improvement. 
 The ladies appear to me the most constant students in our 
 schools, perhaps because they are not so tempted away by 
 opportunities of earning the filthy pelf ; but then they have other 
 difficulties to contend with which the gentlemen students have 
 not. In saying this I am perhaps presuming too much : I am 
 taking for granted that what applies in most instances to young 
 artists, applies to all — namely, that they are compelled by cir- 
 cumstances to earn their bread at the same time that they are 
 learning their profession. There are, I have no doubt, excep- 
 tions to this : we have now and then among us those who, 
 by Fortune's favour, are relieved from this double labour. 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 259 
 
 But while speaking from this desk I may say that no one need 
 envy those exceptions : for the want of that hard training 
 v/hich the old lady Necessity puts upon us in our youth, in nine 
 cases out of ten enervates them in after life, and renders them 
 incapable of that strenuous exertion required by a difficult 
 pursuit. In some instances it has a tendency, by creating too 
 high an opinion of themselves, to make them blind to the 
 length of the road they have to travel on, and under the idea 
 that they have reached the end, to stop at a halfway house, 
 where they sit down by the way-side, and admire themselves in 
 the passing stream. If any student needs encouragement, or 
 feels himself inclined to make the want of means an excuse for 
 not attending the schools, let him look round the circle of his 
 most successful brethren ; let him open Bryan's or Pilkington's 
 Dictionary of Artists, or read the various biographies of eminent 
 men ; how many will he find among them who have not had 
 their early struggles, their many disappointments, and their 
 almost insurmountable difficulties to contend with, in the start- 
 ing of the race, and some of them even at the end of it, when 
 they wTre naturally looking for rest ? What has been conquered 
 heretofore, can be conquered now. Reynolds, of whom we 
 are now treating, had to go through this ordeal in his youth ; 
 and it not only helped to make him the great painter he was, 
 but imparted to him that steady, even balance of the mind, 
 which secured him in later days from many vicissitudes and 
 many mistakes. He would hardly too, without it, have been 
 the experienced and unbiased thinker that could write these 
 discourses. In them, as you go on, you will find that from time 
 to time there are repetitions — that he reiterates the advice 
 already given : this w^as a necessity arising from the circum- 
 
26o 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 stances under which he had to deliver them : long intervals 
 occurred, as you know, between each ; and as year after year 
 rolled on, he found himself addressing students of different 
 degrees of advancement. What served for one who was at the 
 beginning of his career was not enough for another who was a 
 step more forward. Thus, in his third discourse he again bids 
 some of them follow in childlike faith the models of excellence 
 that are placed before them, while he bids others compare 
 those models with Nature, that they may understand the 
 selection from her, made in the Antique, as well as comprehend 
 the foundation on which those examples of excellence are 
 created. To a third and more matured set of learners he now 
 says, they are to analyze Nature her^lf, in order to be able to 
 perceive in what consists her beauties, what are her general 
 characteristics, and where she has deviated from her rules, and 
 so fallen into individual defects and weaknesses. This leads 
 him of course to the question of beauty, which he sets before 
 the students, perhaps in rather a slight manner, but at the 
 same time in a perfectly correct one. There is enough in what 
 he lays down to enable them to unravel by themselves all the 
 threads of the argument, and to reduce it to a simple problem 
 of cause and effect. He speaks of there being a central form in 
 Nature from which all inferior forms deviate into deformity. 
 In this you might mistake his meaning, did he not afterwards 
 acknowledge, as I think he means to do, though I am not quite 
 certain, that each species in Nature has its own centre of form 
 separate and distinct from all others. It is, in fact, the old 
 and the only tenable opinion, that utihty is beauty; that the 
 best-made creatures in each division of Nature are beautiful, 
 because they are the best suited to perform the functions for 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 261 
 
 which they were created and to fulfil the position allotted to 
 them. It only remains for the artist to study those intentions, 
 and by comparison to learn what is most adapted to them. 
 When he has ascertained this, and taught his hand to por- 
 tray what his brain has conceived, he will at once put forth 
 what are called classical shapes ; he will admit no vulgarities 
 into his style, nor deviate into what is useless or irrelevant 
 to the expression he intends to convey. I will give you here 
 the passage from Reynolds in which he conveys his meaning on 
 the point, as there is an acknowledgment of a truth in it as 
 regards ancient Sculpture. He declares to the students : " It is 
 from a reiterated experience, and a close comparison of the 
 objects in Nature, that an artist becomes possessed of the idea 
 of that central form, if I may so express it, from which every 
 deviation is deformity. But the investigation of this form, I 
 grant, is painful, and I know but of one method of shortening 
 the road — this is, by a careful study of the works of the ancient 
 sculptors, who, being indefatigable in the school of Nature, 
 have left models of that perfect form behind them which an 
 artist would prefer as supremely beautiful who had spent his 
 whole life in that single contemplation. May not you also hope 
 for the same reward from the same labour ? We have the same 
 school opened to us that was opened to them : for Nature 
 denies her instructions to none who desire to become her 
 pupils." 
 
 While acknowledging the compHment paid to my Art, I 
 would rather that dependence should be placed upon the latter 
 part of the paragraph, where he says that Nature denies her 
 instructions to none who desire to become her pupils, than 
 upon any aid which may be obtained from the Antique : the 
 
262 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 latter may serve perhaps to begin upon, but anyone who 
 means really to understand his lesson must dive into the 
 original language, and not content himself with what may be 
 termed, after all, but a sort of crib. 
 
 Reynolds goes in rather a lengthy manner into the question 
 of Beauty : he follows what I have already quoted to you, by a 
 further observation. Thus, speaking of the Hercules, the Gla- 
 diator, and the Apollo, he says : It is true, indeed, that these 
 figures are each perfect in their kind, though of different cha- 
 racters and proportions : but still none of them is the repre- 
 sentation of an individual, but of a class. And as there is one 
 general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the human 
 kind at large, so in each of these classes there is one common 
 idea and central form, which is the abstract of the various 
 individual forms belonging to that class. Thus, though the 
 forms of childhood and age differ exceedingly, there is a com- 
 mon form in age, which is the more perfect as it is more 
 remote from all peculiarities. But I must add, further, that 
 though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions 
 of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any individual 
 form of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human 
 figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not in the 
 Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo ; but in that 
 form which is taken from all, and which partakes equally of 
 the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and 
 of the muscular strength of the Hercules. For perfect beauty 
 in any species must combine all the characters which are 
 beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one to the 
 exclusion of the rest : no one, therefore, must be predominant, 
 that no one may be deficient." 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 263 
 
 With this I agree— perhaps even with the concluding part of 
 the paragraph, in theory ; though, practically, I fear it would be 
 impossible to realize the combination he there speaks of. The 
 peculiarities of one form would negative those of another if 
 united with them, without producing a more beautiful type ; for 
 the excellences at which they each aim, appear to me diver- 
 gences from a centre, so that by a nearer approach to one you 
 become farther off from the others. In this I may of course be 
 wrong — I am not, in fact, endeavouring in these lectures to set 
 up my opinion against that of Reynolds, I am rather urging 
 upon you more attention to him — but I cannot help thinking 
 that even if this abstract of all the types of humanity could be 
 obtained, no good result would arise : and one thing is certain, 
 that an uninteresting monotony, which, however beautiful, would 
 eventually pall upon our senses and so defeat its own effect, 
 would be substituted for that infinite variety which is so charm- 
 ing, whether in Nature or Art. Utility, too, would be weakened, 
 for Nature requires these varieties for her different purposes ; 
 she does not require every individual, even of the same species, 
 to fulfil the same task, or to perform the same amount of labour 
 as the rest. 
 
 I have already told you, I think, that you must look for 
 Beauty in that general combination set before us in Nature, 
 and not from a singling out of individual parts. You may sift 
 from her works those examples where she has fallen short, so as 
 to gain a perception of her when she develops herself to her 
 full extent ; but you must not strive to unite her expressions 
 where she has chosen to vary them, nor to remove parts from 
 their proper place. If you will view her in this broad light, 
 and keep the word purpose constantly in your mind, you will 
 
2 64 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 
 
 indeed find in her, under many forms, but one intention, and 
 that intention, Beauty. She may exhibit occasional defects, 
 failures through weakness in individual cases, but you have no 
 right to look upon her as wrong in her system generally. She 
 has thought it right to have variations everywhere, in order to 
 meet the circumstances under which each individual class is 
 placed, so as to extend its power of fulfilling what it is allotted 
 to perform. In the human figure she has given that variety of 
 which Reynolds has been speaking, and it would not be well 
 that you should attempt to do away with it in your imitation of 
 her. I doubt, in fact, if it is in your power to do so. 
 
 From this broad question of general beauty, your president 
 passes on to one of almost equal importance, especially to the 
 Art of Sculpture, which has always, more or less, to deal with 
 Nature in her most unsophisticated state. I mean the power of 
 detecting the difference between those habits which belong to 
 us from our birth, irrespective of education, and those which 
 are the result of caprice or fashion. The faculty of distinguish- 
 ing them one from another may appear at first sight an easy 
 one, but it is not so, for many of them are so intermingled with 
 each other as to be almost inseparable : some of the children 
 of the latter are, in fact, only exaggerations of our natural pro- 
 pensities — Art caricatures of what Nature has taught us for our 
 good ; in some, again, Nature is modified, perhaps improved, by 
 being deprived of a certain over-boldness of manner that con- 
 veys the idea of coarseness. Much of the grace displayed in 
 the movements of a high-bred lady is the result of mental as well 
 as physical training. Whilst she moves with a native elegance 
 that gives pleasure to the beholder, the command she retains 
 over herself prevents that movement from being excessive ; her 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 265 
 
 reserve, in foct, in most cases, causes it to appear less than is 
 necessary for its purpose. She would scarcely do the same 
 thing in the same manner as would one of those primitive ideal 
 beings, the creation of Hesiod in his golden age. 
 
 This, again, the sculptor should bear in mind. Reynolds, 
 after giving a rap at the affectation of the dancing-master and 
 the drilling of the Serjeant, both bitter enemies to that simplicity 
 which is the very essence of true Art, goes on to say : " However 
 the mechanic and ornamental Arts may sacrifice to Fashion, she 
 must be entirely excluded from the Art of Sculpture : the sculp- 
 tor must never mistake this capricious changeling for the genuine 
 offspring of Nature ; he must divest himself of all prejudices in 
 favour of his age or country ; he must disregard all local and 
 temporary ornaments, and look only on those general habits 
 which are everywhere and always the same ; he addresses his 
 work to the people of every country and every age, he calls 
 upon posterity to be his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, In 
 ceternitatcm pingoy There is no doubt that this is in the main 
 degree true, and the student would do well to pay strict atten- 
 tion to it ; yet some modification of the rule may be, even here, 
 necessary. Grace and natural beauty end, it is true, where the 
 dancing-master, the drill-serjeant, and the dressmaker begin : 
 the one turns out our toes, as Reynolds tells us, and so spoils 
 the natural action of our feet ; the second stiffens our knees, 
 throws out our chest, and upsets our natural balance ; while the 
 third, by squeezing in the waists and expanding the surround- 
 ing parts, destroys all the fascinating undulation of the figure. 
 The Art of dancing, as far as it is the result of expression, is 
 natural and beautiful, but the contrary where affectation begins; 
 and it, with that of the drill-master, becomes the result of rules 
 
266 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 and restrictions, whilst the Art of the dressmaker, so far as it 
 has been carried out in modern times, is the conceaHng of all 
 that is lovely in Nature. The sculptor has, it is true, to use 
 Reynolds's words, to address his works to the people of every 
 country and every age ; but he has also, in many instances, to 
 portray the manners of the time to which his subject belongs. 
 Reynolds, though he preached this doctrine of In ceternitaion 
 pingo^ never went so far as to subvert: he did not dress his 
 ladies in Greek draperies, nor represent his noblemen lying 
 about on the grass, like Salvator Rosa's brigands ; he merely 
 modified the fashion or habit of his sitters, reduced the absur- 
 dities of their costume, or hid them by his arrangement of light 
 and shade. We know this in many ways ; among others by 
 Toffani's pictures, where all, the monstrosities and affectations 
 of the day are given in undisguised truth and unabated vigour. 
 
 The sculptor has frequently to take advantage of this lesson ; 
 he too, more perhaps than any other artist, has to soften down 
 the peculiarities of habit and custom that prevail at the period 
 he is dealing with. Often, indeed, when his subject carries 
 him back to the early ages, he has to divest himself entirely of 
 modern associations, to keep clear of all that is the offspring of 
 later periods. This, you will say, requires no great discrimination 
 to do, as far as the introduction of the nude and the manage- 
 ment of drapery is concerned ; but it is not there exactly that 
 the difficulty occurs and the error has to be avoided. I have 
 noticed sculptors who, when treating of antiquity, have imparted 
 a character to the figures which belongs to later times ; have 
 represented them in actions which have much of artificial edu- 
 cation in them ; and even shown a tendency to forms thought 
 by recent critics the very acme of perfection, but found, when 
 
Sm JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 267 
 
 tested by the severer rules of beauty, subversive of all proper 
 proportion and real propriety. In opposition to this, the sculp- 
 tor, when engaged on portraiture, as much his Art as that of 
 the painter, has not only to observe and keep in mind the 
 general manners of the day, but often the particular habits of 
 the person he is called upon to portray. These in many in- 
 stances may be deviations from what is, strictly speaking, pure 
 and unaffected Nature, but they become all the more for that 
 very reason indicative of the individual. They display them- 
 selves mostly in action, in general bearing or carriage, in what 
 old Turveydrop calls deportment ; and for this reason should 
 never be entirely omitted, as they remain stronger on the 
 memory than almost anything else, and so become the data in 
 after days by which the resemblance is recognized. 
 
 Who among you, when picturing to himself Harry the 
 Eighth, does not make him stand, like Holbein's portrait, with 
 his legs far apart ? It was thought in his time the very quintes- 
 sence of manliness ; half the portraits of his courtiers stand, out 
 of compliment and deference to the King, in the same position : 
 you are hardly able to conceive that excellent monarch in any 
 other attitude, and yet it would not be easy to persuade you 
 that it is even quite natural, much less graceful. It was strongly 
 indicative of the man, and so could not be omitted in the re- 
 presentation of him. Who is there that does not remember 
 Reynolds's picture of his purblind friend Johnson, with his 
 half-closed eyes, thinking with his hands, or at any rate assist- 
 ing in the birth of thought by the working of his nervous fin- 
 gers ? To Reynolds we may always turn with confidence for 
 advice in any department of Art, but more particularly in por- 
 traiture, which was his own ; but we must look for it from two 
 
268 
 
 SIJ? JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 
 
 sources conjointly — from his works and from his words. He 
 requires, however, to be read in the most careful manner, and 
 with an unprejudiced mind, so that his meaning may not be 
 misunderstood. For instance, a reader who passes his eye 
 carelessly over the latter part of his third discourse, might 
 fancy that his object was to disparage the lower walks of Art, 
 and to advise the student to neglect entirely the study of close 
 imitation. He might think that Reynolds considered the grand 
 style of Art to consist in the absence of all detail and of all 
 truthful copying. Such, however, could not be the case \ though 
 it must be acknowledged that in some of his less finished pictures 
 there is a negligence in this respect that would tend to justify 
 the belief that this was his opinion. We know — and he must 
 have known — however, that in all the grandest works of Art, 
 whether ancient or modern, there is just that truth of imitation 
 in every part which satisfies the eye, and leaves the mind free 
 and undisturbed to contemplate the general purpose. The 
 minute threading of the draperies is not shown, nor the 
 differences of texture loudly insisted upon ; but their foldings, 
 whether in the paintings of Raffaelle or in the antique statues, 
 are as intelligible as they would be in reality. 
 
 The difference, or at least one of the differences, between the 
 grand style of Art and the lower ones, whether of Sculpture or 
 Painting, lies in the minutiae not being so wrought out as to 
 attract attention from the main expression of the whole. In 
 Raffaelle's compositions the clothing of the various figures is 
 suitable to the wearers, elegant in its line, and at the same time 
 in harmony with what is about it : but our attention is not dis- 
 tracted by it from the chief purpose, as it often is in the Dutch 
 school, where an almost marvellous imitation of a satin gown 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 269 
 
 or a richly-patterned carpet, fascinates us for a while and draws 
 us away from the chief point of the picture. Both are good 
 Art, but only one, Raffaelle's, is grand Art; and the distinc- 
 tion is equally good for Sculpture as for Painting. 
 
 Of all that Reynolds has said, however, in these Academy 
 discourses this is the one piece of advice I would wish the 
 student to follow with the most caution : he need not entirely 
 reject it, nor be too much carried away by it; his own good 
 sense will teach him how far it is valuable, and where it becomes 
 worthless. Sir Joshua seems, indeed, to fear he may be mis- 
 taken on this point, for he afterwards says : " I should be sorry 
 if what is here recommended should be at all understood to 
 countenance a careless or undetermined manner of workino- : 
 for though the sculptor is to overlook the accidental discri- 
 minations of Nature, he is to exhibit distinctly and with pre- 
 cision the general forms of things." 
 
 One word more, and I have done — it is a painful one. 
 Reynolds seems inclined — at least I think so — to underrate 
 Hogarth, then not long in his grave. He damns him with faint 
 praise — that most poisonous of all weapons. I have advocated 
 him in almost all else, and though I cannot quite justify him in 
 this, I will endeavour to make such excuses for him as I can. 
 Hogarth, though now justly placed on so high a pedestal, had 
 at that time apparently a very dubious sort of fame. True, his 
 genius had drawn after him the mass of the public, and he had 
 made a fortune out of the popularity his prints more particularly 
 had made for him ; but among his brother artists the permanent 
 nature of his reputation was much doubted. That they were 
 wrong has since shown itself ; though perhaps they were right 
 so far, that the species of Art he practised with such wonderful 
 
2-JO 
 
 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 genius was not one that helped to elevate style, or to carry 
 forward the doctrines proper to an Academy. Reynolds may 
 have felt all this, but there was yet more behind. Hogarth, 
 while he had acquired many friends and much celebrity, had 
 made many enemies ; had offended multitudes by the lampoons 
 he had thrown out on all sides, the bitterness of which was the 
 more that there was no small amount of truth at the bottom of 
 them. Reynolds's doctrines, if not Reynolds himself, as well 
 as the Academy, in which he took so much pride, came in for 
 a share. It would have been therefore wonderful if some in- 
 dication of feeling had not peeped out from under the warm 
 covering of his presidential gown. 
 
 You will accuse me of having deserted my walk and intruded 
 myself upon that of other men. Perhaps I have done so, but 
 my object has been a good one. I have wished to draw you 
 on to the study of a great man's sayings, to the storing up in 
 your minds of the riches of other men's thoughts, so that they 
 may be joined to those of your own construction ; and to the 
 taking by these means a wider range and more comprehensive 
 view of your Art. That you will be the better for so doing, 
 whatever department you may follow, I am confident ; and 
 that the pleasure you will feel in that department will be the 
 greater, I am certain. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. No. III. 
 
 ET another dish of Reynolds's discourses may seem 
 a kind of toiijours perdrix^ neither very pleasing 
 to the appetite nor good for the digestion : but, 
 however uninteresting and monotonous my lec- 
 turing on them may appear, I can assure the student that, if he 
 will but take up the book itself and study it with an earnest spirit, 
 he will find it an olla-podrida of intellect and knowledge. All 
 I can do is just to give a slight glance at it, so as if possible to 
 excite a desire for the feast, and then leave it before him to 
 partake of, or not, as he may please. 
 
 The necessity for keeping to those parts which have a bearing 
 on the Art I profess, obliges me to leave untouched those mor- 
 sels, often the richest he offers, which refer to Painting alone, 
 so that I can scarcely be accused of appropriating to myself the 
 choice bits of the table ; yet it is rarely, if ever, that even these 
 do not send forth some flavour agreeable to the olfactory nerves 
 of the sculptor as well as the painter. 
 
 You will remember that on the last evening when I was 
 endeavouring to bring Reynolds's opinions before you, we were 
 discussing that part where he touches on the question of Beauty, 
 
272 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 
 
 and where he says the Hercules, the Gladiator, and the Apollo 
 represent so many separate ideas of beauty; and afterwards 
 asserts that perfect beauty must combine all the characters 
 which are beautiful, and goes on by stating that it cannot con- 
 sist in any one to the exclusion of the rest, but that no one 
 must be predominant, nor any one deficient. I hinted to you, 
 as you will recollect, that I thought this combination impossible 
 in either Nature or Art, and that I believed Art would be desert- 
 ing her allegiance to Nature by attempting it. Such is the 
 pleasure felt by little people like myself at finding a great man 
 tripping, that I will even pass over several pages of his work in 
 order to quote to you one where he contradicts himself on this 
 point, and, as I understand him, goes with what I have told 
 you. In his fifth discourse he says : " Some excellences bear 
 to be united, and are improved by union ; others are of a 
 discordant nature, and the attempt to join them only produces 
 a harsh jarring of incongruent principles. The attempt to unite 
 contrary excellences (of form, for instance) in a single figure, 
 can never escape degenerating into the monstrous but by 
 sinking into the insipid ; by taking away its marked character, 
 and weakening its expression." 
 
 As Sir Joshua finds himself year after year addressing the 
 students, he appears to descend a step from his throne, to 
 desert those generalities he at first dwelt upon, and to touch 
 more on detail and on those smaller points necessary for the 
 student's safety on his journey : he seems to think that the 
 scholar is now getting far on in the most difficult part of the 
 road, where dangers mostly occur and temptations beset him. 
 
 The fourth discourse commences with a repetition of Sir 
 Joshua's favourite axiom, that the grand style consists, to use 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 273 
 
 his own words, in leaving out all particularities and retaining 
 only general ideas. 1 do not go wholly with him in this : it 
 may be partly true, but surely there is something more required. 
 Were the system carried out with rehgious strictness, it would 
 lead, I fancy, to a perfect nullity : something must be added to 
 every work professedly belonging to the grand style in order to 
 give it distinctness of character and individual expression. I 
 may leave this question, however, to the student's consideration, 
 as I beheve I have already touched upon it ; my partial dissent 
 from the President's opinion will show that I do not wish any 
 one to read his book with a blind adulation which accepts 
 everything as gospel and questions nothing. So far from this, 
 I would have everything criticized, provided it can be done 
 with an unbiased mind and an unprejudiced spirit. He 
 makes a comparison between the Roman and the Venetian 
 schools of Painting, claiming, and no doubt justly, superiority 
 for the former over the latter, from its greater attention to 
 form and less dependence on colour, and from its exhibiting 
 less effort at display. This, perfectly true, is evidence again of 
 how much he felt the value of Sculpture, which deals in form 
 alone ; and I would have you recollect that it is evidence given 
 by one who was greater in colour than in form, and who was 
 at the head of the EngHsh school, thought by himself, and still 
 considered, the best one extant in this quality. There is no 
 prejudice here, for if there had been it would have been in 
 favour of the other side. I have no wish to underrate the 
 charm of colour, but I have no hesitation in saying that our 
 school of Art would be greater were more attention paid to 
 purity of outline and grandeur of form generally. In this, in 
 fact — not to resort to pernicious flattery— it is decidedly wanting. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 S/J? JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Almost everything — whether relating to the human passions, the 
 greatest field for high Art, or to the lower stages where little 
 more than imitation is called for — can be expressed by form 
 without resort to colour at all ; while colour by itself is re- 
 stricted to things of a vague and general nature. It can convey 
 the impression of the gloomy or the gay, the brilliant or the 
 sombre, the sad or the joyous ; but by itself it can enter into 
 no definite ideas, no distinct understanding with the spectator. 
 
 It is upon these grounds of comparison that Reynolds prefers 
 the Roman to the Venetian school. The two great works be- 
 longing to each, the "Transfiguration" of Raphael and the 
 " Assumption " of Titian, bear him out in this. In the one you 
 are drawn to it by the admirable manner in which the tale is told, 
 by the powerful expression of the figures, and by the natural 
 grouping of the whole; your thoughts go at once with reve- 
 rence to the subject itself, and you almost forget the painter 
 and his Art : whilst with the other, glorious as it is, you are 
 carried away by the beauty of colour, the artistic eff"ect of light 
 and shade, and the display of artificial arrangement. Both are 
 
 ♦ 
 
 great, great indeed ; the world has already decided them to be 
 so : but while Titian's is great in Art, Raphael's is great in 
 something that is almost beyond Art. 
 
 You will say that I am not judging the case fairly, as suffi- 
 cient weight is not given to the charm of colour, undoubtedly 
 most attractive; but I prefer taking a general, rather than an 
 artistic view of the question. The best schools of Art are, and 
 ever will be, for the above reason, those which have given most 
 attention to form; and I think the student, especially the 
 English one, may take a lesson from this if he will but con- 
 sider it. 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 275 
 
 There are also in the fifth discourse some excellent remarks 
 on the relative value of secondary parts or accessories, and on 
 the necessity of proper reserve in the use of them, more espe- 
 cially in the grand style, summed up in words vi^hich apply to 
 Sculpture even more than to Painting, as accessories are, and 
 ought to be, there used even more sparingly than in the other 
 Art. Reynolds says : " The painter, I will add the sculptor, 
 will not inquire what things 7nay be admitted without much 
 censure ; he will not think it enough to show that they may be 
 there : he will show that they ifiust be there ; that their absence 
 would render his picture maimed and defective." How true 
 this is I need not tell you, nor how well the rule has been kept 
 in antique Sculpture — indeed, in all great works. We have the 
 Venus de Medici, accompanied by her Dolphin with the Cupid 
 on its back, indicating her absorbing power and ocean birth ; 
 the Python by the side of the Apollo, to show the poisonous 
 swamp his rays have destroyed ; and the Boar's head lying by 
 the statue of Meleager, to remind us of his employment and his 
 death. All these are kept in subordination to the statues them- 
 selves, yet all are necessary to point out their history and mean- 
 ing : the accessories would not be there but that, to use Sir 
 Joshua's words, they must be, as their absence would render 
 the work unintelligible. I believe, in fact, that there is hardly 
 anything that points out more distinctly the different grades that 
 connect the high and the vulgar style of Art, whether in Sculp- 
 ture or Painting, than the comparative reserve or importance 
 given to accessories. Wherever Sculpture has become de- 
 graded — and I may as well confine myself to my own Art — orna- 
 ment is resorted to profusely, and a multitude of objects are 
 introduced unnecessary to the proper reading of the story : 
 
276 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 draperies or dresses become more complicated in the foldings, 
 and decorated with a richness which only serves to disturb the 
 quietude and obscure the meaning of the whole. If you wish 
 to impress this on your mind, call up together in your imagi- 
 nation Flaxman's illustrations of the Greek poets and some 
 work of Sculpture belonging to the time of Charles II., when 
 the Art fell into the lowest state as to style. Compare 
 the two in this respect. In one you will find everything ex- 
 pressed by the figures alone, often wholly unassisted by acces- 
 sories of any kind ; and that where accessories are introduced, 
 it is with a reserve that, but for this excellent reason, might be 
 pronounced poverty-stricken in the extreme. In the other you 
 will find accessories used in the most profuse abundance ; fre- 
 quently for no other purpose but to fill up space or to create a 
 busy effect. In this particular the Sculpture of that age com- 
 mits the sin of display in a greater degree than the Venetian 
 school of Painting, of which Reynolds complains, without even 
 the licence to commit it the use of colour gives to Art. Sculp- 
 ture followed Painting too much, and, like all followers, it fol- 
 lowed it in the faults rather than in the excellences of that which 
 it took for copy. 
 
 I will now call your attention to a paragraph on portrait 
 painting which will serve equally for a portrait statue, and 
 seems to me to illustrate strongly that common-sense view 
 Sir Joshua took of everything. I must give it you in full, as it 
 would not be fair to quote parts of it without their context. The 
 words are these : " I cannot avoid mentioning here a circum- 
 stance in portrait painting which may help to confirm what 
 has been said. When a portrait is painted in the historical 
 style, as it is neither an exact minute representation of an indi- 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 277 
 
 vidual nor completely ideal, every circumstance ought to corre- 
 spond to this mixture. The simplicity of the antique air and 
 attitude, however much to be admired, is ridiculous when joined 
 to a figure in a modern dress. It is not to my purpose to enter 
 into the question at present whether this mixed style ought to 
 be adopted or not ; yet, if it is chosen, it is necessary it should 
 be complete and all of a piece. The difference of stuffs, for in- 
 stance, which make the clothing should be distinguished in the 
 same degree as the head deviates from a general idea : without 
 this union, which I have so often recommended, a work can 
 have no marked and determined character, which is the peculiar 
 and constant evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished 
 to a high degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that style 
 which we have fixed as the highest." The harmony necessary 
 between the modern portrait head — which, as a matter of course, 
 -deviates somewhat from the purely ideal — and the working out 
 of the drapery into different materials, however general its cha- 
 racter and arrangements, is admirably insisted on in this short 
 paragraph, and it would be well for you to keep it in your mind. 
 
 An instance where the value of this suggestion has not been 
 duly felt, and where, in consequence, an incongruous effect is 
 .produced, may probably come to your recollection in the statue 
 ^f Sir Robert Peel in Westminster Abbey. The head essentially 
 belongs to the nineteenth century — no treatment could or ought 
 to make it otherwise — while the drapery, not only in its arrange- 
 ment, but in its rigid style of execution, belongs to the date of 
 -Greek antique Art : the two styles can never unite, any more 
 than the two dates can meet. The sculptor, though very 
 talented, was, I may say, a bigoted follower of ancient ideas ; 
 while Sir Joshua was a reasoning man, who weighed well every- 
 
278 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 thing. I prefer, in consequence, the advice of the latter to the 
 former. His judgment seems to me to settle most admirably 
 the question now agitating the world of Art respecting the proper 
 clothing of our portrait statues. He would have you treat them 
 neither too literally nor with too great departure from fact ; at 
 least, such seems to be the rule he laid down for his portraits,, 
 and I think it is equally good for statues. 
 
 The sculptor of the figure of Peel might, perhaps, in defence 
 of his treatment, resort to the evidence of Sir Joshua himself, 
 in a sentence where he says that perfect form is produced by 
 leaving out particularities and retaining general ideas ; and in 
 another, where he tells us that if a " portrait painter is desirous 
 to raise and improve his subject, he has no other means than 
 by approaching it to a general idea. He leaves out all the 
 minute breaks and peculiarities in the face, and changes the 
 dress from a temporary fashion to one more permanent, which 
 has annexed to it no ideas of meanness from its being familiar 
 to us." But the using of antique habiliments for a modern 
 figure is no more a leaving out of particularities than would be 
 the introduction of the most every-day dress of the present 
 time, nor can it be said to be more permanent than any other. 
 It is simply an anachronism, and as such, I need not say, 
 should be avoided. Use the costume of the period liberally, 
 and you may unite sufficient likeness with fine Art and proper 
 consistency ; use it slavishly, and I doubt if you will be more 
 successful in the one, while you will certainly fail in both the 
 others. As we proceed on I think we detect Sir Joshua's cha- 
 racter more distinctly in his writings. That his doctrine is 
 sound in the main, there can be no question ; but whether, 
 when we find him laying particular, and perhaps undue stress 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 279 
 
 on some parts of what he says, it is in consequence of thorough 
 self-knowledge or an unconscious reflection of himself, it 
 would be difficult to decide. I hardly know if you will sit 
 quiet while I give you my opinion from this desk, that, not- 
 withstanding the great works he has left behind him, notwith- 
 standing his highly-deserved success, he was the possessor of 
 but Httle genius ; but such I cannot help thinking was the case. 
 Let me hasten, before you pelt me with stones, to explain what 
 I mean. He had hardly any invention, very little imagination ; 
 what he did was more an improvement on other people's ideas 
 than very original in itself. His style was founded on that of 
 his predecessors, rather than, strictly speaking, his own ; but 
 then it was an advance, if not upon all, upon nearly all that 
 had been previously arrived at. Hence it is that we find him 
 an unbeliever in what he sarcastically calls inspiration, and a 
 believer that thoughtful industry and perseverance will almost 
 always produce effects tantamount to those supposed to emanate 
 from genius alone. Hence, again, it is that we find him so able 
 an arguer on all questions relating to Art, and such a strict 
 layer-down of all its rules ; such a profound searcher after first 
 causes, and such an ardent tracer of them through all their 
 variations to their effects. What other men looked upon as 
 merely accidental eccentricities he viewed as mathematical 
 problems, to be solved by reason, and reason alone. If, in 
 consequence of all this, he is never in the clouds, he is at all 
 times sure of the ground on which he stands ; and he carried 
 out the talent that was in him to the greatest possible extent. 
 I am not certain he was right in doubting, as he seems to 
 have done, the existence of innate ideas, and in believing that 
 excellence could be attained without them : but I am certain 
 
28o 
 
 SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 that he is exactly the sort of man to whom a pupil possessing 
 genius would do well to listen for advice. He is ever a de- 
 pender on rules, never an enthusiast, does not mislead with 
 false hopes, or counsel confidence upon systems of study not 
 likely to succeed. He is a deliberate man ; has thought on all 
 the points of his discourse before giving them to you ; has a 
 reason for, and tells you the consequence of everything he 
 touches upon : and yet leaves a certain margin, so as not to 
 trammel you too much with rules or circumscribe you with 
 limits. He knows of but one road to eminence, and looks 
 upon all eccentricities from the one style as so many methylated 
 spirits that escape the duty imposed upon Art. 
 
 In an after-part of this same fifth discourse, where he is com- 
 paring the merits of Michael Angelo and Raphael, he speaks, 
 in fact, of these eccentricities as arising from a wish among their 
 successors to deviate from a road on which they felt they were 
 beaten, and where they were hopeless of outstripping these 
 great masters. When this desire of novelty, Reynolds says, has 
 proceeded from idleness or caprice, it is not worth the trouble 
 of criticism; but when it is the result of a busy mind of a 
 peculiar complexion, it is always striking and interesting, never 
 insipid. He afterwards adds : " In the great style, as it appears 
 to those who possessed it at its height, search after novelty in 
 conception or in treating the subject has no place and this 
 again, as it appears to me, he qualifies by asserting that " the 
 faults or defects of some men seem to become them when they 
 appear to be the natural growth, and of a piece with the rest of 
 their character. A faithful picture of a mind, though it be not 
 of the most elevated kind ; though it be irregular, wild, and in- 
 correct, yet, if it be marked with that spirit and firmness which 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 281 
 
 characterize works of genius, will claim attention, and be more 
 striking than a combination of excellences that do not seem to 
 unite well together ; or, we may say, than a work that possesses 
 even all excellences, but those in a moderate degree." 
 
 This mode of argument may appear somewhat pendulum-like, 
 from its swinging so from one side to the other ; but the sum 
 total of what he means may be readily calculated by placing 
 each figure of his discourse in its proper place, and adding to 
 them the cautious character of the writer. If it should strike 
 you that he clings almost too closely to the grand style in his 
 preaching, that he is disinclined to allow any merit whatever to 
 the inferior walks, you must recollect that he was speaking to 
 those who had first to run the race for fame in the English 
 school ; that the goal for which they were about to start had 
 scarcely been caught sight of by any in this country ; and that 
 it was, for this reason, the more necessary for him to point out 
 where it stood, and to caution them against the many obstacles 
 they might meet with in their way. The variety of styles, the 
 divergences since discovered from what was then looked upon 
 as the only road to high Art, were, if not unknown, not believed 
 in \ yet the point to be aimed at remains the same. Listen to 
 what he says upon it : " Keep your principal attention fixed 
 upon the higher excellences. If you compass them, and com- 
 pass nothing more, you are still in the first class. We may 
 regret the innumerable beauties which you may want ; you may 
 be very imperfect : but still, you are an imperfect artist of the 
 highest order." You will read this simple aphorism, I think, 
 with unqualified belief; and you will go with him in what he 
 says soon after about expression, though perhaps not so un- 
 hesitatingly. He tells you that, "if you mean to preserve the 
 
282 
 
 SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 most perfect beauty in its most perfect state " (I am quoting him 
 now), "you cannot express the passions, all of which produce 
 distortion and deformity more or less in the most beautiful 
 faces." This he afterwards illustrates — to my mind not very 
 happily — by referring to the works of Guido, and then goes on 
 to show the absurdity of endeavouring to portray a mixed ex- 
 pression in a figure. He attributes, in fact, the idea of any face 
 or figure possessing these mixed or many expressions at one 
 time to the imagination of critics, who, in their anxiety to 
 praise works of past ages, attribute to them qualities they never 
 possessed — never, in fact, dreamt of by their authors. 
 
 I will give Sir Joshua's opinion on this question in his own 
 words, though they are rather long for me to quote. He says : 
 " They always find in them what they are resolved to find. They 
 praise excellences that can hardly exist together, and above all 
 things are fond of describing with great exactness the expression 
 of a mixed passion, which more particularly appears to me out of 
 the reach of our Art. Such are many disquisitions which I have 
 read on some of the cartoons and other pictures of Raphael, where 
 the critics have described their own imaginations — or, indeed, 
 where the excellent master himself may have attempted this ex- 
 pression of passions above the powers of the Art, and has therefore, 
 by an indistinct and imperfect marking, left room for every imagi- 
 nation, with equal probability, to find a passion of its own. What 
 has been and what can be done in the Art is sufficiently diffi- 
 cult ; we need not be mortified or discouraged at not being able 
 to execute the conceptions of a romantic imagination. Art has 
 its boundaries, though imagination has none. We can easily, 
 like the ancients, suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those 
 powers and perfections which the subordinate deities were en- 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 283 
 
 dowed with separately. Yet when they employed their Art to 
 represent him, they confined his character to majesty alone. 
 Pliny, therefore, though we are under great obligations to him 
 for the information he has given us in relation to the works of 
 the ancient artists, is very frequently wrong when he speaks of 
 them — which he does very often — in the style of many of our 
 modern connoisseurs. He observes, that in a statue of Paris, 
 by Euphranor, you might discover at the same time three 
 different characters : the dignity of a judge of the goddesses, 
 the lover of Helen, and the conqueror of Achilles. A statue in 
 which you endeavour to unite stately dignity, youthful ele- 
 gance, and stern valour must surely possess none of these to 
 any eminent degree." These are the President's words, and 
 were I inclined to be ill-natured, I might turn them against what 
 he has previously stated with regard to beauty; but that is apart 
 from the question : what is here written appears to me to be 
 true. 
 
 It may seem to you like a limiting of Art to declare that it is 
 incapable of all that dwells in the imagination of critics ; but 
 the knowing its limits will relieve the student's mind from 
 much anxiety. If a simple, unmixed expression is obtained in 
 a statue, indeed in any work of Art, all will, I think, be accom- 
 plished that is required, all, indeed, that Art is capable of; and 
 the artist need not trouble his brain about deficiencies which 
 exist only in the minds of those who are more anxious to 
 exhibit the profundity of their own ideas than to appreciate 
 the beauty of what is put before them. That I have never my- 
 self worked out a multiplicity of expressions in the same face 
 may be no argument in the matter ; but that I have never found 
 this combination existing either in Nature or Art at the same 
 
284 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 moment may have some weight with you. Character and ex- 
 pression may co-exist, and when a suitable union is contrived, 
 they will strengthen each other ; but they are different terms. 
 The one is a thing that belongs to its possessor permanently ; 
 that is never absent in whatever occupation he may be engaged 
 or in whatever circumstances he may be placed : the other is a 
 momentary matter arising out of immediate impulse, or the im- 
 press made by the circumstances by which he is surrounded. 
 
 Sometimes character and expression may, so to speak, oppose 
 each other; but this want of union, so far from weakening, 
 often tends to strengthen effect ; as for instance, where a beau- 
 tiful woman is represented as the subject of great distress, or 
 with an expression of violent pain or anger. Her face and 
 figure can hardly be considered as the most appropriate for the 
 exhibition of the one or the portraying of the other : yet the 
 unsuitable, untoward circumstances in which she is placed excite 
 our sympathies and so draw us the more towards her ; and I 
 believe it is in this sort of representation that critics imagine 
 they have discovered the double or mixed expression of which 
 they speak. This supposed mixed expression arises really, in 
 most instances, from the union of two or more figures or faces 
 in the same work ; each playing its own single part in the drama, 
 and, where a story is conveyed by them together, having many 
 phases, and causing a variety of sensations in the beholder : and 
 these the imagination of the critic leads him to fancy are de- 
 rived from the attitude and expression of the principal figure 
 alone, instead of from a combination of the whole. 
 
 One of the axioms I would wish you to keep more particularly 
 in sight is, that you should not take too complicated a view of 
 either the principles, the means, or the object of your Art; but 
 
S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 285 
 
 look at them all in a simple and unaffected spirit, as things 
 completely under your control, and lying within your compre- 
 hension. The eminent man whose writings I am quoting to 
 you this evening was an example of this. He did not take a law 
 as inflexible, nor a problem as insoluble : he considered both 
 well ; but when once he had ascertained the justice of the one, 
 and obtained the solution of the other, he did not stretch either 
 beyond their original intention or purpose in order to carry out 
 his own views of Art. I will here acknowledge that I am con- 
 scious of repeating in these lectures the same ideas, the like 
 doctrines, under different words. Art, to whatever department 
 it may belong, is of so simple a character that there is little in 
 the way of instruction which can be conveyed by language alone. 
 In Painting, as far as I am acquainted with it, there appears 
 least of all, owing to the wider range which it takes and its 
 being less restricted by rules ; in Sculpture there is somewhat 
 more, from its closer connection with mechanical labour and 
 its dealing with more varied materials; whilst it must be 
 allowed that in Architecture there is much that may be demon- 
 strated with certainty by the lecturer, from its closer connection 
 with geometrical science. Yet none of them are happy subjects 
 for verbal discussion. Some few general theories may be incul- 
 cated by the teacher, but the rest must be obtained by positive 
 practice; and though the head may receive help from an ex- 
 change of ideas, the hand will obey the impulse of him alone 
 to whom it belongs. My apology for reiteration will be that I 
 wish to impress upon you that the doctrines come from your 
 great President teacher himself, who seems indeed to see the 
 same difficulty, and, by excusing himself, to plead guilty to the 
 same error. He has, however, an excellent excuse for it — better 
 
286 S/J^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 than mine — for he says to the student, soon after what I have 
 already quoted to you : " If I repeat my own notions on the 
 subject, you, who know how fast mistake and prejudice, when 
 neglected, gain ground upon truth and reason, will easily excuse 
 me. I only attempt to set the same thing in the greatest variety 
 of lights." If still followed, some excellent remarks on imitation 
 will be found in his sixth discourse — remarks of infinite ser- 
 vice, more especially at the present moment, when, in Sculpture, 
 we are rather inclined to throw aside all that has gone before 
 us, and to imagine that by setting up new rules, or rather by 
 knocking down old ones, we shall assert our independence, and 
 create a commune of ideas that shall be better than any pre- 
 vious government. The thinking Reynolds, however, speaks of 
 the progressive nature of Art ; shows how it builds one thing 
 upon another, and, by adding to the knowledge of the past the 
 discoveries of the present, elevates itself to a point higher than 
 it has before attained. He tells us that this point is gained by 
 imitation — by following in the footsteps of those that have gone 
 before us ; he even advises, though he does so doubtingly, to 
 continue imitation to the end of our career, for he says : " For 
 my own part, I confess I am not only very much disposed to 
 maintain the absolute necessity of imitation in the first stages 
 of the Art, but am of opinion that the study of other masters, 
 which I here call imitation, may be extended throughout our 
 whole lives, without any danger of the inconveniences with 
 which it is charged — of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us 
 from giving that original air which every work undoubtedly 
 ought always to have." I know what he means : it is, that we 
 should never entirely lose sight of what has been well done; 
 but I cannot go so far with him as to say that the time should 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 287 
 
 never arrive when we are to feel entirely independent of them. 
 I would rather say, that we should ever preserve the rules de- 
 rived from them, the mental axioms laid down from the con- 
 templation of them ; and thus store up the wine that comes 
 from the fruit whilst we forget the shape of the fruit itself from 
 which it is made. Reynolds has, however, many good arguments 
 in favour of what he asserts, and I may advise the student the 
 well-considering of them before he decides whether they are 
 wholly correct or wholly wrong. That they are wholly wrong it 
 would not become me to say, nor am I inclined to do so. I 
 am certain, in fact, that much which he asserts is correct : for 
 instance, that passage where he says : " A mind enriched by an 
 assemblage of all the treasures of ancient and modern Art will 
 be more elevated and fruitful in resources in proportion to the 
 number of ideas which have been carefully collected and 
 thoroughly digested. There can be no doubt but that he who 
 has the most materials has the greatest means of invention ; " 
 and that again where he tells us that " there is no danger of 
 the mind being overburthened with knowledge, or the genius 
 extinguished by any addition of images : on the contrary, these 
 acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, be compared — if com- 
 parisons signified anything in reasoning — to the supply of living 
 embers, which will contribute to strengthen the spark that, 
 without the association of more fuel, would have died away." 
 He afterwards tells you that "what is learnt in this manner 
 from the works of others becomes really our own, sinks deep, 
 and is never forgotten ; nay, it is by seizing on this clue that we 
 proceed forward, and get further and further in enlarging the 
 principles and improving the practice of our Art : " and after- 
 wards, again : " He that is forming himself must look with great 
 
288 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 caution and wariness on those peculiarities, or prominent parts, 
 which at first force themselves upon view, and are the marks, 
 or what is commonly called the manner, by which that indi- 
 vidual artist is distinguished." This is the probing which most 
 young imitators require for the cure of their disorder : they 
 copy the peculiarities, the mannerisms of those they follow 
 rather than the excellences which they happened particularly to 
 display. They follow the man rather than his Art, and are 
 unconsciously anxious to tread in his footsteps rather than 
 walk in the same path. Reynolds illustrates this by reference 
 to many old names which exhibit peculiarities of manner that 
 serve as excuses to the learner for this following ; and does not 
 hesitate, among others, to mention that of Michael Angelo, of 
 whom he was so great an admirer. 
 
 In his lectures he alludes to him as countenancing by his 
 example a deficiency, or rather neglect of colour; but I may 
 add that he serves to countenance an exaggerated twist of 
 attitude which invariably serves to weaken the backbone of the 
 young sculptor-student, and render him incapable of any great 
 effort in his Art ever after. 
 
 Sir Joshua afterwards posts up in his lectures a list of those 
 imitators who have plagiarized — plundered is the proper term — 
 other men's ideas and modes of treatment. May I hope that 
 none of those whom I am now addressing will hereafter be 
 found among the number to be added to that list. He after- 
 wards goes on to speak of another kind of imitation in a way 
 that is perhaps more plausible than truthful. I will quote 
 him to you, and you will judge. He tells us : " We come 
 now to speak of another kind of imitation : the borrowing a 
 particular thought, an action, attitude, or figure, and transplant- 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 289 
 
 ing it into your own work. This will either come under the 
 charge of plagiarism, or be warrantable, and deserve commen- 
 dation, according to the address with which it is performed. 
 There is some difference, likewise, whether it is upon the 
 ancients or moderns that these depredations are made. It 
 is generally allowed, that no man need be ashamed of copying 
 the ancients : their works are considered as a magazine of 
 common property, always open to the public, whence every 
 man has a right to take what material he pleases ; and if he 
 has the art of using them, they are supposed to become to all 
 intents and purposes his own property. The collection of the 
 thoughts of the ancients which Raphael made with so much 
 trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this subject." 
 
 Of this I would bid you beware — the more so that I know it 
 is an axiom that has wormed itself gradually into the minds of 
 artists, until it has come to be acknowledged as a legitimate 
 truth, and openly avowed as a right principle in Art : but it is 
 an application to Art of what is false in morals. That Raphael 
 was guilty of it, is no justification of the sin itself, nor of the 
 resorting to it by others. Were I to hear an advocate in a 
 court of law defending a prisoner on this plea, I should say 
 that he was endeavouring to justify his crime by the cleverness 
 with which it was executed, and by the frequency of similar 
 depredations by other parties : such a plea would not, however, 
 be admitted there, nor ought it, I think, to be allowed with us. 
 Where an artist really commits a plagiarism he is always more 
 or less conscious of it, and it invariably displays itself in his 
 work. The error arises, in fact, from his having the original work 
 on his mind whilst carrying out his design, instead of that 
 which he may have seen or conceived from Nature herself A 
 
 u 
 
 4 
 
290 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 grouping of figures, an attitude or expression, may be chosen in 
 a modern production which may afterwards be found by others 
 to be similar to what has been done before; but if taken up 
 without any recollection of the previous one, if drawn, in fact, 
 direct from the fountain of Nature irrespective of any former 
 work in Art, there will always be an original and independent 
 feeling about it that will protect it from the accusation of 
 plagiarism, whether made by a policeman or a critic. 
 
 I can imagine that many young students at the outset of their 
 career, seeing as they must the multitude of fine works that 
 have preceded them, the variety of attitudes that have been 
 portrayed, the numerous characters and expressions that have 
 been given, and the many combinations of figures that have 
 been brought together for the purposes of Art, will be scared 
 by the difficulty — almost insurmountable, as it will appear to 
 them — of producing anything truly original : but I can assure 
 them that, notwithstanding all that has been done, whether 
 ancient, mediaeval, or modern, Nature, so far from being ex- 
 hausted for the purposes of imitation, is barely touched by 
 what has been drawn from her up to the present day. The 
 student, though he may feel at first that there is little or 
 nothing left for him, will discover, if closely observant of her, 
 that endless and inexhaustible variety which is in her, but 
 which he was unable, for want of practice, at first to perceive. 
 I have heard that Flaxman, whom I am so fond of setting 
 before you as an example of everything that is good, was fre- 
 quently seen stopping in the streets and watching the numerous 
 figures and groups that passed before him, engaged in their 
 different occupations ; and there is no doubt that many, if not 
 all of the sublime and beautiful combinations he has handed 
 
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 291 
 
 ■down to us, were derived from what he stored up in his memory 
 on those occasions. 
 
 That he now and then committed plagiarisms can hardly be 
 -denied, but it is not upon them that his greatness is founded, but 
 upon what he drew from the original source of Nature in these 
 observant wanderings. He saw and gathered up in his memory 
 what came before him in every-day life, and imbued it with the 
 refinement of his own mind ; thus retaining what he had been 
 the first to observe in Nature, and what was for that reason, 
 strictly speaking, his own, while he again made it still more his 
 own by the impress of his own style which he added to it. 
 
 No student in Sculpture or Painting need really imitate the 
 works of Michael Angelo, Raphael, or Flaxman, or indeed any 
 other artist, whilst he has a source so freely open to all as Nature 
 herself : nor need he copy the Antique, though Sir Joshua is 
 pleased to hint that he considers it common property : but what 
 the experience of ages has established as belonging to the Art 
 generally, must neither be neglected or thrown aside. I have 
 read in one of our periodicals an article on Sculpture, the gist 
 of which was, that the reason the Greeks had carried it to such 
 excellence was that they had no Antique to follow, and that they 
 appealed in consequence direct to Nature herself, without any 
 go-between. That it was written by a layman is almost certain, 
 for most if not all our public writers on Art are such ; and I 
 hope it was, for there appears to me a sad want of thought in 
 the assertion : a moment's consideration should have convinced 
 him, that, though literally speaking there was a modicum of 
 truth in what he wrote, the Greeks had in one sense as much 
 their Antique as ourselves. They had not, it is true, in the best 
 time of their Sculpture, been preceded by examples to which 
 
292 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 they could refer, in order to raise the style of their own day 
 still higher — and so far they certainly differed from us ; but it 
 should have been recollected that they attained their excellence 
 quite as much by schooling as any other nation : the works of 
 their earlier periods were quite as crude as those of any other 
 people, they built upon the discoveries of one another in Art 
 just as much as any others, though with less restriction, for they 
 had no laws, as had the Egyptians, to prevent improvement or 
 negative the peculiar character of the artist's mind. Their pro- 
 gress was made, in short, in the same manner as our own — by 
 gradually retaining that which was found to be applicable to the 
 Art, and by the rejection of what upon trial was found to be ob- 
 jectionable. The one advantage which they had — and it was a 
 great one — was an easier and more frequent reference to Nature 
 in her noblest, most healthy condition, and a less constant con- 
 tention with Fashion, which seems in our days to have no other 
 object than to distort the human form and render it ridiculous. 
 Sir Joshua himself is very severe in his discourses on this last 
 word, Fashion, as you will find if you read him ; though, as you 
 know, he was not a man to throw it entirely aside in his paint- 
 ings. 
 
 I might quote him again on this point, but that I fear I have 
 bored you already too much : I feel warned too to abstain by 
 the lengthy notes with which the edition of his discourses I 
 possess, Burnett's (the best one, I believe, in existence) is over- 
 loaded. For myself, I have a detestation of notes, unless, like 
 accessories in Sculpture, they are absolutely necessary to eluci- 
 date the text. Generally, however, they are but the maunderings 
 of secondary minds, who hope by hanging on to the skirts of 
 another to obtain for themselves some reflection of his fame. 
 
SIJ^ JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 293 
 
 They seem to me so many dilutings of the original spirit, and 
 as such serve most frequently only to weaken. It may, perhaps, 
 be necessary for the young that such dilution should be resorted 
 to ; but too much water spoils the wine. I for one do not like 
 my beverage too weak, and your taste is, I presume, in that re- 
 spect the same. 
 
 My object will have been gained if I have induced you — not 
 to read the book, for that I presume and hope you have done 
 .already — but to give it a more earnest attention and study. The 
 gist of my three lectures will be : Employ Reynolds to lay the 
 foundation of the house which you have to build, and let him 
 lay it down as best he likes ; he is a good workman, who has 
 had experience in his business, and will make a sound job of it, 
 so that, whatever edifice you may afterwards erect upon it will 
 never sink down, or show cracks in the wall for want of some- 
 thing solid to rest upon. The structure itself may still be your 
 own, and display any fanciful character or any amount of legiti- 
 mate ornament you may desire. 
 
 There is another piece of advice I wish to give you before 
 leaving this evening. Do not fancy, because you are pursuing 
 a particular branch of the Arts, that nothing which you may 
 read is valuable but what refers directly to that department. 
 A sculptor may learn much that will be of service to him by 
 entering into discussions on Painting, just as a painter may gain 
 much by understanding the principles of Sculpture. This is not 
 quite believed in, nor acted up to now, as I fancy it ought to be : 
 but I look to the students of the Royal Academy as the future 
 representatives of a time when more liberal opinions will prevail, 
 and more consideration be given to those who, though travel- 
 ling in a different channel, are tending to the same end in Art. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 T is rarely, if ever, that an artist passes through a. 
 life of success, whether deserved or undeserved, 
 without leaving behind him an instructive lesson 
 to those who have to follow him and struggle up- 
 wards on the same hill-side. Where they that are gone leave 
 Art, they that come after are expected to take it up and to add- 
 something of their own, in order to carry it on still further. As 
 the climber gets nearer to the top, the ascent becomes steeper 
 and the difficulty of advancing consequently greater. Our prede- 
 cessors have not only shown us many things that serve as guides,, 
 but have also appropriated to themselves so much that we should 
 like to have put forth as our own, that we may well despair of 
 making our voices heard in that echo of fame that reverberates- 
 after we have departed, and which becomes more confused and 
 indistinct as more names are mingled in it ; most, if not all,, 
 stronger and louder than our own. Yet we may be said in one 
 respect to have had the benefit of the lesson handed down to- 
 us, so that our path ought to be the easier, and our arrival at 
 the goal of our ambition the quicker. Such is not the case. 
 Not only have those men, whose career now seems to us so 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 295 
 
 brilliant and yet so easy, taken possession of resting-places on 
 the road which we might have hoped to claim, and even to have 
 contented ourselves with for the remainder of our professional 
 life, but their success has excited so many to follow in the same 
 path, that it is with the utmost difficulty and the most strenuous 
 exertion that we can now get beyond the many pilgrims that 
 are travelling to the same shrine, and so make ourselves con- 
 spicuous among the multitude. Sometimes too these great 
 geniuses, whose struggles agitate the stream of Art, leave be- 
 hind them a residue that renders the pursuing the right road 
 the more difficult. Instead of looking steadily forward to the 
 end, we are apt to be attracted by the brightness of the light 
 that follows them, and so are led astray by an ignis fatuus that 
 entices us to our own destruction. By these mistakes too Art 
 itself often retrogrades for a moment, though it eventually re- 
 bounds into its right course. 
 
 If not within the memory of students, at least within that of 
 living men, English Sculpture has lost three, who in their day 
 have been the leaders of style and character in Art : Chantrey, 
 Gibson, and Behnes. I do not say that there have not been 
 others of equal talent, and who have borne the brunt of the 
 battle with equal credit to themselves; but these three, whether 
 from the greater genius they possessed, or the fashion that fol- 
 lowed them, held for a while the sway, and drew, each for a 
 short period, the style and manner of Sculpture towards them- 
 selves. The elder Westmacott, a contemporary of all three, exe- 
 cuted many works of great magnitude and considerable public 
 importance — some of them good, some indifferent, and many 
 of them, as is the case with all artists, bad. He was a well- 
 known sculptor of his day, and engrossed much of the then 
 
296 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 existing patronage; but what he did left no mark behind. 
 Most, if not all of his works are but weaker editions of what 
 had appeared before, or but poor reflections of better-done 
 things of earlier date. Notwithstanding the immense quantity 
 of marble and bronze he consumed. Sculpture was hardly the 
 better or the worse for him : she would have gone on the same 
 had he never existed. 
 
 Baily was a better-educated sculptor, had given more atten- 
 tion in his younger days to study in the Royal Academy, and 
 become in consequence a better manipulator of his clay and a 
 greater master of form. He appears to me an excellent ex- 
 ample of how much may be gained by unremitting perseverance, 
 especially in the earlier part of a career, when the foundation 
 has to be laid of all that has to come after. I have heard him 
 say, and I believe he spoke truth, that he had only been absent 
 one night from the Life-school during the whole time when he 
 was admitted to that class in his studentship. I wish I could 
 say the same of some of the sculptor-students of the present 
 day with regard to the same Life-school, now almost deserted 
 by them. So solitary is it, I am sorry to say, as far as they are 
 concerned, that it might without impropriety answer to the de- 
 scription of Hassan's Deserted Hall, which Byron gives in his 
 beautiful poem of "The Giaour," and which he finishes by : — 
 
 " All is still, 
 
 Save the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill." 
 
 Baily, an earnest pupil of Flaxman, was a more finished 
 modeller than his master, though with less feeling and senti- 
 ment, and less power in design. What he gained by the means 
 I have alluded to, was knowledge, not genius, and it carried him 
 a great way : the latter, even his great teacher could not impart 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON, 297 
 
 to him, though he obtained under his tuition much that we may- 
 designate as purity of style and taste. You may think it strange 
 in me if I say that, notwithstanding he produced one of the 
 most beautiful examples of English ideal Sculpture as yet known 
 to us — his Eve — he was wanting in genius. But his works, while 
 displaying great attention to elegance of form and line, to studied 
 and at the same masterly choice of position, have, generally 
 speaking, but little meaning. The shape of his letters was 
 better than the thoughts they conveyed. I fear, therefore, I 
 must pass him by, and declare that he died and made no sign. 
 
 Watson, a less-known man, because he produced less, and 
 for the reason that death put an end to his career — not of the 
 purest kind — before he had time to place his name fully before 
 the public, was again a better sculptor ; and yet, after all, only 
 by imitation a lesser Flaxman. His reputation will have to 
 depend on a few slight sketches never carried into execution, 
 here and there a relief or two worked in a soft material that 
 must ere long perish, such as the beautiful composition in 
 front of the building in Threadneedle Street, and two statues 
 at Oxford of Eldon and Stowell, of large size, but not in my 
 opinion sufficient to support a permanent name. The figure of 
 Flaxman by him in the London University, is perhaps his best 
 production, and decidedly an ornament to English Art. Had 
 he lived longer I might have chosen his name to put before 
 you, and he would have afforded you an example both of what 
 to aim at and what to avoid. Macdowell was one of the most 
 refined sculptors of our age, and if he had but received the 
 encouragement due to him — for some reason or other denied — 
 would undoubtedly have left his mark. His style and manner 
 is indeed still visible in our exhibitions, but he has died too 
 
298 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 recently to be criticized, has not yet passed through that period 
 after death necessary in all cases to go by, before properly 
 determining our just weight and after value. It is in it that 
 the veil is lifted from all who enter the Temple of Fame. From 
 some who are supposed to have received more praise than they 
 ought during life, it is snatched with a rude grasp ; from others 
 who have not, as it is thought, had their share, it is raised with 
 a more tender touch. As it is we will take the three I have 
 mentioned, and endeavour to draw from them a lesson service- 
 able to our Art. What that lesson will be, whether of benefit 
 or otherwise, does not wholly depend on the examples selected. 
 It depends in part on the capabiHty of the student himself of 
 reading it correctly. Whether he is able to utter the sentences 
 rightly, and to place the proper pronunciation and emphasis on 
 each j whether he has judgment enough to lay no undue stress 
 on those parts which are comparatively unimportant, and to 
 give their due value to those which tell most to the moral or cha- 
 racter of the whole when summed up. Of the three, I propose 
 to take Chantrey first ; or rather to put him in comparison with 
 the second, Behnes, whom, though widely differing from in 
 some respects, he greatly resembled in Art. Both had original 
 genius, displayed principally in the same walk, portraiture, and 
 partly because that walk is most recognized in this country, 
 both left behind them what we call a school; and it is this 
 indeed that shows me how much more powerful they were in 
 their day than the other names I have mentioned, and has 
 induced me to set them before you. 
 
 If that of the lesser man, Behnes, has lasted longer than that 
 of the greater, it will show that there was quite as much, if not 
 more natural vigour in him than in the one so reverently looked 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 299 
 
 up to in life. His strength in Art, however, suffered from a 
 canker at the root which prevented it from developing itself in 
 full. I must premise my remarks by saying that my office here 
 is not to give a biographical history, nor indeed to touch upon 
 the personal character of either; at least only so far as it 
 affected their works. 
 
 Where they were born, or how they died— subjects that might 
 call for much reflection, and out of which good might be 
 drawn — are no business of mine while speaking to you from 
 this desk, though my acquaintance with them would serve me 
 well in both instances, were I inclined to speak on those points. 
 It devolves upon me, however, to depict to you the two men, 
 widely apart in many points, yet alike in some, and now stand- 
 ing side by side on pedestals of almost equal height, that you 
 may see how in each case the peculiarities in character told in 
 their Art, sometimes for good and sometimes for the reverse : 
 and the setting forth these involves to a certain extent the 
 alluding to circumstances connected with their history. The 
 most successful one, Chantrey, lost his father when young, and 
 so was early in life thrown upon his own resources, and this 
 served to invigorate him for the trials he had afterwards to 
 undergo, and the exertions he had to make : while the less 
 successful one, Behnes, had to support a father, himself lost ; 
 and to inherit, perhaps from him, much that told in no degree 
 to his good — on the contrary, held an evil sway over him all 
 through his career, and at the last completely overpowered him. 
 The one, much to his credit, had to start in life from nothing, 
 and managed to work his way upwards, gaining both riches and 
 fame as he went along. The other may be said to have begun 
 from less than nothing, for he had to retrace the backward path 
 
300 CHANTREY, BEBNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 his parents had made before him. Both commenced their 
 calUng as workers in wood — though in a different branch — 
 Chantrey as a wood-carver in decorative or furniture Art, 
 not then in a very high state in this country ; and the manner 
 that belonged to that kind of work, stuck to him ever after, for 
 it may be seen to his latest period in the carving of the hair of 
 his busts, and were I inclined to be ill-natured I might add in 
 the crinkling of his draperies. Behnes had to labour at the 
 same material in another way : he had to follow the metier of 
 his father, pianoforte -making, and to practise in it for his own 
 livelihood even after his first attempts in Fine Art had been 
 made. And it did not affect the style of what he afterwards 
 belonged to — for there was no connection between the two — 
 but it so trained his hand that it converted the ingenious 
 mechanic, when under a higher inspiration, into the skilful and 
 tasty carver. His fingers had attained their dexterity even 
 before the brain had turned them to their destined use. His 
 busts, well conceived, exhibit at the same time the very best 
 execution : execution swayed by taste and carried out to the 
 highest point, yet never ostentatiously intruding itself beyond 
 its proper place. 
 
 I do not mean to tell you that both took orders as priests 
 of Art at the same moment — you know otherwise; but they 
 were near enough for comparison. Both were in the beginning 
 unread men, and in one sense of the word both continued so to 
 the end of their days. Chantrey knew but little of the inside 
 of books, though he assumed the appearance of knowing by an 
 amply supplied library ; but he educated himself by intercourse 
 with men of the highest stamp of intellect : and if he could not 
 read, or did not care to read any of the dead languages, learnt 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 301 
 
 early to read the living tongues about him, and to understand 
 the idioms used in conveying their meaning. He was a 
 shrewd man, never at a loss for an original observation on 
 any subject whatever, and these observations were always, 
 like his Art, of a practical, matter-of-fact kind, the result, 
 like his Art again, of judgment rather than imagination, though 
 somewhat limited in their comprehensiveness of grasp. He 
 had the faculty of suiting his conversation to the capacities of 
 those with whom he came in contact, and his personal appear- 
 ance and mode of delivering his opinions, both in themselves 
 impressive, gave those opinions more weight perhaps than they 
 were entitled to ; so that while some were content to receive 
 what he said, others who saw further ahead, were silent, caring 
 little to contradict. He generally, however, was less anxious 
 about the soundness of the doctrine he preached than about 
 the effect it produced on his hearers, and it was rarely that he 
 did not impress them with the profundity of his judgment. 
 By these means he advanced himself, making many friends 
 and rarely losing any. I am not endeavouring to bring before 
 you a perfect being, but a true man of the world, who knew 
 how to play his cards, to make all his trumps tell, and even his 
 lesser ones help to the winning of the game. We are none of 
 us everything that we might be : wings do not grow out of any 
 of our shoulders, nor would they have grown out of Chantrey's 
 had he lived even to the present day. Darwin's theory of 
 Progression has yet to be carried out on that point. 
 
 The other, Behnes, neither knew nor pretended to know 
 anything except what referred directly or indirectly to the Art 
 he was pursuing, and what he could master by ingenuity of 
 hand rather than by mental study. He was early in life an 
 
302 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 accomplished, though not a profound man — an active, energetic 
 worker, though not a deep thinker ; one who could turn his hand 
 to anything at a moment, and succeed by his dexterity in the 
 use of the implements he worked with. Impulse served him 
 where quiet study and cool consideration were the friends of 
 others. He became, thus constituted, an ardent student in the 
 Academy, gaining medals, and, even when failing to do so, 
 losing no courage, but repeating his efforts again and again. 
 You will say that this is a contradiction to what I have just 
 told you, but it is not : it was a succession of spasmodic im- 
 pulses that required constant changes for excitement, but knew 
 no connecting link one with another. His nerves of sensation 
 seemed to run from his fingers to his brain rather than from 
 his brain to his fingers, and thus, while he became one of the 
 most rapid and ingenious modellers in our Academy, he gave 
 at that time but little real promise of anything of permanent 
 value even in his calling. Brought up in his boyhood in almost 
 abject misery, he determined if possible to rise above it ; but he 
 cared little about the means to be used, or about the effect 
 those means would have when more forward on his way. He 
 stepped from one stone to another, as they presented them- 
 selves to him ; taking no pains to select before starting any one 
 as the safest, or as leading most directly to the end, and he 
 thus found himself, when scarcely half way over, in the middle 
 of a torrent that surrounded him on all sides and eventually 
 overwhelmed him. His personal appearance, when young and 
 handsome, and the energetic character that seemed to belong 
 to him — indeed in one sense of the word did belong to him — 
 procured him many friends, hardly one of whom he kept three 
 days after their first knocking at his door. They felt they 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 303 
 
 had been made unfair use of, and left. Here, I think, we per- 
 ceive the first divergence one from another of the two men. 
 Chantrey keeping always his eye on the road before him, Behnes 
 fancying he was advancing whenever he moved, or which- 
 ever way his steps might happen to direct themselves. We 
 see them both at slightly different periods, in different ways, 
 students of Art, and both taking for a time to portrait painting 
 for support, Chantrey adding landscape sketching to it, but as 
 far as we can judge with very moderate success ; Behnes ex- 
 hibiting considerable talent and even genius — enough, in fact, to 
 cause him to be appreciated in these young days, and to help 
 him to live, and contend with many difficulties. Both even- 
 tually turning to Sculpture as the then (speaking from the 
 pocket) most profitable branch of the profession. Frequent 
 attendance as a student in our schools and a certain aptitude 
 he had gained in portrait as well as other kinds of drawing, 
 made Behnes ever after the best manipulator of surface of the 
 two, when that aptitude was applied to a new material, though 
 both were good in that respect. 
 
 His heads — I must speak of them first — have greater freedom 
 of handling, less mannerism, more variety, and greater diffe- 
 rence of character than those of Chantrey. In all these points, 
 in fact, they are truer to Nature ; but they have not that high, 
 gentlemanly dignity, nor indeed, in some instances, the power 
 of his rival. We do not hear at all of Chantrey as a student in 
 our schools. He was probably then, as he was ever after, self- 
 dependent in his Art as in other things. He seems not to have 
 cared for Academy teaching, if one may judge from his practice 
 and not his talk, and for this reason his figures have less ana- 
 tomical knowledge, less acquaintance with the movements of 
 
304 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 the human frame than those of many men vastly inferior to 
 him. But he knew that he had something in him belonging 
 peculiarly to himself, which only required perseverance to bring 
 out, and he looked for the means of bringing it out on things 
 about him, and on the men who had succeeded before him in 
 the same line. The model on which he began his bust-making 
 was Nollekens, of whom he seemed fond, and the pecuniary 
 profit attached to this walk of Art did not escape him. He did 
 not pretend to throw aside with affected disdain that view of 
 the subject, for he was a man of judgment, not imagination, 
 and therefore built no castles in the air. He had the good 
 sense to perceive the superiority of the natural treatment of his 
 old friend Nollekens over the stagey style of those who imme- 
 diately preceded him, Carlini and Bacon for instance, and was 
 perhaps led on by a certain amount of gratitude he felt for 
 kindness received from the eccentric old miser. In the be- 
 ginning he followed in his track, but he soon after added to it 
 that power of expression and strong emphasis of character which 
 so mark his works from those of every one else. His steadiness 
 of purpose, his mingling with none but men of intellect, the 
 faculty he possessed of gaining something from every one whom 
 he met, his active, industrious habits, and his bodily as well as 
 mental energy now began to tell, not only on his success in life, 
 but also on the quality of the Art he sent forth. They were things 
 that every one felt as belonging to high life, and high life only, 
 and may be described as possessing strong individuality though 
 not physical beauty. His male heads are fine, his female ones 
 in no way remarkable \ a certain roughness of character in the 
 man entered into the feeling of his Art, and so rendered him 
 unfit for that tenderness of treatment required in the repre- 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 305 
 
 sentation of female beauty. He knew, in short, that he was 
 defective here, and as far as possible avoided the doing of 
 them. They in consequence are few in number; that of Mrs. 
 Somerville is one of the best, but it is intellectual, not physical 
 beauty that serves him there, and association of ideas with that 
 scientific lady helps him to a charm which by itself the bust 
 hardly possesses. 
 
 In this walk Behnes was decidedly the best of the two ; as 
 indeed he was again in children, whose engaging simplicity he 
 portrayed with a success rarely equalled in English Sculpture. 
 His female busts have a beauty not easily surpassed ; some, if 
 not all, would do well to study from, whether for delicacy of 
 expression, refinement of treatment, or even in such minor 
 matters as the arrangement and modelling of the hair and 
 drapery. They have all the freedom of the Painter with the 
 necessary severity of style that belongs to the Sculptor, though 
 the latter does not require to be carried to such an extent in 
 portraiture as in ideal Art. But some, alas ! are tainted by 
 the vice of the artist; and this tarnish, bad enough in ideal 
 works, becomes doubly and trebly so in portraiture. From the 
 work you will know the worker : so it was then, is now, and ever 
 will be the same. 
 
 One of the objects of my lecture this evening, is to show you 
 how much innate character in the man affects that of his work. 
 Some hints have now been given you of the weaknesses of 
 Behnes, that you might see how they told in his case ; and how, 
 with perhaps more genius than Chantrey, he was, owing to those 
 weaknesses, less of an artist as well as less of a man. I must 
 qualify this, however, by saying that the word genius is one of 
 very comprehensive meaning : it is so at least to me, and I must 
 
 X 
 
3o6 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON, 
 
 take it as such in this instance. Usually speaking, it implies the 
 power of creating something new and original, different as well 
 as beyond what has been accompHshed before. When con- 
 nected with Literature or Art, it suggests high imaginary power, 
 and the putting things before us in a fresh light, and in one that 
 incites high thoughts within us. It may, however, without im- 
 propriety, be made to imply judgment as well as imagination ; 
 and the faculty of arranging things so that, while their appeal 
 shall be forcible, they shall in no way offend, or go beyond the 
 requirements the subject may call for. It was so in the case of 
 Sir Joshua, and no one now doubts his genius. Whether judg- 
 ment is more valuable in Sculpture than imagination I will not 
 take upon myself to decide : the solution of the question de- 
 pends in part on the nature of the calls made upon the Art out- 
 side. Both must be used in any case if a great work is to be 
 sent forth, or a great artist succeed in making himself appre- 
 ciated. Judgment will travel a long distance by itself, though 
 it may not go the whole way ; but imagination without it may 
 literally be termed madness. Chantrey had good judgment and 
 little imagination, so that with him the latter was always strictly 
 under the power of the former, and in his case, if it prevented 
 him from soaring into the higher regions of his profession, it 
 prevented him also from making many mistakes which would 
 have ruined his works. If you do not always approve of what 
 he does, you are rarely, if ever, offended with him. Propriety, 
 I am aware, is poor praise in Sculpture, but it is better than ab- 
 surdity. I do not say he had no imagination, for he had just 
 enough to render his portrait-statues not too literal, and no 
 more. He believed in the word " treatment," as every sculptor 
 should, in my opinion, let him touch on what he will, whether 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 307 
 
 portrait or ideal. In some instances pathos characterized with 
 charming effect his works, but it was the exception rather than 
 the rule, for the general tone of what he did was of a more solid, 
 dignified kind, and I believe he was indebted to other artists for 
 the presence of it. He was cautious not to introduce in them 
 what was wholly unconnected with them, either as regards cos- 
 tume or otherwise ; and he was cautious, too, not to introduce 
 what was offensive to good taste. The same in other things : 
 cautious not to offend by the expression of any opinion that 
 would make enemies, or impede in any way his influence in the 
 world of Art. No one knew what were his politics : as far as 
 one could tell he was an ultra Liberal, for he was of all parties ; — 
 at any rate, he was too wise to speak openly on that subject at 
 any time. His advice that artists should abstain from interfer- 
 ing in them was a good one, and he is not the first of that 
 ■opinion. One of the points in which he excelled was the giving 
 an evasive answer to questions relating to them ; by which he 
 avoided committing himself in any way. When asked whether 
 he was a reformer, he would reply by another question, "Who 
 is not now?" When asked at table by the Duke of Sussex 
 whether he was an Episcopalian or Presbyterian, his answer was, 
 •"Your Royal Highness, I am a Derbyshire man." 
 
 One of his finest busts, done in early Hfe, was that of Horne- 
 Took, remarkable for the originality of its arrangement, its strong 
 individuality, powerful expression, and great breadth of treat- 
 ment; so remarkable was it, that it established at once Chan- 
 trey's name as a bust-modeller, and procured for him some 
 thousand pounds worth of commissions. He was fond of re- 
 lating an anecdote in connection with it which strongly illus- 
 trates what I have said. He would tell his visitors when in one 
 
3o8 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 of his genial moods, that Horne-Took, when sitting for it, was 
 ill on his sofa, and that on its being finished the old man rose 
 up, and with a very earnest face, shaking at the same time his 
 fist at him by way of impressing him with the importance of 
 what he was saying, exclaimed, " Now, Chantrey, you have 
 modelled a bust of me, and a bust of Sir Francis Burdett ; and 
 you must model at least half-a-dozen of the other party, or you 
 
 are ." Excuse my repeating a word that I never use away 
 
 from home. This anecdote he always finished by saying it was 
 a piece of advice he never forgot. 
 
 The public felt, on the bust being exhibited, that an artist 
 had arisen who took an original, and at the same time common- 
 sense view of portraiture : who could give the inward mental 
 character of those who sat to him, and portray them as men of 
 the age in which they lived ; — could, in short, bring together the 
 modern type of face and good Art, and make them both agree. 
 They recognized the outward forms he gave of their friends, as 
 representing faithfully the inward feelings with which they had 
 associated them, and were satisfied with the result. I have told 
 you that this bust gained for him immense orders : it did more ; it 
 procured for him tip-top men as sitters, men who had risen in 
 life by their talent, or who held a high position from birth or 
 other associations. By intercourse with them he educated 
 himself, so to speak, in the ways of the world, and they served 
 him at the same time as the best models in his Art. This will, 
 perhaps, account to you for what I have said about the aristo- 
 cratic character of his heads ; for there is always strength in a 
 clever man's, if you know how to look for it ; but it will account 
 for it only in part. I consider Chantrey to have scarcely more 
 than one expression in his busts, but it was a good one, and he 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 309 
 
 could fit it well to every face. It was in truth, the expression 
 of his own face — luckily for him handsome, refined in feature, 
 and rich in its modelling, as was that of his busts. There is 
 something — nay more, there is a great deal — in all he has done 
 of Chantrey himself: not an uncommon thing with Artists, and 
 luckily for him, in his case it told on the right side. 
 
 Chantrey, notwithstanding what I have said, never did any- 
 thing that the world could lay hold of as unbecoming ; he was 
 too clever for that, and knew that whatever he might gain at 
 the moment, he would lose in the end. His game was the old- 
 fashioned one, long whist, where there are more points than in 
 the short one, now the fashion. 
 
 You will fancy I have been ill-natured in my setting up of 
 the man before you, but if you think awhile you will find I am 
 not. The world easily forgives this kind of thing ; it offends no 
 one, and when under proper regulation and covered by the 
 canopy of success, leads to admiration, and with some even to 
 respect. My description, like a child's puzzle, may present 
 many awkward shapes when the pieces are separate, but when 
 put together may show forth a picture not altogether un- 
 pleasant to the eye nor out of harmony with nature. Like all 
 careful men, Chantrey was very sensitive, or touchy as it is 
 called, on any joke uttered on his productions, and I would, 
 without any joke, advise the students to be the same. Satire, 
 though an unfair weapon, is a most fatal one, and when once it 
 attaches itself to a work of Art, especially a serious one, never 
 leaves it, and it often creeps in through crevices never dreamt 
 of by the artist. 
 
 You all know the story of the great Napoleon shutting up 
 Canova's statue of himself with the winged Victory in its hand, 
 
3IO CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIB SO A 
 
 on the Frenchman exclaiming " that Victory was flying away 
 from him." It is said to have arrived in Paris when the 
 fortunes of the Emperor were on the turn, and he was too well 
 aware of the bad effect such a jeu d'esprit would have, to allow 
 the figure to be seen. 
 
 There are many such things flying about. I remember when 
 modelling, in company with Chantrey, on the colossal eques- 
 trian statue of George IV., now in Trafalgar Square — not one of 
 his best efforts — he was engaged draping the left arm that holds 
 the baton, and was trying to make it what at the moment he 
 considered classical by keeping the folds close to the skin, and 
 the sleeve short at the wrist. I saw plainly it would not do ; 
 but he persisted awhile in this manner of treatment, though I 
 twice expressed my disapproval of it. At last, knowing how 
 much he dreaded a joke, from his having in other instances 
 felt the galling effect of one or two, I asked if he would like me 
 to tell him what would be thought of it, and, on his assenting, 
 told him they would say that " Chantrey's big figure had out- 
 grown his clothes." " Will they, by Jupiter ! Better you say it 
 than the public," was his answer ; and down came the sleeve at 
 once to its proper length, and the whole treatment of the arm 
 was changed. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken principally of the busts of these twa 
 sculptors, Chantrey and Behnes, in both cases fine ; so fine, in 
 my opinion, that I doubt much, were the best examples of them 
 brought together, if we should be able to produce any others 
 at all equal to them. Roubiliac alone is entitled to stand as 
 their confrere in this department. Surely they must be of some 
 value to the student in portrait-sculpture. Young men are apt 
 to imagine that what is done now is, from its containing some 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 311 
 
 new feature in style or manner, superior to former work ; while 
 old men like myself are prone to think that everything done in 
 previous times is better than that of the present day. Both are 
 errors not easy to avoid. I must trust to your keeping your- 
 self as far as possible clear of the first one now, and hope you 
 will live long enough to meet the second, and contend against 
 it with equal success. If you can do this, you will always keep 
 your minds clear for any new impressions that may present 
 themselves, and your progress in Art will be the better. 
 
 Chantrey's original models, immense in number, and care- 
 fully preserved during his long consistent life, may now be seen 
 collected at Oxford, and the student, if he can read, may gain 
 an insight into their character, and at the same time help him- 
 self in his Art. Behnes' are, for reasons unpleasant to think 
 about and scarcely to be alluded to in a lecture of this kind, 
 nowhere, scattered to the winds ; to be found only one by one, 
 here and there, in the by-alleys of Art, or in the studios of 
 inferior sculptors : another effect of the difference between the 
 two men, and another lesson that may be learnt from that dif- 
 ference both by professor and student. Yet if by chance one 
 should be alighted upon, it would be well for the student to 
 obtain it, if possible, as it would be worth something to him as 
 an example of truth of character if a male head, of elegance if 
 a female one, and in either case of what is called freedom of 
 touch in Art. His hair is always good, more like nature, better 
 than Chantrey's ; his draperies not so true, yet always more 
 subdued so as to take their proper place, that is to say, a 
 secondary one, amid the whole. In this last respect they are 
 in fact superior. 
 
 I must now proceed to that period in the life of each, when, 
 
312 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 having to a certain extent established a reputation, they were 
 receiving larger commissions and undertaking larger works. 
 Chantrey was the first, and when he had come to this point he 
 had also gained another. If not exactly at that time rich, he 
 had by prudence so regulated his monetary matters that he 
 need no longer feel anxiety about them. His head was clear, 
 his mind at ease, so that he could devote himself undisturbed 
 to what was offered to him in his Art. He had too, by the 
 steady method he had adopted, traced out the road he was to 
 go, so that he could see, not only what was before him, but 
 over how much ground he had gone already. By this time he 
 had taught himself where lay his strength, and where his weak- 
 nesses. He knew himself, as well as it is known now, that he 
 was capable of representing individuality correctly, and of com- 
 bining it with dignity and elegance by appropriate treatment ; 
 and he knew also that he was incapable of mastering those 
 abstract forms which constitute the ideal. 
 
 From the road thus marked out for himself he was hardly 
 ever known to swerve, though temptations were now and then 
 put before him to do so. The late Lord Egremont gave him a 
 commission for a statue of Satan addressing the Sun, to be a 
 companion to the group by Flaxman of Michael and Satan, 
 now at Petworth. Chantrey made an effort to please the old 
 Earl, but it never went further than a half-size model of the 
 figure and a full-size study of the head. Both are now de- 
 stroyed. A stumpy Satan with bow legs, and a stomach show- 
 ing outward signs of being with good fat capon lined ; and a 
 head as ugly or uglier, though in a different way, than the Sin 
 whom the Arch-fiend met at the gates of Hell, were but poor 
 representations in Art of Milton's fallen angel. George IV., 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 313 
 
 when Regent, proposed to him that he should execute a Venus 
 of the kind Canova's genius was so fond of, but nothing came 
 of the order beyond a sepia sketch or two on paper. The 
 Duke of Bedford commissioned him for the only ideal work he 
 ever carried through, and this he was induced to undertake 
 more to oblige his Grace than for any love or feeling for the 
 kind of thing. The Parting of Hector and Andromache, and 
 Penelope weeping over the bow of Ulysses, are alto-reliefs 
 well carved, carefully executed, but wanting entirely in either 
 heroic character or pathos. These are all the attempts he ever 
 made at the ideal, and we may pass them by. He is, never- 
 theless, a great sculptor, though not now perhaps looked up to 
 as I think he ought to be. 
 
 I will turn to what he excelled in. The sculptor of the 
 statues of Washington, Grattan, and James Watt need, I think, 
 never fear obhvion : I am too polite to say they have never 
 been excelled, but I may say they have rarely been equalled. 
 The self-concentrated power and calm dignity of the founder 
 of a great nation and a great system of government, pervade 
 the first, in the expression of the head, in the standing of the 
 figure, and even in the folding of the drapery which so envelopes 
 it as to shut out all thought of equality or familiar intercourse 
 with the spectator. You look with reverence upon it as you 
 would upon the real man, who gave the noble example of con- 
 sistency and self-sacrifice by resigning his presidency in order 
 to carry out the principles he had first laid down. The one of 
 Grattan, short in its proportions as was the man himself, glows 
 with wild Irish eloquence ; every limb is agitated by the per- 
 suasive words he is uttering, even his hair is moved by his 
 energy and carries you with him nolens volens in his argument. 
 
314 CHAN TREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON 
 
 The statue is the Demosthenes of modern Art. It is the only 
 one Chantrey executed representing strong action, and one of 
 his best ; though I am ready to acknowledge it as a thing that 
 should be done but once in a sculptor's Hfe. The calculating 
 Watt — I am speaking of the smaller, not the colossal one — in 
 Westminster Abbey, sits contemplating every movement in his 
 wonderful invention, and considering their effect one upon 
 another, though perhaps not yet comprehending the immense 
 change it was to create throughout the world. This statue 
 is exactly the opposite of the last mentioned — quiet, contem- 
 plative^ busy within itself, and totally unconscious of what is 
 going on about it. It is, in short, a truthful representation of a 
 mathematical man_, engaged in bringing together the many 
 points of his problem, and harmonizing them all to one purpose. 
 You will not be content with me if I do not say that the drapery 
 or dress is simple and at the same time graceful, such as the 
 original may have worn, and such as good Art recognizes. 
 
 By the time Behnes had come to the same point, he was 
 tossing about in a sea of trouble, and beating the waves with 
 his hands like a drowning man. His ill-regulated life was 
 beginning to tell upon him; old age was seen coming in the 
 distance, and, as he must have apprehended, without that 
 which should have accompanied it, as honour, love, obedience, 
 and troops of friends : but in their stead, curses in the shape of 
 increasing debts, growing vices, and cold looks from those 
 around him. The vivid impulses, which served him in his 
 busts, hardly helped him in works that required longer and 
 more mature consideration. His statues, with the exception 
 of two, Dr. Babington in St. Paul's Cathedral^ and Sir William 
 Follett in Westminster Abbey, are bad — bad not from want of 
 
CHAN TREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON, 315 
 
 technical knowledge, but from the want of the power of con- 
 centrating his mind for any length of time on one thing. They 
 were the result of stray but tired moments ; when he could 
 escape from the effects of his harassing life. Great works in 
 Sculpture are rarely if ever done after this fashion. His talent, 
 however, still shone forth by fits and starts in lesser efforts ; his 
 beautiful statuette of Lady Godiva, for instance, though they 
 were but the momentary flashes that indicated the expiring 
 flame. 
 
 Was I wrong in asserting that Chantrey had less original 
 genius than Behnes ? I begin to think I was. He was more 
 consistent, less eccentric. Why should eccentricity be always 
 put down as a necessary attribute in Genius ? It was not so in 
 the best days of Art, though it may have been in her less 
 prosperous ones. Chantrey was a man of the world, made 
 every move tell, and hardly lost a pawn in the game of life : 
 there is Genius even in that. Behnes was not ; his Genius was a 
 sort of Mephistopheles, always by his side, allowing him always 
 to fancy he was going as he pleased, yet eventually leading him 
 to destruction. 
 
 You will ask me where all this while is Gibson? I will 
 tell you. He is in Rome, the centre of a system in that 
 heaven of Art, far removed from, and having very little com- 
 munication with ours. He rarely corresponds, and when he 
 does seems but little concerned about what is going on now, or is 
 thought of him here. He prefers being the echo of old Greek Art 
 to the uttering of new sounds that will interest the present day. 
 Echoes are always weaker than the original voice. His works 
 are good in their forms, well studied and academically correct : 
 purer in style, and freer from afl"ectation than those of his master 
 
3i6 CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 
 
 Canova. No sculptor shows better the good effect of schooling, 
 followed by thorough devotion to Art. Some few friends who 
 pretend to a love of the classical, hang to him : and from this 
 circumstance he has some influence, though he can hardly be 
 said to have left a school behind him. The one to which he 
 belongs had been established long before he was born. His 
 works, though in many respects very beautiful, remind me of an 
 old acquaintance of mine, who, when some of the remains of 
 yesterday's dinner were brought again to table as a rechauffe^ 
 used always to exclaim, somewhat to the annoyance of his 
 wife, " I think I have seen you, friend, before." 
 
 What can the student in Sculpture gain by contemplating the 
 career of these three men? He surely may learn by that of 
 Chantrey how much may be accomplished by sound thinking 
 and steady perseverance, and above all by early self-knowledge. 
 The man who would rise in his profession may be taught by 
 him, how necessary it is as soon as possible to mark out for 
 himself the walk in Art most adapted to his own powers, and 
 how necessary it is to keep to that walk when once he has 
 found it to be the right one. We are apt to fancy when start- 
 ing in the race, that we shall come in at the head of all, leaving 
 our confreres^ to use a sporting term, nowhere ; but as we get 
 on we begin to find that everyone has his place : one excels in 
 what another fails in, and yet is in some respects less than the 
 man he surpasses, and that the state of Art is shown to advance 
 or recede, not by the single effort of anyone, but by the com- 
 bination of all. The meaning of the word Chantrey in Art, is 
 consistency of purpose. 
 
 . Of Behnes I need scarcely speak : the lesson he leaves must 
 be obvious to all. I may say, however, that but for certain ifs, 
 
CHANTREY, BEHNES, AND GIBSON. 317 
 
 he might have been one of the first sculptors of England. 
 Whether those ifs were born within him, or whether he had the 
 power to contend with them it is not for me to judge : to advise 
 you to avoid them would be to insult you. He will not in the 
 long run take a high rank in Art, but he has left behind him 
 things which you as students may find benefit from. Eat the 
 kernel, and throw away the shell. 
 
 Gibson was a sculptor of great talent, I do not say genius ; but 
 if you have the latter — and that is a question none of you can 
 quite decide for yourselves — you will be the better for pursuing 
 the line he followed, intense study and earnest devotion to his 
 Art. If you have only talent you will go further, much further 
 by it than by any other road ; but he may, I think, serve you as 
 a warning that your Art is called upon to illustrate new ideas, 
 not repeat old ones ; to associate itself with the feelings of the 
 present day, not to carry us back to times of the past, and ta 
 things that are dead and gone. 
 
LECTURE XIV. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 PROPOSE, during my next five lectures, to worry 
 or weary you — the words sound remarkably alike — 
 with the early history of Sculpture ; a subject 
 often taken up by lecturers and persons with very 
 little practical knowledge of the Art. I do not say that it is 
 one with which the student must inevitably be well acquainted ; 
 but I think some insight into it will be found of service to him, 
 as a help in distinguishing, among the many changes of feeling 
 that are constantly going on, those that tend to advance, from 
 those that are detrimental to Art, or have no effect either for 
 good or evil. Like the Painter who sees the whole scope of 
 his canvas and understands what is the main intention of his 
 work, the learner in Art history will comprehend the relative 
 value of each touch, and not unduly emphasize what he is over 
 partial to, so as to destroy the harmony of the whole. He will 
 in short, by a knowledge of what has gone before, be prevented 
 from listening too closely to the tempter who stands immediately 
 by his side, is in fact his own shadow, and be able better to look 
 into that futurity by whose verdict he himself must hereafter 
 stand or fall. 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, 319 
 
 What I shall put before you, which will relate to the earlier 
 part only of the subject, I must ask you to take merely as a 
 sketch, very imperfect in itself, to be studied and carried out in 
 detail at a more opportune moment. Could I indeed depend 
 on the result of time, I should have preferred delaying my 
 treatise, and then giving you a more duly considered whole, 
 but that I cannot. The death, too, during the past year of Mr. 
 Foley, perhaps the greatest sculptor England has produced, a 
 loss which we all deplore, has warned me of the uncertainty of 
 events. I have found besides, on entering into the subject, 
 such a multitude of circumstances recorded, each perhaps in 
 itself unimportant, but all, when put together, assisting to clear 
 away the mists from the early dawn of Art, that the subject has 
 become almost too great for me to handle, or at any rate too 
 voluminous to be grappled with in the short time I have been 
 able amidst other occupations, to devote to it. If I appear to 
 you in my lecture to diverge into matters that have but distant 
 relationship with Sculpture, you must give me credit, in that too, 
 for a wish to be of use. They all radiate in various directions 
 from the main centre ; and I am not without hope may in some 
 degree be of benefit by enabling you to perceive how much of the 
 beautiful surrounds your Art, or accompanies it in that constella- 
 tion of the mind, of which it is one of the brightest stars. I 
 can but give you my thoughts, and you must take them as they 
 are. 
 
 There is, I am sorry to say, but little practical instruction in 
 Sculpture in the Royal Academy; less in fact than ever, and 
 but little can be gained from lectures unassisted by more direct 
 teaching in the schools. The only object a lecturer can 
 accomphsh is to enlarge the mind of the learner generally so 
 
 a 
 
320 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 that he may take in more freely the advice given him, when his 
 clay or marble is before him. 
 
 I am aware that my audience consists quite as much of 
 Painters as of Sculptors, so that what I allude to may, if of ser- 
 vice at all, help those who are working in other departments as 
 well as those whom I am particularly called upon to address. 
 
 My intention is to be guided by authors who give, as near as 
 possible, contemporary evidence. I will begin with Homer, the 
 earliest, or, if not, with Hesiod, one of the earliest writers known. 
 Dates have now but little concern with him. Herodotus, who 
 lived in the fifth century B.C., places him four hundred years 
 earlier than his own time, of course by a wild guess only : how 
 could it be otherwise ? 
 
 Egypt and Greece have both contended for the honour of his 
 birth, though neither of them have been able to name the spot 
 where he first drew breath. He is lost in the waters of oblivion, 
 all but his voice, but that we still hear floating in a hymn to 
 glory on the waves of time, and echoed through many tongues, 
 all awakened by the music of his song, and all imbued more or 
 less with the patriotic sentiments he inspires. 
 
 The old poet touches but slightly in his " IHad" and "Odyssey " 
 on the fine Arts. Allusions to scenes of peace and happy days 
 long past, are introduced amid the turmoil of the fight, that give 
 a special and separate interest to each hero as he falls on the 
 field of battle, and impart pathos to events which otherwise 
 would appear but wanton cruelty and barbarous destruction. 
 This is the poet's own art, by which he makes his impress on the 
 mind, and this it is that renders Homer so great, but the visible 
 figures of the Arts assume no very definite shape amid the 
 grandeur of his figures of speech ; and the warlike implements 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 321 
 
 only shine forth in momentary flashes of light, amidst the 
 struggles of contending nations which he describes. 
 
 Sculpture is but Httle thought of by the bHnd old bard, but 
 every hero he portrays is in himself a living statue replete with 
 beauty, yet marked with a character distinct and complete in 
 itself. Had I the voice of Orpheus to bring them back from 
 the shades below, with what a martial tread would they come 
 before us on our diminutive stage — with what a clanging of 
 arms and nodding of plumes from their lofty brows ! Old 
 Nestor, at the head of the group, lecturing the younger 
 warriors of his day : yet, like some other lecturers, somewhat 
 prosy in his ideas ; Agamemnon, with his kingly pride, brave 
 in the fight, yet looking for an undue share of the spoils; 
 Achilles, fierce and impetuous, yet, amid all his impetuosity, 
 sullen and unforgiving in his temper, and, like most good 
 haters, a fervent friend : 
 
 " Our lost Patroclus, with his gentle courtesy ; 
 How kind and genial was his soul to all 
 While yet he lived;" 
 
 the giant Ajax, with his ponderous strength, cruel from the 
 absence of any of the higher feelings of the hero ; Ulysses, 
 with more of the general and as much of the soldier, and a 
 wisdom that taught him the strategy as well as the hardihood 
 of war. Each of them differing in character, yet perfect in 
 physical beauty, except Thyrsites, who serves by contrast to 
 heighten the beauty of the rest, and who might plead as an 
 excuse for the cynical deformity of his mind, that Jove had 
 created the bitterness within when he created the deformity of 
 his body. 
 
 On the other side, grey-bearded old Priam, with his many 
 
 Y 
 
32 2 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 wives and many sorrows, the Lear of Homer ; with his son 
 Paris, in part selfish, and not wholly brave, unwilling in the 
 hour of trouble to sacrifice his own pleasure, though eager that 
 others should sacrifice theirs for him, whose beauty formed the 
 weakness of his character and made him less than the rest. 
 Last, not least, the true, if not the nominal hero of the tale, 
 Hector, who combines the gentleman, the patriot, the soldier, 
 the loving husband and kind father ; who bore almost alone 
 the brunt of the battle and suffered the misfortunes of war, and 
 who never lowered his crest except to pacify the fears of a timid 
 child. We may ask him to come more forward to the footlights 
 and receive our homage, for, whatever may be bur disposition, our 
 sympathies will be always with him, as the grandest figure our 
 imagination can call up before us. The sculptor will acknow- 
 ledge, I think, before I dismiss him with my wand, that he is 
 the greatest of them all, and presents to us the highest beauty, 
 both mental and physical, our mind can conceive or our Art 
 portray. 
 
 And now, as they vanish into air, I may tell you that it is to 
 show how the Poetry and the Sculpture of the ancients com- 
 bined together to produce the sublime and the beautiful, the 
 perfection of physical form and mental excellence. It was 
 this feeling that made their Art so great, and if it ever rise again 
 to the sam.e height, it must be by pursuing the path that leads 
 to the same point. 
 
 Notwithstanding what I have said on Homer's comparative 
 silence on the subject of Art, the reader, if he be attentive in 
 his observations, may find, amid the old man's magnificent 
 metaphors and similes, some dim allusions to it, as it existed 
 in his day. For instance, in the third book of the Iliad, where 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 323 
 
 Iris is supposed to discover Helen engaged on her tapestry 
 work. I shall quote from Pope's translation, though some 
 apology is due for taking him as the translator, since we have 
 undoubtedly a more literal one in the late Lord Derby. Lord 
 Derby, however, himself acknowledges, in the preface to his 
 work, that the English reader unacquainted with Greek will 
 naturally prefer the harmonious versification and polished 
 brilliancy of Pope's; but with the kind of justice characteristic 
 of a truly great man, who gives all the credit due to his rival, 
 yet barely acknowledges that which is due to himself, adds, 
 "admirable as it is. Pope's Iliad can hardly be said to be 
 Homer's Iliad." Lord Derby is right, too, where he says that 
 if justice is ever to be done to Homer, it can only be in the 
 heroic blank verse. On more mature consideration, indeed, 
 the student will gradually come to prefer Lord Derby's to the 
 other, and will find that what he loses in euphony, he gains in 
 simplicity of style and condensity of expression, and so ap- 
 proaches nearer to the Greek original. The one translation is 
 the work of the poet, the other of the scholar ; and both may 
 be read with advantage. But the lover of Homer will have to 
 take Lord Derby's, if, without the benefit of a classical educa- 
 tion, he wishes to get, as far as possible, an insight into the 
 power of his writings. 
 
 I will endeavour to show the difference between the two 
 by their respective translations of one and the same Hne, 
 where that difference appears to me strongly exemplified. 
 Pope, speaking of Juno — a lady I do not recommend to the 
 students for a wife — construes the line, 
 
 " Then thus the goddess with the radiant eyes, 
 What words are these, O sovereign of the skies ?" 
 
324 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 While Lord Derby translates it — 
 
 *' Whom answer'd thus the stag-eyed Queen of Heaven, 
 What words, dread son of Saturn, dost thou speak?" 
 
 The chief difference between the two appears to me to lie in 
 the use of the term " radiant" in one case, and " stag-eyed " in 
 the other. In some instances Pope varies his translation of this 
 same term by "large," "majestic," " charming, "&c.; but with him 
 the simile is lost for the sake of melody, as in our operas the 
 sense is buried in the luxury of sound ; while Lord Derby pre- 
 serves all through the expression of his author by " stag-eyed," 
 and so not only imitates him, but keeps alive the metaphor, 
 which is so powerful in itself, and so characteristic of him. In 
 Book XX. is another rendering of a like kind, which again illus- 
 trates the same difference between the two translators. The 
 Greek word is yao/o^og, a term applied more than once to 
 Neptune. Pope gives it by " Whose azure round girds the vast 
 world," and afterwards by " shakes the solid ground ;" while 
 Lord Derby invariably uses the term " earth-shaker," as near 
 as possible the literal translation of it. There is, however, a 
 licence in this case either may take advantage of, as ya/^yoxoc 
 means encircling as well; but I cannot help fancying that 
 "earth-shaker," though not so harmonious in sound as Pope's 
 rendering, is nearer to the Homeric feeling ; especially when 
 speaking of the Pagan deities, who were rather a turbulent lot, 
 and more particularly so the old salt WoaEilu)v. 
 
 In these remarks of mine there may not impossibly be found 
 something applicable to Art as well as to Poetry. Neither 
 smooth language nor flowing lines are at all times the main 
 object or purpose of a work, though they' may frequently help 
 it ; they will, in fact, often, as in this case, tend to weaken it, 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 325 
 
 and so be out of place. The student will find, whatever the 
 two versifications may be, the substance in both sufficiently 
 alike for our present purpose, which is, not to criticize the style 
 of either the original writings of Homer or the translations of 
 them, but to seek out in them such allusions to Art as may 
 serve to illustrate its early history. I must, therefore, ask 
 pardon for this divergence from our subject, and give, as I 
 promised, from Pope the lines alluded to, which tend to show 
 that the working of tapestry was an employment prevalent 
 among females in Homer's time. 
 
 "Meantime to beauteous Helen from the skies 
 The various goddess of the rainbow flies, 
 Like fair Laodice in form and face, 
 The loveliest nymph of Priam's royal race ; 
 Her in the palace at her loom she found, 
 The golden web her own sad story crown'd. 
 The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize), 
 And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes. " 
 
 Homer appears again to touch on Art in his fourth book; 
 where he describes the wound of Atrides, from the arrow of 
 Pandorus, with the blood flowing from it, and says (this time 
 too I quote from Pope) : — 
 
 " The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore, 
 And raised the skin, and drew the purple gore ; 
 As when some stately trappings are decreed 
 To grace a monarch on his bounding steed, 
 A nymph in Caria or Moenia bred, 
 Stains the pure iv'ry with the lively red. 
 With equal lustre various colours vie 
 The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye." 
 
 We may gather from the last — for similes must always be 
 founded on fact, or they tell for nothing— that the trappings of 
 
326 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 their horses, or rather the cheek-pieces, as Lord Derby gives it, 
 were decorated with ivory, and that, for the sake of beauty, that 
 ivory was stained in various ways. 
 
 We may infer too that Caria, id est Lydia, and Mcenia, repre- 
 sent places famous for the manufacturing and decorating these 
 trappings ; and by going a step further gather an opinion that 
 women were chiefly, if not wholly, employed upon them. 
 
 We may in the same way imply from the former lines, that 
 the working of tapestry coats of many colours — not perhaps all 
 worn by Josephs — was one of the chief employments on which 
 females were engaged, and when we repeat the lines, 
 
 The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize), 
 And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes," 
 
 may only be doing them justice in asserting that they were the 
 designers as well as the workers of these varied productions ; 
 though I fear this last assumption must be taken merely as 
 one of those pleasant dreams that arise out of a desire every 
 reader feels to picture to himself the scenes and personages 
 which old Homer so vividly describes. Yet Lord Derby gives 
 distinctly the fact that in Laodice's web 
 
 * * Was interwoven many a toilsome strife 
 Of Trojan warriors and of brass-clad Greeks 
 For her encounter'd at the hand of Mars. " 
 
 That the weaving of tapestry was a favourite pastime at that 
 period we may be certain from Homer again alluding to it in his 
 description of the parting of Hector and Andromache — the most 
 pathetic part of all the sad tale — where he makes Hector 
 foretell with a sorrowful face, and even tearful eye, her future 
 unhappy state when he shall be gone, and says to her : — 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 327 
 
 " And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, 
 My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, 
 Not Priam's hoary hairs defiled with gore. 
 Not all my brother's gasping on the shore 
 As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread ; 
 I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! 
 In Argive looms our battles to design. 
 And woes, of which so large a part was thine." 
 
 We have a further mention of tapestry work in the 14th book, 
 where Juno, the lady I before mentioned, is described as 
 dressing herself in her best — or, as we should say, in her Sunday 
 clothes — in order, alas ! to cajole her husband. 
 
 Though belonging to poetry, to which we naturally allow 
 considerable Ucence, it is not difficult to make out, amidst the 
 description, the fashion of the period. I quote this time from 
 the more literal translator, Lord Derby : — 
 
 "A robe ambrosial then, by Pallas wrought. 
 She donn'd, in many a curious pattern traced, 
 With golden brooch beneath her breast confined. 
 Her zone, from which a hundred tassels hung. 
 She girt about her ; and, in three bright drops, 
 Her glitt'ring gems suspended from her ears ; 
 And all around her grace and beauty shone. 
 Then o'er her head th' imperial goddess threw 
 A beauteous veil, new-wrought, as sunlight white ; 
 And on her well-turn'd feet her sandals bound. 
 Her dress completed, from her chamber forth 
 She issued. " 
 
 Magnificent gems, zones with hundred tassels hung, jewelled 
 earrings, and rich sandals prevailed among the goddesses ; and 
 Juno must have looked lovely, as far as we can tell from seeing 
 her through her beauteous veil — though she must have been a 
 most expensive wife to Jupiter. 
 
 We may pass by all this, as we have more serious work before 
 
328 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 us. The part where Thetis is described as rising from the sea 
 to console Achilles for the loss of his friend Patroclus brings 
 so vividly before my eyes the beautiful work by Banks, in our 
 National Gallery, that, though properly speaking it does not 
 belong to the history of Art, I cannot resist calling your atten- 
 tion to it, as a truly effective composition, and a most highly 
 finished work. It remained in the hands of Banks's represen- 
 tatives for many years without finding in this island a man 
 capable of appreciating its superlative merit, with the will and 
 means to purchase it, and at last found a refuge by gift in our 
 National Gallery. 
 
 Banks died comparatively neglected ; but I am not altogether 
 without hope that the time may come when the good and great 
 may be distinguished from the bad in Sculpture, and a demand 
 for such works may supersede the paltry trash that is now puffed 
 up in the Art-journals of our day. I find the lines in this beauti- 
 ful work in relief so harmonious that they seem a sort of music 
 of the eye ; and there is a sorrow in the written lines that de- 
 scribe the same event, that impart a melody to them hardly 
 surpassed in any language, as they gradually lead on from the 
 immediate incident portrayed to the visit of the melancholy 
 Thetis to the house of Vulcan — melancholy at the approaching 
 death of her son, foretold by fate as too soon to happen. Vul- 
 can receives her with the cordiality of an old friend long absent, 
 and refers in his kind welcome of her to times gone by, and to 
 kindnesses for which he was in better days indebted to her. 
 Her presence brings back to him events long passed, when he 
 was young and hopeful, the remembrance of which is revived 
 by association with her. We cannot help feeling a sort of respect 
 and sympathy for the old god, perhaps somewhat ill-used, which 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 329 
 
 none of the other handsomer but less worthy deities excite 
 within us : 
 
 *'The silver-footed Queen 
 Him swelt'ring at his forge she found, intent 
 On forming twenty tripods, which should stand 
 The wall surrounding of his well-built house ; 
 With golden wheels beneath he furnish'd each, 
 And to th' assembly of the gods endued 
 With pow'r to move spontaneous, and return, 
 A marvel to behold ! thus far his work 
 He had completed ; but not yet had fix'd 
 The rich-wrought handles ; these his labour now 
 Engaged, to fit them, and to rivet fast." 
 
 How he imbued these tripods with the power to " move spon- 
 taneous/' we must leave a Maudsley or a Penn to explain. The 
 old engineering god lays them aside in order that he and his 
 wife Charis may see to the comforts of their guest, and have a 
 chat with her on auld lang syne. Her tale is soon told, and 
 her wants revealed; and the sturdy old friend sets to again 
 at his work to gratify them with the hearty goodwill of Long- 
 fellow's " Village Blacksmith :" and with a strength of arm that 
 may, for aught we can tell, have brought a blow on his anvil 
 equal to the Nasmyth hammer. The old god's palace must 
 have been luxurious, for we read of golden chairs and seats 
 with silver studs adorned, on which Thetis and Vulcan sat 
 during their confab, and of a rich footstool which Charis placed 
 at the feet of her guest. The renowned blacksmith had, Homer 
 tells us, maidens of gold, whose business it was to support him 
 in his movements ; though the advantage of their being of that 
 metal I do not see, unless that they might, in case of need, be 
 melted down. He says, too, speaking of his former days : — 
 
 "I fashion'd then of metal clasps and chains, 
 Of spiral coil, rich cups and collars fair," 
 
330 EARL Y HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 He must, in short, have been a first-rate artist, in metal ; and, 
 judging from the account given, I may tell you, punctual as to 
 time. The ring of his hammer and the blast of his bellows are 
 heard even to this day in the lines that follow the preceding 
 scene, and which reveal to us the forging of that great shield, 
 on whose surface an antique world is said to have been em- 
 bossed in metals of various kinds. This shield, as you know, 
 and the other parts of Achilles' new armour, are what the fair- 
 armed Thetis asked for, and as far as we can tell by the poem 
 waited for whilst they were made. The old founder, as I have 
 before said, goes readily to it, and 
 
 '* As the work required 
 The stubborn brass, and tin, and precious gold, 
 
 And silver, first he melted in the fire ; 
 
 ****** 
 And first a shield he fashion'd vast and strong 
 With rich adornment ; circled with a rim, 
 Threefold, bright-gleaming whence a silver belt 
 Depended ; of five folds the shield was form'd ; 
 And on its surface many a rare design 
 Of curious art his practised skill had wrought. 
 Thereon were figured earth, and sky, and sea, 
 The ever-circling sun, and full-orb'd moon, 
 And all the signs that crown the vault of Heaven ; 
 Pleiads and Hyads, and Orion's might, 
 And Arctos, call'd the Wain, who wheels on high 
 His circling course, and on Orion waits ; 
 Sole star that never bathes in th' ocean wave. 
 And two fair populous towns were sculptured there : 
 In one were marriage pomp and revelry, 
 And brides, in gay procession, through the streets 
 With blazing torches from their chambers borne. 
 While frequent rose the hymeneal song. 
 Youths whirl'd around in joyous dance, with sound 
 Of flute and harp ; and, standing at their doors. 
 Admiring women on the pageant gazed 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 331 
 
 Meanwhile, a busy throng the forum fill'd : 
 There between two a fierce contention rose, 
 About a death-fine ; to the public one 
 Appeal'd, asserting to have paid the whole ; 
 While one denied that he had aught received. 
 Both were desirous that before the judge 
 The issue should be tried ; with noisy shouts 
 Their sev'ral partisans encouraged each. 
 The heralds still'd the tumult of the crowd : 
 On polish'd chairs, in solemn circle, sat 
 The rev'rend Elders ; in their hands they held 
 The loud-voiced herald's sceptres ; waving these. 
 They heard th' alternate pleadings ; in the midst 
 Two talents lay of gold, which he should take 
 Who should before them prove his righteous cause. 
 
 Before the second town two armies lay, 
 In arms refulgent : to destroy the town 
 Th' assailants threaten'd, or among themselves 
 Of all the wealth within the city stored 
 An equal half, as ransom, to divide. 
 The terms rejecting, the defenders mann'd 
 A secret ambush ; on the walls they placed 
 Women and children muster'd for defence. 
 And men by age enfeebled ; forth they went, 
 By Mars and Pallas led ; these, wrought in gold, 
 In golden arms array'd, above the crowd 
 For beauty and stature, as befitting gods. 
 Conspicuous shone ; of lesser height the rest. 
 But when the destined ambuscade was reach'd, 
 Beside the river, where the shepherds drove 
 Their flocks and herds to water, down they lay. 
 In glitt'ring arms accoutred ; and apart 
 They placed two spies, to notify betimes 
 Th' approach of flocks of sheep and lowing herds. 
 These in two shepherds' charge ere long appear'd, 
 Who, unsuspecting as they moved along, 
 Enjoy'd the music of their past'ral pipes. 
 They on the booty, from afar discern'd, 
 Sprang from their ambuscade ; and cutting off 
 
332 
 
 EARL V HISTOR Y OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 The herds, and fleecy flocks, their guardians slew. 
 Their comrades heard the tumult where they sat 
 Before their sacred altars, and forthwith 
 Sprang on their cars, and with fast-stepping steeds 
 Pursued the plund'rers, and o'ertook them soon. 
 There on the river's bank they met in arms, 
 • And each at other hurl'd their brazen spears, 
 
 And there were figured Strife and Tumult wild. 
 And deadly Fate, who in her iron grasp 
 One newly-wounded, one unwounded bore, 
 While by the feet from out the press she dragg'd 
 Another slain : about her shoulders hung 
 A garment crimson 'd with the blood of men. 
 Like living men they seem'd to move, to fight, 
 To drag away the bodies of the slain. 
 
 And there was grav'n a wide extended plain 
 Of fallow land, rich, fertile, mellow soil, 
 Thrice plough'd ; where many ploughmen up and do\\Ti 
 Their teams were driving ; and as each attain 'd 
 The limit of the field, would one advance 
 And tender him a cup of gen'rous wine : 
 Then would he turn, and to the end again 
 Along the furrow cheerly drive his plough. 
 And still behind them darker show'd the soil, 
 The true presentment of a new plough'd field. 
 Though wrought in gold ; a miracle of Art. 
 There too was grav'n a cornfield, rich in grain. 
 Where with sharp sickles reapers plied their task ; 
 The binders, following close, the bundles tied : 
 Three were the binders ; and behind them boys 
 In close attendance waiting, in their arms 
 Gather'd the bundles, and in order piled. 
 Amid them, staff" in hand, in silence stood 
 The King, rejoicing in the plenteous swathe. 
 A little way removed, the heralds slew 
 A sturdy ox, and now beneath an oak 
 Prepared the feast ; while women mixed hard by. 
 White barley porridge for the lab'rers meal. 
 And, with rich clusters laden, there was graven 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 333 
 
 A vineyard fair, all gold ; of glossy black 
 
 The bunches were on silver poles sustain'd ; 
 
 Around a darksome trench ; beyond, a fence 
 
 Was wrought, of shining tin ; and through it led 
 
 One only path, by which the bearers pass'd 
 
 Who gather 'd in the vineyard's bounteous store. 
 
 There maids and youths, in joyous spirits bright. 
 
 In woven baskets bore the luscious fruit. 
 
 A boy, amid them, from a clear-toned harp 
 
 Drew lovely music ; well his liquid voice 
 
 The strings accompanied ; they all with dance 
 
 And song harmonious join'd, and joyous shouts, 
 
 As the gay bevy lightly tripp'd along. 
 
 Of straight-horn'd cattle too a herd was graven ; 
 
 Of gold and tin the heifers all were wrought : 
 
 They to the pasture, from the cattle-yard, 
 
 With gentle lowings, by a babbling stream. 
 
 Where quiv'ring reed-beds rustled, slowly moved. 
 
 Four golden shepherds walk'd beside the herd. 
 
 By nine swift dogs attended ; then amid 
 
 The foremost heifers sprang two lions fierce 
 
 Upon the lordly bull : he, bellowing loud, 
 
 Was dragg'd along, by dogs and youths pursued. 
 
 The tough bull's-hide they tore, and gorging lapp'd 
 
 Th' intestines and dark blood ; with vain attempt 
 
 The herdsmen following closely, to th' attack 
 
 Cheer'd their swift dogs ; these shunn'd the lion's jaws, 
 
 And close around them baying, held aloof. 
 
 And there the skilful artist's hand had traced 
 A pasture broad, with fleecy flocks o'erspread. 
 In a fair glade, with fold, and tents, and pens. 
 There too, the skilful artist's hand had wrought 
 With curious workmanship, a mazy dance, 
 Like that which Dsedalus in Cnossus erst 
 At fair-hair'd Ariadne's bidding framed. 
 There, laying each on other's wrists their hand, 
 Bright youths and many-suitor'd maidens danced : 
 In fair white linen these : in tunics those. 
 Well woven, shining soft with fragrant oils ; 
 
334 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 These with fair coronets were crown'd, while those 
 
 With golden swords from silver belts were girt. 
 
 Now whirl'd they round with nimble practised feet, 
 
 Easy as when a potter, seated, turns 
 
 A wheel, new fashion'd by his skilful hand. 
 
 And spins it round, to prove if true it run : 
 
 Now featly moved in well-beseeming ranks. 
 
 A num'rous crowd around, the lovely dance 
 
 Survey'd, delighted ; while with measured chant 
 
 Two tumblers, in the midst, were whirling round. 
 
 About the margin of the massive shield 
 
 Was wrought the mighty strength of th' ocean stream." 
 
 This again, as you may suppose, is Lord Derby's translation, 
 but you may read both his and Pope's with equal benefit to 
 yourselves. The one, however, to which I wish you more par- 
 ticularly to pay attention is the translation by Flaxman from 
 the Greek into the more comprehensive language of Art itself. 
 I feel, indeed, no hesitation in saying that, as a composition, 
 this shield of Achilles by him is one of the finest specimens of 
 modern, and even of ancient Sculpture. 
 
 The grandeur of the subjects, the complicated nature of the 
 groupings, made it peculiarly suited to a comprehensive mind 
 like Flaxman's, while the comparative smallness of the figures 
 prevented him from running into those errors of execution to 
 which he was liable in larger works, owing to his physical in- 
 firmities. It may be said, indeed, to be Flaxman's masterpiece. 
 A cast of it is in the galleries of the Royal Academy, and I 
 would have no student of any kind fail to give it constant and 
 earnest consideration. It will tend in every way to elevate 
 the style of the sculptor, and will prevent the painter from fall- 
 ing into the vulgar and commonplace, to which his Art is liable 
 from his often having to treat of every-day subjects. The 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 335 
 
 student will find too, that a proper acquaintance with the 
 original text will make him more cognizant of the truth and 
 beauty of the rendering of that text in Art ; and he may get a 
 further insight into its merits, as well as into the character of 
 the sculptor who executed it, if he take the trouble to compare 
 it with a shield of the same kind by CeUini. In the one, the 
 composition is simple, unaffected, grave ; the figures are masters 
 of the part they are performing, and so do not run into extra- 
 vagances or overdo their work. The whole is, in short, truly 
 Homeric. The other, with equal knowledge of the human 
 form and its movements, I may almost say more, is restless, 
 fidgety, anxious to display that knowledge to the utmost ; and 
 often does so at the expense of propriety and truth. 
 
 I may condense my remarks by saying that one is by Flax- 
 man, the other by Benvenuto Cellini — both geniuses, but of an 
 entirely opposite tone of mind. 
 
 You will say that I have been trying to build up a theory to 
 show the existence of Art in the time of Homer, from that 
 which is the mere ideal composition of a poet, and had in all 
 probability no real existence ; and will tell me that, though I 
 have brass enough to set up this theory, I have neither enough 
 of that metal, nor of silver, gold, or tin, to carry out in con- 
 struction such a work, though all of them are distinctly said by 
 Homer to be included in it. But I must remind you that the 
 poet has no power to create — that is the province of One alone ; 
 he merely combines and re-combines what is present about 
 him, or what he has seen before, giving greater influence to 
 some things, and reducing that of others, so as to show them 
 in a new light or by association of them together to excite in 
 the mind new ideas respecting them. The material must pre- 
 
336 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 viously exist, whether for a figure in marble or a figure of 
 speech; and the beauty of a simile or metaphor would be 
 naught but for the original fact upon which it is founded. 
 We may safely therefore infer that the Art to which Homer 
 alludes in his Iliad, had its being in his day, if not long 
 before. He may have embellished it beyond its real worth, but 
 of that we cannot judge, as we do not know the date at which 
 he wrote, but we may not unreasonably suppose that one of the 
 reasons why the Sculpture of his native country became so 
 glorious was that its birth, or at any rate its early growth, was 
 contemporary with the sound of his lyre and the beauty of his 
 song. 
 
 I do not pretend to have given you this evening all the 
 allusions to Art that are found in Homer, but merely such a 
 selection as will tempt you to search for more, or to make a 
 note of such as may happen by chance to come before you. 
 There are many others, mostly, as may be supposed, relating 
 to the mode of warfare of the time, such as double-pointed 
 spears, silver-studded swords, and nodding plumes with golden 
 threads entwined ; shining breast-plates and polished greaves, 
 with shields of bull's hide stretched upon brazen rings, five 
 thick, so as to resist the force of the javelin, even when thrown 
 by the arm of Ajax Telamon. Golden chariots of rich and 
 complicated pattern, and trappings of horses that rivalled in 
 brilliancy the sun at noon-day, while covering steeds of god- 
 like descent who, instead of saying " neigh " to everything, ex- 
 pressed their sympathy with the dangers of the fight in words 
 of heroic poetry. There are, however, other objects of Art 
 mentioned, connected with the religious ceremonies of both 
 contending nations, and even with their joyous feastings and 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 337 
 
 funereal wailings, such as tripods and golden cups used for 
 libations to the gods, and awarded as prizes to the victors in 
 their games. 
 
 " The prizes of the runners, swift of foot, ■ 
 Achilles next set forth ; a silver bowl, 
 Six measures its content, its workmanship 
 Unmatch'd on earth, of Sidon's costliest art 
 The product rare ; thence o'er the misty sea 
 Brought by Phoenicians, who in port arrived, 
 Gave it to Thoas ; by Euneus last, 
 The son of Jason, to Patroclus paid. 
 In ransom of Lycaon, Priam's son. " 
 
 All these I would have the student in Art meditate upon, so 
 that he may in his work give as faithful a version as possible of 
 them, I do not ask him to consider whether the tale is alto- 
 gether true, or altogether false ; whether the human heroes who 
 performed their part in it are supposed to be real personages, 
 or merely allegorical of the contention of the mightier forces of 
 nature in a primitive world. 
 
 These are questions that may by chance revolve themselves 
 in his mind, but have nothing to do with our present purpose, 
 the studying of Homer in relation to Art. The sculptor should 
 look to him with a view to his profession, though he will not 
 do badly if he extend that view to other matters. I would have 
 him recollect that Sculpture is a classical Art — more classical, or 
 in other words more of an abstract nature, than Painting ; and 
 for this reason I would have him a greater reader of the 
 classical authors. 
 
 Lord Derby expresses a fear in the preface to his work that 
 the love of classical learning is falling off, and there is truth in 
 what he says ; but of all men sculptors should be the last to 
 
 z 
 
338 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 abandon it. Their Art was founded upon it, and though other 
 influences may have taken the place, to a certain extent, of the 
 original principle, it still retains its influence and tends to in- 
 spire it with beauty of style and purity of feeUng. Without a 
 certain amount of idealization no work, however individual in 
 its character or purpose, can be pronounced altogether success- 
 ful in Sculpture. This ideahzing or generalizing is, in fact, one 
 of the distinctions between Art and Nature, for the reason that 
 the effects of Art are intended to produce a permanent and 
 therefore general impression, while those of Nature have in 
 many cases only a momentary and in almost all instances a 
 changeable one. This power of idealization may, in my 
 opinion, be well cultivated in the sculptor by the study of the 
 old poets, who possess most of this quaHty, and are, in short, 
 the simplest of all in their narrative, and therefore the grandest 
 of all in their writings, from the fact that the field on which 
 they worked had been less trodden upon, and from their having 
 lived in times when humanity was of a more simple nature, 
 when the passions displayed themselves with less reserve, be- 
 cause less masked by hypocrisy, and virtue and vice stood out 
 more distinctly from each other, and represented less com- 
 plicated problems. 
 
 The music of Homer's Iliad is heard at this distant period 
 the loudest of them all, because it was sung when the air was 
 free from the busy hum of men, and even now he is best 
 listened to apart from public haunts, I would have the 
 student in Sculpture, when so retiring with him, thank him for 
 the many marvellous groups he presents to him for his Art. I 
 would have him note, as a lesson to himself, with what infinite 
 variety every hero of the tale triumphs aloft over his adversary, 
 
EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 or bites the ground in death. The vanquisher and vanquished 
 in each case — for ahnost the whole war is represented by a series 
 of single combats — portray distinct combinations of form and 
 feature, separate from any that have been shown before ; so 
 that the sculptor, with very little imagination, can picture them 
 to himself complete. I would have him remark how in all 
 cases he excites the sympathy of his audience by allusions more 
 or less affecting, according to the character of the individual 
 connected with them, and how he dismisses each one to 
 Hades in a manner suitable to his relative qualities or deserts. 
 
 Here is a mine of gold for your Art. Even Homer's nume- 
 rous similes, though perhaps appearing somewhat monotonous 
 to our modern ears, are grand in themselves and illustrative of 
 the habits of his time, and form subjects in which Art may 
 revel and enjoy itself. 
 
 You will be glad to think the hour devoted to my lecture is 
 almost at an end, and that I am consequently come to the 
 finale and am about to give you the moral of my tale. It is 
 this : Read Homer — honestly, in Greek, if you can — but read 
 him. 
 
LECTURE XV. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 Herodotus. 
 
 FIND there is some advantage to me in my being 
 called on by circumstances to lecture twice in the 
 week instead of once, as there is a better chance 
 for me of escaping the remark made by the 
 magistrates to the Samians expelled by Poly crates ; who, when 
 they were pleading their cause in a long harangue, said to them, 
 "We have forgotten the first part of your speech, and do not 
 understand the last." For fear, however, that those of my 
 audience who honoured me with their presence on the previous 
 occasion, may have fallen into that dilemma, I will begin my 
 second discourse by reminding them that in the former one I ' 
 was endeavouring to sift out the early history of Sculpture, by 
 running in a hasty manner through the Iliad ; a manner it is 
 my duty, as Professor, to advise the students not to adopt. 
 My search may have appeared like the searching for a needle 
 in a truss of hay ; but still it will, I think, be acknowledged 
 that there were some findings of those early indications of 
 Art, never Hkely now to be otherwise than indistinct. As we 
 proceed on to later times we may find the records more clear 
 
HERODOTUS. 341 
 
 and more frequent, but for that we must wait patiently; and 
 this we shall better do, if we recollect that Art, and particularly 
 Sculpture, was one of the earliest modes of expression adopted 
 by man : that it was coeval with the creation of language, and 
 long antecedent to the more complicated systems of moral 
 philosophy and science, through which intellect gradually de- 
 veloped itself It exists in a rudimentary state, even at the 
 present moment, among savage nations, who have hardly any 
 other language in which to express their ideas ; showing that the 
 imitating of form is ever the earliest effort by which the exis- 
 tence of thought is portrayed. How then can we expect to dis- 
 cover its beginning, or even to trace the early part of its growth ? 
 
 We will now take up, in furtherance of our search, our earliest 
 profane writer, Herodotus, within the boundary of whose lines 
 the streams of Fable and History unite and flow on awhile to- 
 gether ; throwing up, as they glide along, loose fragments of 
 Art generally, and of Sculpture more particularly — the most 
 primitive and then most prevalent mode of expression in it. 
 In his earUer chapters we find the story of Arion singing the 
 Grthian strain on the deck of the ship from whence he was 
 condemned to be thrown overboard by sailors, restrained, 
 though only for a moment, from their murderous intentions by 
 the harmony of his song. His escape to land on the back of 
 a dolphin is a subject often chosen for Sculpture, from its 
 imaginative character, giving it such scope for fanciful treatment. 
 
 We find in Herodotus, too, an account of Croesus the rich 
 offering a golden figure of a lion, with many other things, as 
 presents to the Oracle at Delphi ; whose priests, no doubt, 
 managed to retain within their own hands the chief influence 
 of their day by the ambiguous sayings they uttered. Some 
 
342 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 silver bowls are mentioned, too, and an opinion hazarded that 
 one of them, from its excellence, must have been the production 
 of Theodorus the Samian. This Theodorus is again alluded to 
 in an after part of the work as a maker of a seal composed of 
 gold and an emerald ; we have here not only the name of a 
 celebrated metal-chaser and gem-engraver handed down to us, 
 but also a distinct preference shown for good over bad work, 
 indicating that considerable progress had taken place. We 
 may put against this, however, that the use of expensive 
 materials, such as gold, in Art, is generally indicative either of 
 a very early or of a very decayed period ; notwithstanding the 
 instances to the contrary recorded of the Phidian Minerva and 
 Jupiter, where, in the best time of Greek Sculpture, a super- 
 stitious impression was effected on the multitude by the presence 
 of valuable substances and glowing colours. That nothing 
 remains to us of these composite works, while the more solid 
 marbles of the period are yet in existence, may be a lesson 
 worth attending to. Turning back to the time of which we are 
 treating, we read of Crcesus — the king whose name has become 
 with us the symbol of wealth — showing his immense treasures 
 to Solon, and asking him whom amidst all his travels he had 
 found to be the most happy. What use he could have made 
 of these treasures, without the blessings of a National Debt and 
 Promoters of Companies, it is difficult to say. At any rate he 
 was disappointed in the wise man's answer : for he expected to 
 be pointed out himself as the one of all others the most blest, 
 whereas Solon tells him that many men who abound in wealth 
 are unhappy, and many who have a moderate competency 
 are fortunate. 
 
 The reply is longer than this, but I am not here to teach 
 
HERODOTUS. 343 
 
 artists philosophy ; yet I cannot help thinking that discus- 
 sions of this kind originated the tone of thought among the 
 Greeks which made them so great : and that by it their Art 
 was idealized, and restrained in that sensuous character which 
 ever more or less belongs to the workings of an early age. 
 Croesus, of whom we are now speaking, and who seems to have 
 been a liberal promoter of the Arts, appears to have presented 
 many Art-gifts to the Oracles, among them a statue of a woman 
 in gold, three cubits high, which the Delphians say was the 
 image of his baking-woman. This is one of the earliest allusions 
 to portraiture, if portrait it were, in Sculpture ; and we must 
 presume it to have been very like — though whether the baking- 
 woman was of solid gold, or, as is more probable, only crusted 
 over with it, it is difficult even with our present experience to 
 say. The art of plating with metal was known to the Egyptians 
 long before this date, and doubtless to the Greeks also; and 
 the appearance of wealth may have been as valuable then as it 
 is now. Further on w^e have the account of Croesus giving to 
 the Lacedaemonians the requisite gold for making a statue of 
 Apollo. Works of Art might then be said to be really worth 
 their weight in gold, though the term is rarely if ever applied 
 by critics to modern Sculpture. 
 
 The Lacedemonians presented him in return with a bowl 
 covered outside to the rim with figures. This bowl, however, 
 appears to have been lost or stolen on its road to Croesus, who, 
 poor man ! had in the meantime been taken prisoner, or at any 
 rate was reported to have been. It is with shreds and patches 
 such as these, picked up here and there, we have to clothe the 
 early history of our Art; that they are few and far between 
 must be acknowledged, but if we compare their number with 
 
344 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, 
 
 the total absence of all reference to it in our modern and more 
 detailed history, we shall understand how important a feature 
 it was in those early ages. That it existed at all amid the tur- 
 bulent wars, not only of distant nations, but of neighbouring 
 portions of what may be considered the same country, seems 
 most surprising \ but it is accounted for by its being the means 
 of promoting religion, such as it was, among every one of 
 them. It grew, in fact, into more or less importance, as well 
 as into more or less beauty, according as religion was more or 
 less prevalent among the multitude, or became more or less 
 elevating to its devotees ; in the same way as it has now, from 
 an obverse reason, been obliged to take a lower walk. Other 
 methods have been discovered to promote religion with us, and 
 Art is scarcely acknowledged or hardly cared for as a means of 
 advancement in it. The period to which we are now alluding 
 was, as far as we can judge, one of comparative peace, and we 
 find, as I have said before, our friend Croesus distributing his ■ 
 Art-gifts largely, whether from an ostentatious or a superstitious i 
 motive it is difficult to determine ; but the misfortunes of war 
 soon overtake him, and he is not merely reported as a prisoner, 
 but positively taken captive by the Persians ; and we learn of 
 him, that when he had lost his kingdom and his riches, he 
 turned philosopher, and took to moralizing on the changes of 
 fortune — not an uncommon thing under such circumstances ; 
 still, however, clinging to the very last to the sayings of the 
 Oracles, which, like "jugghng fiends, paltered with him in a 
 double sense, keeping the word of promise to his ear and break- 
 ing it to his hope." The great financier passes through a world 
 of trouble, and undergoes many misfortunes ; he is condemned 
 to destruction, and placed on a pile of fire, but escapes, by a 
 
HERODOTUS. 345 
 
 sort of miracle, without so much as burning his fingers, and at 
 last, to a certain extent, regains his position in the world, 
 though he appears to become a sort of satellite to Cyrus. 
 
 While this is going on Herodotus makes little or no allusion 
 to Art, at least not to the arts of peace. The times were out of 
 joint. Fortifications and other accessories of war take the place 
 of statues of the gods and wassail bowls, and the description 
 of these again is very clear and intelligible. Ecbatana, for in- 
 stance, is said to have been a city built upon a rising ground 
 by the Medes under the direction of Deioces, and surrounded 
 by seven circles of walls one within the other, each circle raised 
 above the other by the height of the battlements only; the 
 largest of these walls was equal, we are told, in circumference 
 to the city of Athens, and the battlements of the first circle 
 were white, the second black, the third purple, the fourth blue, 
 and the fifth bright red; the two last, our author says, were 
 plaited, one with silver the other with gold. 
 
 Here is evidence that the Assyrians resorted to colour of 
 the most primitive kind in their Art, as did indeed almost 
 every nation ; and evidence, at the same time, by which we are 
 enabled, with the aid of the Assyrian sculpture now in our 
 possession, to judge, to a certain extent, of their style of archi- 
 tecture, which appears at least as appropriate to its purpose as 
 that of the present day. This description, in Herodotus, of 
 the fortified walls of Ecbatana gains additional interest with 
 us from its being the same alluded to in the grandly-written 
 book of Judith, where a further account of it is given, and the 
 size and number of its gates are recorded. It was, as you will 
 recollect, the residence of Assur, the king of the Assyrians, 
 whose palace is said to have been in the centre ; and who 
 
346 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 sent out from thence his general, Holofernes, on that expedi- 
 tion against Judaea wherein he lost his head after a not un- 
 common manner. I must not, however, weary you with de- 
 tails on this matter — the subject belongs more properly to your 
 Professor of Architecture than to me — but I will, eft passant^ 
 call to your mind what a beautiful subject you have for illus- 
 tration in Sculpture in the charming yet dignified Judith, the 
 beloved saviour of her country, and the revered heroine of her 
 people ; not as usually represented in Painting, where the 
 bloody death of the oppressor is often portrayed with too 
 much horror for the real purposes of Art, but as adorned in 
 her female decorations, her jewels, and her bracelets, and 
 showing to the multitude the head of him who had made 
 their hearts palpitate and their knees tremble with fear. The 
 proper character of the male head may be obtained from the 
 Assyrian sculptures in our Museum, and, if artistically treated, 
 it is a very fine one. I will leave it to your consideration, and 
 go on to other things. 
 
 A little further we find in Herodotus a sentence that shows 
 at once the cause of the Persians, great as they were at the 
 time, both in power and wealth, never having excelled in Art, 
 at least not in the higher regions of Art, where the human 
 figure and its passions are dealt with. I quote him when he 
 says : " It is not their practice to erect statues, or temples, or 
 altars ; but they charge those with folly who do so, because, as 
 I conjecture, they do not think the gods have human forms, as 
 the Greeks do. They were accustomed to ascend the highest 
 parts of the mountains, and offer sacrifice to Jupiter ; and they 
 call the whole circle of the heavens by the name of Jupiter." 
 Here is something like an approach to Unitarianism, and, as I 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 347 
 
 think, to common sense. Though the creed may not have 
 been at the time conducive to the promotion of the Fine Arts, 
 it was at any rate an advance in reasoning, and the way Hero- 
 dotus puts the sentence seems to me to suggest that he went 
 himself a great way, if not altogether with it. 
 
 I must content myself with advising the student to read in 
 the writings of this author the interesting account of Babylon, 
 said to have been the seat of the Assyrian government after 
 the destruction of Nineveh : and of the temple of Jupiter Belus, 
 where again mention is made of a statue of solid gold, twelve 
 cubits, or upwards of eighteen feet high — though this time only 
 from hearsay, for Herodotus's words are, "I did not see it; I 
 only relate what is said by the Chaldeans." Darius, we are told, 
 attempted to take away this statue, but dared not, though 
 Xerxes his son afterwards succeeded, killing the priest who for- 
 bade him to remove it. These figures were evidently great 
 temptations for plunder, so that it is only fair to presume that 
 they were valuable for their material, as well as for their qualities 
 as works of Art. I have mentioned the parts of the writings of 
 Herodotus that refer to the destruction of Nineveh and the 
 building of Babylon, more on account of the interest they 
 possess within themselves than for their reference to Sculpture. 
 They are proofs, when combined with what has since been dis- 
 covered, of the accuracy of his descriptions as far as his know- 
 ledge went, and it is well that the student should believe in the 
 old man. He tells us that the walls of Babylon were built of 
 bricks baked in the sun, and made from clay dug out of the moat 
 immediately surrounding them. That this is true, is shown 
 from our finding no sculptural records of that great city. We 
 have indeed, thanks to Mr. Layard, small objects of bronze and 
 
348 EARL Y HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 other metals that come from thence. Babylon, in fact, was 
 celebrated for the quality of its bronze, but no works in stone 
 of anything like large dimensions have been found there. An in- 
 scribed brick, or one impressed by the foot of some animal, are 
 almost the only relics that have survived : while of the still 
 older Nineveh, where large blocks of marble were used, we have 
 examples of our Art that enable us to understand the character 
 of the inhabitants generally, together with most of the manners 
 and customs of those who had to serve and suffer under the 
 dominion of their cruel kings. The old historian is ever truth- 
 ful in what he asserts, though perhaps not always absolutely 
 correct in his information. He was, in fact, something more than 
 a literal recorder of events, for his observations, though he does 
 not rank among the philosophers, often portray a knowledge of 
 human nature, and of the varied effects produced upon it by 
 education and other circumstances. The writer cannot have 
 been without some understanding of it who relates that Croesus, 
 a prisoner to Cyrus, advised the latter, instead of destroying 
 the Lydians, who had rebelled against him, to order them to 
 keep no weapons of war in their possession, and teach their sons 
 instead to play on the cythera, and strike the guitar ; telling his 
 captor, you will then soon see them becoming women instead 
 of men, and they will never give you any apprehensions about 
 their revolting." He who records this, though he might have 
 been aware of the refining character of the Fine Arts, must have 
 felt strongly their enervating effects when carried to excess. 
 
 We have had nations of a much later date who have evapo- 
 rated their energies, their patriotic feelings, indeed all their 
 higher qualities, in the seducing luxury of song, and in undue 
 attention to Art, Sculpture included : and who have become in 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 349 
 
 consequence listless in matters of a more useful, vigorous kind. 
 I am telling you what I deem to be a truth ; but truths, I have 
 heard, should not always be told, and this one perhaps would be 
 better told elsewhere. 
 
 We will turn to other things. Take up again our author 
 Herodotus. The careful reader of him will find, amidst allu- 
 sions to wars and to what we should now call local differences, 
 repeated references to the Art of the day, mostly Sculpture ; 
 records of temples and towers which, like those alluded to 
 in Shakespeare's " Tempest," have vanished like the baseless 
 fabric of a vision, and left no rack behind, whether cloud-capped 
 or not I cannot tell ; lists of statues, mostly described as gol- 
 den, and for that reason less durable ; descriptions of tripods, 
 of the same valuable .material, presented in the first instance to 
 the victors in the games, but afterwards carefully deposited by 
 the priests in their temples, and devoted to the service of the 
 Gods. I have described in a previous portion of the lecture 
 another article connected with their religious ceremonies, the 
 mention of which frequently occurs, by calling it a wassail- 
 bowl. It really served for libations to the gods, and I trust you 
 will not think me guilty of supposing for one moment that it 
 served for drinking-bouts within those sacred edifices ; though 
 the old Pagan worship often ran into customs that partook 
 strongly of such things, and went into excesses of even a more 
 vicious kind. 
 
 The reader of Herodotus will learn that the Lydian territory 
 which was governed by Croesus is described as barren of won- 
 ders. The monument of Alyattes, the father of the latter, he 
 tells us, was the greatest of all except those of the Egyptians 
 and Bab}*lonians. The Lydians are said again to have been 
 
350 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 the first of all nations to introduce the art of coining gold and 
 silver, as well as the inventors of many games : among them, 
 the one called Huckle-bones, so often represented in ancient 
 Sculpture. We have mention, it is true, in our Scriptures, of 
 money being found in the children of Israel's sacks on their 
 return from Egypt, but we must not imply from this that the 
 money was represented in coin. There are nations at this mo- 
 ment whose payments are made by rough lumps of silver, the 
 relative value being, of course, determined by weight; so that 
 there is no contradiction in Joseph's history of the Lydians 
 having been the first to introduce stamped metal or coins for 
 the purpose of mercantile affairs. We find evidence indepen- 
 dent of our Scriptures in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, that com- 
 mercial as well as other transactions were carried on in the 
 Delta by weight and measurement of various metals and other 
 rare materials later than the time of Joseph's history. Tuth- 
 mosis, who is supposed to have reigned while the IsraeHtes 
 were in captivity, is said to have received, as a supply for a ritual 
 he set up in honour of the spirit of his father, five measures 
 of pearls, 236 heavy ingots of gold, 58 bars, and 586 talents of 
 silver. The same thing is shown by an inscription on a muti- 
 lated column at Ghizeh, where the tribute of a commander of a 
 fortress is said to have been 329 rings of solid silver, 100 rings 
 of gold, ICQ bars of wrought metal, and vessels of copper, brass, 
 and iron, and where it is recorded that these were embarked on 
 a vessel. 
 
 The author supplies us with an account of two famous queens, 
 Semiramis and Nitocris, who did wonderful things for Babylon, 
 raised high mounds, and turned the course of the Euphrates for 
 the purpose of defence : the latter, Nitocris, as he says, lived five 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 generations after the former, and was, in his opinion, the 
 cleverest of the two ; she, Uke the former, dug canals, drained 
 marshes, and built a bridge over that part of the Euphrates 
 which ran through the city, dividing it into two distinct parts : 
 the description given of this bridge, consisting of planks laid on 
 mounds, which were removed by night and replaced by day, is 
 interesting, whether to the artist or the antiquarian : but what is 
 most appropriate to our lecture this evening is the account of a 
 monument to herself, which I will convey to you from a trans- 
 lation of Herodotus's own words. He says : " Over the most fre- 
 quented gate of the city she prepared a sepulchre for herself, 
 high up above the gate, and on the sepulchre she had engraved, 
 ' Should any one of my successors, kings of Babylon, find him- 
 self in want of money, let him open this sepulchre, and take as 
 much as he chooses : but if he be not in want, let him not open 
 it, for that were not well.'" This monument remained undis- 
 turbed, Herodotus says, until the kingdom came to Darius ; but 
 it seemed hard to him that this gate should be of no use, 
 and that, when money was lying there, and this money inviting 
 him to take it^ he should not do so : for no use was made of 
 this gate, for this reason, that a dead body was over the head of 
 anyone who passed through it — there was probably a superstition 
 which pronounced it to be unlucky to pass under a dead body. 
 Darius therefore opened the sepulchre, and instead of money 
 found only the body, and these words written : — " Hadst thou 
 not been insatiably covetous, and greedy of the most sordid 
 gain, thou wouldest not have opened the chambers of the 
 dead.'' Our more modern thieves would perhaps have called 
 this " A dor 
 
 As the reader goes further into the book, he will find allusions 
 
352 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 to Art increase in number, and among them many other anec- 
 dotes of a highly interesting nature. Herodotus gives an ac- 
 count of Egypt, which he visited ; records the false theories put 
 forth as to the cause of the overflowing of the Nile, and sets up 
 one of his own, not always quite intelligible. He touches upon 
 many of the mianners and customs of the Egyptians, and deals 
 with their religious ceremonies ; these the artist will do well to 
 become acquainted with, though they are not always of the 
 purest character : but they let him into a knowledge of the 
 amount of civilization that then existed. 
 
 In Herodotus will be found the story that explains why the 
 Egyptians represent their god Jupiter Ammon with a ram's 
 head. Of this ram's head we have a representation in our 
 Museum of a very large size, and of a very truthful character 
 of Art ; he says that Hercules — not the Greek gentleman of that 
 name — was desirous of seeing Jupiter, but that Jupiter was un- 
 willing to be seen of him ; at last, however, as Hercules per- 
 sisted (in leaving his card, I presume) he had recourse to the 
 following contrivance. Having flayed a ram, he cut off the 
 head, and held it before himself, and then, having put on the 
 fleece, he in that form showed himself to Hercules. 
 
 It is hardly necessary for me to say that Jupiter is the title 
 appHed to the chief of the gods by the Greeks; and that 
 Herodotus uses the names of his own country when speaking 
 of the gods of the Egyptians. The ram's head in our Museum 
 which 1 have mentioned was dedicated to the deity Amoun 
 Ra ; but it was but natural that our author should confound 
 him with the Greek Jupiter — or rather should have given him 
 that name, as he is designated in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
 Lord of the thrones of the world, resident in Thebes, living in 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 353 
 
 truth, the great god, lord of all heaven, king of eternity, king 
 of the gods. He, in fact, holds the same place in the Egyptian, 
 as Jupiter did in the Greek mythology. In another part of his 
 work, Herodotus refers to him as the Theban Jupiter. 
 
 Some writers accuse our author of taking his information 
 from unreliable sources, and assert that, from his not being ac- 
 quainted with the language of the country he travelled in, he 
 was often deceived into the belief of things that had existence 
 nowhere but in the inventive faculties of those about him, 
 principally merchants who were trading between Greece and 
 Egypt, and frequenting the markets of the latter place. 
 
 Ancient dragomans, it is evident from Herodotus's writings, 
 like our sailors, knew how to spin yarns, some of them as won- 
 derful — if not more wonderful — than the sea-serpent, or any 
 other of our sea stories. 
 
 If the old proverb, that a little knowledge is a dangerous 
 thing, were a sound one — which I do not believe — these tales 
 would tend to show it ; only, unfortunately, they are founded on 
 a total absence of knowledge, rather than on the little referred 
 to. Still, with all his ignorance, we are bound to pay respect 
 to a contemporary writer, who was honest, and saw much of 
 what he writes about, though he may have taken the rest from 
 the mouths of others who amused themselves with his credu- 
 lity. Information of any kind was in that age often false, and 
 always difficult to obtain. He visited Egypt about 430 B.C., 
 and speaks partly of what he saw, and partly of things belonging 
 to an era not improbably more than two thousand years before 
 his time. Many circumstances have since tended to show that 
 where he writes from his own knowledge, he is truthful ; and 
 I may safely defend him from any intentional falsehood, for 
 
 A A 
 
354 
 
 EARL Y HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 he says himself, speaking of his observations in Egypt : Hither- 
 to, I have related what I have seen, what I have thought, and 
 what I have learned by inquiry : but from this point I proceed 
 to give the Egyptian account according to what I heard ; and 
 there is added to it something of my own observation. The 
 priests informed me so and so." 
 
 That he relates many wonderful tales cannot be denied— 
 tales, perhaps, that the priests were interested in keeping up. 
 They themselves were the only possessors of knowledge at that 
 time, and, as far as we can tell, were in no way desirous of ex- 
 tending that knowledge among the multitude ; so that, after all, 
 you will do well to take much that he records as history, simply 
 as his story. 
 
 I have already told you that the chief feature in Egyptian 
 Sculpture is symbolism ; I need not, therefore, remind you that 
 in the ridiculous anecdote of Jupiter and Hercules there is in 
 all probability something of a more serious nature set forth — 
 not impossibly of an astronomical nature — as there is again 
 in the more serious story of Myceronius, a good king, who, 
 having lost his daughter, seems, if we take the tale literally, to 
 have erected to her memory a figure of a kneeling cow, with 
 the disc of the sun between her horns. Our author tells us 
 that this figure was not buried, but that the people carried it 
 out during their religious ceremonies to the light, agreeable to 
 a wish expressed by the daughter to her father Myceronius, 
 when she was dying, to be permitted to see the sun once a 
 year. In all this there will be no difficulty, I think, in detect- 
 ing an astronomical meaning. You will, I am sure, have often 
 met with representations of this cow in Egyptian Art; and 
 Bonomi's work on Egypt gives an outline of a head supposed 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 355 
 
 to be that of Athor, the Egyptian Venus, with the sun or 
 moon between two projecting horns at the top. This, how- 
 ever, may have nothing to do with the preceding story, but 
 may simply refer to the sun, of which the Egyptians were 
 worshippers. 
 
 I am wandering somewhat erratically, you will say, through 
 Herodotus's writings ; but I am anxious the student in Sculpture 
 should be well acquainted with them : he will find things offen- 
 sive to good taste, but these he must excuse. Our primitive 
 historians give us the picture of ancient days from a nearer 
 point than the classic poets, so that we lose something of that 
 enchantment which distance lends to the scene. Things come 
 out clearer when deprived of that halo which poetry throws over 
 them, and do not always present themselves in a more agreeable 
 aspect. 
 
 The author with whom we are dealing urges, in fact, in his 
 writings, arguments — by no means unconvincing — that tend to 
 show all that exciting tale upon which poets have loved to 
 dream and artists to dwell, the flight of Helen and the taking 
 of Troy, to be but an absurd, inconsistent fiction, or at the 
 best a myth : so soon did the daylight of the mind, then only 
 at its dawn, begin to dispel the fanciful mists of its earlier 
 imaginings. The walls of Troy may have been discovered, 
 but their existence does not prove the story of Menelaus's 
 wrongs or Hector's death as having any better foundation than 
 the vision of a brain. We are apt to forget that in many cases 
 it is the law that creates the crime, and to set up for ancient 
 times the standard of moraUty of the present age ; whereas we 
 have no right to drag the old wTiter, in his rough, antique dress, 
 into the light of modern days, and ask him to conform himself 
 
356 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 to our notions : he wrote, no doubt, for futurity, but could he 
 have foreseen how changed that future would be, his narrative 
 would not perhaps have been so truthful, nor, for that reason, so 
 interesting. The reading of Herodotus will serve to impress 
 the student with a correct idea of the times, and will show him 
 how Art illustrates History, and how in turn History holds up 
 the candle to Art, and enables us to see and thoroughly under- 
 stand the otherwise inexplicable creations of her fancy. 
 
 You will wonder why, in a lecture on the antecedents of 
 Sculpture, I should call to your notice that part of our author 
 where he alludes to the system of cattle-breeding among the 
 Egyptians, and gives a description of the care and attention 
 paid by them to the selecting animals of the finest shape and 
 purest colour. Specimens that could stand the severest test on 
 both these points were alone thought worthy of serving for 
 sacrifices to the gods ; and these were considered sacred beasts, 
 and were looked after, each by a separate attendant. 
 
 Great study was evidently devoted to the attaining of beauty, 
 both of shape and hue, in these creatures ; so that we may cal- 
 culate that the flesh of many a Grand Duchess, who, had she 
 lived in the present age, would have been worth some hundreds 
 of pounds — if not more — was wasted in honour of these greedy 
 gods. My object in dwelling on this, is to call to your remem- 
 brance, and I think I may, the beautiful 'Egyptian papyri draw- 
 ings still existing, in which these lovely specimens of the bucolic 
 tribe are given in all their beauty ; and you will acknowledge, 
 I am sure, that they exhibit all the points, if not more than are 
 looked for, in our Christmas cattle-shows. This could not be, 
 had not the cattle themselves been perfect in their shape ; and 
 unless you choose to acknowledge to less taste than a Kentish 
 
HERODOTUS. 357 
 
 grazier — though that is hardly possible — you will not fail to 
 admire them. Egyptian Art excels particularly in the repre- 
 sentation of animals. The people themselves were believers in 
 the doctrine of the transmigration of souls ; and I will say, 
 without touching on that question, that in their Art they always 
 gave the soul of the animal represented, though they did not go 
 much into the anatomy of its body. 
 
 Herodotus explains too, most distinctly, the modes of em- 
 balming the dead, but these I must get you to read for your- 
 selves. Part of this process was performed in the place where 
 the person died, after which the body was carried in a boat 
 with others to Abydos, the city of the resurrection, and then 
 the work was completed. 
 
 It appears that theembalmers — whose trade, like other cheerful 
 ones, was by the laws of caste hereditary — kept coloured models 
 which showed the effect of their handiwork when complete, in 
 three different ways : the expensive, the moderate, and the 
 cheap — and, I may add, nasty. These they exhibited to the 
 relations, to give them their choice before beginning the work ; 
 so that the rich heir, who inherited a good round sum, might 
 display his inconsolable grief by dressing-up the deceased in 
 splendid style, when at last he had departed ; while he who 
 had been forgotten in the will might show his purer taste by 
 going more modestly to work ; and the poor man might dispose 
 of his friend, if he had any, with little or no expense. Whether 
 these models were the same as those handed round to the 
 guests at their feasts to remind them of what they were to come 
 to, I cannot say. It is not improbable, for they were of a port- 
 able size, and it is evident that w^hat we term delicacy of feeling 
 did not exist to any great extent in those days. They may, in 
 
358 EARL Y HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 that case, have served as another version of Hamlet's speech : 
 " The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage 
 tables." The holding of funereal banquets was a practice 
 among the ancient Egyptians. In their lesser productions, such 
 as the fresco decoration of their walls, or their papyri drawings, 
 they give representations of their domestic and mercantile 
 occupations, the musical and other entertainments in their 
 houses, the selling of geese and other birds and beasts, and 
 the recording in their books by the scribes of the quantities- 
 supplied. Not unfrequently, too, these works portray the going 
 to, or returning from the hunt ; but even these smaller works of 
 Art, whether belonging to Painting or Sculpture, have mostly 
 reference either to their religious ceremonies and beliefs or to 
 the conquests of their chiefs. In all instances, as it appears to 
 me, whether in the representation of a battle, a devotional 
 ceremony, or a procession, the chief personage is distinguished 
 from the rest by a disproportion of size. The conqueror in his 
 chariot, who is slaying his Ethiopian enemy, is at least twice as 
 large as those he is slaughtering, and this must have been, not 
 for the sake of perspective, of which they knew indeed little or 
 nothing, but to give him importance; as the disproportion 
 exists between him and the victim close under his wheels^ 
 through whom his spear is at the moment thrust. He is, in 
 fact, represented in most cases as quelling with his own hand 
 whole hosts of his opponents, who are flying before him, or 
 dying at his feet by hundreds. The intention of this is to give 
 the king, and the king alone, the glory of the victory. 
 
 I quote a modern publication, well worth reading, called the 
 " Monumental History of Egypt," by William Osborne, which 
 says : " Art in Egypt was altogether impatient of the trammels^ 
 
HERODOTUS. 
 
 359 
 
 not of truth merely, but of probability. The conquests of 
 Pharaoh must be achieved by the mere terror of the arms of 
 Egypt, and by his own personal prowess. The fierce contention, 
 the doubtful issue, the heroism of both parties, which give to 
 the Homeric fictions their truth and thrilling interest, were al- 
 together unknown to Egyptian Art. It had no human sympathy 
 with foreign enemies. They were noxious reptiles, w^hose por- 
 traiture could give no pleasure unless they were writhing with 
 pain or undergoing destruction ; whose names were never 
 mentioned in her songs unassociated with the bitterest asper- 
 sions and the vilest and most degrading epithets. Of this 
 peculiarity our pages contain very ample illustrations ; and this 
 it is which goes so far to deprive Art in Egypt of all that can 
 create either pleasure or interest." This is a true observation 
 when viewed from the artist's point. All representations of 
 contentions of any kind should be so given as to leave some 
 doubt of the ultimate result, as it is on this doubt that the mind 
 speculates, and derives pleasure from that speculation. Where 
 everything is decided, where the work of one side is easy, and 
 the chance of the other nothing, the spectator creates no here- 
 after out of it, and so feels no concern in it. It is this, as our 
 writer says, that gives to the Homeric fictions their truth and 
 thrilhng interest ; in other words, gathers poetry out of fact, and 
 enjoyment out of what is the reverse of enjoyable. But these 
 works of the Egyptians were made with no reference whatever 
 to the beautiful of Art ; their object was to perpetuate persons 
 or events in history, or to cultivate the superstition by which the 
 priest profited or the ruler retained power. 
 
 I have met with so many sharp points sticking up in the 
 rough road Herodotus travelled on, and have found the sandy 
 
36o EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 soil of the country over which he went so wearying to the feet, 
 as well as so indistinct in the traces it has left of his steps, that 
 I have been induced to pause and divide the labour of following 
 him into two evenings' work instead of one. 
 
LECTURE XVI. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 Continuation of Herodotus. 
 
 URING my last lecture, when I was discussing 
 with you the references to Art in Herodotus, you 
 may, perhaps, have said that I was wasting your 
 time on trifles, and on things but slightly connected 
 with Sculpture. But, in the first place, these trifles are the very 
 things that escape the attention of the student in reading ; and, 
 in the next, they form, when combined, the very means by which 
 we best understand the manners and customs of the nation or 
 age of which we are endeavouring to catch a glimpse. It is 
 through them, in fact, that we are enabled to enter into their 
 domestic life, see them in their homes, and watch them in their 
 daily occupation. We obtain a view, too, by these minutiae of 
 the relative position of one class to another, and of the laws 
 that bind the classes altogether as a people, and so come to 
 better understand the larger, matters of Art that are around and 
 about them. The author of whom we are treating alludes 
 quite as much to the Art of Egypt, where he was only an occa- 
 sional traveller, as to that of Greece, the country to which he 
 belonged. But unless we can picture to ourselves the difference 
 
362 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 between the two peoples, we can hardly appreciate the relative 
 value of Art in each. The one nation, living in a warmer 
 climate than the other, was not only of a darker complexion, 
 but, I may say, like most nations that reside in arid climates, of 
 an inferior race. It is true that the Egyptians were at one time 
 the leaders in the old world, when the little advancement that 
 took place depended on the kings and rulers of the day ; but 
 they had to give way to others of more active character and 
 more moderate temperature, when civilization came to depend 
 on the increase of intellect among the multitude. They then 
 became exhausted by that lassitude which heat produces, and 
 so were beaten in the race. They had attained their highest 
 point when, by means of superstitious creeds and a certain 
 amount of knowledge among the few, the governing power was 
 rendered comparatively safe, and so society prevented from 
 running into utter disorder; but were unable under this system 
 to proceed further. We must, however, give them credit as 
 great astronomers and geometricians; and that the latter science 
 had even more intimate connection with their Fine Arts than 
 it has with that of later days no student will deny, if he gives 
 the question a moment's thought. But in Greece an active 
 school of philosophy was gradually growing up, by dint of 
 intellectual argument, that eventually became the means of 
 freeing the mind from all thoughts except those that were 
 founded on that reasoning power that has been given us for our 
 exercise. At the end of the fifth and beginning of the fourth 
 century before Christ, Herodotus had written his history or 
 relation of facts, and Socrates and Plato discussed their moral 
 and political axioms. 
 
 The student will have to consider these differences when 
 
CONTINUATION 01 HERODOTUS. 363 
 
 comparing the distinction of style and purpose between the 
 Arts of the two countries. He will have to recollect that in 
 Egypt, influences caused Egyptian Art to be ponderous in size, 
 and therefore impressive, or rather suppressive, to the multi- 
 tude ; he will have to call to mind that their Art is neither 
 suggestive, like that of the Greeks, of any moral principles, nor 
 intended to convey to the many any ideas of self-elevation; 
 that it is rather mysterious than clear and explicit in its meaning, 
 for the reason that its intention is to dimly exhibit to them a 
 something higher and more powerful than themselves, from 
 which they were so far removed that they had only to blindly 
 worship, and to which there was neither hope nor chance of a 
 nearer approach. It was the representation, as far as they could 
 understand, of a fixed system, unintelligible and immutable, 
 with which the multitude had no further part than that of serving 
 in the most abject and unquestioning manner. Its object was 
 fully attained before Art began, and hence the almost total ab- 
 sence of change in it, and the complete want of all improvement 
 throughout. The student has to recollect, in short, that Art, 
 in one instance, was the representation of a stationary period 
 of the mind; while, in the other, it was the coadjutor of an 
 advancing one, though of one as yet trammelled by the supersti- 
 tions that invariably clog its early efforts. 
 
 The dissertations on the writings of Herodotus with which I 
 must conclude that part of the history of Art I promised you in 
 my previous lecture, will consist mostly of allusions to Egyptian 
 Sculpture, or rather to the causes that influenced the Art of 
 that country. I should like, however, before proceeding in that 
 direction, to name first, for the benefit of the student, two or 
 three subjects taken from him, that appear to me particularly 
 
364 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 suited to the calling of the sculptor. They belong to those 
 pages which relate to his account of the Greeks and Persians, 
 the two great nations that had been lately contending together. 
 My doing so may be out of place, but I shall go on more regu- 
 larly afterwards. One of them is the death of Leonidas. Hero- 
 dotus says that in his time a stone lion stood commemorating 
 the event, in the pass where he fought and died for his country. 
 The subject is one that, besides giving great scope to the sculp- 
 tor for the grouping of figures and for variety of action, excites 
 noble and invigorating thoughts. The Greeks were proud of 
 their man, who was almost the sole unselfish hero of the day ; 
 and the English are not unmindful of bravery, whether ancient 
 or modern. Another subject I would recommend, will be found 
 in the fifth book, called Terpsichore. I must give it you in our 
 author's own words ; he says : — " Pigries and Mantyes were 
 Paeonians who, when Darius had crossed over into Asia, came 
 to Sardis, bringing with them their sister, who was tall and 
 beautiful ; and^ having watched the opportunity when Darius 
 was seated in public in the suburb of the Lydians, did as 
 follows. Having dressed their sister in the best manner they 
 could, they sent her for water, carrying a pitcher on her head, 
 leading a horse on her arm, and spinning flax. As the woman 
 passed by, it attracted the attention of Darius, for what she was 
 doing was neither according to the Persian or Lydian customs, 
 nor of any other people in Asia; when, therefore, it attracted his 
 attention^ he sent some of his body-guard, bidding them observe 
 what the woman would do with the horse. The guards accor- 
 dingly followed her, and she, when she came to the river, 
 watered the horse, filled her pitcher, and returned by the same 
 way, carrying the water on her head, leading the horse on her 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 365 
 
 arm, and turning her spindle. Darius, surprised at what he 
 had heard from his spies, and at what he himself had seen, 
 commands them to bring her into his presence ; and he after- 
 wards asks if all the women of that country were as industrious, 
 and receives the reply that such was the case. The motive of 
 the brothers was to show to Darius the peaceful and industrious 
 state of the country they were about to give up to him. The 
 subject contains in a surpassing degree that unaffected sim- 
 plicity which should at all times belong to works of Sculpture ; 
 and suggests, moreover, thoughts of busy industry and well- 
 earned prosperity. The combined figures of the woman and 
 horse, and the occupation she is engaged in, give ample scope 
 for the imagination of the sculptor in his conception of the 
 beautiful ; while its association with classical days frees him 
 from the danger of vulgar and matter-of-fact treatment. So 
 great is its charm to me, that I think I am not doing wrong in 
 paraphrasing the language of Scripture, and saying to the 
 student : Verily, wherever Art flourishes, this that she has done, 
 shall be shown as a memorial of her. A third subject I would 
 recommend is, Psammetichus offering a libation to the gods in his 
 helmet, in fulfilment of a prophecy that whoever should do so 
 from a brazen bowl should be sole king of Egypt. It will be 
 found in Herodotus's second book, called Euterpe. On this last 
 I may perhaps be mistaken ; but it seems to me, from its half- 
 historical, half-legendary character, peculiarly interesting ; and 
 its (as far as I know) novelty in our Art, and capability of being 
 carried out in a single figure that admits of the nude, renders it 
 altogether suitable to the means of Sculpture. Its belonging, 
 too, to ancient days, frees the sculptor from the necessity of 
 over-attention to details of costume, which is apt to lead him 
 
366 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 into the commonplace. My partiality for it as a subject, may 
 be, arises from a certain similarity in it to a magnificent sketch- 
 model of Achilles putting on his helmet, by Bankes, which you 
 are, or ought to be, acquainted with. It was never carried out 
 in full, but that was owing to the utter want of taste in the so- 
 called patrons of Art of the day. At any rate, I have given the 
 student in Sculpture who may be unacquainted with the 
 writings of Herodotus, another subject, in this incident of Psam- 
 metichus, to think about in his Art. 
 
 Our writer, still occupying himself with things connected with 
 the history of Greece and Persia, goes on to relate the well- 
 known anecdote of the neighing of Darius's horse, by which 
 he was elected king of Persia, and records that an equestrian 
 statue was erected in commemoration of the event. He then 
 alludes to the invasion by him of Greece, with his army of seven 
 hundred thousand men ; and afterwards to the invasion by 
 Xerxes, the number of whose followers, according to what 
 is said, was such, that they laid waste the land as they 
 passed by their hunger, and drank up rivers in theii: thirst ! but 
 who were conquered at last by the Greeks, led on by generals, 
 brave it must be allowed, but not always faithful to their cause. 
 Xerxes' army, as far as we can judge, consisted more of a 
 confused number of camp-followers than of well-disciplined 
 soldiers, and so was weakened by its very numbers, and by the 
 difficulties of supplying them with nourishment. This, you will 
 say, is little to the purpose of my lecture ; but it will serve to 
 show that Herodotus continues the history of the Greeks close 
 up to that period when they were so excellent in Sculpture, 
 and will bring the student in contact with names which will 
 make his heart beat high, if they do not inspire him to the re- 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 
 
 367 
 
 presenting them in his Art : Marathon, Thermopylae, the Gulf of 
 Salamis, Platea. 
 
 You must not for a moment suppose that in this brief notice 
 of our author's writings I have given you every allusion to Art 
 contained in them. Were I to do so, my lecture would become 
 a catalogue of temples, of colossal statues, of figures of the gods 
 seized upon by the inhabitants of one province and restored to 
 their original situations by another, of oracles consulted and 
 afterwards neglected for others, only to serve for further decep- 
 tion. These you must search out for yourselves. The father 
 of history has handed down the record of our Art in its earHest 
 days, and from what he tells you, combined with what you know 
 of it in after times, and of the present day, you may gather 
 much by inference, besides what he positively asserts. He was 
 not an artist himself, and therefore only treats of it generally 
 among other things. 
 
 The student should recollect, while studying the parts of 
 Herodotus's history relating to Egypt, what I have already told 
 him — namely, that the old man is in the habit of converting 
 many names belonging to that country, particularly mythological 
 ones, into those of his own people ; whether this was from 
 ignorance or from the vanity said to prevail among all Greek 
 writers, I will not say. The reader will scarcely fail to notice 
 the account given of the building of the Pyramids ; one of them 
 by Cheops, a gentleman, as we are told, of not over-respectable 
 character, though how to define the respectability of his time 
 would be somewhat difficult. We will leave that question alone, 
 and content ourselves with supposing that he was slightly in * 
 advance of others, and so became a marked man. Our author 
 says that twenty years were expended in the building of his 
 
368 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 pyramid, and explains very clearly the simple mode of raising 
 one stone above another, step by step, until the whole was com- 
 pleted; and makes us understand how these mighty works, 
 now seeming to us almost impossibilities, were accomplished 
 by the then existing means. The reader will learn, perhaps 
 with a sigh, that they were wrought out by the concentrated 
 energies and life-enduring patience of numberless beings con- 
 demned to labour, without hope or reward, by the tyranny of 
 those under whom they had the misfortune to be made captive ; 
 for it was by prisoners of war and by purchased slaves that 
 these great works were carried out. 
 
 It may increase, however, your interest in these wonders of 
 the world, if I say that the reading of ancient authors will leave 
 but little doubt on your minds that the labourers on them were^ 
 principally, if not wholly, the people from whom we now derive 
 the first tenets of our religion ; who, then but slaves, were the 
 ones to assert, and hold forth, amid the absurdities of idolatry, 
 the grand doctrine of the one invisible God. Of this, however, 
 I shall have to speak hereafter. 
 
 The student will possibly not pass over the description given 
 of the Labyrinth, with its three hundred halls, a work of such 
 magnitude that it surpassed the Pyramids. It has since been 
 established from the records that it was built by Amenemha 
 the Third or Mendes. Dr. Lepsius disinterred the ruins, and 
 found it to be a suite of vast halls, such as no building in the 
 world can parallel ; and these halls we may presume were filled 
 with statues. From Labyrinth and Labaris, the name of its 
 builder, the Greeks are said to have invented the word lahares ; 
 from whence we get the Latin word labor, and, again, the 
 English one labour. 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 369 
 
 You will wonder why, when treating principally of Egyptian 
 Art, I should take for my text the writings of a Greek author 
 who lived long after most, if not all, the works he speaks of were 
 executed, and who was at the best but a stranger in the land whose 
 manners and customs he attempts to describe. You will tell 
 me that we have the hieroglyphics cut on the very works 
 themselves, and that the power of translating them has since 
 been discovered by means of the inscription written in three 
 different languages on the Rosetta stone. These hieroglyphics 
 are, it is true, valuable as corroborating, and in many instances 
 amplifying, the Mosaic history of our Holy Scriptures ; where 
 again many allusions to early Art will be found by the diligent 
 searcher. I ought, indeed, to have begun my history of Sculp- 
 ture from this grandest of all books, and there are ample means 
 in it of doing so ; but I take it for granted that the student 
 is better acquainted with his Bible than with profane authors, 
 and so requires less inducement from me to study it. 
 
 The Egyptian hieroglyphics, though highly interesting in 
 connection with written history, convey little or no information 
 with regard to the real constructors of the wonderful tombs or 
 temples to which they belong. I wish they did ; but their 
 object is almost wholly the handing down the names of 
 the kings who reigned in Egypt during their erection ; or 
 rather, I should say, their excavation in the mountains, and 
 whose corpora vilia were afterwards laid within them. Though 
 we may give these kings the credit of governing the multitude 
 who slaved at these buildings, it would be absurd to suppose 
 that any artistic merit is due to them. There must undoubtedly 
 have been artists, architects, sculptors, and painters, under 
 them, who understood the sublime and beautiful ; but these, 
 
 B B 
 
370 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 alas ! are rarely, if ever, recorded. There is one exception in 
 the time of Thothmes and Amenophis-Memnon, when the 
 Arts attained a point they never surpassed, and from whence 
 they soon after visibly declined : the name of Thothmes' 
 master-builder is formally recorded on his own tomb, and 
 the workshop in which the statuary for the constructions on 
 which he was engaged was fashioned is the subject of one 
 of the pictures. All the persons employed there, both the 
 superintendents and drudges, are Lower Egyptians and 
 Canaanites. The existing king, his name and title, the 
 victories he gained, or at best the tracing of his descent down- 
 wards from the god Amoun, were in most instances the only 
 things thought worthy of record : the rest of the world only 
 existed to serve him, lived only for his purpose, and died at his 
 command without a name. The king was everything, — a god ; 
 while the multitude, even the nobles and men of talent, were 
 nothing, and yet had to spend their lives in perpetuating the 
 name and titles of the ruler who enjoyed the credit as well as 
 the luxury that arose out of their efforts. 
 
 Over and beyond all this, the indefinite nature of hiero- 
 glyphic writing, partly symbolic and partly phonetic, renders 
 very difficult the recording of events in more than a general 
 way. They are, it should be recollected, very primitive in their 
 power of expression. Imitations of positive forms served in 
 most instances instead of conventional signs for conveying 
 ideas, and so were wanting in all those connecting links, such 
 as moods and tenses of verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, &c. ; and 
 even these imitated forms, when by themselves, were incapable 
 of recording ideas of an explicit kind. We have lost, besides, 
 to a certain extent, the measurement of time in Egyptian 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 371 
 
 history ; so that in most cases we can only guess at the probable 
 dates when these buildings were erected or statues executed. 
 Dynasties form but indefinite divisions of time : some measure- 
 ment of them has been attempted, with no great amount of 
 certainty, and we learn but little from the mere names of those 
 that constituted them, or by being told that they were born of 
 the sun, or were lords of the universe. The Egyptian kings, in 
 consequence, pass like ghosts over the mirror of our mind until 
 we are tired of them, and are apt to exclaim with Macbeth, " I'll 
 see no more ! " 
 
 These kings all employed themselves in much the same 
 manner — in quelling their Ethiopian or other near enemies. 
 There was High Church and Low Church even in their days, 
 for their wars were, most of them, ostensibly of a religious kind ; 
 but their principal occupation was the excavating the tomb that 
 was eventually to hold them after death. This latter, indeed, 
 seems to have been the chief one of their Hfe, imposed upon 
 them as a religious duty ; and it was to this that they devoted 
 the labour of so many beings. These kings are themselves 
 now almost forgotten, and their lives seem to us merely the 
 tickings of the minute-hand of time. 
 
 Apis, the cognomen of one of the shepherd-kings or 
 rulers of Lower Egypt, no longer conveys any impression of 
 dignity or power; we are satisfied with the mere mention of 
 Moeris and Phiops : though we pause at that of Apophis, as 
 it was in the reign of this Pharaoh that the boy Joseph was 
 sold as a slave, resold to Potiphar, the master of the vineyards, 
 and afterwards became the leading man of his time. Thrown 
 early in Hfe on his own resources, and thus taught self- 
 dependence, statesmanship in him for the first time began 
 
372 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 to appear, and mind to predominate over physical force. His 
 name still remains clear and distinct in the annals of the 
 world — has become, in fact, the leading feature in the history 
 of his time, while the stately mummies that surround him, en- 
 veloped in their gorgeous clothing, lie forgotten in their graves. 
 He was, in fact, the greatest minister of the old world, for he so 
 managed the resources of Egypt, that he brought everything under 
 the absolute rule of its nominal master, and at the same time main- 
 tained peace among all the surrounding tribes that were subject 
 to that rule. The land was mortgaged to Pharaoh Apophis, 
 and the landed gentry, as they would now be called, themselves 
 brought under tribute or taxation. Plenty was in Upper Egypt, 
 amidst want and destitution in the Delta or Arvad ; and so it be- 
 came the centre of commerce, through the Israelitish Premier 
 — like our great Pitt, a younger scion of his family — who was 
 trained, like most great men, in the Board School of adversity ; 
 yet never losing in all his prosperity those feelings that tend to 
 soften and refine the mind, when thrown in contact with the in- 
 gratitude of mankind. Joseph lives, and his heart still palpi- 
 tates, while those who were his appointed rulers are but stone 
 effigies, wanting both in meaning and in expression. Egypt 
 prospered under him for a time, the Arts flourished in conse- 
 quence, and tombs, even of the nobles, began to appear and to 
 assume a decorative character. 
 
 We may pause here, for we have to draw a long breath again, 
 when we come, at a far distant period, to the mighty king and 
 conqueror who was called in Upper Egypt by the name of 
 Rameses II., and in Lower Egypt, and among the Greeks, by 
 that of Sesostris, and who held the sceptre of both countries in 
 his hand. He, too, established peace through all his dominions ; 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 373 
 
 in part, as I suspect, by policy, for he is said, while upholding 
 the worship of his own deity, to have avoided all attempts at 
 lowering the religion of those who worshipped other idols, or 
 who differed in any way from him in their belief ; though it was, 
 perhaps, after all, more by suppression that he ruled. Under 
 him Egyptian Art again flourished and prospered. His con- 
 quests are almost forgotten — indeed, have assumed at this 
 distance of time so doubtful a character that it is hardly possible 
 to decide their extent or limit. Like our King Arthur, his ex- 
 istence is even doubted ; but at any rate it is clearly shown that, 
 under him or some other tyrant, thousands — it may be said 
 millions — of workmen, bound for life to their employment, were 
 working at the largest temples and at the most colossal statues 
 that were ever carried out by any nation. 
 
 We have more figures supposed to represent Rameses or Se- 
 sostris than any other ruler of Egypt, and they are larger in size 
 than those of any other king either before or after. 
 
 Magnitude, in fact, was in Egyptian Art the way, in all in- 
 stances, in which the idea of importance was conveyed. I have 
 mentioned to you how it is carried out in the reliefs and 
 frescoes : it was the same with the statues of their kings, and even 
 with those of their gods. Amoun Ra was always made taller, 
 or on a larger scale, than either Osiris, Isis, or any of the other 
 deities ; and it was so with the statues of Rameses II. or Sesostris, 
 who was considered greater than all the other monarchs of 
 Egypt. It was under Sesostris that the IsraeHtes grew to be 
 a great nation, over-spreading the land by their numbers, yet 
 separated from their neighbours by laws of religion and caste. 
 Whether Sesostris extended the same toleration to them as he 
 did to the natives of Middle and Upper Egypt, may be doubtful, 
 
374 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 for we begin to hear, in his reign, of extra labour extorted from, 
 and heavy taxes laid upon them. 
 
 It is difficult from our point of view to lift up the curtain and 
 look at the other side, while considering the question of their 
 troubles, especially when all our associations, as well as our 
 feelings, are in favour of the sufferers ; yet it is only just to the 
 oppressor to recollect, that their worship of a God, represented 
 by no tangible form, by no figure either in granite or syenite — 
 in fact, invisible as well as incomprehensible — would appear to 
 him, in the midst of his many idols, all varied, yet all acknow- 
 ledged as representing some supposed quality of the first great 
 cause; — it would be difficult, I say, for him to look upon the 
 Israelitish creed as mere dissent j it was to him a belief without 
 form or shape, a worship, but with no tangible object to bow 
 down to, and so must have appeared, in short, downright 
 Atheism. All barbarian nations begin their religious career by 
 the constructing and worshipping of idols, because neither their 
 reason nor their imagination will lead them beyond some 
 visible object placed before them. They are incapable of 
 feeling or understanding that which is not represented to their 
 physical senses, and so require assistance of this kind. Never- 
 theless, it may be said to be the first reaching upwards, though 
 but a weak one, towards the Divine. No wonder, then, that the 
 Israelites were oppressed with a cruelty that nothing but theo- 
 logical hatred can produce. Take your seat on the throne of 
 Sesostris, and gaze down from it as he did on the mighty change 
 that was then going on ; narrow your intellect to the limits his 
 was confined in ; look abroad with the eyes with which he saw, 
 — and you will soon find out what I mean. It would be well if 
 you turned out less intolerant than he was. That the Israelites 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 375 
 
 were cruelly treated, and that many, though not all of them, were 
 slaves, who laboured at the canals, bridges, temples, and other 
 great works, and even on the colossal statues of the time, we 
 have all learned to believe. Imagination would lead us to think 
 that this work must have been distasteful to them from its 
 belonging to a religion not only different from, but thoroughly 
 opposed to their own ; but they were uneducated clowns, who 
 had little power of thought, and so cared nothing about such 
 questions. 
 
 Our reading, too, calls to our minds how they turned back in 
 after-times, and, seeking after false gods, made statues for them- 
 selves after the manner of their masters. They, too, manufactured 
 them that they might have something before them for their 
 weak thoughts to stretch themselves towards. This capability 
 of producing figures in various materials during their exodus 
 shows me again, in addition to the evidence given by the old 
 authors, that in their previous state of slavery they must have 
 helped in the carving of the gigantic statues which still exist in 
 the land of their bondage. It is possible — nay, not improbable — 
 that the huge fragment of granite supposed to represent 
 Sesostris in our Museum may be their production ; and if the 
 student, while contemplating it, should figure to himself in his 
 imagination the poor Hebrew slave working at it, day after day 
 and year after year, it will not decrease the interest he will feel 
 in it. I have in my previous lectures told you — though perhaps 
 you did not believe me — that there is much of taste that apper- 
 tains to association. You will ask me to give you proof that 
 these immense statues are slave-work. Here it is : though the 
 students of the Royal Academy must not feel offended if, in 
 order to prove my position, I quote from a part of the hiero- 
 
376 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 glyphics, where it is written of the Temple of Carnac, that 
 Thothmes presented, for the completion of that building, 
 bond slaves, men and women, shackled, not with the rules of 
 their Art, but with metal chains, girt about their loins with white 
 linen, and collared with the collar of their country ; and that he 
 afterwards offered, for the building of the avenue of sphinxes, 
 black men and women. These, then, must have been our ances- 
 tors in the schools of Art, the sculptors of his day. Whether 
 their keeper was black or white we have no record ; but they 
 could not have been altogether without talent, as they are said 
 to have been procured, bought for the purpose, from other 
 princes. The encouragement they received was certainly not 
 great ; but we must not deceive ourselves with the idea that, 
 because these men were slaves, they were of necessity ill-treated. 
 Under the autocratic government of the old world all men were 
 more or less slaves, were more or less compelled to continue 
 their labours through life for the benefit of rulers under whom 
 they were born, or to whom they had been conveyed by pur- 
 chase or otherwise ; they considered themselves property, and 
 liable to be bought and sold accordingly. But towards these, as in 
 the case of other goods and chattels, care and a certain amount of 
 kindness was the policy of the possessor ; for by no other means 
 could he obtain the full value out of them. They were pro- 
 bably, like our slaves of the present generation, coaxed and 
 petted while they had health and strength to work, but cast 
 aside, liked a sucked orange, when their strength had faded or 
 their ability vanished. 
 
 If we may judge, however, from their conduct generally, the 
 old Egyptian kings had a shorter method of disposing of their 
 old servants than by giving them a retiring pension. The axe 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 377 
 
 or the bow, with Whig-like economy, relieved them quicker 
 and more effectually from the harassing toils of life. Nor are 
 we justified in fancying that this system of slave-work tended 
 altogether to the deterioration of the quality of their Art. These 
 slaves were doubtless proud of their employment, and knew that 
 they kept a position above that of the ordinary workman by 
 their talent. They had, it is true, no future of fame to look to as a 
 reward for their labour, but, held as they were by a fixed tenure 
 through life, they had no inducement to hasty or incomplete 
 workmanship. Provided they satisfied their owner, it signified 
 little to them how long a job was in hand, or how slowly it pro- 
 gressed ; while their master, to whom their support and keep 
 was of little importance, as it cost him next to nothing, was 
 equally indifferent as to the amount of work executed, from his 
 being probably engaged in other occupations of a more attrac- 
 tive nature. It was cheap work to him under any circum- 
 stances, and not, after all, work he was much interested in, 
 amid the sensuous luxury with which he was surrounded. 
 
 Egyptian Art, as far as the executive part is concerned, may 
 almost be said to be mechanical labour ; but, even with it, 
 this indifi'erence to time and cost, caused by these circum- 
 stances, produced thorough surface finish, while in the later 
 periods of Greece, when Sculpture became an intellectual 
 employment, it enabled the sculptor to devote time to his 
 production, which in modern days we are unable to do from 
 our having to exist in so expensive an age. Perhaps this is the 
 cause, more than any lack of talent, why we are unable to com- 
 pete with the beauty of antique Art. I do not find, indeed, that 
 their superiority lies so much in the conception of their work 
 as in the thorough carrying out of it. 
 
378 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, 
 
 That much in Egyptian Art has come from the hands of 
 workmen comparatively uneducated will be more readily 
 credited if you consider for a moment. I have already said 
 that there must have been superintending it well-informed 
 minds, who arranged the general design, and who understood 
 the sublime and beautiful. To believe that these qualities 
 could spring up from any other source would be almost as 
 absurd as to believe, like the materialist, that lifeless atoms are 
 born and unite themselves to produce life by mere chance. It 
 would be futile to suppose that either Egypt, Greece, or Rome, 
 or even Kensington itself, could produce the sublime and beau- 
 tiful except from the mental resources from which they are 
 derived, and it would be equally futile to deny their existence 
 in Egyptian Art. Their masters had their canons of Art, their 
 rules of proportion, and other things which constitute the 
 beautiful, and, guided by them, they wrought out their ideal 
 and gave it being. But they could not have worked upon the 
 granite with their own hands : the material was too hard, the 
 figures or columns too large. The execution required a life ; 
 it was, besides, so mechanical in style, and the figures so im- 
 mense in size, that excellence was in no way the result of what 
 we now lay such emphasis on, the touch of the master. Egyp- 
 tian statues were, as far as we can judge, wrought out by masons, 
 assisted by what we technically call templets. The outlines of 
 the two sides were squared from head to foot by these guides, 
 and a centre line was marked between them by which the front 
 was bevelled off in the same mechanical manner, so that each 
 should correspond. Or the reverse might have been the case \ 
 that is to say, the front and back profile might have been pro - 
 duced at first, and the sides from a centre in the same way. 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 379 
 
 There is a small unfinished figure of a lion in the British 
 Museum, with lines and divisions marked upon it as guides to 
 the workman, which seems to me to indicate that this was their 
 method. This mode of working will account for the total 
 absence of variety in the two halves of their figures, and again 
 for the architectural truth which is produced in them. Beyond 
 these two points there is little in the execution of Egyptian 
 Sculpture : it is simply surface-making ; the features are treated 
 mechanically, there is scarcely any anatomy, the fingers even of 
 each hand correspond with those of the other; yet the hardness 
 of the material, the polished accuracy of the surface, the enor- 
 mous amount of space laboured on, all speak, not of genius, 
 but of patient toil — of lives spent in an employment to which 
 destiny had bound them, and from which there was no hope of 
 departure. 
 
 Yet none of us look with an indifferent eye on Egyptian 
 Sculpture. The Art-antiquarian gazes on it with almost the 
 same feeling as the geologist does on the megatherium, the 
 plesiosaurus, and other gigantic creatures of the pre-Adamite 
 world. The enormous dimensions of Egyptian statues seem to 
 associate them with such ideas ; and their placid yet impassive 
 expression removes them from all connection with after-times. 
 Yet they were true to the period to which they belonged, for 
 they represented an impassive age. Civilization stood still or 
 was hardly born, mankind made no progress, and time, from 
 the loss of record, seems now to us a sort of motionless eternity. 
 Still they contain, like the immense beings of the old world, 
 their principles of the sublime, if not of the beautiful — mystery, 
 vastness, formality, and multiplied repetition of the same idea ; 
 and by these means their suggestiveness becomes indefinite, 
 
38o EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 and so self-creative. Could, however, these petrified old Art- 
 remains, embedded as they are in the impenetrable oblivion 
 which time has accumulated over them, once again speak, they 
 would bear witness to the day when, under the dominion of 
 their weakest and most cruel Pharaoh, Sethos II., their land 
 was shaken as with an earthquake, and a nation passed out 
 from between them, leaving the Arvad, the Delta or Lower 
 Egypt, almost desolate of inhabitants, but carrying before them 
 in their journey a light that was to dispel ever after the dark- 
 ness of their age, and to commence a new history of mankind, 
 a new phase of the mind, and, I may add from this desk, a new 
 era in Art. • 
 
 I have taken you thus far in the history of Sculpture, but the 
 want on my part of the necessary time for study will prevent 
 my following the subject further this season, but I hope to go 
 on with it next year. You will say, perhaps, that in what I 
 have as yet given you, I have hardly brought you to the be- 
 ginning of our journey through the history of Sculpture. True ; 
 but the journey is a long one, though at the same time a very 
 enjoyable one, to those who have health and strength to travel 
 it; and even in the wild prairies we have passed through, where 
 the roads are hardly discernible, there is a charm to me almost 
 irresistible. We shall come to more visible tracks and more 
 frequented places when we proceed onward, as I propose to do 
 at a future day, if allowed. I have been, I must confess, a sad 
 gossiper by the roadside, but, if so, it is not that I am like the 
 school-boy, "creeping, with snail-like pace, unwillingly to school," 
 but rather that I am an idle vagabond who has held you by 
 the button listening to his babbHng talk when you ought 
 to have been making greater progress on your way. I have 
 
CONTINUATION OF HERODOTUS. 381 
 
 come in contact with so many things lying on the margin of 
 our path, that I have been unable to keep my eyes from them 
 and proceed straightforward to the end ; and I have, perhaps, 
 made the mistake of fancying that what is interesting to me 
 must be so to the Royal Academy student. Like all sinners I 
 shall endeavour to lay the blame on someone else, and so will 
 say that I have been led astray by Herodotus himself, whose 
 writings I have taken for my text. He is a sad gossiper — worse 
 than I am — often about little things, though more often on 
 matters of importance. He is, too, not always regular as to 
 dates, and so mixes up events of the past with those of his 
 own day. I have, perhaps, done the like ; but you will per- 
 ceive here again that it is he, and not I, that is to blame. I 
 have finished with the old man's book for the present, and so 
 may abuse him ; but, before closing it, will say to the student, 
 read him for the sake of your Art, as well as for the sake of 
 that general knowledge which I wish you to possess. If he 
 appears to you dry and uninteresting at first, he will be found 
 on closer study enticing in his subjects, from the indistinct 
 manner in which they are brought before you at this far- 
 removed period, and from the powerful pictures of antique 
 manners and customs he puts before you. The facts he relates 
 assume in themselves the air of poetry, from the misty halo 
 distance has thrown over them, and from their coming in such 
 close contact with fables of so improbable and imaginative a 
 character. It is difficult to believe that so keen an observer of 
 what came under his own eye could have been so credulous of 
 the many tales told him in his travels ; but the almost impossi- 
 bility of thoroughly putting ourselves back to his age will 
 always make us incompetent judges on that question. The 
 
382 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 Sculptor who would gain a knowledge of the history of his Art, 
 and would at the same time cultivate his imagination — for it will 
 grow by feeding, as well as his judgment — should not be without 
 some acquaintance with the writings of Herodotus. 
 
LECTURE XVII. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 Pliny. 
 
 REEK Philosophy, in the persons of Socrates and 
 his scholars, Plato, Aristotle, and others, stood at 
 its summit, coeval with the most successful attain- 
 ments of Greek Art, 400 years before Christ, and 
 hence the many allusions made to Sculpture by those writers : 
 but it is in the Roman author, Pliny, who Hved during the first 
 century after Christ, that we find the more direct memoranda 
 of still existing works. Between these two periods, the Arts, 
 through the decay of Greece and the uplifting of Rome, 146 
 years before Christ, had been transferred by conquest and 
 plunder to the latter country ; not only had the works been 
 carried off, but the artists themselves had emigrated thither. 
 
 Many of the fine examples now used for the purpose of in- 
 struction in our Academy were in fact executed by Greek sculp- 
 tors in Rome, or the neighbouring cities of Italy, within that 
 time. We shall, therefore, not perhaps be spending our evening 
 amiss, if we examine the records of Art left by Pliny. He was, 
 as far as we can gather, a man of a most searching spirit, and 
 
384 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 regardless of danger, even of the most formidable kind, when 
 seeking for knowledge, — as witness his conduct at Vesuvius, 
 by the eruption of which, according to his nephew, he met his 
 death — a death which has become the more interesting at 
 this moment, from the circumstance that it was caused by the 
 very eruption of the mountain which buried the two cities from 
 whence have lately been disinterred so many treasures of Art. 
 These treasures bear witness to the truth of his writings, and 
 are become appropriate illustrations of his book ; so that if you 
 will not believe him now, it may in reality be said of you, 
 " Neither would you believe, though one rose from the dead." 
 A certain obesity of person rendered him inactive in his move- 
 ments, and this obesity, coupled, perhaps, with an excess of 
 mental labour, seems to have produced in him, as it very often 
 does, a despondency of feeling which may be traced in the 
 opinions expressed in his writings. For instance, in his seventh 
 book, entitled, " Man : his birth, his organization, and the in- 
 vention of the Arts," he says : " Our first attention is justly 
 due to man, for whose sake all other things appear to have 
 been produced by Nature ; though, on the other hand, with 
 so great and so severe penalties for the enjoyment of her 
 bounteous gifts, that it is far from easy to determine whether 
 she has proved to him a kind parent or a merciless step- 
 mother. In the first place, she obliges him alone, of all 
 animated beings, to clothe himself with the spoils of the others ; 
 while to all the rest she has given various kinds of coverings, 
 such as shells, crusts, spines, hides, furs, bristles, hair, down, 
 feathers, scales, and fleeces. The very trunks of the trees 
 sCven she has protected against the effects of heat and cold 
 by a bark, which is, in some cases, twofold. Man alone, at 
 
PLINY. 
 
 the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked 
 earth, does she abandon to cries, to lamentations, and — a thing 
 that is the case with no other animal whatever — to tears : this, 
 too, from the very moment that he enters upon existence. But 
 as for laughter, why, by Hercules ! — to laugh, if but for an in- 
 stant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth 
 day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of 
 precocity. Introduced thus to the light, man has fetters and 
 swathings instantly put upon all his limbs — a thing that falls to 
 the lot of none of the brutes, even that are born among us. 
 Born to such singular good fortune, there lies the animal which 
 is destined to command all the others ; lies, fast bounds hand 
 and foot, and weeping aloud ! such being the penalty which he 
 has to pay on beginning life, and that for the sole fault of having 
 been born. Alas ! for the folly of those who can think, after 
 such a beginning as this, that they have been born for the dis- 
 play of vanity. The earliest presage of future strength, the 
 earliest bounty of time, confers upon him naught but the re- 
 semblance to a quadruped. How soon does man gain the 
 power of walking? How soon does he gain the faculty of speech? 
 How soon is his mouth fitted for mastication ? How long are 
 the pulsations of the crown of his head to proclaim him the 
 weakest of all animated beings ? And then the diseases to which 
 he is subject, the numerous remedies which he is obliged to 
 devise against his maladies, and those thwarted every now 
 and then by new forms and features of disease ! While other 
 animals have an instinctive knowledge of their natural powers — 
 some of their swiftness of pace, some of their rapidity of flight, 
 and some again of their power of swimming — Man is the only 
 one that knows nothing — that can learn nothing without being 
 
 c c 
 
386 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 taught : he can neither speak, nor walk, nor eat, and, in short, 
 he can do nothing, at the prompting of Nature only, but weep. 
 For this it is that many have been of opinion that it were 
 better not to have been born, or if born, to have been anni- 
 hilated at the earliest possible moment." 
 
 This and much more that follows is, you will say, not of a 
 very cheerful character, nor is it altogether true, for it is a one- 
 sided view ; it merely indicates the man who wrote it as low- 
 spirited, somewhat soured and misanthropic in his feelings. 
 Nevertheless, considering the age in which he lived, he seems 
 to have been of a most comprehensive mind, and thoroughly 
 honest in his seeking after truth, and the hours he devoted to 
 that seeking are said to have been far beyond those which in 
 most cases human weakness permits. That he accumulated 
 an immense amount of learning, both scientific and artistic, by 
 this assiduity, we have evidence from what has been handed 
 down to us — a part only, and perhaps a very small one, of what 
 he wrote. Where he speaks of events of his own time, or of 
 things ascertained from his own research, he may be depended 
 on, though when relating from hearsay or tradition, he is, 
 like most ancient authors, a long way from infallible. His 
 writings on the natural sciences are consequently little 
 more than mere assertions, accepted without inquiry, of 
 things supposed to have been observed by others, and exagge- 
 rated in the carrying from one to another until they have lost 
 all connection with truth, if they ever had any, and have become 
 simply amusing from their miraculous or otherwise absurd 
 nature. This may be accounted for when we recollect that 
 Science was in his days in its infancy, if indeed the word infancy 
 does not express too advanced a state to be correct. Not so 
 
PLINY. 
 
 387 
 
 with Art : that had even in some repects passed its prime, was 
 comparatively familiar to everyone, and an object of very con- 
 siderable interest at the time and in the place in which he lived. 
 He speaks here in a great measure of what he knows, and 
 we may consequently, with some degree of safety, follow him. 
 His "Natural History," the only part of his writings now known, 
 is most comprehensive : it seems to strive at taking everything 
 within its grasp, and treats de omnibus rehiis et qidbusdam aliis. 
 What was said indeed of a late Master of Trinity, Dr. Whewell, 
 will apply with equal force to our author : that Science was his 
 forte and Omniscience his foible. Yet he must have had, I 
 should say, what the phrenologists call the bump of order 
 strongly developed ; for we find everything in its proper place, 
 and under its proper title, so that reference can be easily made 
 to any subject when required — a true sign of real industry. 
 The consequence of this is, that he makes but little reference to 
 the Arts, one of the chief points on which he touches, until we 
 come to the chapters regularly devoted to them ; yet observations 
 on them creep in incidentally now and then in other parts. For 
 instance, in his dedication of his work to Titus Vespasian, he 
 says : " That I may not, however, appear to inveigh so com- 
 pletely against the Greeks, I should wish to be considered 
 under the same point of view with those inventors of the Arts 
 of Painting and Sculpture whose works, although they are so 
 perfect that we are never satisfied with admiring them, are in- 
 scribed with a temporary title, such as — ' Apelles, or Polycletus, 
 was doing this : ' implying that the work was only commenced, 
 and still imperfect, and that the artist might have benefited by 
 the criticisms made upon it, and have altered any part that 
 required it, if he had not been prevented by death. It is also a 
 
388 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 great mark of their modesty, that they inscribed their works as 
 if they were the last which they had executed, and as still in 
 hand at the time of their death. I think there are but three 
 works of Art which are inscribed positively with the words 
 * such an one executed this j ' of these I shall give an account in 
 the proper place. In these cases it appears that the artist 
 felt the most perfect satisfaction with his work, and hence these 
 pieces have excited the envy of everyone." These are his 
 words, and we have here evidence of the extreme care that was 
 bestowed on works of Art in those days, of the length of time 
 devoted to single efforts, and of the severe criticisms they had 
 to undergo when finished, from a well-instructed and art-loving 
 public. Further on he relates that "a comet appeared in Rome 
 during the time when the Emperor Augustus was celebrating 
 games in honour of Venus Genatrix, not long after the death of 
 his father, Caesar. The common people supposed the star to in- 
 dicate that the soul of Caesar was admitted among the immortal 
 gods : under which designation it was that the star was placed 
 on the bust lately consecrated in the Forum." What an event 
 it would be should we ever be lucky enough to find this bust 
 with the comet, or hairy star as he calls it, marked upon it. I 
 fear, however, we shall not have that luck. As he proceeds he 
 says that Alexander declared that no one should paint his 
 portrait except Apelles, and no one make a marble statue of 
 him except Pyrgolites, or a bronze one except Lysippus. 
 Then comes a mention of Praxiteles, who he declares has been 
 ennobled by his works in marble, especially by his Cnidian 
 Venus, for which, King Nicomedes offered to pay off a large 
 debt the Cnidians owed. 
 
 This is followed by a naming of the Olympian Jupiter, which 
 
PLINY. 389 
 
 Pliny declares to bear testimony day by day to the talents of 
 Phidias ; and of the Capitoline Jupiter, and Diana of Ephesus, 
 which do the same for the sculptor Mentor, who seems to have 
 been noted for the making of vases. In his history of the 
 elephant — to which he attributes far more reasoning powers and 
 more miraculous doings than, I think, either Cuvier or Professor 
 Owen would quite sanction — he alludes to the value of the tusk 
 of the animal for the making, as he says, of the statues of the gods 
 — an observation which seems to suggest that this costly material 
 was considered sacred to the representations of the immortals. 
 We have, indeed, frequent reference made to the great ivory 
 Jupiter and Minerva, but I know of none recording a statue of 
 any mortal executed in that valuable substance, nor have we, un- 
 fortunately, any existing example of such sculpture in either case. 
 
 In his writings on the cultivation of the vine, and on agri- 
 culture generally — where he is, as you will readily understand, 
 the most accurate, and speaking entirely from his own expe- 
 rience, the most profound — he makes mention of a figure of 
 Jupiter, executed, he says, from the stem of the vine, which he 
 declares to be the toughest and most durable of all woods for 
 the purpose of the carver, and alludes to the statue of Diana of 
 Ephesus — the one, I presume, named in the Scriptures. He 
 speaks, too, of a slave who was cured of the effects of a fall by 
 the virtues of a plant revealed to Pericles by Minerva, and from 
 that circumstance named Parthenium, and says that a famous 
 statue in bronze was made of him, well known as the Splanch- 
 noptes, or cooker of entrails. 
 
 There are, besides, various other' casual allusions to Sculp- 
 ture, even among these portions of his works. He gives, too, in 
 them numerous hints by which an artist, if he puts them well 
 
390 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 together, may gain for himself a tolerable conception of that 
 coarse, sensual state of luxury to which the Romans had arrived, 
 and of which Pliny was a strong rebuker. So that I would advise 
 the student to read his books quite through : he will find them 
 amusing, if only for the many fables and miraculous events that 
 are introduced into them, and perhaps wonder that so much 
 credence should be given to such absurdities in connection with 
 learning of such an accurate kind ; but great allowance must be 
 made for the early age in which the author lived, and for the 
 dark ignorance then existing. Pliny was, in truth, a man far 
 before his time, and much that he treated of — Science, for in- 
 stance — was still quite in its embryo. He was, too, a great 
 quoter of and collector from other men's works, and often, as I 
 have before said to you, treated of matters belonging to pre- 
 vious days, depending solely on the authority of more ancient 
 writers — in short, a great book-maker. 
 
 You must not, however, come altogether to the conclusion 
 that he believes in all that he writes ; on the contrary, he gene- 
 rally, when recording superstitions and other kinds of fallacies, 
 begins by saying, it is related that so-and-so happened ; some- 
 times, indeed, he openly avows his disbelief, and often shows a 
 power of reasoning and research quite incompatible with such 
 belief. He evidently doubted much, as perhaps do all think- 
 ing men, and even in these days we ourselves find quite enough 
 to doubt upon. 
 
 I must go on, however, to the latter part of his works, 
 where he devotes himself entirely to the history of the Arts, 
 as it is with these we have more particularly to do ; what I 
 have already handed to you are only the stray crumbs of 
 information that have fallen, so to speak, out of their place. 
 
PLINY. 391 
 
 He begins, even here, in his usual lugubrious manner. In de- 
 scribing gold as a metal, he says, " Would that it could have 
 been banished for ever from the earth, accursed by universal 
 report," and adds, " How much more happy the age when things 
 themselves were bartered for one another, as was the case in 
 the time of the Trojan war." He then goes on to censure the 
 over-luxury of his fellow-countrymen, and has a hit at their 
 foppery by saying that " The worst crime against mankind was 
 committed by him who was the first to put a ring upon his 
 fingers." He proceeds, then, with some valuable observations 
 on the wearing of these "accursed" rings as then practised, 
 whether for the purpose of a signet, or for mere ornament. 
 There is, too, a sly satire in that sentence where he says, " Who- 
 ever it was that first introduced the use of rings, did so not 
 without hesitation, for he placed this ornament on the left hand, 
 the hand which is generally concealed under the folds of the 
 toga ; whereas if he had been sure of its being an honourable 
 distinction it would have been made more conspicuous on the 
 right." I must stop, as my object in this lecture is not to touch 
 upon everything, but to persuade the student to read the work 
 for himself ; he will find, I can assure him, ample to repay the 
 search. 
 
 The interest of what he asserts under the heading of gold is, 
 however, great, not merely from the anecdotes he introduces to 
 show how avarice had increased by the discovery and use of 
 the metal — such as Septimulius having cut off his father Caius 
 Gracchus' head, upon which a price had been set of its weight 
 in gold, and of his having filled it with lead, and so committed 
 the greater crime of cheating the State, as well as the lesser one 
 of parricide— but Pliny gives accounts, correct in the main, 
 
392 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 though mixed up with some superstitions, of the different 
 methods of mining for it, and the various uses of it as orna- 
 ment or otherwise. He tells us that previous to the time of 
 Servius, raw metal served the purposes of coin, and that that 
 ruler was the first to make an impress, that of a sheep, upon 
 it; hence the word ^'pecunia," from pecus^ sheep. The first 
 statue made of solid gold is named too as that of Amaitis, an 
 Indian goddess ; and then, in a few pages beyond, instruction 
 is given on the use of various vegetable and mineral substances 
 in painting, some of which had in his time evidently been pro- 
 nounced objectionable from their want of durability. With this 
 part of his treatise on the Arts I have, however, nothing to do. 
 
 It is in the 34th book that the numerous names of artists, 
 principally sculptors, occurs, and a catalogue of noted works is 
 given. The invention of the arch is attributed by him to the 
 Greeks, though, as you know, the use of it by them was for some 
 time doubted. Some discussion as to the proper mixture of the 
 celebrated Corinthian brass takes place, from which it appears 
 that the secret of the mixture had already been lost, and that 
 old specimens were caught up by collectors in consequence, 
 whether for the sake of the beauty of workmanship or of the 
 metal does not appear quite certain. Much of the decorative 
 furniture of the houses was made of this brass — couches, lamp- 
 stands, &c. — and rich men evidently felt a pride] in exhibiting 
 them to their friends as objects oivertu. The custom of ho- 
 nouring with statues those who had been thrice successful in 
 the Olympic games is referred to. Iconicae are alluded to, or 
 portrait statues as they were called, because the proportions and 
 general characteristics of the individual were imitated ; I doubt, 
 however, if an exact likeness was attempted, but fancy they 
 
FLINY, 
 
 393 
 
 merely represented those peculiarities of form which had ena- 
 bled them to obtain) the victory, whether of strength or acti- 
 vity in those contests. We find, in fact, numerous instances of 
 works of this kind, neither quite ideal, nor altogether individual 
 in their character, where likeness is rather approached than quite 
 accomplished : the noted statue of the Discobolus, with its 
 peculiar action, is supposed to represent the particular mode of 
 flinging the quoit by some noted player, and may not impro- 
 bably be of this kind. It is afterwards said that Pythagoras of 
 Requim executed the statue of Astylos the Runner, who had 
 been successful the necessary number of times in the Olympic 
 games ; and we have in the Vatican a figure which is called by 
 the name of the Runner, a youth using the body-scraper on his 
 arms after the race. PHny mentions several statues by different 
 sculptors in this action — this among the rest, I believe, for it is 
 supposed to be the one of Lysippus, which Agrippa had erected 
 in front of his warm baths, but which was afterwards removed 
 by Tiberius to his bedchamber, and replaced through the people 
 clamouring for its restoration. I can hardly imagine that the 
 English people would make a great outcry were the best statue 
 they possess removed from their sight ; but I can say that if ever 
 a work deserved this compliment it is this one alluded to in 
 Pliny, and now, as I have before said, standing in the Vatican. 
 Its form is of the finest kind, that of Nature in the first elasticity 
 of her youth, with all the full development of muscle which 
 results from perfect health and a thoroughly active life. The 
 athlete is standing with an air of quiet triumph, without any 
 affectation, yet conscious alike of the high distinction he has 
 earned and of the manly elegance of frame he possesses"; his 
 arm outstretched, while he relieves it from the effects of the 
 
394 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 fatigue he has undergone by the instrument I have mentioned. 
 So perfect is its beauty that it might well serve to represent the 
 primeval Adam, on 
 
 " That day which saw him bright and sinless stand, 
 Image of God, from God's creative hand." 
 
 It will show how much this statue was valued by the ancients, 
 with what devotion beauty was worshipped, and how little mere 
 imitation, or deceiving of the senses, was looked to, if I tell you 
 that a long and heavy bar of marble resting on the thigh and 
 attached as a support to the arm, is left for the sake of safety ; 
 a sad disfigurement if looked upon as a mere effort at imitation 
 of Nature, but beauty had been attained by the effort of the 
 chisel, and it was thought wise to preserve it at whatever cost. 
 The result is, that it is, I believe, the only antique statue we 
 have in which scarcely any part is lost — the fingers only are, I 
 believe, a restoration by Tenerani. The legs might be criticized 
 by some as being a degree too long, but to me they do not 
 appear so ; on the contrary, they serve as evidence of what I have 
 before put to you — namely, that there is no exact scale of pro- 
 portion, either in Nature or the Antique, that will at all times, 
 and under all circumstances, serve for the standard of beauty, 
 but that, on the contrary, slight deviations are resorted to 
 in order to convey the particular character intended. In this 
 instance the Runner has long legs. 
 
 The discoveries from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other parts 
 of Italy have of late years been so numerous that the collection 
 we have in our Academy forms now only a very small portion 
 of the first-class antiques known. The gallery at Naples is 
 alone an embarras de richesse in this respect. Though I re- 
 member well how I wandered about this statue of the Runner 
 
PLINY. 
 
 395 
 
 when in Rome, looking at it from all sides, and unable to get 
 away from it, I must not now linger too long upon it, but 
 must get again into the groove I have marked out for myself — 
 Pliny's Records of Ancient Art. There are names of artists 
 almost innumerable, and descriptions of pictures that pos- 
 sessed marvellous power, according to the writer ; though that 
 is no proof of their excellence, as opinions on Art are always 
 founded on comparison. The man who never sees really good 
 Art pronounces the best that comes under his notice as the 
 ne plus ultra of excellence. In some respects, however, the 
 paintings of ancient Greece and Rome must have been truly 
 fine, as less grace of line, less good drawing, or less power of 
 composition than is found in their sculptures, would not have 
 been tolerated by the common people, not to speak of the pro- 
 fessed critics. 
 
 The celebrated statue of the Splanchnoptes is again spoken 
 of as the slave roasting entrails, and kindling the fire with his 
 breath, and is said to be the work of Stypax of Cyprus, who 
 acquired his celebrity by this work alone. Silanion is recorded 
 as having made a statue of Apollodorus, who was himself a 
 modeller, and, as Pliny says, not only the most diligent of all 
 in the study of his Art, but a most severe criticizer of his own 
 works, frequently breaking his statues to pieces when he had 
 finished them, and never able to satisfy his intense passion for 
 the Art : a circumstance that procured him the surname of the 
 madman. Indeed, it is this expression which he has given to 
 his works, which represent, in metal, embodied anger, rather 
 than the lineaments of a human being. This is what Pliny 
 tells us, and I suppose I must give this same Apollodorus 
 credit for being something of a sculptor, though I confess I 
 
396 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 have some doubts about him ; he seems by the description to 
 be one of those men of whom we have too many among us 
 even now : men of momentary impulse, always ready to begin, 
 yet without perseverance enough to complete — no proof, to my 
 mind, of great genius. It is not in the always beginning, but in 
 the considering and reconsidering of a work, and in the thorough 
 carrying out of it, that strength is displayed, and in no Art is 
 this strength more requisite than in Sculpture. Perhaps he was 
 one of those men whose knowledge of the theory of his Art 
 and whose feeling for its beauty was so intense, that nothing in 
 what he would call the mechanical part could come up to his 
 ideas. So indeed Pliny seems to describe him, and I think, in 
 doing so, shows him to have been a mere pretender — writes him 
 down an ass. I don't believe in Master Apollodorus. Other 
 names follow of more sound repute, though less remarked 
 upon, because less eccentric ; after which come some very 
 explicit, and, I believe, very correct directions for the mixing of 
 metals for bronze statues — pretty much the same as what is 
 now adopted ; for silver-lead read tin, and I believe they will 
 be found identical. He then turns to decorative painting, and 
 laments the decay of that branch by the substituting of inlaid 
 marbles on the walls of the palaces. " We must begin to paint 
 the very stone itself," he says ; adding that, " this Art was 
 invented in the reign of Claudius, but it was in the time of 
 Nero that we discovered the method of inserting in marble, 
 spots that do not belong to it, so as to vary its uniformity." He 
 deplores most bitterly the fall of Art, more particularly in 
 correct portraiture, and seems to think that more value was put 
 on foreign work than was due to it, and that men valued rich 
 material more than good work : he compares his own day in 
 
PLINY. 
 
 397 
 
 regard to taste with old times; so that the ancient Romans 
 must have had, not only their cognoscenti but their old masters. 
 Tempora non mutantiir. 
 
 You do not want me, I dare say, to tell you that the many 
 busts of Homer, and perhaps of many other poets as well, are 
 really not portraits at all, but ideal conceptions — they harmo- 
 nize, indeed, so thoroughly with our inward notions of the 
 blind old bard that it is scarcely possible there can be any in- 
 dividuality in them; they may have been, like Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds's Count Ugolino, suggested by the head of some old 
 rough-haired mendicant, but they are only like the real Homer 
 in the same way as is that visionary figure we call up before us 
 when he tunes his lyre and sings, 
 
 " Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 
 Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess sing." 
 
 If you have any doubts, however, they will vanish on reading 
 the following passage from the writer to whom I am now 
 endeavouring to coax you, where he says : " There is a new in- 
 vention, too, which we must not omit to notice. Not only do 
 we consecrate in our libraries, in gold or silver, or at all events 
 in bronze, those whose immortal spirits hold converse with us 
 in those places, but we even go so far as to reproduce the ideal 
 of features, all remembrance of which has ceased to exist ; and 
 our regrets give existence to likenesses that have not been trans- 
 mitted to us, as in the case of Homer for example." 
 
 Ancestral portraits were much the rage in the days of Cicero. 
 The halls of the nobles were filled with them, and the removal 
 of these biographical memoirs of the resident families was for- 
 bidden, even when a sale of the property took place. What 
 those portraits consisted of is not, however, clear ; they are said 
 
398 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 to have been modelled in wax, coloured, perhaps, to the life ; 
 so that Madame Tussaud may, after all, claim a longer descent 
 for her mode of Art than we imagine. In all probability they 
 were of this kind of effigy — not, perhaps, with real clothes on 
 their backs, but coloured models, as it is recorded that they 
 stood in niches in the house, and that the whole of them were 
 called out to attend upon the funeral of every member of the 
 family who took it into his head to die. Perhaps they were 
 not life-size, and if so may not have created a ludicrous effect 
 in the procession ; at any rate, they had no great expectations 
 from the death of their dear relative, and so really behaved 
 themselves with apparent propriety, and took to themselves their 
 fair proportion of grief. 
 
 M. Varro is mentioned as having first conceived the idea of 
 illustrating literary works by portraits, supposed to have been 
 relievos in metal coloured by minium, a favourite red tint of 
 the Romans. All this Pliny laments having passed away. 
 
 You do not expect me to go through with you the long 
 line of artists — painters and sculptors and architects — which 
 Pliny enumerates : an army in themselves, for they count by 
 hundreds, some still known to us, not only by name, but by 
 existing works j others long forgotten, though probably of well- 
 deserved reputation in their day. This number alone will show 
 in what favour Art was then held, and what importance it had 
 attained. Neither can I give you the titles of all their works, 
 nor even the anecdotes that are attached to them, or comments 
 passed upon them — often amusing, and still oftener suggestive 
 and instructive. 
 
 The careless reader will not improbably put down our 
 author as an ignorant exaggerator of facts, and a compiler of 
 
PLIN\. 
 
 399 
 
 absurd fables ; forgetting that he has had to write, in most cases, 
 of things belonging to some centuries before his own time, how 
 much of superstition and creduhty he had to contend with, and 
 how difficult it was in those dark days to hand down the feeble 
 lamp of knowledge from one generation to another without its 
 being extinguished by the breath of forgetfulness. I trust, how- 
 ever, I am not addressing careless readers, but rather those who 
 combine thinking with reading — who do not merely glance at a 
 book, but endeavour to search out its meaning ; and I am sure 
 these will, not from any one sentence, but from a proper com- 
 bination of the whole, and a comparison of one part with another, 
 arrive at a correct idea of the then state of Art, of the style at 
 which it aimed, and of the point of excellence at which it had 
 arrived. That the student must, at the same time, learn much 
 that will be useful to him, whether in his profession or otherwise, 
 it is scarcely necessary for me to say, though that will depend on 
 his power of reasoning and of applying it to his own purpose. 
 He will read many references to works in Sculpture with which 
 he is acquainted, as well as many things which he has only 
 heard of through ancient authors. He will find praises given 
 for excellence in Painting that will serve to indicate to him how 
 far that Art had advanced, and with what difficulties it was 
 still contending. Efforts at novelty and varied modes of ex- 
 pression, now every-day doings, are lauded almost as miracles, 
 and recorded as having served to establish the fame of the dis- 
 coverer as a leader in Art ; whilst qualities of the very highest 
 order, and, as we are apt to fancy, belonging to a much later 
 period, are mentioned as exciting the admiration of the gazing 
 multitude. The student has to reconcile to himself these 
 apparent contradictions, but he will bring them together after 
 
400 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 a while. He will learn to feel that old Greek Painting was, like 
 the Sculpture, simple in its means, never running after facile 
 trickeries of touch, over-complication of lines, or startling 
 effects of chiaro-oscuro and colour, but looking steadily at the 
 one idea it had to express, and subduing all its means, rather 
 than ostentatiously displaying them, so that that idea might 
 stand forward unalloyed by any of those professional mannerisms 
 or affectations of power so prevalent in modern Art. 
 
 Style was subservient to the subject, rather than the subject 
 a vehicle for the style. That an elegant and expressive outline 
 was the thing chiefly depended on, is shown by the well-known 
 anecdote of Apelles having called on Protogenes in his absence, 
 and made a line on a panel to signify who had been there, and 
 of the latter having recognized his visitor by it, and made another 
 close to it as a sort of challenge, which Apelles accepted by 
 making another still more delicate and expressive on his second 
 visit. 
 
 This, indeed, appears to me the chief difference between 
 good ancient and good modern Art. In the latter, the contour 
 is often correct to nature, but not often so refined and select in 
 its kind. If you read attentively you will find in Pliny the 
 passage relating to the statue of Apollo the Deliverer, that 
 induced your Flaxman to believe, not, perhaps, incorrectly, 
 that the celebrated figure of the Belvidere handed down to us 
 is a copy from a bronze ; its composition may have led him also 
 to that belief, and other authors may have helped to corrobo- 
 rate it. 
 
 Chantrey, in what he fancied his more common-sense way of 
 thinking, used to ridicule this opinion of Flaxman's, as unsup- 
 ported by sound argument; but I am inclined to think the 
 
PLINY. 401 
 
 little learned man was right, and am certain that a want of edu- 
 cation does not necessarily confer, either what is called common 
 sense, or a power of deciding an argument. The reader of 
 Pliny will, at any rate, doubt the originality of the work, if he 
 does not go directly against it ; he will doubt also some things 
 which he may regret to doubt — he will no longer be certain that 
 the great Socrates was a sculptor, as well as a philosopher, or 
 even the son of a sculptor, as he is sometimes stated to have 
 been. I do not say that he was not — I hope that he was, for 
 the glory of the Art — but there appear to have been many of 
 the name, — one, a painter. The glorious old conservative and 
 economical PHny will tell you also that M. Scaurus was the 
 first to use foreign marble for the columns of his house, and 
 who was the first to employ it in public buildings; luxuries 
 which he regrets, with a heavy sigh, the laws did not restrain, 
 and classes among the luxurious follies of the day, exclaiming, 
 " Can we say that there is now anything we have reserved for 
 the exclusive use of the gods ? " I have spoken of him in the first 
 part of my lecture as a man far before his time, and I still feel that 
 he was : indeed, I cannot help fancying what a grand First Com- 
 missioner of Works he would make if we could but have him 
 now. There is, however, no use regretting an impossibility — we 
 must be contented as we are : so I will go on to say that he re- 
 cords the Lizard-killer, so well known to you, and the group of 
 the Laocoon and Sons, pronouncing the latter to be superior to 
 any work, either of Painting or Sculpture, then known. He de- 
 scribes, too, the coloured Minerva and Olympian Jupiter of 
 Phidias, as well as gives the size of many other gigantic statues, 
 the Colossus of Rhodes included. What is more to my present 
 purpose, he indicates the plan, and gives the history of the 
 
 D D 
 
402 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 building of the celebrated monument raised by Artemisia to her 
 husband, Mausolus, at Halicarnassus, and says of it that it was 
 reckoned as one of the seven wonders of the world. It is not 
 only more particularly interesting to us just now as a magnificent 
 work raised by a widowed queen to the memory of her husband, 
 but because we have in our Museum the magnificent fragments 
 that are left of it — fragments, it is true, but sufficient, if not to 
 convey the design of the whole, to impress us with the grand style 
 of Art employed upon it. I would advise the sculptor-student to 
 attentively study them : they are near at hand, and he can do so 
 without any difficulty; and, go as far as he may, he will find 
 nothing more exciting to his genius or more instructive in his 
 Art. The figure of Mausolus alone, broken and dilapidated as 
 it is, is one of the finest portrait-statues known : look how grandly 
 he stands, with what dignity the head is posed ! how simple in its 
 line, and yet how rich in its foldings is the drapery ! Michael 
 Angelo is said to have uttered the word " March ! " when standing 
 before the statue of St. George, but the impulse when gazing at 
 the statue of Mausolus is to say, " Speak ! " I wish it would, for I 
 am sure nothing light or trivial could be uttered from such a 
 thoughtful countenance. He might, perhaps, say to the young 
 sculptors of the present age, " See with what simple means, 
 with what breadth of parts my artist has delineated my face ; 
 with how little he has obtained the profound expression of my 
 features ; display of execution has never interfered with the sen- 
 timent or effect he wished to convey by the whole." 
 
 You will hardly believe me if I tell you that the statue has 
 often said this to me when I have stood before him ; so often, 
 that I have sometimes thought he wished to taunt me with the 
 want of the quality in my own works. I must ask him the next 
 
PLINY, 
 
 403 
 
 time we meet, who was the sculptor of his statue, for it appears 
 that there were no less than five employed on the monument 
 altogether : Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus, and Leochares, — the 
 name of the fifth is not given. 
 
 I can give you no rule, no directions, by which the dignity, 
 the thoughtful expression, the grandeur of pose in this statue of 
 Mausolus is conveyed — you must endeavour to feel it yourself; 
 if you cannot do that, you have not in you the essence of your 
 Art. Unaffected simplicity is the foundation, self-concentration 
 the superstructure of the work, but these words convey but 
 feebly its excellence. Study it, and endeavour to enter thoroughly 
 into it, and to understand the principles by which it obtains 
 such complete mastery over the mind of the spectator. You will 
 not then be able, perhaps, to describe in words the merits that 
 are in it, but you may be able to imitate them in your own 
 works, and thus follow the example of the man who, when 
 called upon to define the word walking, began to walk himself. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to restore from the frag- 
 ments left to us, and from the description handed down to us by 
 Pliny, the whole monument ; among others, by a most respected 
 member of this Academy, Charles Cockerell, who has published 
 a work on the subject. This will show you how beneficial 
 in their profession men before us have found the study of 
 these old authors. There was no one whose taste was purer, 
 or who was better acquainted with the history of his Art, than 
 the late Professor of Architecture whom I have just named. 
 The theory he had laid down for himself, and which he was 
 called upon to set forth to the pupils, was sound, because he had 
 formed it by a comparison with that of others — had read what 
 others had written and thought upon it — and so did not com- 
 
404 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 mit the error many of us are apt to do, especially in the after- 
 part of life, repeat one's own ideas, or in other words feed upon 
 ourselves. I would advise the sculptor-student trying to restore 
 the single figure. The parts are sufficiently dilapidated to admit 
 of much invention being used in the repairing and bringing them 
 together, and I think the effort will recompense him for his 
 trouble, by increasing his knowledge of the severe style that 
 runs through it. Should I ever have the opportunity, I intend 
 to propose the restoration of it as the subject for the medal 
 annually offered by the Academy in that department. 
 
 The authorities of the British Museum have attempted in a 
 highly creditable manner the making good the wanting parts of 
 another figure belonging to the same monument; the plaster 
 restoration is placed beside the mutilated original, so that a very 
 instructive lesson may be gained by a comparison of the two thus 
 put together. There is also, I am happy to say, a plaster cast 
 of the head of Mausolus placed down nearer the eye, so that 
 the sculptor-student may obtain a knowledge of the treatment by 
 means of which the severe thoughtful expression is secured. 
 I would advise his not neglecting it, for very few better lessons 
 can be learned by him ; it contains within itself the key to the 
 style of the whole statue, and a man must be blind indeed who 
 does not perceive how few, how simple in themselves, are all 
 the parts, — how everything is omitted that does not help that ex- 
 pression, or would tend in any way to disturb it. Go to our 
 Museum as often as you can — it is becoming a very fine one in 
 your Art : there are hundreds of instructors there who will 
 speak to you in one harmonious chant ; and if one of them be 
 out of tune, though it is rarely that they are, it will be hard if 
 your ear is not good enough to detect the false note. 
 
LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 The Scriptures. 
 
 CULPTORS have to recollect that their work is 
 sometimes judged by other tests than that of 
 artistic excellence ; their brethren may look upon 
 it by that light, but other men may perhaps try 
 it by other means, and apply to it knowledge of a different 
 kind. Most people, in fact, examine everything that comes 
 before them by a certain scale which they have found infaUible 
 in that to which they have devoted the study of their lives. I 
 am induced to make this remark from my recollection of a 
 criticism uttered to me by a Jewish rabbi on a group in Sculp- 
 ture representing the Temptation of Eve. He admired the 
 work generally, but declared there was one mistake in it : the 
 serpent should have been represented with legs, as otherwise 
 the curse laid upon it in consequence of the act — Upon thy 
 belly shalt thou go " — would have been as nothing. Strange as 
 the remark may seem, I feel strongly that it was a correct one ; 
 at any rate it was correct when tried by the test he had applied 
 to it, the Bible. 
 
 My remembrance too of the conversation, when a sort of 
 
4o6 EARL V HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 envious wish came over me for the same power that he had 
 of diving into the history of the past, induces me to beUeve 
 that it may afford you some amusement, and some instruction, 
 if we go together this evening through that same Bible, and 
 search out the various allusions to our Art found within it. 
 They are not perhaps many, nor are they singly of much value ; 
 but if collected and bound together they may, not improbably, 
 like the old man's bundle of sticks, gain strength by the con- 
 junction, and assume a more important as well as more distinct 
 character. I may as well tell you at once that we must make 
 use of every mention made, whether metaphorically or as 
 recording a fact; and we have a perfect right to do so, for 
 metaphor must have a pre-existence in facts, or otherwise it fails 
 in its expression. At the same time I fear our research will, 
 after all, be but a slight one, as the proposition to go through a 
 record like the Bible in less than an hour, seems second only 
 to Puck's, of putting a girdle round the earth in forty minutes. 
 
 There will be one advantage, however, to us over other com- 
 mentators — we have no doctrine to promulgate, either Christian 
 or un-Christian, but only to examine the records in their his- 
 torical relation one to another. It is almost impossible to tell 
 exactly where the first appearance of Art takes place in the 
 Scriptures, so soon does it seem to come upon the stage after 
 that time when the world itself was without form ; and to 
 rise with misty indistinctness, to the sound of music, in that 
 passage where we are informed that Jubal was the father of 
 those who handled the harp and the organ, and that Tubal 
 Cain was an instructor of the men who worked in brass and 
 iron. Art appears, however, to come forward nearer to the 
 footlights in the naming of Nineveh, which occurs soon after ; 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 407 
 
 though it is only as yet by association with times long after the 
 one we are now thinking of. 
 
 We must first call to mind Abraham's purchase of the cave in 
 the field of Machpelah for a cemetery, and where most probably 
 records of some kind were made of those afterwards buried 
 there ; especially if there be any truth in what is said of him in 
 the Talmud and Koran, namely, that he was the son, not of 
 Terah, but of Azer, and that Azer was sculptor in ordinary, as 
 well as son-in-law, to Nimrod. You all know the legendary 
 story of his breaking up his father's images, declaring in ridicule 
 that a superior god had done the mischief, and of Abraham's 
 being so converted to the true God. All this, however, we 
 may believe or not, as we please ; if we took any view of the 
 question we would rather believe in the other story, that he 
 was originally a worshipper of the heavenly bodies, until he 
 found them all in their turn setting below the horizon, and de- 
 clared he would have nothing to do with gods who disappeared ; 
 and was so induced to take a step in the right direction. 
 
 We must pass on to meet Rebekah at the well, where we 
 shall find Abraham's servant putting earrings and bracelets of 
 gold on her as a token that she was engaged to Isaac for a wife : 
 that same Rebekah who helped to deceive her husband in his 
 blind old age. From hence, too, we must hurry on to Jacob, 
 not as yet troubled with his children, but setting up the stone 
 on end on which his head had lain when he dreamed his dream, 
 and pouring oil upon it as a memorial that he would henceforth 
 give to the Lord a tenth of all he possessed. As we again 
 travel on, we find Rachel stealing the gods of her father Laban, 
 and hiding them under the saddle furniture : of course her poor 
 husband Jacob was accused of the theft, but the real robber 
 
4o8 EARL Y HISTOR V OF SCULPTURE, 
 
 was identified. We might almost say that we could identify 
 the stolen property, so many have we of these portable images 
 in our Museum. Our collection is supposed to be, however, 
 chiefly, if not entirely, Egyptian, and these of poor Rachel 
 were most probably either Babylonish or Assyrian. Travelling 
 was slow in those days, and communication between one 
 people and another difficult, so that we can only guess at the 
 matter ; but the passage here referred to, as well as many others, 
 serves to prove that the habit of carrying about these portable 
 gods or charms was almost universal among the eastern nations. 
 That it continued so for many years after, we know — far beyond 
 even the days of our Saviour. Mohammed, six hundred years 
 later than the time of Christ, found the countries full of them, 
 each tribe having its peculiar set of deities : Mecca and Medina 
 abounded with them. His efforts seem, in fact, chiefly directed 
 to the suppression of this species of idolatry, and to the estab- 
 lishment of the worship of the one God. That he resorted to 
 imposture in the end, and made use of unjustifiable means to 
 propagate what he considered the true faith, we all know ; but 
 that he was, in the beginning of his career, sincere, no one can 
 doubt, nor can we doubt that he was formed both mentally 
 and bodily for a great leader. 
 
 I have travelled a long way over the desert, so will make use 
 of my return ticket, and go back to the place from whence I 
 came. The line of communication is complete from end to end, 
 as v/e shall see ; for we find the tribe of Hamor giving Jacob all 
 the strange gods that were in their hands, and all their earrings, 
 as a witness to the covenant that was between them. Allusions 
 to the continuous existence of idols as objects of worship occur, 
 in fact, in all parts of the Bible. " Wood and stone, the work 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 409 
 
 of men's hands," is a frequent expression used to describe them ; 
 and the prophet Isaiah may be said to condense the feeling 
 against the system in those verses of the 44th chapter in which 
 he says : " With part thereof he warmeth himself, and the residue 
 thereof he maketh a god." The verses are too long for me to 
 quote, but they may be read with some advantage by the student 
 in Art. 
 
 But we must get on, though I cannot do so without just a 
 passing glance at Joseph's coat of many colours, as it is the 
 first allusion to woven Art mentioned in the Bible; and you 
 know well how famous the people of the East were, and are 
 now, for their taste in that sort of fabric, and for their harmonious 
 mixing of their colours. 
 
 We have now to pass through a very long period, more than 
 four hundred years that being the time that had elapsed be- 
 tween the coming up into Egypt of Joseph's brethren to buy 
 corn, when he asked of them, " Is the old man yet alive of whom 
 ye spake ? " and their going out, a long line of countless numbers, 
 with their wives, their sons and daughters, their flocks and herds, 
 and all their goods and chattels about them, laden too with the 
 gold and silver spoil of their masters, whom they had made 
 jealous by their increasing wealth and superior industry and 
 ability in the Arts. That their task was hard during their so- 
 journ in the strange country, there is no doubt ; it is evidenced 
 not only by the records in the Bible, but by the enormous 
 structures still found belonging to ancient Egypt, many of which 
 are, in all probability, by their hands. The Jews in the present 
 day, in fact, assert that the Pyramids were built by them, found- 
 ing their belief on the statement made to that effect by their 
 historian, Josephus. We must not, however, imagine that they 
 
4 1 o EARL V BIS TOR V OF SC ULPTURE. 
 
 were all engaged like slaves, under one hard master, in brick- 
 making, though a labour-tax was put upon them to a severe 
 extent, heavier, perhaps, than upon the other native tribes ; yet 
 they held together then, as they do now, by ties of relationship 
 and by laws peculiar to themselves, which not only made those 
 ties closer, but separated them more exclusively from those 
 around, and thus even in their bondage they became a great 
 and united people. They had lost, to a certain extent, the 
 character of their forefathers, the shepherd-kings, and become 
 masters of many trades, designers of elaborate patterns, workers 
 in fine gold and silver, and weavers of rich cloths. If the primi- 
 tive simphcity of the old patriarchs was less prominent in them, 
 they had come back out of the strange country ingenious men, 
 with a practical knowledge and feeling for the Arts, which they 
 had gained during their hard apprenticeship. This we shall per- 
 ceive in their journey through the wilderness, whither we must 
 now follow them. We arrive at nothing that concerns the subject 
 of our lecture, the Arts of the Israelites, until we come to the 
 2oth chapter of Exodus, where, as you know, are recorded the 
 ten commandments ; I need not, I am sure, repeat them ; 
 you will recollect immediately that the words, " graven image," 
 are used in the second ; words which, however wide may be 
 the range of their meaning, imply undeniably the knowledge of 
 certain modes of working in Sculpture. They, the people, were 
 forbidden to make or worship them, and in these words may, 
 perhaps, be found the reason why they were never, as far as we 
 know, so great in Art as their more superstitious neighbours ; 
 and it will occur to you immediately how necessary this law 
 . must have been to a people, the mass of them in the most igno- 
 rant, degraded state, in order to prevent their returning to that 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 411 
 
 idolatry among which they had been born and bred. They had 
 seen the gorgeous temples of the Egyptians, had gazed upon 
 their colossal deities, and listened, perhaps, to the voice of the 
 vocal Memnon mingling with their evening hymn as they floated 
 down the Nile ; and they had witnessed, if not partaken of, their 
 religion, to them far more impressive than the comparatively un- 
 ostentatious one they were called upon to follow. Can it be 
 wondered at that they often murmured at the change, and fell 
 back into the old error ? 
 
 The prohibition of the graven image referred more, however, 
 to the worshipping than the making of it, for we find them pos- 
 sessing an Art of their own that aided them in their religious 
 ceremonies and was not considered in contradiction to existing 
 laws and regulations. The Holy Ark, for instance, a distinct 
 description of which is given in the Penta^uch ; — but I am 
 going too fast. The necessity of forbidding the imitation of 
 everything that is in the heaven above, the earth beneath, and 
 the waters under the earth, as leading them back more par- 
 ticularly to idolatry, will appear, when we recollect the number- 
 less copies of animated nature introduced into the religion of 
 the country out of which they had just emerged. 
 
 The caution imphed in this second command is reiterated 
 soon after by a prohibition of the making of gods of gold and 
 silver, which must, I think, have had reference, from the ex- 
 cessive value of these metals, to small pocket deities such as I 
 have before alluded to, though that the Egyptians were ac- 
 quainted with the method of covering other materials with 
 them we have existing evidence. There are wooden life-size 
 figures of Egyptian work in our Museum which still show that 
 they were originally covered with gold. That the Israelites 
 
412 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE, 
 
 had at that time much of Art, as well as wealth, among them, 
 and that they used that Art in the service of their religion is 
 seen soon after by the directions Moses gives for the making of 
 the ark. He tells them to take of gold, silver, and brass, of 
 blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen, and to use onyx and 
 other stones ; desires them to make it of shittim wood, and to 
 cover it within and without with gold, and to make a crown 
 of gold about it. He gives the size and pattern of it ; orders 
 the casting of gold rings, and staves overlaid with gold for 
 the carrying of it ; directs that two cherubim of beaten gold 
 be placed one on each side with their faces looking to the 
 mercy-seat in the centre, and their wings stretched over and 
 towards it. 
 
 Various other directions of a like kind are given for the 
 making of the candlesticks, the table for the shew-bread, &c. 
 Debates may now arise as to the exact designs indicated by 
 these directions, but all will agree that they show neither want 
 of taste and power to carry them out, nor want of material to 
 execute them in. These directions too show that the practice 
 of weaving cloth into fine patterns was known among them, for 
 the curtains of the tabernacle are ordered to be made with 
 *' cherubim of cunning work " upon them. The rules laid down 
 for all these matters are very strict as well as voluminous, and 
 highly interesting to the artist. These full directions respecting 
 the tabernacle are followed by equally implicit regulations for 
 the style and fashion of the priests' dresses, and they who are 
 to construct them are designated by a word which we have 
 translated wise-hearted and filled with the spirit of wisdom ; 
 inventive geniuses, perhaps, we should now call them. 
 
 The first who is named as celebrated for his cleverness is 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 413 
 
 Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 
 and he is described by the usual terms, as filled with the spirit 
 of God, in wisdom, and as a worker in metals, in cutting of 
 stones, and in wood carving ; and another name comes imme- 
 diately after as a sort of assistant, Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, 
 of the tribe of Dan, and he is complimented in the same man- 
 ner : perhaps he was the one who really did the work, though 
 the other got the credit. 
 
 This love and knowledge of Art begins to display itself soon 
 after, though not quite in the right way, for we find the multi- 
 tude going astray in consequence of Moses's absence, and making 
 to themselves a golden calf. There is an apparent inconsistency 
 in the description of it, whether arising from translation into an- 
 other tongue I cannot tell ; it is one, however, which may, I 
 think, without difficulty, be reconciled : perhaps in the new 
 translation which we are to have it may be set right. In the 
 first part, Aaron is described as ordering the children of Israel 
 to break off the golden earrings in their wives' ears, and he is 
 then said to have made a molten calf of them, and afterwards 
 fashioned it with a graving tool ; later in the chapter he says, " I 
 cast it into the fire and there came out this calf ; " this, taken 
 literally, means of course a figure cast in gold and finished by 
 the chasing tool; if so, we may pronounce it without much 
 doubt to have been of small dimensions, and we may readily 
 imagine it to have been not unlike the Egyptian Apis, or sacred 
 bull, to the worship of which it was, in fact, a return. Soon 
 after comes the verse relating the manner in which Moses de- 
 stroyed the molten calf. I will quote it to you : " And he took 
 the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and 
 ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made 
 
414 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 the children of Israel drink of it." No miracle is, so far as I 
 know, implied; so I may say without offence that I think 
 it would be a difficult thing to burn a molten image in the fire, 
 still more difficult to grind it to powder, and even yet more 
 difficult to scatter it upon the water, to say nothing of the 
 poor sinners be Jag made to drink it at the end of the story ; 
 at all events, it is a most roundabout way of putting an end 
 to the thing. All these difficulties vanish, however, and 
 the whole becomes more consistent, by our supposing that 
 the statue was a wooden one, covered with gold-leaf; it 
 might then easily be burnt in the fire, and the ashes be strawed 
 upon the waters ; it might, too, have been colossal, like most of 
 the deities they had left behind them. And we may add yet 
 another reason for our belief that this is the right solution : 
 the wanderers were scarcely yet sufficiently stationary to admit 
 of the process of casting being carried on on a large scale, and 
 that the covering of wood with gold was a method used in their 
 Sculpture I have already shown you by allusion to instances in 
 our Museum. The Koran says that the calf was made to bellow, 
 but we have nothing to do with that; the evidence is not worth 
 attending to. 
 
 All the directions for the making of the tabernacle are again 
 given when the covenant is renewed, perhaps more explicitly 
 than at first, and the enthusiasm of the people is shown by 
 their bringing more riches to the work than was required, and 
 the names of Bezaleel and Aholiab are repeated more than once ; 
 so that they must have been very eminent in their calling. 
 That their work was valuable, we may not unreasonably infer 
 from the circumstance that particular persons are afterwards 
 appointed to take care of it. The Book of Leviticus contains 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 415 
 
 little to our purpose, though the prohibition of making images 
 is repeated here and there, and stone and wood are again 
 mentioned as the material. The term, " standing image," too is 
 used to distinguish, I presume, the fixed or larger figure from 
 the smaller portable ones. All these warnings, coupled ever 
 and anon with an appeal to their remembrances of what had 
 been done for them, appear to me as so much evidence of the 
 still existing idolatry among the tribes, carried on privately, 
 perhaps, but yet very common. 
 
 There is a hint to young painters in the Book of Numbers, 
 where Moses decrees to the people that they put fringes on 
 their garments with a ribbon of blue in them. It will teach 
 artists to do the same in their pictures, when representing sub- 
 jects that have to do with them. 
 
 The brazen serpent in the wilderness we may pass over, for 
 the reason that, beyond the statement that it was a brazen 
 serpent on a pole, we have no description of it. The practice 
 of putting it on a cross, resorted to in modern Art, is, of course, 
 a following out the notion that it was typical of Christ, but has 
 no real foundation beyond that. 
 
 In the Book of Joshua, more of a general and less of a states- 
 man than Moses, we find but little to notice. War prevailed 
 throughout his time, and war did then, as it does now, interrupt 
 Art and other intellectual pursuits. In Judges, again, allusions 
 to it are few and far between, nor is it to be expected that they 
 should be otherwise in the records of a newly-formed nation, 
 when long periods of time are marked merely by the assertion 
 that So-and-so judged Israel and slept with his forefathers. 
 Yet, even here, we may pick up a few stray crumbs of informa- 
 tion. In Deborah's song, for instance, mention is made of 
 
41 6 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 garments of divers colours of needlework on both sides, showing 
 that the patterns were worked in the warp and the woof, and 
 not merely dyed on the surface. 
 
 In the books of Numbers, Judges, Samuel, &c., we may say 
 that Art only crops up here and there on the surface. We 
 have repetitions of the word idols, and allusions, again, to richly- 
 woven garments. The Philistine image, Dagon, is brought up 
 and declared to have mysteriously fallen down and been broken 
 before the Ark, but nothing is given by which we can judge of 
 its shape and character. 
 
 The rebellion of David's children against him, his having a 
 heavy crown of gold and precious stones put upon his head, 
 and his other troubles are recorded. The times were out of 
 joint, and Art sank into the background. 
 
 We read of nothing of importance until we come to the ist 
 Kings and the time of Solomon, who, declaring that the Lord 
 his God had given him rest, and that there was "neither adver- 
 sary nor evil occurrent," began the building of the Temple. 
 There is a verse just previous to the account of his work that 
 seems to indicate him as a great naturalist; it says, " He spake 
 of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the 
 hyssop that springeth out of the wall ; he spake also of beasts, 
 and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there 
 came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon." I have 
 quoted this because I think that, in the description of the 
 decorations of the Temple, we shall find the taste of the great 
 naturalist carried out. It is true that in all very primitive Art 
 the natural objects belonging to the country immediately about 
 it, are introduced ; but this feature seems to have been par- 
 ticularly strong in this first Temple. First comes in the name 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 417 
 
 of Hiram, who undertakes to import for Solomon all the materials 
 for the building — the cedars and other timbers — and to bring 
 them down from Lebanon to the sea, in exchange for wheat 
 and oil. We have then the number of men employed, and a 
 regular plan of the building follows, and a statement that every 
 stone was worked away from the edifice, so that no noise was 
 caused by the constructing. Mention is made of stones, costly 
 from their enormous size ; and I think we all know of what 
 immense blocks the walls and substructure of Jerusalem are 
 found to consist. 
 
 All this, however, is too long for me to trouble you with, 
 though it may not be uninteresting to you to study, as a tole- 
 rable idea may be formed of the whole. Our business is more 
 with the decorations ; so we may go on to say that the oracle 
 was carved with knops and open flowers entirely of cedar, so that 
 no stone was seen, and completely covered with gold; and that 
 within this oracle stood two cherubim of olive-tree, each ten 
 cubits high, with wings five cubits long. We get, too, at the 
 size of the chambers by these cherubim, as it is said their 
 wings touched the end of the wall, and met together in the 
 middle of the house. Then comes the mention of carved palm- 
 trees, and again of open flowers. Gold seems to have been 
 spread everywhere, even on the floors — a sure sign of a bar- 
 barous style of Art, where richness of material is substituted 
 for excellence of execution — and at the end of the story comes 
 a record of the time occupied by the work (seven years). 
 
 After the building of the Temple, we read of the building of 
 Solomon's own house; and here is introduced the name of 
 Hiram — whether the same as before mentioned, I cannot tell. 
 He is here called a widow's son, of the tribe of Naphtali, and 
 
 E E 
 
41 8 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 his father was a man of Tyre. He is described, like the 
 other clever artists, as filled with wisdom and understanding, 
 and cunning to work all works in brass ; and the result of his 
 genius is enumerated — pillars of brass and chapiters of the 
 same, decorated with pomegranates, chain-work, lily-work, and 
 other fanciful ornaments. He is said to have made for Solomon 
 a molten sea — a metal fountain would be the proper term — that 
 stood on twelve oxen, with all their hind^ parts set inwards, 
 similar to the fountains of lions in the Alhambra. 
 
 In the Second Book of Chronicles the description of the 
 building of the Temple is again recorded, and further details 
 are given well worth studying. David is said to have handed 
 down the design of it to his son Solomon, and to have given 
 particular directions as to the building of the porch, before his 
 death. The riches and labour that were lavished on the 
 Temple seem to have taxed the people heavily, for after the 
 death of Solomon we find them complaining to his son Reho- 
 boam, and asking him to lighten their burdens, and the old 
 men of his father's court advising his doing so. 
 
 All this, however, I need not trouble you with ; it will be 
 sufficient if I say that a long series of divisions, partly political 
 and partly religious in their character, ensued — politics and 
 religion were, in fact, so mixed up together as to render it almost 
 impossible to separate them ; a contention took place between 
 the worship of the true God and idolatry, under the name of 
 Baal and other deities, without either prevailing in any great 
 degree or for any length of years. This will strike you as less 
 surprising if you think for a moment. 
 
 Idolatry, or the requiring of a tangible object to bow down 
 to, is the first effort at acknowledging a superior Power. Man 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 419 
 
 in a savage state apprehends the existence of a something 
 which rules his destiny, and to which he is subservient in spite 
 of himself ; but is incapable of conceiving that something as 
 either omnipresent or invisible : he endeavours, therefore, to 
 satisfy a difficulty thus created in his uneducated mind as to 
 the personification of a Power, by symbolizing it in some way 
 or other, according to the good or evil notions he has formed 
 of it. 
 
 The Israelites symbolized all their false deities, as did 
 every other early nation ; and — though we are not likely to 
 turn to that feeUng in Art again — it had one good effect : 
 it kept it from the Hteral, the individual, and the common- 
 place, which in Sculpture are ever more or less detrimental to 
 success. There may be some exceptions to this, but I believe 
 the observation is, in the main, correct. To proceed : we have 
 nothing particularly interesting before the first captivity, when 
 
 Wept the captive Jews by Babel's waters, still remembering 
 Zion nor have we much record of them during their 536 years 
 of slavery — still less of either their Art or that of their 
 masters. Babylon is a flat country, and the buildings were 
 made of bricks, and the walls covered with plaster ; so that not 
 only the buildings themselves, but the sculptures upon them, 
 have been less durable, and consequently less handed down to 
 us. There is a small stone in the British Museum, however 
 — apparently a black basalt — of a very interesting character, 
 covered with hieroglyphics which record an agreement for the 
 purchase of a field. How many times do we, in the Scriptures, 
 come upon a legal document of this sort — a stone put up as 
 witness to a covenant between men ! It seems, in fact, to have 
 been the earliest method used among all these Eastern nations 
 
420 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 of certifying to their rights in landed property — not always^ 
 as you may suppose, very accurately marked down. I am 
 obliged, for want of time, to pass over, in this hasty sketch, many 
 books where little or no allusion to Art takes place. The line 
 and plummet are mentioned, it is true, in Job ; bat it can 
 hardly be expected that much reference should be made to Art 
 in this, perhaps the greatest of all poetical productions — it deals 
 too much in the higher sublimities of Nature for that; but 
 I may advise the student, if he wishes to enlarge his mind, 
 to devote serious attention to the grand imagery as well as the 
 pure philosophy it contains. He will be the better for it, both 
 in his Art and otherwise. It formed, indeed, as you know, the 
 subject for illustration to one of the most imaginative artists of 
 this country — Blake — who was himself a philosopher and a 
 poet, and consistent in all he did with what he designed on 
 paper or taught in verse ; though, strange to say, he seemed all 
 his life to walk on that narrow ridge which divides genius from 
 insanity, without ever exactly stepping off on the wrong side. 
 In Isaiah we come, however, upon more solid ground, where we 
 find the first reference to the second captivity and to Assyrian 
 Art ; for we have now actual examples from which to judge, and 
 we have arrived more within the real range of true history^ 
 sacred and profane. The date of these marbles extends with 
 certainty from iioo to 700 years B.C., and perhaps with some 
 uncertainty somewhat before and after that period. 
 
 I will not ask you as artists to seek in these examples sub- 
 jects for imitation in your Art, for you have works of a much 
 higher order for that purpose; but I will ask you to look at 
 them carefully, and say if they are not highly interesting as 
 records of the manners of the people to whom they belong: 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 421 
 
 they are not even entirely without style, as I hope to show you 
 hereafter. A comparison between them and Egyptian Art 
 seems natural, at the first moment of examining them, from 
 their being coeval with, if not earlier, than most of the latter. 
 The Egyptian is certainly far more refined in its conception as 
 well as in its execution than the Assyrian ; its statues are more 
 elegant and more finished — perhaps not more carried out 
 in detail, but worked with a greater feeling for beauty, and 
 I should say with a better knowledge of internal form ; the 
 Egyptians, too, deal more in higher subjects, their deities and 
 supernatural beings. There seems, however, to have been less 
 attempt at portraying movement than with the Assyrians, 
 whether intentionally or from want of power I will not say ; for 
 I have already hinted to you my belief that the grand solemnity 
 of their statues is much dependent on that quiet placidity with 
 which they are invested. I have sometimes, in fact, even 
 thought that the Greeks themselves lost something in their Art, 
 great as it was, by too much variety in treatment and a too 
 liberal representation of action : that they kept closer to the 
 simple, stolid manner of the Egyptians in their more colossal 
 works — like the great Minerva — we all know ; and it is a proof 
 that they were aware that simplicity is the very essence of the 
 sublime. 
 
 The Assyrian country is a rocky, mountainous one, and 
 hence it is we find large blocks and slabs of marble used in 
 their Sculpture, and that their Art has come down to us in 
 greater quantities and in a more perfect state than that of Baby- 
 lonia. Quarries were to be found within their own land. If 
 you examine these sculptures you will find them, I think, more 
 literal in their treatment than the Egyptians; they are, in fact, as 
 
422 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 literal as the powers of truthful representation then existing 
 admitted ; some personifications of ideal beings, good and bad 
 demons, are given, and the winged circle is shown as emblema- 
 tical of divine power or eternity. Their human-headed winged 
 bulls, and fish-god, represent, it is said, their deity Nin, and 
 their human-headed winged lion, their god Nergal — personifica- 
 tions, in all probability, like the Egyptian Sphinx, of the com- 
 bined powers of Nature. But the scenes relate almost wholly 
 to the history and manners of the people themselves \ to their 
 wars, their sieges, and other kinds of attack and defence ; to 
 their triumphal processions and modes of treating their van- 
 quished enemies; to the ceremonies of their court, to their 
 hunting, and other sports of the higher classes. It may be as- 
 well that I should call to your mind that all these carved works, 
 decorations of palaces and temples of enormous size, whose 
 architecture consisted wholly of horizontal and perpendicular 
 lines, were entirely covered with the most brilliant colours, the 
 natural tints of animated objects being imitated as closely as. 
 the then knowledge of Art admitted ; it will serve to help you 
 in your conception of their gorgeous effect as a whole, especially 
 under the sunny aspect of the East. They now, perhaps, seem 
 to you flat and confused, especially those where an immense 
 number of minute figures are introduced, and many events 
 portrayed within a comparatively small space ; but you will 
 readily understand that this colouring would not only produce 
 a very brilliant effect as a whole, especially with the strong con- 
 trast and abrupt divisions of colour then resorted to, but serve 
 to make distinct much that now appears confused from an over 
 multitude of parts. I may say here that the composition of 
 many of them is not so crude in its character as you would 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 423 
 
 suppose on first looking at them : some of the representations 
 of their Uon-hunts belonging to the later period, the seventh 
 century B.C., show a beauty of line and a variety in grouping 
 that vies with the best Greek Art, and are carried out in a 
 manly style that only wants a little more Art-education to make 
 it perfect. In other cases, as must always be in such very early 
 works, mechanical arrangement, and a too literal gazette-like 
 reading interferes with what I have just stated, and reduces 
 them to dry relations of facts. Yet from this very matter-of- 
 fact manner is derived an interest which would not exist were 
 they more liberally, more poetically treated. You feel more 
 confident that they are historically true, that no liberty 
 has been taken in the recording of events, that they bring 
 before you more faithfully the people : that their physiognomies 
 are more correctly given, their dresses more closely imitated, 
 their habits of life more truthfully shown. You see into the 
 far back of that powerful nation, and understand better their 
 character, and what a powerful warlike people they must have 
 been — might was right at any rate in their day. You can see 
 nothing but war, contention of tribes one with another, besieging 
 of cities, triumphs over the fallen, carrying away of captives, 
 and seizing of spoils. War seems to have been the object of 
 life among the heads of the country, and to toil and slave the 
 sole business of the lower orders. 
 
 The recorded history of these countries is faint and indistinct, 
 even with the light thrown upon it by the cuneiform inscriptions 
 now so cleverly translated. Xenophon has some most interest- 
 ing allusions to them in his Cyropaedia, but it is to their Sculp- 
 ture that we must look for an insight into their habits and 
 customs. We find in these marbles the true type of the nation, 
 
424 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 very closely resembling — in fact, almost the same as that of the 
 Jews : we have everything that relates to their dress, whether 
 of the higher or lower classes, and we see in these dresses the 
 diiference between the king with the small knob at the top of 
 his cap, and his generals and officers of his army in their pointed 
 helmets (one of these helmets is preserved in our Museum, and 
 testifies to the literal copying in these sculptures) ; we could 
 even construct a chariot and harness a horse with perfect cor- 
 rectness after the pattern given, so accurate are they ; and most 
 splendid must they have looked. We can understand how 
 gorgeous were the habiUments of the rich and powerful, with 
 their fringed garments and highly ornamented vestures ; and 
 we can feel how mean and neglected were the half-clad slaves 
 with their bands of cloth round their heads, their loins covered 
 with a scanty wrapper, and their backs bare to the lash that is 
 represented as flourishing over them : for the nude with them 
 was not an artistic preference, but a sad reality. We perceive, 
 in fact, what numberless hordes were at the beck and call of one 
 man, and at how little value their lives were held, and we detect 
 at the same time from their very appearance what brute-like, 
 degraded creatures these poor wretches were — men only in 
 shape, and hardly that. We can understand from these reliefs 
 all the modes of warfare resorted to, as well as their implements 
 of offence and defence : we see their shields, some of them 
 high enough to cover the whole man, and so shaped as to stand 
 on the ground and form a complete wall of defence against the 
 arrows of the enemy ; we find in them the use of the battering- 
 ram, and we can make out the general character of their walls 
 and fortifications with the moats surrounding them ; we see the 
 soldiers swimming across rivers on the blown-out skins of 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 425 
 
 animals, to attack the fortifications, and we find them throwing 
 their adversaries firom the top of the walls, or driving them into 
 the river, where their bodies are shown lying in the water 
 among the horses that have been killed and the fishes that are 
 swimming about. Vultures and ravens are feeding on the dead 
 and dying. We may observe their custom of decapitating their 
 prisoners and throwing down their heads in piles at the gate of 
 the city, or at the feet of the conqueror. Many allusions to this 
 practice are to be found in the Scriptures ; and we may observe 
 these poor captives prostrating themselves before their con- 
 querors and pleading for mercy, or submitting themselves with 
 a fatalistic passiveness to the hand of the executioner. 
 
 Representations of high interest are given of the building of 
 their palaces and temples. You can ascertain at once all the 
 appliances they then had for moving the immense stone masses 
 that have been handed down to us. A lever of great length is 
 used, worked by many hands, one attending to the fulcrum 
 below, whilst others are giving their weight and strength at the 
 end. The huge human-headed bull was put on a sledge, and 
 made to travel on to its destination by these means, and by the 
 assistance of numberless slaves who dragged at it by ropes. 
 Planks were placed in front of the ponderous weight in regular 
 succession as it proceeded, and these were greased or oiled in 
 order to make it slide glibly on. Superintendents grease' the 
 slaves themselves with the lash, and with no very great amount 
 of reserve, in order to prevent their flagging in their exertions, 
 whilst a leader stands on -the colossal figure and directs the 
 whole. 
 
 Objects of the vegetable kingdom are very conventionally 
 given, chiefly from ignorance of scientific perspective, and their 
 
426 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 rivers are represented by a series of undulating lines, on which 
 are shown fishes in considerable numbers, and often of clearly- 
 defined species. Their trees are formally arranged, but sufii- 
 ciently marked in their shape to enable you to distinguish the 
 sort intended. The palm-tree is very frequent. A line of single 
 trees and figures of men placed in alternate succession between 
 them is made to signify that a battle took place in a wood. A 
 marshy piece of ground is indicated by a multitude of reeds, 
 which, from their want of variety, become in themselves a not 
 unpleasing pattern, and among these, swine with their young, 
 and other animals that frequent such localities, help to carry 
 out the idea. 
 
 I have reserved my observations to the last on the relievos 
 representing their hunting-scenes, because in them, as it appears 
 to me, are their highest efforts in Art ; they belong, in fact, to 
 the latest period known. Many animals served for the purpose 
 of the chase : wild horses were killed with arrows, or captured 
 with the lasso, and deer were hunted and destroyed by the same 
 means; but the royal amusement was evidently the lion-hunt, 
 and this, not improbably, was reserved as the prerogative of the 
 kings alone. We have the whole system exhibited to us by what 
 I have no hesitation in saying is, in many respects, a very grand 
 style of Art. 
 
 Many of you have, I dare say, read of the preserve of tigers 
 laid claim to by Montague Tigg, as director of the Anglo-Ben- 
 galee Insurance Company, in " Martin Chuzzlewit," but few of 
 you are, perhaps, aware that a record exists of a real preserve 
 of lions on the east side of Nineveh. Fact is often said to be 
 stranger than fiction, and this might be quoted as an instance 
 of it. At any rate, we can discern that the animals were kept 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 427 
 
 in huge wooden cages; that they were carried in these cages 
 into the forest, and let out for the purpose of the hunt. We see 
 in more than one of these fine works the slave standing on the 
 top of the cage, and lifting up the trap-door, while the royal 
 beast stalks out with a grandeur of step, with a natural dignity 
 quite his own j these relievos have, in fact, never been surpassed 
 for truthfulness, for a thorough knowledge of the habits of the 
 creature, in any department of Art, either before or since. We 
 may have learned better to portray hair, we may have gained 
 more correct knowledge of anatomy ; but these old sculptors had 
 witnessed the scene they represented, had been, perhaps, atten- 
 dants on the royal chase, had watched the king of the forest 
 as he crept out of his confinement, with his growl of thunder, 
 eager to regain his liberty, and, unconscious of the poor being 
 standing above him to whom he owes his release, or perhaps 
 too much nauseated with Esclave au natiirel to care much for 
 a repetition of the every-day dish. Alas ! poor fellow \ he takes 
 but a moment's glance at his native forests, and a moment's 
 hope of freedom is all he is allowed. A king of men is there, 
 an arrow is in his side, and a hideous howl announces that his 
 end is near. And yet he dies like a king. The various ways in 
 which the royal beast is represented succumbing to the attack 
 is a lesson that may be learnt by artists even in these later days. 
 In one instance he is seen with a spear piercing his spine, and 
 his hinder quarters in consequence paralyzed, whilst the fore- 
 most half is still roaring defiance at his oppressors. In another 
 he is shown tottering along, still retaining with effort his natural 
 dignity of step, though pierced with numerous points on all 
 sides. You feel that in the next moment he will roll over on 
 the cold earth, never to rise again. In a third, he is shown as 
 
428 EARLY HISTORY OF SCULPTURE. 
 
 shot right through both eyes, and leaping into the air with both 
 paws extended in a wild, confused manner, the sure prelude to 
 an immediate collapse. In another, again, he is brought gra- 
 dually to the ground, and vomiting forth blood from his mouth 
 — an unmistakable sign that the enemy Death has broken 
 through the fortress of life, and that all is over. Every beast 
 not only dies naturally, but dies according to the manner in 
 which he is slain. Slaves are represented as carrying home 
 the victim, six or eight to each carcase, and returning with 
 their mules laden with ropes, traps, and other instruments of 
 the chase. 
 
 I had intended in this lecture to have gone more completely 
 through the Bible, but time prevents me. Perhaps I may have 
 induced you to search into it for yourselves \ if so, my object will 
 have been attained. I have too, in my path, tripped my foot 
 against these stones of Assyria, lying in the sands, and found 
 them of too much interest and to contain too much practical 
 instruction to be passed by in haste. I would say to you. Look 
 well at them. And now you will ask me what has been my 
 purport in pointing out their peculiarities, what benefit has it 
 been to your Art ; what, in short, is the moral of my tale ? It 
 is this : — If you would have your work valued hereafter, you 
 must have in it no borrowed imagery, no emblems connected 
 with foreign lands or past days : but let it run side by side with 
 the history of your own country, and with the manners of the 
 times in which you live. You must make of it a mirror of the 
 thoughts and feelings of the day to which it belongs. I will give 
 you my meaning from that passage in the book we have just 
 been glancing into, where Joshua desires each man to take up 
 a stone and place it in a heap as a memorial of their passing 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 429 
 
 over Jordan, and says to them : " That this may be a sign among 
 you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, 
 saying. What mean ye by these stones ? then ye shall be able 
 to answer them." 
 
 CHISWICK press: — CHARLES WHIT TINGHAM, TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
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