4 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 PAINTING AND DESIGN. 
 
I 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 
 
 PAINTING x\ND DESIGN 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE ART- 
 ANATOMY THE BASIS OF DRAWING-THE SKELETON— 
 THE MUSCLES OF MAN AND QUADRUPED- 
 STANDARD FKJU RE- 
 COMPOSITION-COLOUR-ANCIENTS AND MODERNS— INVENTION. 
 
 WITH DESIGNS DRAWN BY HIMSELF ON THE WOOD, 
 
 " And I now see how superior painting from nature is above every thing 
 th;it«iiir imagination, assisted by our memory, can conceive." 
 
 IJamd Wilkie, nge<l 18, Aug. 'i'l, Extract from a letter to 
 
 a friend of hi* youth, Thomas Macdonald. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 
 
 BY 
 
 B. R. HAYDON, 
 
 IlISTOniCAI. I-AINTF,a. 
 
 AND FNGRAVK.I) BY KOWARD EVANS. 
 
 PATF.RNOSTF,R-ROW. 
 
 1844. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY MANNING AND MASON, IVY-LANK, ST. PAUL'?. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 
 
 THE POET, 
 
 Til AFFECTION, RESPECT, AND ADMIllATION, 
 
 uy 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 London, Scpfenihrr, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Finding in early life, the great want of a concise 
 course of anatomical investigation by a painter, and tit 
 only for a painter's use, I have endeavoured in these 
 lectures to supply that deficiency, taking John Bell's 
 admirable work on the bones and muscles as my guide, 
 and adding all I had ascertained from dissection and 
 reference to the antique, rejecting what belongs ex- 
 clusively to the surgeon, and omitting no internal 
 muscle which affects the external shape. It is hoped 
 the student will be pleased to have his road shortened; 
 for, although my own pupils have always had the 
 advantage of this method, it is only now for the first 
 time placed before the public. 
 
 As the lectures are arranged, the amateur may go 
 at once from the first lecture to the fourth; for what is 
 generally stated in the first, is summed up in the fourth, 
 i.e. if he dislike to go through the second and third, how- 
 ever interesting: not so the student in art; the course 
 laid down for him is the regular course of all students 
 • who wish to master the elements of conveying thought 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 by the imitation of things, and no one lecture, nor any 
 part of any lecture, must be neglected, from beginning 
 to end. I consider every reader, as I considered every 
 individual of each audience, a pupil, who comes for the 
 information required to understand the art, either as 
 an intellectual pleasure or a practical profession. 
 
 It is here supposed that every reader is ignorant of 
 the subject: he is taken by the hand, he begins at the 
 beginning, he goes through step by step ; and if he will 
 studiously read every lecture, and not go to another 
 till he know and comprehend the preceding one, and 
 put in practice what he learns, I promise faithfully to 
 bring him to that delightful reward for all his anxieties 
 at last, — " a hand and eye obedient to his conception." 
 
 I need not intrude on the reader the heart-beating 
 anxiety with which I delivered my first lecture at the 
 Mechanics' Institution, September 1835. From the 
 oppression of the authorities in art, without any cause, 
 and my subsequent resistance and opposition to them, 
 I had brought on myself the enmity of all those who 
 hoped to advance in life by their patronage; loss of 
 employment, from their continual calumny, brought 
 loss of income; the rich advanced loans to finish great 
 works, they were persuaded by the authorities not to 
 purchase; the usual consequences of debt and incom- 
 petency followed; and perhaps no man ever appeared 
 before a public assembly with such a load of unjust accu- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 sation, abominable falsehood, or determined opposition, 
 as I did on that night. I knew that my principles, my 
 motives, my character, would bear the strictest scrutiny, 
 and I gloried in the air of defiance with which I was 
 watched; as I proceeded, the applause increased, and I 
 concluded my lecture amidst such a burst of enthusiasm 
 as had not often been witnessed on art. Before this, I 
 had endeavoured to found a school on the principles 
 of the Old Masters. Eastlake was my first pupil: I 
 watched and guided his progress with the affection of 
 a brother, in his drawing, dissection, and painting. 
 The Landseers, Lance, Harvey, Prentice, Chatfield, 
 followed; but the authorities considered a school on 
 the principles of dissection and drawing inconsistent 
 with their dignity, and the plan went to the earth, 
 overwhelmed by their ridicule, oppression, and abuse, 
 in the general ruin of my affairs. 
 
 These lectures have been given to all classes, without 
 the suppression of a single thought, or the concealment 
 of a single principle; and why have they been success- 
 ful? — because they are honest. Let a man speak what 
 he believes to be the truth, let him speak it as if he 
 was sincere, all parties will hail him. My object was 
 to implant sound principles of High Art in the public 
 mind; that was my calling, and I can answer to my 
 conscience I fearlessly obeyed the impulse. I now 
 publish them to the world, and hope they will be suc- 
 
 h 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 cessful. I feel a pleasure in Messrs. Longman being 
 the publishers, and if the first series be approved, the 
 second shall immediately follow. 
 
 To Edinburgh and Liverpool, and to the different 
 audiences of Manchester, Birmingham, Bath, Leeds, 
 Leicester, Newcastle, and Warrington; to the London 
 Institution, the Royal Institution Albemarle-street, and 
 to the University of Oxford, — I return my grateful 
 thanks; but it is natural I should particularly remem- 
 ber that institution which first gave me the opportunity 
 so eagerly desired by me, and so long and pertinaciously 
 denied me in London. However, I have lived to see 
 all began which I left my father's house to accomplish, 
 and I shall yet live to see British High Art acknow- 
 ledged by the world. 
 
 B. R. HAYDON. 
 
 London, 1 4, Burwood Place, 
 August 29, 1844. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Genius gifted, not acquired — no dating the Origin of Art — Basis of 
 all Design, the Human Figure — necessity of a Standard Form — 
 Standard Form proved by contrast with Brutes and reference to 
 Elgin Marbles — neglect of Drawing in English School — Art 
 stopped at the Refonnation — State Patronage ceased — Anatomy, 
 Basis of Drawing — Question, if Greek Artists dissected? — belief 
 they did — English Deficiency accidental — Causes — Prospects of 
 Art 1 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 On the Skeleton — the Basis of Muscular Knowledge — Description of 
 it, and comparison with the Quadruped — Brain the seat of Intel- 
 lect — Evidence — the leading Principles of Phrenology true — state 
 of Taste in England — disposition of the I.nglish to touch, break, 
 deface, and carry away Relics — improvement latterly — DiHiculties 
 of Genius a stimulus — disinterested Conduct of British Artists — 
 Burke's Opinion _.------.43 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 On the Muscles - 107 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The General Question of the System of Greeks in forming a Standard 
 Figure — Opinion of Reynolds, Fuseli, Opie— absurd Idea, that 
 without Practical Principles such a Figure could be formed— the 
 Assertion of Cicero, that Phidias rested solely on his Imagination, 
 absurd — Recapitulation and Conclusion— the Four first Lectures 
 the Basis of the rest - - - - - - - -173 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 Composition — Principles of Raffaelle and great Masters— Cartoons and 
 Vatican— modes of arranging Figures— Ellipsis— Circle— Pyramid, 
 etc. etc. — repetition of the Inclination of Line the Principal 
 Figure makes, the secret of all boautirul Arrangement of Figures 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 and Quantities — Distance between Groups not to be settled on a 
 Law — Composition duly valued by Great Men, undervalued by 
 Weak Ones — Simplicity a suspicious Virtue if used to avoid Diffi- 
 culties — a leading Line, as well as a leading Group, Figure, Colour, 
 Liglit and Shadow, to be visible, or Confusion will be the result — 
 Defence of Raffaelle from Reynolds and Vasari — the Knowledge 
 of the Ancients equal to Moderns in all parts of Art, and infinitely 
 superior in the Naked — Colour not incompatible with Design — 
 the Defect of Venetian and Roman Schools accidental, and not 
 intentional - - - - - - - - - -211 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 On Colour — Vehicle — Grounds — Modes of Execution ^ — Surface — 
 Tone — Glazing — Ancients — Venetians — English — Davy's Opinion 
 — Oil the only Vehicle — mistake that Oil was invented by Van Eyk 
 — known in England 200 years before — known in the Tenth 
 Century in Italy — known in Greece as a Varnish, perhaps as a 
 Vehicle, and probably in Egypt too _ - - _ - 247 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Invention — highest Faculty of Genius — not to be acquired, a Gift of 
 God — Epic, Dramatic, and Historic Style — Johnson wrong in 
 asserting that Painting could not inform — Poetry and Painting 
 compared — Character of Michael Angelo overrated — not popular 
 in England — Proof of Taste — borrowing, how far allowable — 
 Shakspere borrowed his Plots and whole Scenes — Rubens — 
 bad Habit — Allegory often allowed — Invention as regards Portrait 
 — Reynolds and Lawrence compared — Reynolds the greater Man 
 — Choice of Subject of great Importance, and Choice of Moment 
 in the Subject — Perfection of Raffaelle and the Ancients in those 
 points — Conclusion. - -- -- -- - 297 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 .-8- -M * fiepi," read ^' Trepi.'' 
 
 — 128, — 14, for "No. 1,B. IJ. ' read " A.A." 
 
 — 267, — 7, (note), for " madidu^ si," reaii " 
 
 — 319, — 7, /or "men," read ''man." 
 
 — 331, — • 2, /or " grandiio-s," rt U'Z " gau'liiioss 
 
HAYDON'S LECTURES ON PAINTING. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Genius gifted, not acquired — No dating the Origin of Art — Basis of all 
 Design, the Human Figure — Necessity of a Jjtandard Form of Man; 
 how to ascertain it, by placing a Quadruped on his two Heels and Toes 
 like a Human Being, and ascertaining by Comparison what is peculiarly 
 Human and what Brutal — Reference to the Elgin Marbles and Antique 
 in Evidence of the System — Neglect of Drawing in the English School 
 — Art stopped by Reformation and Civil Wars — Public Patronage 
 ceased — Anatomy, basis of Drawing — Quei^tion if Greek Artists 
 dissected — Collateral Evidence they did — British Deficiency Accidental, 
 not Natural — Causes — Prospects of Art — Conclusion. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 There is an anecdote related of Gar rick, 
 which is not at all inapplicable at the present moment. 
 Garrick was subpoenaed on 13aretti's trial ; when he 
 appeared before the court, though he had for thirty 
 years been in the habit of speaking with the greatest 
 self-possession in the presence of thousands, yet the 
 instant he appeared in an unusual situation he became 
 so perplexed and confused, that he was actually sent 
 from the witness-box by the judge, as a man from 
 whom no evidence could be gotten ! 
 
 If this were the case with one who had obtained his 
 immortal reputation by public appearance, how much 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 more likely is it to be so with another who, for thirty- 
 one years, has lived in the solitude of his study, and 
 who now for the first time, after many humiliations 
 and great variety of fortune, ventures to intrude on an 
 assembly so keen and intelligent. 
 
 What he may, however, want in experience, he will 
 endeavour to make up by honesty of purpose; what 
 in self-possession, by an unflinching, impaling, and 
 merciless research for truth ; and when he has done, 
 he earnestly hopes he may not deserve to be sent from 
 the box, as a witness from whom no evidence could be 
 gotten. 
 
 The foundation of the production of all excellence 
 in art or science is the possession of genius. There is 
 no faculty of the mind about the nature of which there 
 have been such fierce disputes. Some asserting that 
 education and external impression have more to do 
 with difference in men, intellectually and physically, 
 than inherent gifted powers of mind or body. Others, 
 " that the bounteous gift which nature sews up in us" 
 is alone genius, and that education or accident have 
 no effect; while there are many, and illustrious men 
 among them, who believe that genius is nothing more 
 than the result of a strong, general capacity of mind, 
 without any predominant predilection; and while, at 
 the same time, one species of accidental impression 
 might have induced a man to develope his powers of 
 mind in painting, another sort of accidental impression 
 might have made the same man a poet, a musician, 
 a mathematician, a mechanic, or a warrior. Reynolds, 
 in his beautiful Discourses, has said, " If you have 
 great talents, industry will improve them; if you have 
 moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency." 
 
ON PAIiNTINO. 
 
 3 
 
 This is certainly a most seducing doctrine ; but as 
 likely to lead virtuous young men to misery and a 
 mad-house as to happiness and reputation. Reynolds' 
 Discourses are perpetually contradicting themselves on 
 this very faculty. 
 
 If you take them as a code of consistent laws 
 developed on one principle, they are inconsistent; for 
 not only on genius, but on many other great points 
 they are contradictory ; but if you take them as 
 separate discourses, delivered at separate periods to the 
 same men, who were first infants in art, then Ijecame 
 youths, and required other nourishment, and lastly grew 
 to men, and could venture on substantial food, nothing 
 can be better adapted for the gradual progress of mind 
 in painting than these exquisite productions. 
 
 If you have great genius, industry only can prove it; 
 but if you have not, industry, though it may increase 
 ])y practice the powers of your mind and hand, will 
 certainly never supply the original deficiency of nature. 
 Though there can be no question that idleness and 
 immorality, though ever so highly gifted, will never 
 accomplish so much good as virtue and industry, 
 however humble the talent may be that accompanies 
 them; yet, if circumstances and labour make all the 
 difference in men, allow me to ask if you believe that 
 any circumstances or any education would have made 
 Johnson's Boswell Alexander the Great, or Tiberius the 
 benevolent Howard? Industry will improve medio- 
 crity, but never elevate mediocrity to power. 
 
 What is every man who instructs in the art, thoroughly 
 convinced of? It is this, — what is teachable, he can 
 teach; what depends on organization of eye or power 
 of mind, he cannot supply. He can teach to draw, 
 
 b2 
 
4 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 decently ; he can teach to compose, fairly ; but he 
 can no more give susceptibility for colour to the brain 
 through the eye, than Mozart could by teaching bestow 
 a susceptibility to sound, where the brain through the 
 ear was defective: he cannot teach expression of the 
 passions; he can teach no man how to invent. 
 
 The theory of Reynolds was the theory of the 
 Johnsonian period, though Burke was a living thunder- 
 bolt of refutation. Johnson said genius was nothing 
 but a mind of large general powers accidentally deter- 
 mined to some particular object, — and Mad"" de Stael, 
 in Corinne, that genius was only the ordinary faculties 
 of us all, carried to a greater pitch of refinement than 
 most men possess them. But neither theories go far 
 enough, — neither theory will account for inherent 
 predilections, which fathers, mothers, and nurses, know 
 to exist in children, and which accident, by inflaming, 
 developes with furious power. It appears to me, that 
 genius for either poetry, painting, music, mathematics, 
 or war, is undoubtedly dependent on a mind of great 
 general powers for its development, but with the 
 addition of such intense susceptibility to receive 
 impressions through the senses on the brain from one 
 particular thing, as instantly to excite the powers of 
 the understanding to assist in the development of that 
 particular susceptibility. 
 
 Reynolds has said, you must have no dependence on 
 your own genius! Was this the feeling of Alexander, 
 when he embarked for Asia? Columbus, when he 
 sailed for America? Napoleon, when he invaded Italy? 
 Wellington, when he defended Portugal? Michael 
 Angelo, when he painted the Capella Sistina (though 
 he had never painted in fresco before); Raffaelle, when 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 5 
 
 he entered the Vatican ; or Phidias, when he adorned 
 the Parthenon? Certainly not; nothing but dependence 
 on their own genius could have produced the great 
 results which followed their efforts, — the consciousness 
 of power is not the impudence of conceit ; and no men 
 are more aware of the weaknesses of human nature than 
 such men as I have alluded to; they know whatever 
 their genius may be, nothing but the most incessant 
 industry can develope it; they know well, however 
 high their heads may tower in the clouds, their feet 
 must rest upon the earth, with all its imperfections, if 
 they wish to excite human sympathies. 
 
 Sir Joshua again adds, "I am convinced that assi- 
 duity unabated by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly 
 directed in the pursuit, will produce results, which some 
 call the etTect of natural powers;" and yet he acknow- 
 ledges after, "that CJarlo iNIaratti did all that industry 
 could do, but that he wanted streinjth of parts, in which 
 men are certainly not equal, a want that cannot be 
 supplied!" (Discourse VI.) And again in the same 
 discourse he says, " If a man have not the powers of 
 using the materials of invention, it must proceed from 
 a feebleness of intellect! " 
 
 Can any of you wish a more palpable refutation of 
 Reynolds' own favourite theory, than the quotations 
 from himself'? If inherent predilection, susceptibility, 
 or organization of mind, are nothing, you must believe 
 that if the apple which fell on Newton's head had 
 fallen on Titian's, it would in all probability have pro- 
 duced the same result! Now we are all convinced 
 it irouh! not and could not have done so; we are all 
 convinced Titian would have taken up the apple, and 
 studied its sun-burnt beauty of colour, while to Newton's 
 
6 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 inherent organization of mind the fall suggested the 
 great principle of gravitation ! 
 
 Whilst I presume thus to express the principle on 
 which I ground my conviction of the hopelessness of 
 pursuing any great object in art or science under the 
 idea that any industry will supply the deficiencies of 
 nature, yet wherever talent does exist, and indisputable 
 evidence has been given of its existence, in the humblest 
 amongst us, or in the highest, it is the duty of govern- 
 ment, the rich, and the Sovereign, to afford it every 
 assistance. 
 
 One of the most absurd laws in Athens, was the 
 prohibiting the exercise of the fine arts to any but free- 
 born men. As if any man ought to have been con- 
 sidered unworthy to exercise any powers of mind, by 
 any law of any creatures who like himself were obliged 
 to eat and sleep to keep up existence, if the Almighty 
 God had not thought him unworthy of his gifts ! On 
 this delightful principle, what would have become of 
 the Fables of ^Esop, or the Comedies of Terence ^ both 
 of whom were slaves. 
 
 Having thus cleared the way, by laying down the 
 principle of my belief, viz. that genius is a natural and 
 not an acquired power, which accident developes, but 
 cannot create^ I shall not plague you or myself with a 
 useless discussion as to where the arts first had origin, 
 whether in India or Egypt, Italy or Greece, before the 
 Flood or after the building of Babel: according to my 
 principle, the very first man born, after the Creation, 
 with such a peculiar and intense sensibility to receive 
 impressions through the eye, on the brain, of the beauty 
 of colour, light and shadow, and form, so as to be irre-' 
 sistibly impelled in his earliest childhood to attempt 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 7 
 
 the imitation of what he saw and felt by lines and 
 colours to convey his innocent thoughts and combina- 
 tions, in him originated PAINTING! 
 
 The very first man who felt more deeply than colour 
 or effect, the beauty of form as an actual substance, and 
 set about imitating what he saw by substance itself, in 
 him originated Sculpture. 
 
 The very first man again, who received more strongly 
 than either colour or substance, the impressions of 
 sound, in him originated Music. 
 
 And lastly, the very first man whose recipient sus- 
 ceptibility to the beauty of form, colour, suljstance, or 
 sound, was not adapted to receive such exclusive im- 
 pressions from either, as to be propelled to convey his 
 intellectual associations by their positive imitation; but 
 whose expansive powers preferred words as the most 
 subtle conveyers of thoughts excited by the impressions 
 of things, with all their infinite varieties and shades of 
 difference, past, present, and future, moral and phy- 
 sical, and gave vent to his immortal impressions in 
 measured cadence, in him originated Poetry. 
 
 Coleridge said painting was a something between a 
 thought and a thing. This is not enough. Painting 
 is the art of conveying thoughts by the imitation of 
 things. Painting conveys ideas by form, colour, and 
 light and shadow; but colour, and light and shadow, 
 can do little without form: an exact knowledge of the 
 forms of things, in their essence, cleared from all con- 
 sequences of accident or disease, is therefore the great 
 basis of conveying ideas clearly; and the power of 
 representing things exactly as they are, constitutes the 
 painter in domestic art; while that of restoring them 
 to what they were at creation, constitutes the great 
 
8 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 painter in high art. As colour, and light and shadow, 
 can do little but express a mysterious sentiment, form 
 is the basis of all art ; and a deep knowledge of the 
 human form, the basis of the knowledge of the forms 
 of all other objects in nature; and a power of drawing 
 the human figure, as it ought to be drawn, the founda- 
 tion of the power of imitating every thing else a painter 
 requires to use, as an instrument to convey thinking. 
 
 You must all be aware that in England, since the 
 Eeformation, from the art being entirely left to pursue 
 its own course, depending on the patronage of liberal 
 individuals, this great leading doctrine of all the great 
 schools abroad, has been almost entirely neglected. 
 Such was the absurd sophistry with which men de- 
 fended their inexcusable ignorance, that once in argu- 
 ment it was maintained against me that the English 
 School ought to draw badly, because every school had 
 a character, and this was the known character of the 
 English school ! According to this delightful principle 
 there is hardly a vice morally, or a defect physically, 
 which ought not to exist as a distinction of character I 
 If a man is disposed to murder, don't disturb him ! it 
 is a bit of character; men would be all alike if it were 
 not for these distinctions ! Thieving is but an enviable 
 variety among human propensities, and falsehood but 
 an agreeable deviation from the main and tedious road 
 of truth ! So of the English school : you would not 
 have it draw finely, would you? all other schools draw 
 finely, why should not the English school be indulged 
 in its infantine desire to be distinguished by drawing 
 ill*? why should all schools be alike? why should the 
 imitation of heads, arms, body, legs and feet, and hands, 
 be like their prototypes'? why should they be correct'? 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 9 
 
 Is it not better, more various, more original, to paint 
 the breast of a man so delightfully as not to know it 
 from his back'? to draw a leg like a nine-pin, and a 
 knee like a kidney-potatoe — surely ! Our manufactures 
 to be sure suffer, however indestructible their material, 
 by comparison with the manufactures of France, whose 
 schools make a point of drawing finely, and of edu- 
 cating artists and artizans alike at first. But what of 
 that? what have manufactures to do with the greatness, 
 the wealth, or the intellect of a country w^e all know 
 — nothing. 
 
 We said before, irjnorance of form in manufacture 
 is an agreeable variety in the national character; so to 
 keep it up, let us still continue ignorant of form ; but 
 as we differ from those lazy sophists who lay down a 
 principle as a sound one, when it is only to excuse their 
 own incapacity and indolence, so we know that we have 
 but to add the great principle, viz., that a knowledge of 
 the human figure in art and manufacture is the basis 
 of all superiority, to our inherent, original, powerful, 
 and various genius, to place us where we shall be, in 
 due time, at the head of all the schools of art in the 
 world, we will not agree with these supporters of 
 error. What has been the cause of this almost general 
 ignorance in English art of the construction of every 
 object represented, with some eminent exceptions? it 
 proceeds entirely from the manner in which English 
 artists get money before they get knowledge. If they 
 have no independence, they are compelled to it ; because 
 what is the first impression on the mind of any man 
 disposed to patronize a young painter? Let his genius 
 be what it will for high art, for landscape, or for animals, 
 is it not to give him employment to paint himself or 
 the family he loves ? 
 
10 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The consequence is, a young man, the moment he 
 finds plenty of money rewarding his efforts to please 
 his friends, is not very likely to turn back and devote 
 two years to acquire a knowledge of form, or the 
 essential requisites of fine drawing. 
 
 Let us suppose that any of us have — as many of us 
 have — a little darling fond of drawing ; well, he draws 
 the candlestick on the table and the snuffers in the 
 stand, and papa perceives it is meant for the snuffers 
 and the candlestick, so do mamma, sister Mary, and 
 brother Frederick ! Papa says, " try to draw^ mamma, 
 my darling !" My darling tries, and wonderful to relate, 
 it is pronounced by all the family very like mamma 
 about the nose and eyes, but not so like about the 
 mouth and chin. While some, with vast profundity, 
 affirm there is a something yet to do, too deep for expla- 
 nation. Our darling is a great genius of course! he 
 tries papa's friends, and his little cousins ; gets plenty 
 to do, grows a fine boy, raises his price, and gets a 
 deal more! He comes to London — money rolls in — 
 he paints a lucky hit of a Lord Chief Justice, a native 
 of his town — a house is taken— a gallery built! — 
 generals and admirals — lords and ladies — dowagers 
 and beauties, crowd his rooms, and there is something 
 so exquisitely delightful in this successful interchange 
 of sympathies, that can you wonder our hero looks with 
 contempt on Michael Angelo, w^ho spent twelve years 
 in dissection — while he, our little darling, has jumped 
 into rank and fortune without dissecting at all ! 
 
 Our darling at last becomes a great man (for there 
 is nothing excites the gratitude of a human being so 
 much as being successfully painted) ; ridicules high art 
 at the tables of the nobility, quizzes the poverty of its 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 11 
 
 professors to their wives, blights by a sneer every 
 feeling for its public encouragement at a minister's 
 inquiry ; saves an enormous fortune, and wonders why 
 anybody can have the impudence to say there is no 
 encouragement for historical painting. 
 
 I appeal to your common sense if this be exaggera- 
 tion, if this be not true to the very letter, and if this 
 species of artists have not had all the power and all the 
 opulence for seventy years, till they have reduced high 
 art to its present condition. But for such a system, 
 could I have seen such an advertisement as I will 
 now read, taken from a powerful weekly newspaper, 
 {Examiner, July 3, 1831, p. 432). 
 
 " To Parents and Guardians. — An artist, with an 
 increasing business, wishes to take a pupil. — N. B. One 
 practised in drawing would be preferred.'' So that if he 
 could not have drawn, he would not have been re/used! 
 Now, gentlemen, to illustrate the absurdity, the melan- 
 choly absurdity of such a state of art, let us change the 
 oljject; let us imagine in d literary institution, a literary 
 gentleman is necessary; what would you say, if your 
 Committee were to advertise as follows: — 
 
 To Parents and Guardians. — Wanted, a gentle- 
 man, as an assistant librarian. — N. B. One practised 
 in spelling would be preferred ! Be assured, spelling 
 in literature, is drawing in art; and in no country but 
 in England could such a disgrace have appeared in the 
 journals as I have just quoted. This melancholy state 
 of things is fast ending, because there is an evident 
 conviction from late continental intercourse, that it is 
 too ridiculous to be permitted to last any longer; a man 
 has no more right to intrude on society as a painter 
 who cannot draw, any more than a literary man who 
 
12 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 cannot spell, or a surgeon to cut off a leg, who has 
 never dissected. 
 
 Do you suppose such an appeal could ever have 
 existed in ancient Athens, or in Rome, in the fifteenth 
 century? or in any other country but England, now 
 existing on earth ? Never. Do you then any longer 
 wonder at the general ignorance always apparent in an 
 English Exhibition, of the construction of every thing 
 represented from a hero to a vegetable? Do you 
 wonder any longer that our Exhibition is like a story 
 told by a giant of great genius, struggling to convey his 
 meaning in a language while he is ignorant of the 
 grammar ? It is impossible that a people so thinking 
 as the English could be an exception in their mode of 
 proceeding with the arts to their system in every 
 thing else they undertake, but from some peculiar and 
 overwhelming cause. 
 
 If they build a house, they never begin at the attic; 
 they always lay a keel first, before they build a ship ! 
 In commerce, in philosophy, in politics, in science, in 
 poetry, they have proceeded on the principle of begin- 
 ning at the right end ; but in art, they give every year 
 indisputable evidence of genius, as well as proof that 
 their mode of conveying their thoughts has been founded 
 totally on the wrong one. 
 
 The local cause of this strange condition was, first, 
 the Reformation in Religion, and, second, the Civil 
 War, which threw the art off its balance, and left it 
 to individual caprice, by depriving it of its public 
 patronage as an engine of state; and nothing can restore 
 design to a healthy condition, but a hearty conviction 
 of our existing deficiencies, and an unflinching deter- 
 mination to root out and remedy our singular defects. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 13 
 
 The first great step in the reform of design, as applied 
 to art and manufacture, is to be assured that the human 
 figure is the basis of all drawing, and then to settle 
 on such principles as cannot be shaken, a lasting and 
 impeiishable standard of the form of the most gifted 
 being on earth, viz. man, and to ascertain what are his 
 physical superiorities as a species, and what are his 
 mental, as expressed by his physical figure; so that 
 the principle may be comprehended and adopted as a 
 leading basis for the use of all those who devote them- 
 selves to sculpture and painting, either as tutors or 
 students. Secrets should be banished from art, as they 
 have long been from science ; be assured, if all men 
 were always to tell all they know% if rule and principle 
 were daily increased, still there would be something 
 unknown and untouched, to be discovered by genius, 
 while nature continued to shine with her accustomed 
 splendour; and, as Reynolds says, I venture to intrude 
 the following princijdes of my own practice with difii- 
 dence, and when better are suggested, shall withdraw 
 them without regret. 
 
 Many years ago, whilst dissecting a lion, in my early 
 youth, I was amazingly impressed with its similarity as 
 well as its difference in muscular and bone construction 
 to the human figure. 
 
 It was evident the lion was but a modification of 
 the human being, varied in organic construction and 
 muscular arrangement, only where it was necessary he 
 should be, that his bodily powers might suit his 
 instincts, his propensities, his appetites, and his lower 
 degree of reasoning power. 
 
 On comparing the tw^o, I found the human being 
 stood erectly on two feet, the lion horizontally on four. 
 
14 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 On placing the lioii^ on his two hind feet, resting on the 
 heel and toes like the human being,* I found he could 
 not remain so; I found he had no power of grasping 
 with his fore-paws (answering to the human hand, and 
 but a modification); I found he could not move his 
 fore-paw arms right from the shoulder, nor his hind- 
 feet limbs right from the hip; I found his feet flat, his 
 body long, his brain diminished, his eyes above the 
 centre of his head, his jaw immense, and vast muscle 
 occupying that portion of the scull, to assist the action 
 of the jaw, which is filled by brain in a human 
 creature; I found his spine long, his pan-bone narrow, 
 his inner ancle lower than the outer, his chest con- 
 tracted, and his fore-arm as long as his upper-arm. 
 
 I put down these distinctions as points characteristic 
 in head and figure of a brutal and unintellectual 
 being. 
 
 I then examined the man: I found his power of 
 grasping with his hand, by the action of his thumb, 
 perfect; I found the motion of his arm free from the 
 shoulder-joint, and his thighs free from the hip; 
 I found his feet arched, his inner ancle the highest, 
 his pan-bone large, which, by resistance to the action 
 of the great extensor of the legs, increases their power, 
 his eyes at the centre of his skull, his upper-arm 
 longer than the fore-arm, his spine short, and his brain 
 enormous. 
 
 I put down these distinctions as characteristic in 
 face and figure of a superior and intellectual being. 
 
 These differences are facts — they were intentional, 
 or accidental! — they were formed by the Creator, or 
 they were not ! — if they were as they were, there was 
 * See Plates, and compare the Skeletons. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 15 
 
 reason in the differences, and that reason issued from 
 the Creator s mind. Surely, then, it was justifiable to 
 lay down a principle of form from ascertaining these 
 distinctions. Full of delight, reference was at once 
 made to the Metopes of the Temple of Theseus (which, 
 heing executed fifty years before the Parthenon, were 
 more likely to develope system than the latter works 
 from the Parthenon itself, where art is so exquisitely 
 concealed); and all the points put down as characteristic 
 of a perfect human figure, were so evident, as not to 
 be mistaken; and both in the works of the Parthenon, 
 executed by Phidias and his school, and in those of the 
 Temple of Theseus, the principles of a standard figure 
 were so distinct, that I will defy any artist to have 
 developed them so systematically and so decidedly 
 without intention and without knowledge. 
 
 Encouraged by such delightful confirmation, I came 
 to the following conclusions: they have been my own 
 guide for nearly thirty years, and I can recommend 
 them as a sound and practical code for building a 
 standard human being, which can be varied to suit 
 the different characters and infinite differences of 
 nature, according to the artist's particular want. 
 
 All objects, animate and inanimate, but principally 
 men and brute animals, are the instruments of a painter 
 and sculptor, as influenced by passion or intention, 
 acting on feature or form, excited by some interesting 
 object or some jx)werful event. 
 
 Man, being the principal vehicle of conveying ideas 
 by his features and form ; the first thing to ascertain is 
 the immediate causes of his motion as a being directed 
 ])y his will ; the next, the great characteristic distinction 
 of him as man, and as a species and an intellectual 
 
16 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 being, distinguished from animals; and the last, which 
 of these causes of motion are excited by any particular 
 passion or intention. 
 
 We cannot ascertain, and never shall be able to do 
 so, how an intention acts by the will on the muscular 
 arrangement of the frame, any more than we can 
 ascertain what vitality is, — we only know it by its 
 consequences; and the duty of the great artist is to 
 represent the consequences of an idea acting on the 
 form and feature, on the parts which it does influence, 
 and on the parts it does not, so truly, as to excite 
 associations in the mind of the spectator of the very 
 idea which has agitated the being represented. 
 
 The bones are the foundation of the form, and the 
 muscles and the tendons the means by which he moves 
 them, as his passions or intentions excite him. 
 
 Each particular passion will excite a given number of 
 these means, and none more or less than are requisite; 
 the rest will remain unexcited. 
 
 The bones, the things moved, and the muscles, the 
 things moving, are all covered by skin; and the me- 
 chanism of the art is to express the passion or inten- 
 tion, and its consequences, by the muscles that are and 
 those that are not influenced, and to shew the true efi'ect 
 of loth acting heneath and shewing ahove the skin which 
 covers them. 
 
 When the mind is thoroughly informed of the means 
 heneath the skin, the eye instantly comprehends the 
 Am^ above it; and when any passion is wanted to be 
 expressed, the means and their consequences (if the 
 artist be deeply qualified) will be as complete in form, 
 and as true in effect, as nature, and the idea represented 
 will be doubly effectual by the perfection of the means 
 of representation. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 17 
 
 If the character be a god, his feature and form must 
 ])e built on these unalterable and eternal principles, 
 for how can we represent a god but by elevating our 
 own qualifications^ 
 
 These are the principles then of a great Greek 
 standard of figure, ascertained most carefully by com- 
 paring a brutal form with an intellectual form, and 
 confirmed by a careful reference to the greatest Greek 
 works existing — of the finest and the only perfect 
 period of art in the w^orld — by the greatest and only 
 perfect artist the w^orld ever saw — Phidias ! 
 
 First — Select what is peculiarly human, in form, 
 feature, and proportion. 
 
 Secondly — Ascertain the great causes of motion. 
 
 Thirdly — Remember the opposite contours of a limb 
 can never be the same from inherent formation, nor of 
 a body if the least inclined from the perpendicular. 
 
 And Fourthly — That the form of a part varies with 
 its action or its repose, and that all action depends on 
 the predominance of some of the causes of motion over 
 the others. 
 
 The peculiar characteristics of a form which belongs 
 exclusively to an intellectual being, and the causes of 
 its motion, being ascertained, and none more or less 
 l)eing selected, for a given action; as external shape 
 depends on internal organization, acting on external 
 covering, the forms must be essential. 
 
 This is the standard of man's figure as a species, and 
 the principle by which to estimate the period of all the 
 works of antiquity; for, as the great works vary from 
 neglect of this principle, they were executed either 
 before it ivas ascertained, or have degenerated to some 
 other system, less founded in nature, afterwards. 
 
 c 
 
18 haydon's lectures 
 
 It is this union of nature with ideal beauty, the 
 probabilities and accidents of bone, flesh, and tendon, 
 from extension, flexion, gravitation, compression, action, 
 or repose, that rank the Elgin marbles above all other 
 works of art in the world. 
 
 The finest form that man ever imagined, or God ever 
 created, must have been built on these eternal prin- 
 ciples: the Elgin marbles have as completely overthrown 
 the old antique, as ever one system of philosophy over- 
 threw another. Were the Elgin marbles lost, there 
 would be as great a gap in art as there would be in 
 astronomy if Newton had never existed: they have 
 thrown into light principles which could only have 
 been discovered by the successive inspirations of great 
 geniuses, if ever at all ; because we have had what the 
 Greeks had not, a false system to overthrow, and mis- 
 placed veneration and early impressions to root out. 
 
 In painting, they will destroy the absurd system, 
 that all essential details, though the consequence of 
 the nature of things, are incompatible with expression ; 
 as if colour were not more likely to detract from the 
 power and truth of an expression, when it was neglected, 
 than when it was beautiful and consistent with the 
 feeling and expression to be conveyed. Every truth 
 of shape, the result of the inherent organization of man 
 as an intellectual being ; every variation of that shape, 
 produced by the slightest variation of motion, in con- 
 sequence of the slightest variation of intention, acting on 
 it; every result of repose on flesh as a soft substance, 
 and on bone as a hard ; every harmony of line in com- 
 position, on geometrical principle, proving the science 
 of the artist; every beauty of conception proving his 
 genius, and every grace of execution proving practice 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 19 
 
 hail given power to his hand, can be proved to be com- 
 Ijined in lliese productions. A celebrated Professor 
 has said there is a difference of style in some of the 
 Metopes: there is no difference of style throughout the 
 whole collection ; there is a difference of execution^ 
 because different pupils must have been employed; but 
 they are all on the same great and grand style, to depart 
 from which, in painting or sculpture, is to depart from 
 the great principles of the Creator of man! 
 
 This great doctrine seems to be, to make every thing 
 used as the instrument of thought in art, essentially, 
 the perfection of its species; never to depart, for the 
 sake of effect, from the natural and inherent charac- 
 teristics of animal or man. A horse was essentially 
 from the hand of Phidias, a horse; with his projecting 
 eye, his flexible and breathing nostrils, his flat jaw, 
 his restU»ss lips! A bull was a natural bull; a dog, 
 essentially a dog! Even down to his fish; for Martial 
 says of his fish in an Epigram — 
 
 Adde aquam et natabunt : 
 Add water and they will swim. 
 
 Could tliere have been a more ])eautiful illustration 
 of his art, or a higher compliment? The young men 
 whom I now address, have no idea of the state of the 
 art in the world when these works burst upon it. 
 
 Will they believe that neither Michael Angelo, nor 
 Haffaelle, nor Julio Romano dared to represent a horse 
 as he natnraUij was ? Will they believe, they all sunk 
 his eye ; because, after Lysippus, it was thought to be 
 poetical to give a horse the look of a human being ! — 
 was there ever such absurdity? And will they believe 
 that all the historical painters of modern times, with 
 
 c2 
 
20 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 one exception (Northcote), when they painted a poetical 
 horse, notwithstanding the noble horses of our own 
 country, were so far held in awe, by the abominable 
 productions of the degenerated ages of antiquity (after 
 Alexander), that they feared to make a horse like a 
 horse, because it was not poetical ! A horse, with a 
 human eye, is as much a monster as a man with a 
 horse's eye. What I say of the horse was equally 
 applicable to the human heroic figure of the same 
 period of art ; and from these chains of absurdity, and 
 prejudice and ignorance of what was truly poetical, 
 viz., nature elevated, but not perverted, the Elgin 
 marbles have rescued us for ever. 
 
 The question will naturally now occur, how came 
 this man and the Greeks to attain such perfection"? 
 Were they immortals ? Were they free from disease, 
 from passion, or from vice? No: they were men like 
 ourselves, liable to fevers and to appetites; they were 
 men not essentially handsome; for Cicero expresses his 
 wonder at the plainness of the Athenians: but they 
 wxre idolators in religion, and heroes in politics. Here 
 was the great and secret stimulus; they painted a 
 picture, or executed a statue, on a principle of religious 
 enthusiasm, or patriotic gratitude: be assured, they 
 were neither larger, handsomer, nor more intellectual 
 than the moderns; they felt the same deficiencies, and 
 they tried to supply them by the same means. 
 
 There must have been a time when a Greek was 
 born as well as us ; there must have been a time when 
 the infant saw for the first time, and the boy thought 
 for the first time. However keen and susceptible were 
 Greek intellects, they had no additional faculties which 
 we possess not. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 21 
 
 Now comes the interesting question, what was the 
 principle of such perfection ? Michael Angelo, Da Vinci, 
 Raffaelle, Rubens, Tintoretto, and Titian, dissected; did 
 the Greeks dissect? or were they so superhuman, as to 
 be able from mere quickness of eye, without the use of 
 the understanding, to comprehend at a glance the end- 
 less varieties of a figure in action? were they to act on 
 principle in every thing else but painting and sculp- 
 ture? Could they have hinted at all at the hidden 
 anatomical points of the tenderest female beauty, and 
 yet be ignorant of the internal construction they have 
 hinted at"? It is a known fact, that the greatest Greek 
 artists, Euphranor, Apelles, etc., wrote learned treatises 
 on the art, which, according to this modern theory, must 
 have l)een only the art they had gained by the eye, with 
 little use of the powers of their understanding. 
 
 With all the acutcness of the Greeks, they never 
 invented a government to compete with the British 
 Constitution — here wx have beat them in the face of 
 the world; why should they be able to beat us in art, 
 and yet be ignorant of its greatest and most essential 
 foundation 
 
 Genius is the basis of excellence ; form, the basis of 
 art ; and dissection the basis of a knowledge of form ; 
 yet it must be told you, the most eminent scholars and 
 surgeons do not believe that dissection of men was 
 practised by the great Greek artists. No, says John 
 Bell, they did not dissect, because the Gymnasium was 
 open to them ; no, says Sir Anthony Carlisle, they did 
 not dissect, because their figures were all in repose. 
 No, says Payne Knight, they did not dissect, because 
 they never obtained anatomy ; no, say the most eminent 
 scholars, they did not dissect, because there is no allu- 
 
22 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 sion to art and anatomy in their medical literature ; no, 
 say all, they could not have dissected, because — 
 
 First, — The body was held in sacred awe. 
 
 Secondly, — There were laws against dissection. 
 
 Thirdly, — Their poets speak of a dead body with a 
 religious and delicate feeling. 
 
 To all which I reply. We hold a dead body in awe. 
 Our poets speak of death most pathetically, allude to 
 its violation with superstitious veneration, and impre- 
 cate the vengeance of heaven on all who trespass on the 
 sanctuaries of the dead! 
 
 Among us, too, all must acknowledge there were 
 laws of the severest nature, prohibiting the stealing 
 bodies for dissection; and yet, we all know we did 
 dissect, have dissected, and were dissecting — ay, at the 
 very moment that the law was repealed. As to laws 
 among the Greeks, where are they? No scholar can 
 tell me ; and if there be laws, does not the passing a 
 law to prevent a crime presuppose its previous exist- 
 ence, from which society has suffered"? 
 
 Besides, all the laws, all the superstition in the 
 world, would not prevent men of genius pursuing their 
 own course to knowledge, — we know it has not. We 
 know that Vesalius, when a youth, in spite of the 
 anathemas of the Holy Inquisition, seduced his brother 
 pupils to follow him to a dark and blasted heath, to 
 steal a dead body in chains on a gibbet; and that he 
 alone, in a hideous storm of thunder, when deserted by 
 all his friends, who took fright, did get to the gibbet, 
 took down the body, and brought it into Padua, on his 
 own glorious shoulders. 
 
 In my humble opinion, the ground of inference from 
 the Greek poets, their laws, or the comparative ignor- 
 
 0 
 
ON FAINTING. 
 
 23 
 
 ance of their great medical men, Hippocrates, etc.* are not 
 so strong as the stand which we can make, in defence 
 of the supposition that the great Greek artists did 
 dissect, on the ground of their glorious works before 
 our daily eyes. 
 
 There you will never see anatomical knowledge 
 exposed, not warranted by nature, and the particular 
 action wanted; — there you will never see a muscle 
 marked which ought to be invisible, or one invisible 
 which ought to be seen; — there you will always see the 
 deepest knowledge of nature and science, the one aiding, 
 but never superseding the other; and then, because the 
 Greeks have made a real use of their anatomical science, 
 and did not obtrude it like Goltzius or John di Bologna, 
 you infer they did not know it at all — reasonal)le 
 deduction ! 
 
 John Bell, in his Italian travels, says (page 107, 
 vol. ii.), ''In seeking to discover whether the ancients 
 knew anatomy, the importance of the question as it 
 relates to Statuary, is not so inuch to ascertain whether 
 they had this knowledge, as whether it would have 
 injured or improved their w^orks, and in what degree 
 an acfpuiintance with the science would be advantageous 
 to a modern artist." 
 
 I beg leave to say it is quite the reverse. It is 
 of the greatest consequence to ascertain whether the 
 Greeks had suflicient knowledge of anatomy in art; 
 because, if ascertained, a very solid and principal cause 
 of their excellence is settled. 
 
 ''What need had they of anatomy," says he, " who 
 studied by a surer rule ? " He means the mere habit of 
 the eye. I reply in Mr. Bell's own words — ''they 
 used anatomy as a corrector, but no more." 
 
 * Which is not true. ♦ 
 
 \ 
 
24 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 To the moderns, Mr. Bell says, " Anatomy sparingly 
 applied, is the best substitute for the exhibitions of the 
 Circus." This is a mistake, — anatomy never was, to 
 ancients or to moderns, a substitute for nature, but an 
 assistant, and any artist who makes it a substitution, 
 mistakes the means for the end of art. 
 
 Mr. Bell says the ancients did not know anatomy, 
 yet he censures the Hercules and the Boxers /br too 
 great an obtrusion of anatomy! so that first the Greeks 
 were ignorant of anatomy, and yet exactly in propor- 
 tion as the internal construction was obtruded, where 
 ignorance must have been apparent, did they display 
 knowledge ! obtrusive knowledge. Is this not absolute 
 contradiction, or very like if? 
 
 Mr. Bell acknowledges Hippocrates dissected apes ; 
 this is a very near point to the knowledge of the con- 
 struction of man. Will you believe any man of genius 
 w^ould stop at an ape ^ 
 
 Everybody talks of the Greeks as if they walked 
 about naked; whereas, they had hats, boots, cloaks, 
 shoes, and tunics! The great artists have taken the 
 liberty, for the display of their art, to put them naked, 
 in many situations, where it is known they never were 
 so; — but to suppose they were always walking, talking, 
 or riding, as we see them on vases, bas-reliefs, and in 
 statues, is nearly as absurd as to assert we * did so 
 ourselves. 
 
 The other opposer of the utility of anatomy in paint- 
 ing was Sir Anthony Carlisle; he, like John Bell, 
 argues on the abuse, and not the proper use, of the 
 science: permit me to examine his grounds of denial, 
 and in the end you will agree with me, they are not 
 tenable or constant. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 25 
 
 In 1807, July 4tli, Carlisle wrote a paper in the Artist, 
 a periodical on art at the time, wherein he says, " 7mnnte 
 details of the human structure, so necessary in physic 
 and surgery, are totally useless in historical painting 
 and sculpture." 
 
 Of course minute details are ; but because surgical 
 details of parts never seen are useless to a painter, 
 are details of parts always seen useless to a sculptor or 
 painter, w ho express their thoughts by a representation 
 of the visible parts of the human frame shaped by the 
 action of the internal ones'? Again, in his lectures at 
 the Academy, he said, " it was a curious fact, that the 
 old sculptors among the Greeks knew nothing of ana- 
 tomy, because all the figures which had reached us are 
 in comparative repose!" 
 
 Your imagination will immediately recal the indo- 
 lent repose of the fighting Gladiator— the quiet sleep 
 of the struggling Boxers — the Egyptian sedateness of 
 the dancing Fawn —the unmoved serenity of the gasping 
 Laocoon — the architectural stiifness of the Apollo- -the 
 motionless look of the Horses and Men on the Parthe- 
 non frieze and metopes, as well as those in the ^Egina, 
 Phygaleian, and Theseian marbles. Ridiculous ! so far 
 from being in repose, they are all in momentary mus- 
 cular action ; and let any surgeon point out, if he can, 
 a single error in muscle or bone ! 
 
 Besides, it must be obvious to common sense, that 
 even if they were in repose, it would not require less 
 knowledge to ])e correct, but more, because the parts 
 are hardly visible, or at least as much knowledge as to 
 mark the parts where violence obtrudes them on the eye. 
 
 Thus, the two assertions, that the Greek artists were 
 ignorant of anatomy, because most of their figures are 
 
26 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 in repose, and that figures in repose require less know- 
 ledge than figures in action, having been shewn to be 
 unfounded, the conclusions drawn must fall to the 
 ground. 
 
 Another antagonist, in specimens of ancient sculpture, 
 published by the Dilletanti Society, sec. 76, says, " artists 
 in modern times have oftener been mislead than bene- 
 fited by anatomy; for the appearance of a body when 
 dead, is so different from what it is when living, that it 
 affords hut little information 
 
 Will any man pretend to believe, that after tracing 
 the origin and insertion of the muscles, the distinction 
 between bone, tendon, and muscle, and then referring 
 to life, to ascertain how the causes beneath the skin 
 influence the shape above it, will afford but little 
 information P 
 
 The abuse of anatomy is no argument against its use ! 
 If Michael Angelo, Bandinelli, and John di Bologna, 
 sometimes paraded their anatomical science, Phidias 
 never did ; and therefore Phidias is as fair a specimen 
 of its beauty as Goltzius is of its deformity. The 
 mere practical experience of the eye, without the under- 
 standing is stored to assist the eye, will go very little 
 way indeed. 
 
 The objections which have been made to the know- 
 ledge of the great Greek artists in anatomy, have been 
 made by those who can argue on nothing but classical 
 inferences; as if the inherent propensities of human 
 beings, the trifles that set the greatest minds to work, 
 the mode by which all minds have acquired knowledge 
 from the beginning of the world to the present moment, 
 and the works that the Greeks produced and which are 
 now existing, were not as solid grounds for argument as 
 classical conjecture. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 27 
 
 It is urged that if Hippocrates, a medical man, 
 gives no evidence of regular anatomical knowledge, 
 why should the artists be so peculiarly endowed Bear 
 this in mind. The knowledge of an artist may be pro- 
 found for him, but be very shallow as applied to the 
 medical practitioner. 
 
 Our anatomical knowledge is a degree any mind can 
 acquire, and the means of acquiring it would suggest 
 itself to the simplest mind; and how comes it, if dis- 
 section were not practised, that Hippocrates, 
 rfivaios; compares an internal part of a man with the 
 same internal part of a dog, as to weight and size? — 
 and I maintain that no artist but must have been 
 Ijewildered, when studying in the Gymnasium, at the 
 struggling, lighting, wrestling, pushing, and tum])ling 
 of the men, unless his mind had been previously stored, 
 and his eye was guided by his understanding, with 
 regard to what he must dwell upon, and look out for, 
 as they wrestled. 
 
 Because the muscles are flaccid in death, an artist 
 must be a very sensible one to make them so in a 
 living being; and if he Qixmoi jn'operltj avail himself of 
 the treasures dissection opens to his practice, he had 
 better relinquish all hopes of drawing. 
 
 Death makes no ditTerence in tendons and Ijones, 
 origins and insertions; the knowledge the great artist 
 acquires by this sound process, he uses when he 
 studies or watches a living figure breathing with 
 vitality, flushed by action, and animated l)y thought. 
 
 We all know the ancients had leather like ourselves 
 — how did they get it? 1 suppose from the skins of 
 animals— animals were therefore skinned. Will it be 
 asserted that Phidias and his pupils never saw an 
 
28 haydon's lectures 
 
 animal skinned'? Or will it be asserted that if they 
 did, they could not perceive the whole muscular 
 arrangement of animals laid open at once? 
 
 It must be granted, that it is more than probable 
 they had seen horses, dogs, or both, in that situation — 
 would not the association pass into their professional 
 reflections that the parts of an animal under the skin 
 had some effect on the living animal when his skin was 
 on? Surely; and be certain that the first horse they 
 saw galloping, after having observed the skinned one, 
 they would observe, like men of genius, the parts in 
 action on the skin which they had observed he^ieath it. 
 
 Is it not more than likely they w^ould not rest with 
 the knowledge of the structure of animals'? Do you 
 think it possible they would not comprehend the 
 infinite advantage of applying the same principle to 
 man? What if it were forbidden, by law, religion, or 
 prejudice, — would these influence a man of genius in 
 the depths of his study? — would that stop him from 
 gratifying his burning thirst to advance the beauty and 
 truth of the Divine art he was born to honour? — 
 Never. 
 
 To recapitulate: The objections made against the 
 knowledge of the Greeks on these points, are, first, that 
 there were prohibitory laws; secondly, religious pre- 
 judices; and thirdly, that their medical books make no 
 allusion to the art. 
 
 I reply, we have laws and prejudices ; and few, if any, 
 of our medical books allude to the connexion with art; 
 yet we know they are connected; but what are these 
 objections in comparison with the complete evidence 
 of their illustrious works before our daily eyes: the 
 knowledge there displayed could not have been the 
 mere result of a practical and superficial eye. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 29 
 
 The Theseus, Ilyssus, and Metopes, are unanswerable 
 proofs to all practical men that the knowledge of the 
 great Greek artist was something more, and that 
 anatomical science to a certain degree, in conjunction 
 with perpetual reference to nature, could alone have 
 been the principle of such faultless perfection. 
 
 The most wonderful man of the last age was cer- 
 tainly Burke. On all matters of art he seems as if 
 absolutely inspired by the spirit of Phidias. In his 
 letters to Barry when in Italy, and in his letter to him 
 under the anonymous signature of R. J. L., there are 
 principles laid down for students, which cannot be too 
 often repeated, and which ought to ])e graven in golden 
 letters over the door of every school of design in 
 Europe. 
 
 '* Remember (says Burke, p. 87, vol. i.),* there is a 
 great deal of mechanism in your art, in which, however, 
 the distinctive part of the art consists, and icithont 
 which the first ideas can only make a good critic, but 
 not a painter. I confess I am not much desirous of 
 your composing many pieces, for some time at least. 
 Composition I do not value near so highly; but that 
 exquisite masterhj drawing, which is the glory of the 
 great school where you are, has fallen to the lot of very 
 few, perhaps to none in the present age, in its highest 
 perfection. If I were to indulge a conjecture, I should 
 attribute all that is called greatness of style and manner 
 of drawing to this exact knowledge of the parts of the 
 human hody anatomy and perspective ; for by knowing 
 exactly and habitually^ without the labour of particular 
 thinking, what was to be done in every figure they 
 designed, they attained a freedom and spirit of outline ; 
 * Barry's Works, 2 vols. 4to. 
 
30 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 because they could be daring without being absurd: 
 whereas ignorance, if it be cautious, is poor and 
 timid ; if bold, only blindly presumptuous. This 
 minute knowledge of anatomy, and practical as well as 
 theoretical perspective, by which I mean to include 
 foreshortening, . is all the effect of labour and use in 
 particular studies, and not in general compositions. 
 Notwithstanding your repugnance to handling of car- 
 cases, you ought to make the knife go with the pencil, 
 and study anatomy in real, and if you can in frequent 
 dissections.'' — This is Burke. 
 
 Again, page 53 — " You must be an artist, and this 
 you cannot be, but by drawing with the last degree of 
 noble correctness — leave off sketching. Whatever you 
 do, finish it; let me entreat that you will overcome that 
 unfortunate delicacy that attends you, and that you will 
 go through a full course of anatomy^ with the knife in 
 your hand. You will never be able thoroughly to 
 supply the omission of this by any other method." 
 
 " Your distinction," he says, " between abstract ideal 
 character and beauty and imitative art, is just; but 
 I think you carry it too far when you depreciate the 
 one to raise the other. So far from setting them at 
 variance, it behoves every friend to the art to endeavour 
 to evince the necessity of uniting them; without the 
 power of combining and abstracting, the most accurate 
 knowledge of forms will produce only uninteresting 
 trifles; but without an accurate knowledge of forms., the 
 most happy power of combining and abstracting will 
 be absolutely useless.'" 
 
 "The painter," says Burke, "who wishes to make 
 his pictures (what fine pictures ought to be), nature 
 elevated and improved, must first gain a perfect know- 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 31 
 
 lodge of nature as she is: before he makes men as they 
 ought to be, he must know how to make them as they 
 are; he must acquire an accurate knowledge of all the 
 parts of the body and countenance. To know anatomy 
 will be of little use, unless physiology and physiognomy 
 are joined to it." Again — 
 
 "Works of real merit are produced by a laborious 
 and accurate investigation of nature upon the principles 
 observed by the Greeks — first, to make themselves 
 thoroughly acquainted with the common forms of nature, 
 and then by selecting and coml)ining, to form composi- 
 tions according to their own elevated conceptions." 
 
 " This is the true principle of poetry and painting. 
 Homer and Shakspere had perhaps never seen charac- 
 ters so strongly marked as Achilles and Lady Macl)eth, 
 and yet we feel those characters are drawn from nature; 
 the limbs and features are those of common nature, l)ut 
 elevated and improved!'' 
 
 " We are told,"'he says again, page 262, " many ancient 
 artists bestowed their whole lives upon a single com- 
 position. We are not to suppose they employed them- 
 selves in chipping one block of marble, but that tlie 
 greatest part of their time was employed in studifiiU) 
 nature, particularly the vast and intricate branches of 
 physiology and pathology, in order to enable them to 
 execute perfectly the great works they had conceived." 
 
 " These sciences are in a manner neylccted by the 
 moderns ; but the author of the Laocoon was as deeply 
 skilled as Halle or Gaui)ius, and hence he has been 
 able to give that consistency of expression which pre- 
 vails through the whole body, from the face, through 
 every muscle, to the ends of the toes and fingers." 
 Eurke adds, " I was once told by a person who 
 
32 
 
 haydon's lectures. 
 
 had studied these branches, that every discovery he had 
 made disclosed to him fresh beauties in that v>^onderful 
 group of Laocoon, and to understand it thoroughly 
 w^ould require more knowledge of the human body 
 than most of our anatomists attempt to know." 
 
 '* It is not enough (he continues) to know the forms, 
 position, and proportions of the constituent parts of the 
 animal machine ; but we should know the nice changes 
 that are produced in them by the various affections of 
 the mind, as grief, agony, rage, etc. Without this, we 
 may produce splendid compositions and graceful figures, 
 but we shall never produce that perfection at which the 
 ancients arrived ; a perfection to which I fear the consti- 
 tution of modern society is an insurmountable object." 
 
 " Such a minister as Pericles might perhaps overcome 
 it; but considering the present system of education (with 
 no professors at the Universities, I add), it is scarcely 
 possible that such a one should appear." 
 
 " To distinguish between what is good and what is 
 had falls to the lot of many ; but to distinguish between 
 what is barely good and what is truly excellent falls 
 to the lot of few ; and it very rarely happens that any 
 of those few are Kings and ministers^ who are able and 
 willing to reward an artist for giving up his whole time 
 to one object, which he must do, if he mean to make 
 it truly excellent." 
 
 All these inimitable remarks are extracted from a 
 letter written to Barry, by Burke (the greatest genius 
 of the last age, violent as his passions were), not in 
 leisure and peace, but when harassed by the turmoils 
 of the Home Office, and, though distressed himself, 
 was supporting Barry through his studies, by his own 
 pecuniary aid. Mengs said, seventy years ago, we had 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 33 
 
 not the works of the Greeks, which they themselves 
 esteemed the most; and had he lived to see the remains 
 of the Parthenon, his conjecture would have l)een con- 
 firmed. It was a great proof of his critical sagacity. 
 
 Burke's great and admirable letter will, I trust, 
 confirm the wavering and refute the doubting, as to 
 the course of study amongst the ancient Greek artists ; 
 and I conclude this part of my subject with a quotation 
 from Hippocrates, in favour of my theory, to which 
 there is no reply. Though all the classical men I 
 liave consulted were not aware that any medical book 
 contained any passage, estal)lishing such connexion as 
 anatomy and art. " But some say (says Hippocrates), 
 both physicians and theorists, that it is impossible for 
 a man to understand the medical art, who does not 
 know what a man is, or how he is stuck together; but 
 of these things, whatever is said by sophists or j^hysi- 
 cians, or is written about the nature of man (physically), 
 belongs less I think to the medical art, than to the art 
 of design.* Chap. 36, de Vet. Medicina. Surely, then, 
 if the great proof against the connexion of anatomy and 
 
 * At>yovai Tiycg koI njTpoi KCtt ffo^tajui, tor ovk cVrt ^vvaiov 
 njTptKTji' uBci/ai 00719 fji] oicev oil tariv dyOpivTrot koI oTrtot 
 t'-ftveio irpti'Tov Kai orrttjs truyj ciruyi^. cyoj le T0V7cwy f.icv oan td i 
 cipTjTui ao(^)i<J7fj ?) irjTfjU) ij 767/W7rTa< 7re/J/ 0i'<Teos rjaaoy irpoaijiceiv 
 pofii^(o Tjj iijTpixV "^^X^V V ■'"7 7/'a0'^'7« 
 
 Quoted by Emeric DaviJj in his Prize Essajj on Sculpture. 
 
 Again, in Cclsus, page 6, Millegan Ed. (Vita), Celsus lived in 
 tlie time of Augustus, but he refers to the practice of Herophikis, 
 r>70 B.C., and Erasistratus, 257 ii. c, actually dissecting living 
 criminals. " Longeque optime fecisse Herophilum et Erasistra- 
 tum qui noccntcs homines, a regibus ex carcere acceptos vivos 
 inciderint, consideiintque, etiamnum si^iritu remancnte, eoy qu(B 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 painting was that no ancient medical author alluded 
 to the connexion, what becomes of the proof, when it is 
 found the Father of medicine himself establishes the 
 fact, and such was the opinion at Oxford; and with the 
 evidence of their sculpture before our eyes, it is just to 
 conclude the knowledge displayed could not be the mere 
 result of practice. 
 
 The Theseus^ Ilyssits, and Metopes, are unanswer- 
 able proofs to all practical men, that the knowledge of 
 the Greek artists was something more than the external, 
 and that anatomical science sufficient for art, in con- 
 junction with perpetual reference to nature, could alone 
 have been the principle of such faultless perfection. 
 
 Gentlemen, I will now conclude this lecture of 
 general principle, to be subsequently detailed and 
 proved in my future ones. I am delighted to appear 
 before you ; for years past I have written short articles 
 in daily and weekly newspapers, always with my name, 
 not, as was often asserted, for the bewitching intoxica- 
 tion of a day's immortality, but to reach the taste and 
 understanding of the people and nobility. 
 
 I therefore seized the offer made me by your com- 
 mittee, and I glory in meeting you face to face. I 
 reverence your virtuous and innocent thirst for know- 
 ledge — your shrewd sagacity — your manly simplicity, 
 and I am convinced, as a love of knowledge increases, 
 so will a disgust at vice. 
 
 We are all mechanics in different degrees, struggling 
 under sentence of death in our different callings; that, 
 
 natura ante clausisset. Neque esse crudele, sicut pleriqiie propo- 
 nunt horninum nocentium et horum quoque paueorum suppliciis, 
 remedia populis innocentibus seculorum omnium quaeri." 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 35 
 
 when the period is ended for which we are hired, we 
 may merit the reward according to the quantity and 
 the quality of the work we have executed for Him who 
 sent us. 
 
 If by my efforts I can advance your taste, or refine 
 your feelings, for " high art," and prove its connexion 
 with your various callings ; if I can rekindle the lost 
 feeling for its national importance, or prove its immense 
 value to manufacture; if I can give you a deeper 
 insight into its eternal principles, than can he gathered 
 in the heat, turmoil, and varnish of a spring exhibition, 
 one of the great objects of my life will be realized: but 
 remember, nothing will, nothing can, be effectually of 
 use, till Schools of Design ])e established in the great 
 towns, of which the knowledge, the deepest know^ledge 
 of the human figure must be the corner stone. Till 
 "high art" has made its legitimate impression in high 
 quarters, and by State support is placed at least on 
 a level with portrait: for can it be supposed, that 
 the country which has produced Alfred, Shakspere, 
 Milton, Bacon, Locke, Watt, Nelson, Wellington, 
 Hogarth, Wilkie, and Reynolds, will not produce men 
 to bear comparison with llaffaelle and Phidias, if the 
 principles of encouragement are again put in force which 
 developed their powers, and art become again what it 
 was once in England, an intellectual engine in the 
 hands of the State. 
 
 The English do nothing in a hurry ; the necessity of 
 this principle of support has been gradually gaining 
 strength, and I have not the least doubt will be ulti- 
 mately and triumphantly carried. 
 
 As a curious evidence of our degeneracy in taste, 
 allow me to read you an extract from Strutt: — 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 "Nor did the painters confine themselves to portrait. 
 Historical delineations are frequent in ancient manu- 
 scripts, besides which they had larger pictures, repre- 
 senting passages from history and the actions of great 
 men ; such a one was presented to the Church of Ely, 
 by Etheleda, the widow of the famous Berthwood, 
 Duke of Northumberland, in the tenth century, wherein 
 she had caused to be painted the history of the great 
 actions of her deceased lord, in order to preserve the 
 memory of his valour and other virtues^ 
 
 Now this was the noble feeling in the tenth century. 
 What would the noble Duchess have said had she 
 witnessed the example of the national feeling of the 
 nineteenth. What would the widow of the famous 
 Berthwood have said, if she had visited London in 1816, 
 one year after the Battle of Waterloo, and there saw the 
 following commemoration of its national glory ! What 
 would she have said had she seen what I saw, a penny 
 sheet of foolscap cut into rays of glory by a foot-guard, 
 with Waterloo printed in the middle, and hung with 
 laurel outside the iron rail at the guard-room entrance 
 at Whitehall! Here was a poor private, with a soul 
 above his station, who blushed for the legislature of 
 the times, and who did his humble endeavours to com- 
 memorate his feelings of the national glory on a penny 
 sheet of paper with common ink. What would she 
 have said had she visited St. Paul's — dark, dirty, black 
 and cold St. Paul's ! Would she not have said, What ! 
 no pictures to illustrate the beautiful deeds of the great 
 Christian founder! What! admit Neptune, and Fame, 
 and Victory, and all the Heathen Gods and Goddesses, 
 - — admit Music, and Poetry, and Sculpture, — but banish 
 Painting ! — that glorious art, which in our barbarous 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 37 
 
 cige was the source of happiness, great deeds, and 
 beautiful commemorations ! 
 
 Suppose the Duchess taking a walk in the streets — 
 suppose she stopped at a print shop. There she would 
 certainly not have seen the great actions of deceased 
 lords, in order to preserve the memory of their valour 
 and their virtues. There she would have seen, in 
 simpering affectation, the Forsaken! — the Disconsolate ! 
 — the Forlorn! — the Eruimoured! — the Bewildered! — 
 the Beloved! — the Bereaved! — the Bewitched! — the 
 Undoing ! and the Undone ! close to a prize ox or the 
 last favourite of the Derby ! 
 
 But enough of this man-millinery of Painting ! 
 Winckelman and Du Bos attri])uted our want of high art 
 to our latitude, forgetting that Rubens was born in the 
 same degree. The reasons are local, and not natural : 
 we were as advanced in art in the tenth, twelfth, and 
 thirteenth centuries, as any other country in Europe. 
 The Reformation in religion, which founded our liber- 
 ties, destroyed our art; and the Church and State, want- 
 ing it no longer as a machine for religious or state 
 [)urposes, have left it ever since to flounder on by 
 tlie no])ility and the opulent are content with portraits 
 of themselves and their beautiful families, till all feeling 
 as to the public importance of painting is nearly extinct, 
 except among the middle classes, who have no means 
 but their shillings. But, allow me to observe, 1 firmly 
 believe that the dawn of a brighter day has streaked the 
 horizon. Allow me to congratulate you all on the 
 greatest thing which has happened for art in England 
 at any time, viz., the appointment, with the consent of 
 Government, of a committee to investigate the prin- 
 ciples of design as applied to manufacture, and the 
 effect of all Academies on art. 
 
38 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 We all know the sifting and searching habits of a 
 Committee of the House, involving the keen feelings 
 of a democracy with the high spirit of aristocracy — 
 nothing escapes them, persons or principles; and I am 
 convinced such a Report will be given, as will set this 
 important question in a true and new light before the 
 country. 
 
 The question of design in manufactures involves the 
 question of state support to the higher branches, without 
 which the former never did and never can flourish; for 
 the perfection of design in manufactures depends on the 
 perfection of design and position and encouragement of 
 the poetical and elevated branches. 
 
 Historical painting at the Reformation received a 
 blow it has never recovered, and never can, unless 
 the principles which guided the Greeks, the Italians, 
 and our own sovereigns, Edward I. and Henry III., 
 and the nobility of that glorious time, be again revived. 
 Then, their state apartments were adorned with the 
 best efforts of the greatest painters; then there was 
 a religious, a grand, and a national feeling. Portrait 
 was not forgotten, it cannot be; it is interwoven, as it 
 ought to be, with our dearest associations; it is only 
 when it usurps, as it does now, that the injustice of the 
 legislature, in not affording to historical painters the 
 support individuals cannot bestow, that its predomi- 
 nance is complained of: but also here, permit me to 
 say, we owe an eternal obligation to portrait-painting; 
 for the art would certainly have been extinct in 
 England, when it was no longer wanted for the 
 purposes of religion, had not our domestic sympathies 
 been so acute in all their relations as to keep alive 
 portrait, which, though now it is become the staple. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 39 
 
 if not the greatest staple manufactory of the country, 
 yet it preserved the art from destruction after the 
 Reformation and Civil Wars. 
 
 Though Schools of Design are requisite for the taste 
 and knowledge of the people, yet the people are not the 
 only class that require to be inspired with just views ; 
 Professors of art at the universities are as much needed 
 as Schools of Design. 
 
 Lectures on general views, illustrated by reference to 
 great works and great examples, would place the taste 
 of the nobility on the same line as their mathematics, 
 classics, or knowledge of political history; and elevated 
 national views in matters of art are as requisite to 
 complete a statesman, as extensive knowledge in the 
 political relation of nations. With Professors at the 
 universities to instil high views in the statesman, and 
 Schools of Design in the great towns, headed by a great 
 central school in London, backed by moderate and 
 judicious state encouragement, I appeal to you all, if 
 ten years would not make such a difference in the state 
 of English art and manufactures, as to make us regard 
 the 70,000 pictures which have been produced the 
 last seventy years, with a few exceptions, in fright and 
 terror. 
 
 Reynolds was of opinion that the art in England 
 would rise to the greatest glory, but I know^ no glory 
 to which it can rise, where his genius would not be felt. 
 West said, he knew no people since the Greeks, so 
 capable of carrying it to the greatest excellence. 
 And Richardson said, " 1 am no prophet, nor the son 
 of a prophet, but if ever the great, beautiful, and grand 
 style of art revives — it will be in England." 
 
 Gentlemen, this ever has been, fron\ my earliest 
 
40 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 youth, my own deep-rooted conviction; you know 1 have 
 never flinched — and I tell you all, -I never will — -in all 
 my desperate struggles to advance this glorious cause, — 
 one day in a prison, and the next day in a palace, — 
 never for one instant, as my friends can confirm, have I 
 lost sight of this great object. 
 
 I love my country; I glory in its poetry, its philo- 
 sophy, its heroism, its real mechanical power. Why 
 should we not place art on a level, in the repute of 
 Foreign nations, with these great departments? Is there 
 any just reason? 0 yes! — the climate is foggy — the 
 people are commercial, and have no taste, — w^e are 
 worried with political squabbles, — it will never do! 
 I answer, the climate of England is more adapted for 
 great effort than any other in the world! Were not 
 the Medici commercial, and who more enlightened? 
 And pray were there no political squabbles in Italy and 
 Greece'? Why the art was advanced in both countries, 
 surrounded by nothing else ; with the addition too, 
 of poisoning and stabbing among friends, which must 
 have been an agreeable variety in countries where 
 coroners' inquests were never heard of! 
 
 All these weak objections are the futile objections 
 of futile minds. " It will never do'' 0 how I hate 
 that expression! When Wellington said he w^ould 
 break the charms of Napoleon's invincibility — what 
 was the reply? It will never do! When Columbus 
 asserted there was another hemisphere — what was the 
 reply'? It will never do! And when Galileo offered 
 to prove the earth went round the sun, the Holy Inqui- 
 sition said, it shall never do! It will never do has been 
 always the favourite ivatch erg of those, in all ages and 
 all countries, who ever look on all schemes for the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 41 
 
 advance nioit of inankbid^ as indirect reflections on the 
 narrowness of their own ijetty comprehensions. 
 
 There are no examples in the history of this divine 
 art of such noble disinterestedness as have ever been 
 shewn by the English Historical Painters. Hogarth 
 and others adorned the Foundling for nothing, Reynolds 
 and West offered to adorn St. Paul's for nothing, and 
 yet were refused ! Barry painted the Adelphi without 
 remuneration; but as Burke beautifully says, "The 
 temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence. 
 If it be open through virtue, let it Ije remembered too 
 that virtue is never triedf but by some difliculty and 
 some struggle."* 
 
 * Reflections on French Rcvohition. 
 
\ 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 ON THE SKELETON, ETC. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 On the Skeleton — The Basis of Muscular Knowledge — General Description 
 of it — Comparison with that of the Quadruped — Brain the Seat of 
 Intellect — The leading Principles of Phrenology of great use to Artists 
 — Where Genius or Character exists — No Skull of a Genius or strong 
 Character can be shewn without the External Projection following the 
 Internal Organ : but it is not proved that the External Projection and 
 Internal Cause are always followed by the Character or the Genius 
 attributed to such Cause and such Projection — State of Taste in Eng- 
 land — Tendency to touch, secrete, and break, fast dying away — How 
 to study the Elgin Marbles, and what Period of a Student's Progress — 
 Difficulties a Stimulant — Conclusion. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 In the last Lecture I had the honour to 
 read to you, it was my earnest desire to impress you all 
 with the vast importance of a knowledge of the human 
 frame to the art of design, and the necessity of 
 establishing a standard human figure, as a guide to 
 tutors and to students. 
 
 I proved to you the deplorable neglect hitherto of a 
 deep knowledge of the human form in the English 
 school, which I shewed you was owing to the joint 
 consequences of the tendency to portrait, and of the 
 Reformation in religion, which stopped the progress of 
 the art, both in sculpture and painting, as a vehicle of 
 religious feeling or public commemoration; though, at 
 the period the Reformation began, there were evidences 
 existing then, in St. Stephen's chapel, executed by 
 
46 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Englishmen, before the Reform took place, as natural 
 in proportion, as simple in attitude, and deep in expres- 
 sion, as any figures in the Campo Santo at Pisa, one 
 of the earliest public works of the Italians.^ 
 
 Flaxman truly says in his first Lecture, p. 28, " The 
 commands for destroying sacred paintings and sculpture 
 prevented the artist from suffering his mind to rise to 
 the contemplation or execution of any sublime efibrt, 
 as he dreaded a prison or a stake, and reduced him to 
 the lowest drudgery in his profession. 
 
 " This extraordinary check to our national art 
 occurred at a time which offered the most essential 
 and extraordinary assistance to its progress." 
 
 Now, though a stake or a prison would not and 
 could not have prevented an extraordinary genius from 
 developing itself by some vent or other, yet there can 
 be no doubt that they have, morally, a general and 
 pernicious effect on the timid, modest, and more con- 
 trollable talent of a country. 
 
 Flaxman proceeds to say, " That the Civil Wars com- 
 pleted what fanaticism had begun ; and English art was 
 so completely extinguished, that foreign artists were 
 always employed for public or private undertakings, "f 
 
 * Before they were destroyed in repairing the chapel, I went 
 down and sketched them, about 1816 or 1817. 
 
 f In 1538, Henry (in consequence of the tricks discovered, 
 which had been practised by the Catholic priests, with pictures 
 and statues, to impose on the people,) issued an order against 
 them, but judiciously separated the legitimate respect for pictures 
 and statues from the abuse of idolatrous worship practised by 
 interested liypocrites. 
 
 In the sixth Article in the Constitution for the Clergy by 
 Convocation, 1536, it is ordered, that images shall be preserved 
 in churches, but all worship referred to God.*' — Rapin, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 47 
 
 The art, as Reynolds says, no longer associated with 
 public feelings of any description, sank entirely into 
 
 In Henry's injunction, pictures and statues are called " BoTces 
 for unlerned People, to remember saintes, and their faith, charity, 
 and other virtues, and gyfts of God tlie image of our Saviour;" 
 it proceeds, " paynted on clotlis, walls, or wyndows, is an open 
 Book." 
 
 In his letter to Cranmer, 1.'j42, Henry's sentiments are the same, 
 and he continued to protect pictures and statues ; but having loosened 
 the rein too rapidly, the people could not be checked, their disgust 
 had been roused ; and though there is no people on earth so slow 
 to be excited as the English, there is no people on the earth so 
 difficult to curb when once they are roused. 
 
 In Edward VI. 's reign, all classes equally became infuriated. 
 The Duke of Somerset, as Protector, and sanctioned by Council, 
 ordered all images to be thrawn down and destroyed, without 
 distinction; it was followed by a statute, "And be it further 
 enacted, that if any person or persons, of what estate, degree, or 
 condition soever he, she, or they be, body politick or corporate, 
 that now have or hereafter shall have in his or her custody, any 
 images of stone, timber, alabaster, graven, carved, or paynted, 
 taken out of church or chapel, and do not destroy or cause to be 
 destroyed and defaced the same images, and every one of them, 
 and deliver or cause to be delivered to the mayor, shall, after the 
 last day of June (being thereof lawfully convicted), forfeit or lose 
 to the king our sovereign lord, for the first offence 205., for the 
 second offence 4/., and for the third offence, being lawfully con- 
 victed, be imprisoned at the king's will." — Statutes at large. 
 
 This prosecution went to such excess that, in Elizabeth's reign, 
 it became a fashionable lark to sally forth and knock pictures 
 to pieces; and in the State Trials is a curious trial of Henry 
 Sherfield, Esq., Recorder of Salisbury, who concealed himself in 
 the church, and with a long pike knocked a window to pieces; — 
 as he was doing this, he was watched through the door, and seen 
 to slip down, headlong, where he lay groaning for a long time, 
 and a horse was sent for to carry him home; he was fined 500/., 
 and imprisoned in the Fleet: and the Attorney-General for the 
 Crown, 1G32, said there were some people he verily believed 
 would have knocked off the Cherubims from the Ark. 
 
48 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 individual portrait and personal patronage, and never 
 has recovered its dignity in England, and never will 
 
 By the eminent witnesses examined, it was evidently a matter 
 of religious conscience in Sherfield, who complained that his pew 
 was opposite the window, and that the representation of God by a 
 human figure disturbed him at prayer. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation forbidding the further 
 destruction, " without the advice of the Ordinary ^ or the advice of 
 the Queen s Majesty, or her Council!'^ — thus reserving the game to 
 herself and Council, as royal sport. She was the bitterest perse- 
 cutor; she ordered all walls to be whitewashed, and all candle- 
 sticks and pictures to be utterly destroyed, so that no memorial 
 remain of the same. 
 
 In Charles T.'s time, on the Journals of the House is found, 
 1645, July 23rd: " Ordered, That all pictures having the second 
 Person in the Trinity shall be burnt." 
 
 " Ordered, That all pictures having the Virgin shall be burnt." 
 
 Walpole relates, that one Bleesse was hired at half-a-crown a-day 
 to break the painted glass windows at Croydon church. 
 
 Cromwell, by an act of his simple will, put a stop to this 
 barbarism. 
 
 The result of this continued persecution was the ruin of " high 
 art;" for the people had not taste enough to feel any sympathy 
 for it independently of religion, and every man who has pursued 
 it since, who had no private fortune, and was not supported by 
 a pension like West, became infallibly ruined. In a MS. of 
 Nicholas Hillier, is the following indisputable passage: — "Never- 
 theless, if a man be so induced by nature, and live in time of 
 trouble, and under a government wherein arts be not esteemed, 
 and himself but of small means, woe be unto him, as to an 
 untimely birth; for of mine knowledge it hath made poor men 
 poorer, as amongst others many, the most rare English drawer of 
 story works," etc. etc. — Painting under Edward VI. y Walpole. 
 
 Historical painters, left without employment, began to complain. 
 In the time of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, we find them petitioning 
 for bread ! See Townshend's Historical Recollections. They revived 
 a little with Charles I. and II. Thcrnhill got employed in the early 
 part of the last century; then came the Society in St..Martin's-lane, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 49 
 
 till legislature, people, and Sovereign, are convinced of 
 its public power, as an engine of Religion or State on 
 the minds of the people ; and Design become in England, 
 as it was in Greece, a portion, a necessary portion, of 
 education in all classes.* 
 
 1760, and in 17G8, was established the Royal Academy, to 
 help hi(jh arty but there being still no employment for it, the 
 power in art fell into the hands of portrait painters, who have 
 wielded it ever since, with individual exceptions, to the further 
 decay and destruction of this eminent style. The granting a 
 Committee of Arts, by Lord Melbourne, 183^5, was a great boon, 
 and will be the basis of a great reform; and the most extensive 
 diffusion of taste and knowledge will certainly be the result of 
 Schools of Design, both to the people and the nobility, in the course 
 of another half century; and when they are fixed on the admirable 
 basis of the School of Lyons, viz. making artist and mechanic start 
 togethery it may fairly be argued, a revolution in art and patron- 
 age will and must be the consequence of such a system. 
 
 * It is curious that mistaken views of religion have in all 
 times been the prime cause of the ruin of art. It was not Alaric 
 or Theodoric, very justly says the author of the History of Art, 
 in the Musec Franc;ais Napoleon, but an edict from Honoriusy 
 ordering the Early Christians to destroy such images if any re- 
 mained. — Musee Fran^ais Hist, de VArt. 
 
 When I was at Oxford, July 1840, I saw and read Dr. Wells' 
 little work, the Rich Man's Duty, on the Adorning and Beautify- 
 ing our Churches ; and the curious Journal, at the end, of William 
 Dowsing, of Stratford, — a parliamentary visitor, appointed under 
 warrant from the Earl of Manchester, for demolishing superstitious 
 Pictures and Ornaments of Churches, etc., and by calculation, 
 I find he and his agents destroyed about 4GG0 pictures, from June 
 9, 1643, to October 4, 1644; evidently not all glass, because when 
 they were glass, he specifies them. 
 
 Pope's Letter to Allen. 
 
 April 3r</, 1736. 
 " A man not only shews his taste, but his virtues, in such 
 ornaments; and whatever examples may strike us, we may reason* 
 
50 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The first great step towards this essential reforma- 
 tion will be the establishment of a great central school 
 of Design in London, with branch schools in all the 
 great manufacturing towns ; and the next, the principle 
 of laying it down as an axiom never to be swerved 
 from in any school, whether for manufacture or art, 
 that the human figure is the basis of all power of 
 drawing; and the last, the establishment of Professors 
 of Art at the great universities, — so that our statesmen, 
 in the intervals of their severer studies, may be informed 
 of the common principles of art, and of its vast im- 
 portance to morals, manufactures, and wealth, that in 
 after years, when they wield our destinies as statesmen, 
 they may not be obliged to be at the mercy, for a 
 decision, in affairs of national taste, of those whose 
 
 ably imagine to have an effect upon others. So that history itself, 
 if well chosen, upon a rich man's walls, is very often a better 
 lesson than he could teach by his conversations." 
 
 " I can't help thinking," adds Pope, " and I know you will join 
 with me, you who have been making an altar-piece, that the zeal 
 of the early Reformers was ill-placed in removing pictures, that is 
 to say, examples." 
 
 Sir Robert Harlow, 1645, gave orders for pulling down and 
 demolishing of the Popish pictures, and superstitious pictures at 
 
 Hampton Court 
 
 and the Popish pictures were demolished which were 
 
 in the glass windows and orders given for new glazing 
 
 with plain glass. 
 
 And among the rest, there were pulled down the picture of 
 Christ nailed to the Cross, which was placed right over the altar, 
 and the pictures of Mary Magdalene and others weeping by the 
 foot of the Cross, and some other such idolatrous pictures were 
 pulled down and demolished. — Jesse's Hampton Court j quoted by 
 Blackwoodf 1840. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 51 
 
 interest it is to keep the people ignorant, and guide the 
 minister falsely. 
 
 " Colours fade — language becomes obsolete — thought 
 and form alone remain," as Fuzeli beautifully says. 
 And form is the vehicle of thought and expression, and 
 the basis of all things represented in painting ; the 
 bones, which give origin to the muscles, are the 
 foundation of the human form, — the muscles the organs 
 of its actions and thoughts, — and a knowledge of both, 
 the first step, the only step, to render your conceptions 
 intelligible in art without absurdity, and your forms 
 decided without pretence. 
 
 Be cissured the art has never yet had a legitimate 
 beginning in England. " The sun of art has set here," 
 said a morbid l)ut eminent painter lately. Be assured 
 the sun of art has never yet risen. 
 
 We have had comets indeed, with all their uncertain, 
 irregular, and blazing irregularity ; l)ut we have never 
 yet had a sun shining in the cool effulgence of a morn- 
 ing sky — -blazing with steady heat at its meridian, or 
 sinking in golden glory when its day was passed ! Be 
 assured we are but now in the dawn of a legitimate and 
 steady sun-rise. 
 
 In the evidence })efore the Committee of Arts, take 
 my word there are symptoms of l)reaking day. I always 
 said the appointment of this Committee would prove the 
 greatest lever in my time, and so will the country find 
 it: the necessity of design, as a part of education, is 
 acknowledged hj/all — Professors, masters, and workmen. 
 The utter failure of academies all over Europe, to 
 produce genius, was proved. The great men, Massaccio, 
 Michael Angelo, Raftaelle, Leonardo, Titian, Correggio, 
 Tintoretto, Rubens, Velasquez, Reynolds, Hogarth, and 
 
 k2 
 
52 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Wilson, came from the workshops of individual artists 
 — the workmen were then more artists, and the artists 
 more of workmen, most admirably said Professor 
 Waagen of Berlin. 
 
 To what circumstances, said Mr. Ewart, the chair- 
 man, to Mr. Morrison (the head of a great Manchester 
 house in the City), do you attribute the superiority of 
 Foreign manufactures in art to our own^ To the 
 fact, said Mr. Morrison, that on the Continent they have 
 public schools for teaching the Art of Design. 
 
 To another gentleman (the buyer of a house at the 
 West-end), it was asked, to what circumstance do you 
 attribute the superiority of France in the manufacture 
 of French gloves? To the knowledge the manufacturer 
 has of the shape of the hand, was the reply. 
 
 Of course, every French manufacturer can draw the 
 hand, before he presumes to make a glove to fit it, — the 
 reverse is the case here ; the hand is convex outwardly, 
 and concave inwardly — no man is aware of this, who 
 does not study the shape. I am of opinion, said another 
 witness, that design is so extensively useful that I would 
 make it, after reading and writing, a necessary con- 
 comitant part of education. I think it quite as easy to 
 teach design, as writing. 
 
 Mr. Cockerell said, that art and manufacture had 
 always been better directed in France, by the interfer- 
 ence of Government, than by our own individual and 
 scattered efforts, especially in the higher departments ; 
 by Professors of Archaeology, by premiums, by exhibitions 
 of art gratuitously, — thus diffusing a taste through 
 every class, manufacturer and purchaser; the result, 
 added he, to my mind, has been a conviction of the 
 necessity of such means being established in this 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 53 
 
 country, which, superadded to our vast capital and un- 
 \v<fjaried industry, would place us at the head of all arts 
 and manufactures ! I have often deplored, said he, the 
 indifference of the Government to where the honour of 
 England was concerned in art, and found in all our 
 manufactures the want of a great master mind in design 
 to direct them. Professor Waagen again added, that 
 the reason why high art had not taken its proper station 
 in England, was the want of Government employment 
 in our public buildings, and pointed out the House 
 of Lords as an admirable opportunity. Mr. Morrison 
 inferred it was tlie duty of statesmen to be informed on 
 principles of art, and it was actually found that, where 
 in one branch of manufacture we were superior to the 
 French, it was owing to the masters having taught their 
 apprentices to draw ! 
 
 The necessity of design being thus acknowledged by 
 all, let us proceed at once, without more delay, to the 
 skeleton — the basis of all design ! 
 
 When an artist studies anatomy, the greatest art in 
 that study for him is to be fully aware what part of the 
 human frame, however curious, he does not require^ and 
 what, however superficial to a surgeon, to him is of the 
 most essential consequence. 
 
 1 beg you all to recollect, this lecture will not be the 
 lecture of a surgeon, but of a painter; that it will not 
 be a lecture of hidden curiosities, but of gross pro- 
 babilities; that its object will be to shew you how the 
 external covering is affected by the bone, tendon, and 
 muscle ; and to prove to you how the greatest men in 
 the art fully understood what was underneath the skin, 
 before they presumed to attempt a representation of 
 what was above it. 
 
54 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The most extraordinary j)art of the human being is the head ! 
 which is divided into skull and face. 
 
 The skull has two parietal, one frontal, one occipital, and two 
 temporal bones. 
 
 The face, one upper and one lower jaw — the upper jaw has two 
 nasal bones and two cheek bones, the lower jaw has its angle and 
 its chin, — and these are the leading points in the head to guide the 
 painter. With the aethraoid and sphenoid bones, and a host of 
 pi'ocesses, we have nothing to do, but as matters of research and 
 interesting knowledge. 
 
 After the head comes the trunk, which is divided into neck, 
 breast, and two clavicles, abdomen, pelvis, and spine, which is again 
 divided as follows : First — 
 
 Spine. 
 
 7 Neck Vertebrae, 12 Back Vertebrae, 4 & 5 Loin Vertebrae) 
 Second-TRQNK. sometimes 6. 
 
 24 Ribs, Sternum, and 2 Scapulae. 
 
 Remember most particularly the Vertebra prominens. Where the 
 back ends and the neck begins, it is literally in forming your back 
 a lighthouse. Now we come to the — 
 
 Pelvis — divided into, first, 
 
 I 
 
 I I . I. I . 
 
 Os Sacrum, Os Coccygis, Os Ilium, Os Ischium. 
 
 In describing the extremities, they are named Upper and Lower, the 
 
 Upper is divided into 
 j 
 
 i i I i 
 
 Shoulder, Arm, Fore-arm, and Hand. 
 
 The Lower into 
 
 J I I 
 
 Thigh, Leg, and Foot. 
 
 Again, — The Hand is divided into 
 
 Carpus (or wrist). Metacarpus (or bones upon the wrist), then Thumb 
 
 and Fingers. 
 
ON PAINTING. 55 
 
 The Wrist (or Carpus) is divided into 
 First Row 
 
 \ 
 
 I . I I, ..I 
 
 Scaphoid, Lunare, Cuneiforme, Pisifbrme, 
 
 or or or or 
 
 boatlike bone moonlike bone wedgelike bone neat little bone. 
 
 Second Row 
 
 ! 
 
 I I . I .1 
 
 Trapezium, Trapezoides, Magnum, Unciforme, 
 
 or or 
 
 great. hook- like. 
 The Carpus supports 
 
 Five Bones, called Metacarpus, which support 
 
 Four Fingers and a Thumb— fore, middle, ring, and little. 
 The Lower Extremities are divided into 
 
 I 
 
 I I I 
 
 Thigh, Leg, and Foot. 
 
 The Thigh rests on the Leg — divided into 
 
 Fibula and Tibia, which rests on 
 Tarsus or Instep, divided into 
 
 I 
 
 r III 
 
 Os Calcis, or Heel — Astragalus— Naviculare — Cuboides— and 
 Cuneiforme, — then comes the 
 
 Metatarsus, supporting 
 
 Great Toe, and the four other Toes. 
 This completes the general view of the Skeleton, as far as the 
 Painter, Sculptor, and Manufacturer, are concerned. Now we 
 will proceed with detail. 
 
 The most beautiful portion of the human figure — 
 the most important — the most intellectual — the part of 
 the human body, where centre thought, expression, 
 
56 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 sympathy, and passion, — in fact, the consciousness of 
 life and death, and immortality, is the 
 
 Human Head! 
 At the bare mention of this exquisite portion, how 
 many delightful associations, divine expressions, infinite 
 characters, and endless beauties, crowd the mind ! "and 
 God said let us make man in our own image, after our 
 likeness; so God created Man in his own image, in the 
 image of God created he him." 
 
 Firmly and conscientiously I believe it ; and if there 
 be one part of the human frame more than another 
 that would not in perfection disgrace the Deity, it is 
 a perfect human head. 
 
 You hear ignorant insensible people say, there is 
 nothing in shape of skull or shape of feature. What, 
 nothing ! will any human creature believe that gravita- 
 tion was or could be discovered by a skull and face like 
 
 these? You laugh — but why ? Because you know they 
 never were, never can be, and never will be ; why again"? 
 because, first. The external shape of skull depends 
 on internal organization of brain. Secondly, Because 
 size and shape of brain prove its strength and health, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 57 
 
 or its imbecility and disease ; and thirdly, Because the 
 brain is the immediate organ of the immaterial soul; 
 and the muscular expression of the features, the con- 
 sequences of the action of the brain by nervous con- 
 nexion, on the muscle of the face influenced by the 
 action of the immaterial mind. 
 
 The brain is the intermediate organ, the immaterial 
 soul, the cause; and the expression of the features, the 
 consequence. 
 
 The features express by their action the result of 
 thinking, feeling, appetite, or passion. 
 
 Is there then nothing in shape of skull and shape of 
 feature? Absurd and thoughtless assertion! 
 
 The phenomenon of mind is developed l)y the action 
 of the brain, as the phenomenon of motion is by the 
 action of the muscle. But this no more says mind is 
 material than that motion is material, the l)rain is the 
 organ by which we are conscious of the existence of 
 mind. 
 
 If the brain be diseased, our consciousness is con- 
 fused, irrational, and unsound.* 
 
 * Lord Brougham says, p. 104 of liis Discourse on Natural 
 Theology : 
 
 The evidence we have of the existence of the mind is complete 
 in itself, and wholly independent of the qualities of the existence of 
 matterJ" 
 
 And yet Lord Brougham says — 
 
 ** After tlie body is dissolved, we no longer perceive the mind, 
 because we never know it by the senses; we were only aware of its 
 existence in others, by its effect on matter, and had no experience 
 of it unconnected ivith body.'' 
 
 * * ♦ * 
 
 "It had connected attain," he says, p. 109, 'Svith the matter, 
 which it Ksed to act upon, and by which if used (o be acted on.'' 
 
58 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Why, if the immaterial mind did not depend on the 
 healthy action of the brain for a sound development, 
 does any physical affection of the brain interrupt its 
 reasoning power ^ 
 
 For instance, Lord Castlereagh destroyed himself, 
 because, first, he had deranged his digestive pow^ers, 
 by overstraining himself in the House of Commons, 
 which derangement, as is known to all surgeons, threw 
 more blood into his brain than was necessary for its 
 action; his brain became turgid; he was haunted by 
 horrid visions, dreadful apprehensions, and miserable 
 depressions. But mark, the instant the carotid artery 
 was stabbed, and blood flowed copiously from the brain, 
 his reason returned, and he said with perfect composure, 
 " It is all over,'' His brain being relieved by the flow% 
 for a moment before dying, resumed its reasoning, and 
 Lord Castlereagh remembered his depression, what he 
 had done, and what was and would be the result! 
 
 Yet, again, he acknowledges " our ceasing to perceive any effect 
 produced by it, on any portion of matter; the only means we can 
 have of ascertaining its existenccy is therefore no proof it does not 
 exist." Of course not; — but Lord Brougham, ^rsf, says, "the 
 evidence of mind to us, is wholly independent of matter;*^ and yet he 
 says, " mind has connexion with matter, by mutual action ; that we 
 have no notion of its existence, but by its effects on matter ; " and 
 yet, p. 105, he says, "a knowledge of the mind's existence is inde- 
 pendent of matter." 
 
 Lord Brougham says, we only know the existence of matter 
 through the operations of mind ;" and I add, we only know the 
 existence of mind through the operation of matter, viz. brain, — 
 without that species of matter we can have no consciousness; 
 therefore the consciousness of the existence of mind here is not 
 independent of matter : for let a man be born without a brain, and 
 he would have no consciousness of anything, — the nature of the 
 mind may be spiritual or material, consistent with its separate 
 existence, but not in this world. 
 
ON PAINTING. 59 
 
 The same causes produced the same depressions in 
 poor Sir Samuel Romilly; but again, the moment blood 
 flowed from the wound he gave himself, his brain 
 got active and clear; and, aware of his condition. Sir 
 Samuel llomilly washed to explain himself to the 
 world while there was time, and called for " pen and 
 ink," but he died before he could accomplish it! 
 
 There is something peculiarly affecting in those two 
 instances; and they prove indisputably the mind re- 
 covered its power of deduction only when its organ 
 got physical relief. 
 
 Had the mind Ijeen totally independent of matter 
 as a vehicle of action, why does it not in such instances 
 regulate, command, and suppress, the absurd conclu- 
 sions of the brain ? 
 
 Though mind be a distinct and immortal essence, 
 ive are only conscious of its existence by the excite- 
 ment of a physical organ ; and ^V^^, the inherent 
 construction, and then the healthy action, affect the 
 soundness of its conclusions here. Where then is 
 the absurdity, as external shape depends on internal 
 organization, of associating certain results from certain 
 shapes, produced by certain causes, when such shapes, 
 results, and causes, have been found to exist together 
 in the greatest men 
 
 It is therefore clear, whatever may be the imma- 
 teriality of the mind, it has no power to regulate, 
 on earth, the organ by which wx are made conscious 
 of its existence, if that organ be irrecoverably diseased, 
 or diseased for a time. 
 
 A diseased brain destroys physically the power of 
 rationality, whatever may be the capability of the 
 
60 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 essence, independent of all matter. The Bible account 
 of the union of the two is the finest, " And the Lord 
 God formed man of the dust of the ground." 
 
 Thus man was formed, but he lay inanimate : the 
 Creator then breathed the breath of life into his being, 
 and instantly the lungs played! the heart heat! the 
 muscles contracted! the brain deducted! and man knelt 
 in gratitude to his Creator. 
 
 Further of that incomprehensible union of soul and 
 body we shall never know, and never be able to 
 discover. 
 
 It is at last taken for granted, by anatomists, that 
 the power of thinking lies in the brain; I suppose 
 I am correct in thus saying so: size of brain is not 
 always evidence of intellectual power, any more than 
 size of body is of muscular power; unless health 
 accompany the body, so that there be no fat, and the 
 brain be healthy, so that there be no water; but if 
 construction and health accompany each other, intel- 
 lectual power and muscular strength may fairly be 
 inferred in either case from size. 
 
 As the head and face are the most essential parts to 
 us, so it will be found they are the most essential parts 
 in painting and sculpture ; and he who devotes himself 
 to head and fac^, and gives them the predominance 
 over figure and form, will, as in the case of Raffaelle, 
 be sure to secure the sympathies of mankind. 
 
 Perfection in art lies in the union of the two; this 
 has never been done by any modern, and here^ as usual, 
 we must go to those idolaters — the immortal Greeks ! 
 
 Raffaelle, instigated by his genius, adhered to the 
 head and face, as immediate vehicles of expression, and 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 61 
 
 he gave the head an undue preponderance as to size. 
 The Greeks generally made their figures seven, seven 
 and a half heads, eight heads, and even nine heads 
 high. Haffaelle seldom more than six, and sometimes 
 five. Raffaelle's figures look like apostles and saints, 
 but they have not that godlike length of figure, which 
 is apparent in the proportion of the Heroic Ages of 
 Greek art, or that vast air of physical power which you 
 see in the giants of Michael Angelo. 
 
 The size of the head is a very essential point in 
 regulating the height of your figure ; a figure as 
 large and high as the dome of St. Paul's will look 
 essentially short, if his head and hands and feet are 
 large; and a figure twenty inches high* will look 
 heroic and tall, if the head and hands and feet be 
 small. In the finest figures, the head in height and 
 feet in length are the same; in the Apollo, the head 
 is less than the foot. lie is a tall god by his head^ 
 and not too tall in consequence of his feet being the 
 ordinary proportion to the other parts of his body. 
 This is a beautiful combination, and evidently inten- 
 tional: there can be no doubt, if the brain be, as it 
 is, the organ of the soul, that the basis of phrenology 
 is in degree true. There is no doubt in my mind, 
 from perpetual observation, that the intellectual powers, 
 when they exist, lie in the front of the brain; the 
 moral feelings on the top of the brain, and the appetites 
 in the back of the brain. 
 
 It does not always follow, that a head of such a size 
 is caused by such feelings, powers, and propensities, 
 because disease may be the internal cause of appearance ; 
 
 * See small bronze Hercules — Bifitish Museum — by or after 
 Lysippus. 
 
62 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 but it does always follow that such feelings, powers, 
 and propensities, have such and such external develop- 
 ment from internal construction. 
 
 The great proportion of mankind can be modified by 
 education and circumstance; but there are some so 
 constituted, inefficiently or powerfully, that no circum- 
 stance or training in the one instance shall ever turn 
 them aside from realizing their burning impressions, 
 or, in the other, ever elevate them to produce any- 
 thing. These and these alone are the fair examples of 
 phrenology. 
 
 Shew me a hero — a poet — a painter — a musician — 
 a beauty insatiably amorous — a tyrant, a murderer, or 
 a thief, — all, remember, illustrious in their respective 
 departments, and in which their phrenological develop- 
 ment does not prove the truth of the principle, and 
 I yield. 
 
 Education never can account for the contradictions, 
 and absurd, inconsistent, and strange opposites, we find 
 in men: can parents or tutors, can nurses or mothers, 
 make infants that can just run, open and cunning, 
 candid and deceitful, generous and mean, daring and 
 cautious, bold and timid, never ! and yet we constantly 
 find in our observation in children, and of our inter- 
 course with mankind, creatures of such opposite 
 tendencies, subjected from birth to the same treatment, 
 physical and mental. It is all very fine to call this 
 study " bumpology, to set a given number of barren 
 spectators to laugh." I would divide believers and 
 ^ unbelievers thus: the believers are the phrenologists; 
 but surely it is but fair to say, that they who do not 
 believe are the bumpologists. We do not believe in 
 humps ^ but in the causes that first produced them. 
 
ON PAINTI>G. 
 
 G3 
 
 Whereas, the unbelievers see not beyond the surface, 
 and rest their faith only on the external projection.* 
 
 These preliminary conclusions were essentially neces- 
 sary before beginning finally with the head. I will 
 now proceed with the skull in detail ; and at once let us 
 regard one of the most important bones in it, viz. 
 
 The Os Frontis (Plate A, No. 1). 
 Externally, it has high ridges, on which the eye- 
 brows are placed, and hollow chamljcrs called Sinuses 
 (Plate A, 2), which are wanting in the child; every man 
 must recollect when these sinuses projected in his 
 forehead. 
 
 John Bell says, these sinuses, being hollow, add 
 strength to the voice, and I believe it, and that he had 
 observed them very large in a giantess; I have observed 
 them always very large in large men with loud voices, 
 and this may be the reason why the ancients always 
 gave the foreheads of their gods such projecting sinuses; 
 for Jupiter, Neptune, Plato, and Hercules, were all 
 celebrated for their awful voices; added to which, the 
 corrugator muscles which knit the brows, project with 
 more force here when the sinus is capacious. 
 
 Remember, in drawing children, they never have 
 any projection here, and no sinus till above fifteen. 
 Whereas Fiamingo, in his meretricious alteration of the 
 child's skull, gives an intimation of a sinus. 
 
 * Many years ago, when Spurzlicim was in England, a cele- 
 brated anatomist was ridiculing tlie whole theory in his j)resence 
 at table; Spurzlieim offered to tell his leading characteristic; the 
 challenge was accepted, and Spurzheim, after feeling his skull, 
 said, your predominant feeling is self-conceit. 
 
 The whole company laughed heartily, and the anatomist did not 
 deny it, and nobody else could, for it was true. — From Spurzhnm. 
 
64 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Though there may be a bone in the quadruped, 
 which answers to our os frontis, it is too insignificant to 
 dwell on, otherwise than to contrast it; therefore set it 
 down at once, that a large^ broad, and powerful frontal 
 bone is essentially an intellectual characteristic for a 
 standard human head, and will be found in all the most 
 elevated and celebrated human beings — in Shakspere, 
 Michael Angelo, Raffaelle,Milton,Tasso,Ariosto, Bacon, 
 Buchanan, Socrates, Hippocrates, Scott, Alexander, and 
 Napoleon. The next bones, which join the occipital 
 to the frontal, are the 
 
 Parietal Bones (Plate A, No. 3), 
 
 which are essential to the form of the head; they form 
 the greatest part of the cranium, and, as the phreno- 
 logists say, the moral feelings lie under them; a character 
 of head can be rendered atrocious or pious, by their 
 elevation or depression; see a most remarkable and 
 collateral evidence in Nero and Socrates, and the 
 traditional heads of our Saviour. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 65 
 
 Let the intellectual look of the frontal bone be what 
 it may — depress the parietal, you diminish the propor- 
 tion which keeps the eyes in the centre, and give an 
 animal and a wicked air. So that the parietal bones 
 ought, in a standard head, to continue without the 
 slightest depression the shape of the frontal bone, and 
 gradually and beautifully unite the back of the head 
 with the front, as we see in (Jhrist, and all pious, 
 virtuous, and good characters. 
 
 The next bone is the 
 
 Occipital (Plate A, No. 4), 
 which holds up the back of the brain, gives origin to 
 many of the greater muscles which move the head 
 and neck, contains the lesser brain, and transmits the 
 spinal marrow. 
 
 About this bone and round the ear lie our animal 
 propensities, say the Phrenologists ; and the heads of 
 Socrates and Nero are wonderful illustrations. Nero 
 being all animal, and Socrates intellect and animal too, 
 as the woodcut shews you. 
 
 The Temporal Bone (Plate A, No. 5), 
 is the next; and is remarkable for its processes, essential 
 to the drawing of the head. First, The Zygomatic 
 process, which is the arch under which the temporal 
 muscle acts; it joins the cheek-bone, and gives form 
 to the cheek ; at the end is the hole for hearing, and 
 underneath the Mastoid process (Plate A, No. 6), into 
 which the muscles of the neck go; and this process is a 
 guide to the artist in drawing the head, and a lever 
 for muscular action. 
 
 These are the essential bones of the skull, which are 
 as necessary to be understood as the bones of the face. 
 
 F 
 
 0 
 
66 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 In the quadruped, you will perceive great hollows on 
 each side the parietal bones, which diminish vastly the 
 brain, to make room for two large muscles which go 
 into the jaws, move them with enormous power, and 
 give a roundness and ferocity to the shape. 
 
 I now come to the bones of that part dependent on 
 the skull for character and expression, which contains 
 the brain, viz. 
 
 The Face, 
 
 which is composed of a great many small bones — 
 under the name of upper (Plate A, No. 7) and lower jaw 
 (No. 8). The upper jaw is to painters most essential; 
 for, first comes the nasal process, which forms the sides 
 of the nose. It is arched outwards to give the nostril 
 shape; its sides support the nasal bones, and the 
 cartilages of the wings of the nose are fixed to its 
 edges. The upper jaw is the basis on which the 
 cheek-bones stand. 
 
 From the lower circle is a semicircle for the teeth, 
 called Alveolar process, which does not exist in the 
 infant, but grows with the teeth, and is absorbed with 
 age. In the infant, the jaw not being formed, the 
 shape of the mouth is not altered; but in age, the jaw 
 having been formed in manhood, the moment the teeth 
 and alveolar process fall away, the jaw rises up, the 
 lips double in, and the external shape, in consequence, 
 is one of the greatest characteristics of age and feeble- 
 ness, and more mortifying to human nature than 
 any other that happens to it, in its progress to the 
 grave: there is nothing so prostrates human vanity. 
 There is a story told of Opie: he was painting an old 
 beau of fashion ! Whenever he thought Opie was 
 touching the mouth, he screwed it up in a most ridi- 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 67 
 
 culous manner. Opie, who was a blunt man, said 
 very quietly, " Sir, if you want the mouth left out, 
 I will do it with pleasure.'' 
 
 The Cheek-Bones (Plate A, No. 9), 
 
 ossa malce^ join the Zygomatic process, and form part of 
 the eye-holes; then comes the lower jaw, square at the 
 chin, angular when it turns up to go under the zygo- 
 matic process, and nearly straight from the chin to the 
 angle, though it was circular in Napoleon, and is so 
 inclined to be in the Apollo. 
 
 The condyloid and coronoid processes hinge it for 
 action, but though not seen ought to be understood. 
 
 Thus ends the bones of face and skull, as far as 
 painters, sculptors, and artizans are concerned; and 
 this description ought to be studied by the student with 
 the skull of a brute and man together. 
 
 In comparing the head of an intellectual being with 
 
 F \i 
 
68 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 the head of a quadruped, you will see in the small skull 
 of the one, and large skull of the other, that the eyes 
 of the quadruped are above the centre, and the eyes of 
 the intellectual being below or at the centre; that the 
 quadruped has great projection of jaw, and that his 
 brain is narrowed to make room for two muscles neces- 
 sary for the mastication of his food. 
 
 The ancients hardly ever placed the eyes below the 
 centre of the head in their most poetical heads; con- 
 sidering this proportion of brain as giving room enough 
 above for the development of the highest intellectual 
 powers (more brain seemed a lusus naturce). 
 
 This, I would take, then, as the principle for a 
 standard head. 
 
 There have been exceptions in high characters; 
 Bacon, Buchanan, Hippocrates, Socrates, and Sir 
 Walter Scott, had their eyes helow the centre; these 
 may be considered exceptions; and I had a child, who 
 died at three years old, whose wonderful intellectual 
 power was so great, and development so mature, that 
 it pressed down on his immature vital powers, over- 
 excited his nervous system, and destroyed him! 
 
 Though, on great occasions, such instances may be made 
 use of by an artist, yet they are too rare for a general 
 principle ; and the ancients never adopting it, except in 
 portrait, should be esteemed conclusive. Let the prin- 
 ciple be then for a standard head, that the eye be in 
 the centre from the chin to the top of the head ; varied, 
 to elevate or depress the character wanted by the 
 great artist, as it may suit his necessities in subjects 
 given. 
 
 In the heads of Socrates and Nero, to which I 
 alluded, the parietal bones of Nero are as if shaved ofF^ 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 69 
 
 while the occipital bone and the parts round project 
 enormously. In Socrates, the animal characteristics 
 are equally apparent; but the parietal bones keep their 
 shape. Thus exemplifying, according to phrenologists, 
 the character of each. 
 
 There is nothing in which the ancients shewed such 
 skill, as the manner in which they preserved heautj/ 
 in every thing; beauty in expression, beauty in youth, 
 beauty in age, beauty in action, beauty in strength.* 
 
 There is a vulgar notion abroad, that the antique 
 noses are in a direct line with the forehead; it is quite 
 a mistake. 
 
 People see no difference in antique heads; straight 
 noses and short upper lips are grossly believed to be 
 the characteristic of all ancient heads. 
 
 The line the antique noses make with the forehead 
 is a gentle angle; and though, as a standard, upper 
 lips ought to be short, — is the character the same in the 
 Venus, Bacchus, Apollo, or Hercules — though they have 
 all short upper lips '? 
 
 lie has entered very little indeed into the genius 
 of the ancients, w ho sees no difference in the Niobe, the 
 Venus, the Hercules, and Jupiter, the Gladiator, or 
 Achilles, because their general proportion of feature 
 seems regulated by a standard principle. 
 
 One of the finest examples of preserving beauty, 
 even in maturity, is given in Niobe the mother. 
 
 The difliculty was to make her as beautiful as her 
 daughters ; to keep up, in fact, the family likeness, and 
 yet to make her evidently the mother, regard the deli- 
 
 * In Tytler's Letters, some one says, their faces did ratlier 
 beanlify tlieir sorrow, tlian their sorrow cloud their faces," which 
 illustrates the meaning. 
 
haydon's lectures 
 
 cacy and success, the knowledge of nature, and the 
 refined taste, by which this is accomplished. 
 
 When the most beautiful women have had large 
 families, there is, after their meridian, a little tendency 
 to double-chin, which is never seen in the braced 
 elasticity of youthful beauty. 
 
 To have altered the form of her cheek, to have a 
 little sunk her eyes, to have wrinkled ever so slightly 
 her forehead, would have injured the beauty of her 
 features ; but by keeping the form of the face unaltered, 
 and giving a little double-chin, the end was attained ; 
 a look of maternity, without ugliness, was given, and 
 beauty still left triumphant, even in age.'^' 
 
 This is one of the endless beauties that are seen day 
 after day, and hour after hour, the more one studies 
 the works of these great men; and you do not find 
 them out by going at settled hours and settled times to 
 investigate their work. . 
 
 An artist should have their productions in every 
 part of his house, to catch his eye, and entrap him into 
 reflection as he passes by. 
 
 By such artifices he keeps his attention ever on the 
 alert; and many of his deepest conclusions may per- 
 haps have occurred to him at such accidental musings 
 on his staircase. 
 
 * In early life, at a rout, I admired and followed, during the 
 evening, a mother and her daughters, distinguished for their 
 beauty J the mother did not look old, and yet looked the mother: 
 on scrutinizing and comparing mother and daughters, I found 
 there was a little double chin in the mother, which marked her, 
 without diminishing her beauty. I went at once, on my return, 
 to my studio, to the Niobe mother, and found this very mark in 
 the Niobe mother, which I had never observed before, under 
 her chin. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 71 
 
 To conclude; the head is four noses from top to chin, 
 and from ending of hair in front, three to chin; make 
 the forehead broad, not " villanous low," as Shakspere 
 says; the eyes, an eye, separate; the face, from the 
 root of the hair to the chin, three noses; the upper 
 lip, a fourth of the nose ; the ear, two noses sideways 
 from the nostrils, etc. 
 
 If the eyes are nearer, the head becomes apish; — if 
 broader, peculiar. I am no friend to endless and minute 
 divisions. The compasses should be in the eyes ; the 
 cheeks must be round, and end straightly in joining the 
 jaw; the head should be oval, the largest part upwards; 
 and nothing destroys beauty so much as continuing the 
 roundness of the cheek to the chin, it will give an air of 
 vulgarity at once to the most refined expression. 
 
 In the Anatomy of Eocpression, vSir Charles Bell 
 compares the head of a child, by Fiamingo, with the 
 natural head. 
 
 Fiamingo sunk the eye and raised the top of the head. 
 In nature, the eye of the child projects, and the head 
 goes backward; the forehead is tiat, and there is no 
 sinus. 
 
 What right had Fiamingo to take off a natural pro- 
 jection behind and put it on the top, and call it ideal'? 
 he might as well put his nose under his ear, and say, 
 O, this is my notion of ideal beauty ! 
 
 " I believe," says Bell, "this elevation of the head 
 was on the principle of the ancients, presenting us with 
 an ideal head, without copying nature." 
 
 The Elgin marbles had not then come among us. 
 An ideal form ! what absurdity ! 
 
 What is the true ideal*^ — it is restoring every species 
 to its essential characteristics of form, given by God at 
 
72 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 its original creation, cleared from all accidents of dis- 
 ease or distortion. 
 
 Ideality^ on any other principle, is Deformity. Though 
 Bell, a man of elegant and pure taste, doubted the 
 soundness of the principle of the ancients, which made 
 them sink the eye in the horse, — when a projecting eye 
 is a necessary characteristic, his defence lying in his 
 heels, his pupil being slit, so that he might see out of 
 the projecting corner, — yet to men and children, with 
 the whole world of art against him, he dared not apply 
 the same principle. 
 
 Let me entreat all young men to mark the lead- 
 ing points of the skull. In every head painted by 
 Michael Angelo, Titian, Raffaelle, Correggio, Rubens, 
 or Vandyke, — you see in every one a mastery and 
 knowledge of the skull. 
 
 Cuvier reduces the variety of our species to three: 
 the Caucasian, or white; the Mongolian, or yellow; the 
 Negro, or black. 
 
 The Caucasian, to which we belong, is known by the 
 beauty of the oval-formed head, varying in complexion 
 and the colour of the hair; from this variety the most 
 civilized nations have originated, ourselves for instance. 
 
 The Mongolian is known by high cheek-bones, flat 
 visage, narrow and oblique eyes, straight black hair, 
 scanty beard, and olive complexion. 
 
 Great empires have been founded in China and 
 Japan by this race, but they have remained stationary 
 in civilization. 
 
 The Negro is confined to the south of Mount Atlas. 
 He is marked by black complexion, woolly hair, com- 
 pressed cranium, and flat nose; the Negro has always 
 remained in comparative barbarism. 
 
ON PA1NT1N(]. 
 
 73 
 
 Thus ends the head; and remember, many artists 
 have become great by attending to the head alone. I 
 will now proceed to the 
 
 Spine, 
 
 In form as important, as the head is in intellectual 
 expression. 
 
 If the spine be badly formed, the finest limbs dwindle ; 
 the finest features and finest skull get distorted, and 
 finest hands grow long and skinny. If the spine be 
 finely formed, every other part of the body partakes of 
 its beauty, more or less, as if it were the main pipe. 
 
 The line from the bottom of the os coccygis (Plate A, 
 No. 10), to the end, where the skull rests (Plate A, 
 No. 11), is nearly Hogarth's line of beauty. 
 
 At first, the neck curves in, then, after the vertebra 
 prominens (Plate* A, No. 12), it gradually curves out 
 till it joins the lumbar vertebra?, which again curve in; 
 the pelvis again curves out, and yet a perpendicular line 
 dropped from the head will end nearly at the hasis of 
 support. 
 
 The spine is composed of twenty-four distinct bones, 
 called vertebrae, from the I.atin vertrrc, to turn; they 
 conduct the spinal marrow, support the whole weight 
 of the trunk, head and arms, and perform, at certain 
 points, the chief turnings of the ])ody. 
 
 The vertebra are arranged according to the neck, 
 l)ack, and loins. 
 
 The loins have five large and strong, and perform 
 the chief motions of the trunk. 
 
 The back has twelve, — they are also large, but 
 smaller than the loins. 
 
 The neck has seven, and their mot ions arc wider 
 than the others. 
 
74 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Sometimes men have six vertebrae in the loins ; 
 and I have observed boxers, of long curved loins, have 
 infinitely greater power of flinging their shoulders with 
 a blow of their arm, and thereby increasing the force of 
 the blow, than those who have short loins. 
 
 The short-loined men, Gregson, Oliver, etc., I should 
 suspect, on dissection, would have been found with only 
 four vertebrae ; while the Game Chicken, Jem Belcher, 
 and Tom Cribb, and Gulley, would very clearly exhibit 
 six. Nothing is so awkward as short stiff loins ; and 
 though Gregson had the most extraordinary strength 
 and beauty of chest and arms, yet his defective eye 
 and short loins made him the victim of more active 
 and less powerful men, viz., the Honorable Member 
 for Pontefract. 
 
 Had Gregson's eye and loins been as correct as 
 Gulley's, every blow would certainly have been the 
 death of his opponents. 
 
 I saw Gregson stripped, and compared with the 
 Theseus, when the Elgin marbles were in Park-lane, 
 in the yard of the house now the Duke of Gloucester's. 
 From the miserable shortness of his loins, he could not 
 bend on the navel, the great evidence of a finely con- 
 structed figure. His thighs and legs, arms and chest, 
 were certainly as fine and large. 
 
 I saw Jackson also compared, and he had the power 
 of bending in the navel, and the superiority of his 
 figure was extraordinary, though, in combining beauty 
 with strength in the chest and arms, Gregson was the 
 superior. 
 
 The consequence of not being able to bend in the 
 navel is, that the body goes at a right angle with the 
 thighs, which is most offensive, thus — 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 whereas, when, from the perfection of the construction 
 of the loins, the man has that power of bending in the 
 navel, the lower part of the body is joined by a portion 
 of an ellipsis, and thus the shoulders and thighs 
 gradually unite, thus — 
 
76 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 the Greeks always built a figure with this power in 
 the loins, because it is always the characteristic of fine 
 nature, — and because it is agreeable to the great basis 
 of their sculpture, architecture, and painting, — which in 
 form are built on the ellipsis; while Roman art took the 
 circle for its foundation. 
 
 Barry said there w^as no difference, in his Lectures 
 to the Students of the Royal Academy, between Roman 
 art and Greek art; but had he studied with the knife 
 in his hand, as you remember Burke advised him to do, 
 he would not have made such a mistake. Every curve 
 of Greek architecture, every projection of muscle in 
 Greek sculpture, and every form in Greek painting, 
 were built on the principle of the ellipsis; while the 
 circle influenced the Romans in every thing in their 
 art. 
 
 The vertebrae of the loins make a large thick massy 
 column, a fit base for the back, neck, and head, which 
 they support and balance. 
 
 Above all things, remark the vertebra prominens 
 (Plate A, No. 13), where the back ends and neck begins 
 — in drawing, it is literally a lighthouse, — it is a land- 
 mark ; if you place it wrong, or miss it, your shoulders 
 will be a deformity. 
 
 In figures of the most abstract form, like the Torso, 
 it makes a single diamond shape when surrounded by 
 muscle (No. 1, Fig. 7); but, as figures descend in style, 
 it makes more diamonds than one. To shew the ex- 
 quisite discrimination of the Greeks in the Theseus, 
 which is not so abstracted as the Torso, though more 
 perfect in its kind, there are more vertebrae shewn at 
 this part (No. 2, Fig. 7), than there are in the Torso. 
 In the Gladiator, which is the perfection of the brute 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 77 
 
 man, and nothing more, neither heroic nor deified — there 
 are yet more vertebrae (No. 3, Fig. 7); so by this little 
 marking, at any time, you can judge of the style of the 
 rest of the figure: if there be but one (No. 1), it is a 
 mark of highest style, and the rest of the figure will be 
 in harmony ; if there be more, it is of inferior character, 
 and the rest of the figure will agree. Imprint this on 
 your minds, for you will find it borne out by evidence 
 from art as well as nature. With the Atlas and Dentatus 
 we have nothing to do, but as instances of curious 
 contrivance. 
 
 1 
 
 Be assured, in concluding the spine, there is nothing 
 more important to all designers, than a clear compre- 
 hension of the bearings, balancings, and shape, of a 
 perfectly formed neck, back, and loins. 1 now come 
 to the thorax, almost as essential — 
 
 Thorax. 
 
 The ribs give form to the thorax: there are twelve, 
 viz., seven true ribs, because joined to the breast bone, 
 or sternum; and five false, because ending by a cartilage 
 in one another. 
 
 The cartilages of the ribs complete the thorax, and 
 form the limited edge of the cavity ; and it is from this 
 
78 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 cartilaginous circle, that the great muscle of the 
 diaphragm has its origin, forming the partition between 
 the abdomen and the thorax. This edge is very 
 peculiar in the antique ; for, in all the finest figures of 
 men, the training and efforts to increase strength, 
 expand the ribs, and push out the external border 
 into a circle, — I suspect that, though externally it looks 
 circular, the real edge of the ribs in the finest men 
 would l)e still found underneath in the natural shape, 
 and that the extreme circular shape is produced by 
 the beautiful swelling from continued action of the 
 rectus and oblique muscle coming, as they do, from and 
 into the border, — for I had a model with the circle of 
 the antique externally, and where he drew in his breath 
 you saw the border of the ribs the reverse shape under- 
 neath it. 
 
 Phidias, in one of the finest figures of the Metopes, 
 the fighting one, where he is drawing in his breath, 
 shews with his usual nature, the border of the ribs 
 bending downwards, and not upwards. 
 
 The sternum or breast-bone is the next: it divides the 
 pectoral muscles ; the clavicles roll on it like a fulcrum, 
 and the swelling of the pectoral muscles round the 
 bottom make another diamond shape, so visible in 
 the antique. In man, the back is short, and chest 
 broad ; in the quadruped, the back is long, and chest 
 narrow. Therefore, in a standard form, remember, 
 make your chest broad, and your back, in comparison 
 with your limbs, short. There is no part more cha- 
 racteristic of a noble and elevated form, than a fine 
 spine and a broad chest, — lay that, therefore, down as 
 another principle in forming your standard man. 
 
 Remember the contour and bones of the thorax, and 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 79 
 
 the hollow between the last rib and pelvis; the shape 
 and position of the pelvis is never lost sight of in any 
 action. I now come to the pelvis; broad in a beautiful 
 woman, narrow in a standard man, and narrower still 
 in quadrupeds. The pelvis (Plate A, No. 24), that 
 important part in designing men and women, is com- 
 posed of the ilium, sacrum, pubis, ischium, and coccygis. 
 
 The pelvis is composed of a circle of large strong 
 bones, standing like an arch between the lower limbs 
 and the trunk; it gives a powerful support to the l)ody|; 
 its sockets are large enough for the thighs to roll in ; 
 its movements are free and beautiful, bearing the trunk 
 above, and rolling on the thigh bones below ; and says 
 John Bell, " it is so truly the centre of all the great 
 motions of the body, that when one believes the motion 
 to be in the higher parts of the spine, it is either the 
 last vertebrae of the loins bending on the top of the 
 pelvis (as I have told you, a rare and essential ])eauty 
 of form), or the pelvis rolling on the thigh bones " (a 
 detestable characteristic, as it makes an angle). 
 
 It is named pelvis, because it is like a basin: the 
 first bone to be attended to is the ilium (Plate A, No. 24); 
 it is covered a little over the edge by those broad flat 
 muscles which form the hip muscle of the antique and 
 fine nature ; and at the sides, from the spine, come the 
 great muscles which move the thigh ; yet, owing to 
 the rim of the ilium, the division in the ending of 
 the hip muscle and beginning of the thigh muscles is 
 beautifully distinct. 
 
 The ridgy circle is the spine, which ends in four pro- 
 cesses before, upper and lower, and two behind. The 
 two behind are guiding points, and the cause in the 
 loins of the Venus of those two beautiful dimples pro- 
 
80 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 duced by the skin adhering to the two processes and 
 the flesh pressing round them. From the upper spinous 
 process go the Sartorius inside, and tensor vaginae out- 
 side. The rectus femoris goes from the lower process, 
 and the muscles from the hip; so superbly marked in 
 the Elgin marbles, especially by the Theseus. The 
 ischium is below — we sit on the tuher-ischii ; from these 
 points issue the massy flexors of the thigh. The pubis 
 is in front, and the sacrum behind, of a triangular shape ; 
 the point of the coccygis and the two processes of the 
 ilium are excellent guides in drawing the loins. 
 
 The form of the pelvis is characteristic in the highest 
 degree. In man, the shoulders are broad, and haunches 
 small; the thighs in a direct line with the body, which 
 gives a firm step, graceful, and noble ; while the volup- 
 tuous breadth of the female hip causes the gentle 
 ajoproach of the knees in woman, — the step is therefore 
 hesitating, tender, timid, unsure, and bewitching; the 
 most lovely women always walk with a timid appre- 
 hension; they cannot help it; they do it from their 
 inherent construction. In contrast with both, man and 
 woman, comes the form of the quadruped; his shoulders 
 and chest are narrow, and so are his loins, — both being 
 essential to his horizontal motion. 
 
 Let me impress on all artists the great importance of 
 thoroughly comprehending the spine and pelvis. In 
 front, the two processes, pubis and spine, of the ilium; 
 behind, the two other processes and the sacrum, the 
 ischium and its tuber-ischii, and the setting-off the 
 thigh bones from the sockets; all these things must be 
 learned again and again by heart, like boys at schools; 
 must be drawn again and again, till the mind and hand 
 go together, and there is no more difficulty in forming 
 
ON PAINTING. 81 
 
 them, than in making the letters of the alphabet, and 
 must be studied with and on the real skeleton. 
 
 I will defy any artist to form the haunches correctly 
 in their various motions, if they be not deeply acquainted 
 with the bone and muscular construction of this beautiful 
 part. 
 
 I now arrive at the 
 
 Lower Limbs: 
 Thigh (No. 14), Leg (No. L5), and Foot (No. IG), 
 Plate A. 
 
 The thigh bone is the greatest in the body, and ought 
 to be so, supporting, as it does, very unfavourably, 
 the whole weight of the body ; the neck standing off, 
 as it were, at right angles: the body seldom rests on 
 both bones equally, but leans from one to the other, 
 and sometimes wholly on one. 
 
 The body of this bone is thick, it bends outwards; 
 and remark this, in the drawing of the thigh, it has a 
 head and neck, and two processes, called trochanters, 
 major and minor. 
 
 These are very essential in drawing the hip, and in 
 setting on the thigh. The trochanter major is never 
 entirely covered, muscles arise all round it, and leave it 
 clear and apparent, as in the Theseus and fine nature: 
 the great glutcei muscles go in and round it, especially 
 when the figure sits, as the Theseus does; and the leg 
 and thigh of the Theseus twist from the trochanter, 
 underneath the opposite leg. 
 
 The trochanter minor is not seen, but the groin muscles 
 go into it, and by their obliquity turn the bone round. 
 The linea aspcra need only be named; but the condyles, 
 in which the thigh bones end, are most important. 
 
 The inner condyle is the largest, to make up for tlie 
 
 G 
 
82 haydon's lectures 
 
 oblique position of the thigh bones, represented by the 
 pelvis above. On the fore part of the bone glides up 
 and down the pan-bone, and over the back part come 
 the hamstrings; and there is a deep notch, where lie 
 the great arteries, vein, and nerve of the leg. 
 
 The next bone is the tihia^ from its resemblance to 
 a pipe, — on it rests the thigh bone; and the projection 
 of the pan-bone leaves, as you perceive, hollows under- 
 neath, above the head of the tibia, on each side, which, 
 being filled with cellular substance, make up the ex- 
 ternal shape of the knee. 
 
 I scarcely know a knee properly and simply defined, 
 except in the Elgin marbles; and I request you all to 
 attend to this bone construction, that you may compre- 
 hend the other markings of the knee, of which this is 
 the base. 
 
 The bone construction is first, the condyles, then 
 the grove in front, then the pan-bone and hollows, the 
 head and bump of the tibia and fibula, which are the 
 leading bone-guiding-points, and must be mastered. 
 
 On the fore part of the tibia is a hump for the great 
 ligament of the patella, which is united to the great 
 tendon of the three great muscles which go over the 
 patella into the bump. This projection, in the finest 
 and most delicate female forms, must be hinted^ as it is 
 always seen in nature. It completes the drawing of 
 the knee, and in all the Elgin marbles is never omitted, 
 and it never ought to be, any more than the vertebra 
 prominens of the neck, the outer trochanter of the thigh, 
 or the dimples of the sacrum, seen in the back of the 
 Venus. 
 
 The tibia further down forms the shin; and, in a 
 finely-formed shin, it curves gently outward till it joins 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 83 
 
 with tlie instep; and, before it ends, forms the inner 
 ankle; which, in man, is the highest, and in the 
 quadruped, when he stands like man, is the lowest. 
 
 The filnda (No. 25) is connected with the head of 
 the tibia, outside is the great tendon of the biceps 
 femoris, and it goes into it. The fibula ends in the 
 outer ankle, and is lower and a little behind the inner. 
 
 The inner ankle lies a little obliquely forward, deter- 
 mining the obliquity of the foot, which must be of 
 importance, because there are so many provisions for it. 
 First, the o])lique position of the trochanters; next, the 
 oblique position of all the muscles from the groin to 
 the trochanters; and lastly, the obliquity of the ankles; 
 the inner ankle advancing a little ])ef()re, and the outer 
 ankle receding a little on one side, which turns the foot 
 outward. 
 
 In forming the leg, thigh, hip, and foot, it is 
 important to remark their relative positions. When 
 the knee is square towards you, the ankles and foot 
 turn out; when the ankles are square, the knee turns 
 in^ and when the foot is directly in front, the knee 
 turns rather in; when the foot turns a little out, still 
 the knee is not quite square. 
 
 In the lion, the leg and thigh never being straightened 
 to the same degree as in man, tlie power not being 
 wanted, the provision to obtain it is not so perfect as 
 in man. 
 
 The pan-bone is a lever in a man, which, by resisting 
 the action of the extending muscles of the leg, increases 
 their power; so that in proportion to its breadth and 
 its resistance, in that proportion is the power increased. 
 
 In man, the pan-bone is hroad, wlicreas in llu' lio i it 
 is, of course, 7i arrow. 
 
 C.2 
 
84 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 A broad and powerful knee-pan bone is an essential 
 characteristic of a standard form for man; and there is 
 no part young artists make such mistakes in, as they 
 do in making small pan-bones, under the supposition 
 that it is graceful and beautiful. 
 
 The pan-bone is in reality a lever or pulley; it is 
 oval, the smaller part dov^nwards; it receives the four 
 great extensors of the leg: the projection of this bone 
 on the knee removes the centre of motion, and increases 
 the power. When the knee is bent, the pan-bone sinks 
 into the hollow; when it is extended, the patella rises, 
 and raises the mechanical power exactly in proportion 
 as the muscles lose their power. 
 
 This is of great importance, and the Greeks were 
 thoroughly versed in the construction. I dissected a 
 knee specifically, as I did hands and feet, to get hold of 
 its principle. The next part, in concluding the lower 
 limbs, is the 
 
 Tarsus (No. 16, Plate A), or Instep. 
 
 It is composed of seven large bones, which form a 
 firm and elastic arch for supporting the body. 
 
 First, the astragalus, which influences the shape of 
 the foot after the lower ankle; the effect of it is visible 
 in the feet of the Venus ; it is joined backward to the 
 OS calcis, and forwards to the scaphoid. 
 
 You cannot form a foot finely without understanding 
 the position and influence of this important bone. 
 
 The OS calcis (No. 26, Plate A), or heel bone, forms 
 in the lion the first great projecting bone behind in 
 the foot, when the lion is in his natural position. 
 
 The OS calcis projects, like his elbow (No. 27), dis- 
 proportionably in the lion, when placed on his heel 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 85 
 
 and toes, — therefore a projecting heel is a brutal mark 
 of form in man. 
 
 Into the human os calcis goes the enormous tendo 
 Achillis, — the great cord for the action of the calf. 
 I'he heel is the lever in the lion, therefore it projects ! 
 The pan-bone is in the man, therefore it is broad. The 
 pan-bone is not so essential in the lion, therefore it is 
 narroiv; and man does not need so great a lever in the 
 heel as the lion, therefore it does not project so much. 
 
 A small pan-])one and projecting heel are animal 
 characteristics of form, — ^vhile a limited projection of 
 heel, and broad pan-bone, are human characteristics. 
 
 Now follows the os navicuhire and cuneiform bones, 
 on which are placed the metatarsal bones, and on thera 
 the toes. 
 
 The great toe has two phalanges, and the others 
 three, liemember in forming your foot that it should be 
 arched, and the second toe longer than the great one. 
 The foot, in a European, is twice in length to the top of 
 the pan-bone, and again twice to the top of the ilium. 
 
 In the lion, the foot is as long as the leg, principally 
 from the projection of heel. 
 
 The contrast is evident here, as in every other part : 
 to degrade a human being, bend his knees and lengthen 
 and flatten his foot, — to elevate him, increase rather 
 than keep to his exact human proportions, straighten 
 his knees, and arch his foot. 
 
 I have studied feet, which were never disgraced by 
 shoes, where the great toe was free and distinct, and 
 the second toe the longest always. 
 
 Turn in the great toe, and i^horten the second toe, 
 and you have a Rubens' foot in perfection! and, instead 
 of pressing the end of the toes round the nail, let the 
 
86 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 nails hang over the toes, and your feet will be the 
 quintessence of vulgarity and distortion. Toes, entirely 
 v^ithout curb, spread out like the fingers, — therefore, 
 I think, the regulation of the ancient sandal kept the 
 toes beautifully together. 
 
 There is no part of the human body so excites my 
 sympathy, as the unhappy condition of the unfortunate 
 toes ; born, like the fingers, with the same inherent 
 right to constitutional liberty, they are condemned, as 
 soon as they are wanted, to a gloomy, cruel, unjust, 
 and unrelenting imprisonment. In every other part of 
 the body the clothing is made to suit the shape and 
 convenience of the part covered, but the feet alone are 
 always an exception, — cramped, confined, and tortured, 
 they are forced to suit themselves to the boot that 
 covers them, instead of having the boot made to fit 
 their natural projections. 
 
 A foot unrestrained and free is one of the most 
 beautiful parts of a human body. Mengs lamented the 
 few really antique feet we had: how he would have 
 rejoiced, could he have seen two of our Elgin feet, 
 fresh from the chisel of Phidias, teeming with life, 
 skin trembling, and blood circulating ! 
 
 A real ancient foot or hand is a real treasure. Hands 
 ^ire less frequently found than feet, being more detached 
 from support ; we have two or three feet in the Elgin 
 marbles, and they are matchless. The feet of the 
 Venus are antique, and are exquisite : the hands were 
 added by Bernini, and are a disgrace to the statue. 
 I will now conclude the skeleton, by describing the 
 shoulder blade, arm, fore-arm, and hand, equally im- 
 portant to a standard form, and equally deserving your 
 intense and thorough investigation. 
 
ON FAINTING. 
 
 87 
 
 You will perceive the lion has scapula, arm, fore- 
 arm, and hand. 
 
 In man — the arm is long, the fore-arm short, and the 
 hand shorter still, and the motions of the scapula free. 
 
 In the lion — the hand, fore-arm, and arm, are nearly 
 of equal proportions, and scai)ula restrained in its 
 motions. 
 
 Rememher, it is a grand characteristic in the form 
 of man to have the upper arm longer than the fore- 
 arm; fore-arm longer than the hand, which is a 
 foundation for a gradual increase of power from the 
 shoulder to the hand: whereas in the fore-arm and hand 
 lie the greater power of the quadruped; the reverse in 
 the muscular and bone construction of the European. 
 
 The Scapula (No. 17, Plate A), 
 
 is a singular hone; it lies on a bed of muscle, and moves 
 about on a cushion; it is the principal cause of all 
 the various markings of the shoulders; and unless you 
 understand the shape and motions of the scapula, I will 
 defy you to form or draw your back as it ought to be. 
 
 First. — There is its spine, a strong ridge of bone, 
 ending in a process hanging over the shoulder bone, 
 and called acromion. The spine divides the muscles on 
 the scapula; the muscles on the back and neck going 
 to the scapula, move the scapula ; those on the scapula 
 move the arm ; those on the arm move the fore-arm ; 
 those on the fore-arm move the hand; — and the perfect 
 freedom of all the motions of the scapula and arm is 
 one of the great characteristics of the form of man. 
 The lion has only the power to move his arm back- 
 wards and forwards; his ulna bones are tied to his 
 side. While man can make a perfect circle with his 
 
88 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 hand, his shoulder being its centre. In the lion, con- 
 sequently, all the muscles of the scapula are feeble and 
 flat ; because they are not wanted for the narrow nature 
 of his actions. A lion has little pronation and supina- 
 tion of the fore paw ; while man has perfect pronation 
 and supination of the hand; and all the muscles which 
 enable a man to perform these actions, are peculiarly 
 human characteristics of a standard form. 
 
 The scapula is a thin bone, triangular in shape, the 
 base towards the back; the spine ends in the acromion; 
 and unless the artist is perfectly aware of the termina- 
 tion of this process, forming as it does the apex of the 
 shoulder, he cannot draw the shoulder rightly; and a 
 projection of this point, and a fulness of the deltoid here, 
 which rises from it, are chief causes and chief marks of 
 superior strength. 
 
 There is another process, called coracoid, which gives 
 origin to an essential muscle in the drawing the arm; 
 next comes the collar bone, or clavicle, which resting 
 on the breast bone in front, is attached to the acromia 
 at the end; mark well, and understand well, this union, 
 for when I come to the muscles, you will find your 
 comprehension of the muscles greatly assisted by your 
 knowledge of the bones as a basis. 
 
 The OS humeri (No. 18), or arm bone, is round in 
 the middle, but twists into a hinge joint at the elbow. 
 Observe its proportion to the fore-arm bone and hand — 
 look at the quadruped's. At the end are the two con- 
 dyles, their chief use is to give a larger fulcrum to the 
 muscles of the fore-arm which rise from these points. 
 The outer tubercle gives rise to the extending muscles ; 
 the inner, which is largest, to the bending muscles, 
 which require greater power, for it requires greater 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 89 
 
 power to bend, grasp, and pull, than merely extend, 
 which is but an antagonist power, and does not want 
 such mechanical provision for strength. 
 
 In drawing the arm, remember the inner tpbercle is 
 lowest, so the hinge joint is oblique, which makes the 
 hand and arm fall naturally towards the face and breast 
 when crossed; the fore-arm is composed of two bones 
 called 
 
 Radius and Ulna (Nos. 19, 20, Plate A). 
 
 The Radius (No. 19) is so called from its being like the 
 spoke of a wheel; the Uhia (No. 20), because it is like a 
 measure: the radius holds the wrist (No. 21), and turns 
 with it ; the ulna belongs to the elbow, forms it, and 
 by its joint, bends and extends the arm. 
 
 The chief process of the ulna is the olecranon (No. 27), 
 which is the elbow; it serves as a long lever for the 
 muscles which extend or make straight the arm. 
 
 In the lion you see, like the os calcis, the projection 
 of the olecranon (No. 27, Plate B) is immense, in pro- 
 portion to the length; inside, is the coronoid process, 
 which is a lever lor bending the muscles of the arm. 
 
 The ulna is attached to the aim bone, ljut free at the 
 wrist; while the radius is attached to the wrist, and 
 holds the hand. 
 
 The end of the elbow and shape of the radius are 
 always visible in forming the wrist; and Vandyke was 
 peculiarly delicate in painting and touching this part. 
 
 In all the Elgin marbles, wherever a wrist is seen, 
 the ulna and radius are distinct and visible, in the 
 plumpest female, or most muscular man; they are 
 always visible in nature in the most delicate female 
 hand; but under a false taste, allow mc to tell you. 
 
90 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 their effect was entirely smoothed away, and no ap- 
 pearance of their influence visible, any more than the 
 projection of the horse's eye, or varied shape from 
 repose in contrast with action, in all the most distin- 
 guished antique statues before the Elgin marbles came 
 among us. 
 
 At my entrance among these divine things, for the 
 first time with Wilkie, 1808, in Park-lane, the first 
 thing I saw was the wrist of the right hand and arm of 
 one of the Fates leaning on her thigh; it is the Fate 
 on the right side of the other, which, mutilated and 
 destroyed as it was, proved that the great sculptor had 
 kept the shape of the radius and ulna, as always seen 
 in fine nature, male and female. 
 
 I felt at once, before I turned my eyes, that there 
 was the nature and ideal beauty joined, which I had 
 gone about the art longing for, but never finding ! I 
 saw at once I was amongst productions such as I had 
 never witnessed before in the art; and that the great 
 author merited the enthusiasm of antiquity, of Socrates, 
 of Plato, of Aristotle, of Juvenal, of Cicero, of Valerius 
 Maximus, and of Plutarch and Martial. 
 
 If such were my convictions, on seeing this dilapi- 
 dated but immortal wrist, what do you think they were 
 on turning round to the Theseus, the horse's head, and 
 the fighting Metope, the Freeze, and the Jupiter's 
 breasf? 
 
 O may I retain such sensations beyond the grave ! 
 I foresaw at once a mighty revolution in the art of the 
 world for ever ! I saw that union of nature and ideal 
 perfected in High Art ; and before this period pronounced 
 by the ablest critics as impossible! I thanked God with 
 all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my being, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 91 
 
 that I was ready to comprehentl them from dissection. 
 I bowed to the immortal spirit, which still hovered 
 near them. I predicted at once their vast effect on the 
 art of the world, and was smiled at for my boyish 
 enthusiasm ! 
 
 Honour to those who felt for years a craving — the 
 great works before their eyes never gratified! Honour 
 to Charles Bell, who, in his Anatomy of Expression^ 
 lamented the want of nature in the horses of antiquity ;^ 
 what he found wanting in horses, I found wanting in 
 men — and the Elgin marbles alone supplied that want. 
 
 In the wrists of all the women in the old sculpture, 
 I never before saw such a palpable effect produced by 
 the radius and ulna, as was the case here ; every great 
 modern painter would have been afraid to mark their 
 effect, so much was he held in awe by the pompous 
 pretences of celeljrated things in a false style. 
 
 The upper part of the radius rolls on the ulna in a 
 button-like form ; the lower part of the radius is hol- 
 lowed, and expands to take the wrist. 
 
 The styloid process is to be re-marked in the ulna, — 
 it is a peak. 
 
 The end of the ulna does not join the wrist, and is 
 not a part of the wrist; but it is attached to the wrist 
 by a tendon, which slips over it, and which goes into 
 the metacarpal bone of the little tingcr. Of tlie 
 
 Hand and Fingers 
 
 I could give a distinct lecture, so various and i ndless 
 are the beauties of this wonderful construction: first, 
 is the wrist; then the bones on the wrist; and lastly, 
 the fingers on these bones. 
 
 The wrist is a congeries of small bones, arc/icd 
 
92 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 outwards; the metacarpal bones are five long bones, 
 radiated and partaking of the arch; the little-finger- 
 metacarpal-bone turns towards the forefinger meta- 
 carpal bone, and a knowledge of this is essential to a 
 power of forming properly the hand. The fingers placed 
 at the end of these bones have free motions. 
 
 The wrist (No. 21) has eight small bones, in two 
 rows; placed first, is the os scaphoides, hook-like, it 
 holds one end of the ligament under which the flexors 
 pass; then, os lunare, os cuneiforme, closely wedged 
 between the cuneiforme and pisiforme ; the os pisiforme 
 is small and round, it projects into the palm, and forms 
 an essential part of the form in drawing, and the great 
 flexor of the wrist goes into it. 
 
 From the os trapezium, the thumb stands off; the 
 OS magnum is the bone Vandyke always touched so 
 exquisitely ; the unciforme receives the ligament from 
 the scaphoides, — all these bones have the broad ends 
 outwards and small ends inwards. The metacarpal bones 
 (No. 22) are close at the ends, and branch out; the 
 second from the forefinger is the longest, and at the 
 end of it is the projecting knuckle — the leading knuckle 
 in the hand. 
 
 The fingers (No. 23) follow, and have three pha- 
 langes; and the great human distinction in the hand 
 from the hand paw of the quadruped, is the vast and 
 perfect power of grasping by the action of the thumb. 
 The lion has no power to grasp, because he is without 
 adductor muscles, which form the ball of the human 
 thumb. The bones of the fingers are groved inside 
 and arched out, — the middle finger longest; and 
 remember, the little and forefingers bend inwardly 
 towards each other, the middle finger is straight, and 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 93 
 
 the little finger inclines to the ring finger, which at 
 once gives the drawing of the hand. 
 
 Neither Raffaelle, nor Michael Angelo, did hands and 
 feet to such perfection as the Greeks; and unless artists 
 ascertain the perfect internal construction, they never 
 will be able to do them to such perfection. 
 
 A Greek foot or hand, in sculpture, is more like an 
 exquisite cast from a perfect living model, than a work 
 of human art. 
 
 I have thus completed the bones, — the foundation of 
 the human figure ; and rely on it, unless the leading 
 points of the skeleton are fully comprehended, no study 
 of muscular arrangement will ever make any impression. 
 
 I fear it is not so attractive as a lecture of a more 
 general nature ; but no lectures on composition, colour, 
 light and shadow, form or expression, would or could 
 be of essential use, unless based on a thorough know- 
 ledge of the anatomical structure of the frame. 
 
 A surgeon perhaps may smile at the superficiality 
 of our anatomy ; but let me assure him, his super- 
 abundance and deeper knowledge may often perplex, 
 instead of clearing the head of a student. 
 
 It would thus always be better, if anatomy were 
 explained by a painter; but owing to the rapidity with 
 which money is made by the support given to portrait, 
 it is not very likely men will (pudify for such duties, 
 when opulence is so often obtained without anatomical 
 knowledge; and poverty pursues those who relinquish 
 the opulence within their reach, for the sake of, and for 
 the delight ever attending the removal of ignorance. 
 
 The eminent portrait painter is apt to believe that 
 the skeleton, or the muscles, can very little help him 
 who covers all w ith cravats and lappels; but, if his neck 
 
94 
 
 HAYDON S LECTURES 
 
 beneath a little oftener influenced his cravat above, it 
 would not be any great source of remonstrance on the 
 part of his sitters; nor would they complain of any 
 injustice, if their heads were regularly placed right 
 between their shoulders, their bodies well upon their 
 legs, or their legs and feet well upon the ground. 
 
 Portrait painting has of late years become so pre- 
 dominant, that it is really considered the established 
 unlimited monarchy of painting. 
 
 When a man of great genius appears, when he has 
 produced a great work, in spite of overwhelming 
 difficulties, what is the outcry instantly amongst the 
 leading portrait painters of the day'? Is it, how can 
 we help him to do another? how can we influence the 
 patrons to reward him for doing this'? No, no. Why 
 does he not do busts, why does he not do portraits^ 
 They begin directly to exert their ingenuity to find out 
 reasons why he ought to do as they do, and why he 
 ought not to have had the impertinence to do what 
 they are unable to do. If he have a private fortune, 
 he is a fool to waste his time on a great work ; and if 
 he have none, he is a man of no principle, to execute 
 a great historical work in spite of it. When he begins 
 a great historical picture, they predict he will never 
 conclude it ; and when he accomplishes it, they abuse 
 him for conceiving he had the power to complete 
 what they had neither the power, nor inclination, nor 
 talent, to imagine. 
 
 Here is a man come among us, who insists on dis- 
 secting before drawing, and drawing before painting — 
 the Apostate! Who proves that the hand has four 
 fingers and a thumb, and that the middle knuckle is 
 the highest — the Republican! Who asserts that kings, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 95 
 
 dukes, and ladies, should not be painted on their tip- 
 toes — the hijidel! Were we ever known to insist on 
 such absurdities? Did ice ever dissect before we drew, 
 or draw before we painted? Never, never! ^ Ft' loved 
 the art too well, we had too much respect for its 
 dignity. 
 
 Hogarth predicted exactly what has taken place — 
 that the portrait painters would have more influence 
 and power than ever, by being embodied under the 
 sanction of royalty and fashion ; and I assert, without 
 fear of refutation, that High Art, and the respect for 
 it, or the conviction that its support was and ought to 
 be the first object of every great country, is so entirely 
 gone out, that articles have appeared in the leading 
 journals, trying to prove it has no right to more support 
 than the other branches, if as much ! Such an article, 
 when the Academy was founded, would have been 
 considered rebellion against human sense. 
 
 Do you suppose I undervalue portrait — that delight- 
 ful art, which brings down to us the beautiful and 
 intellectual, the hero and the sage of past ages, and 
 carries onward the resemblance of those ecpially cele- 
 brated now, for the admiration of ages which approach. 
 Not to see and acknowledge the value of such an 
 art would be to be blind and insane! 
 
 How often have 1 studied Vandyke's and Reynolds' 
 portraits ; how often have the principles of their art 
 been carried into High Art, from which they were 
 originally drawn. 
 
 The great distinction of the English nation from all 
 other nations, is an intense perception of moral riijht. 
 The contrast struck me amazingly in France : there the 
 people, in 1814, seemed not to have the most distant 
 notion of it. 
 
96 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 A fact is truth (morally) — a portrait is a fact; and I 
 shrewdly suspect our dreadful predilection in that direc- 
 tion for fac-similes of dear Mamma and Cousin Billy, 
 is not more from domestic sympathy, than from the 
 rapture of the fact of actual resemblance. 
 
 If a great battle be fought, — which will be preferred, 
 a grand picture of the battle, or a portrait of the man 
 who fought it, in his very boots, his mry coat, his very 
 hat, and his very waistcoat? Of course the portrait — 
 Why'? because the fact of resemblance we can estimate, 
 but a grand composition of this great event may or 
 may not be like, say we. 
 
 It may be a very fine 'picture^ there is no doubt of 
 that ; but, my dear friend, the cavalry did not charge 
 when the Duke stood by the tree. 
 
 In a committee of any borough in England, that very 
 fact would decide the question against the grand picture, 
 and destroy the prospects of an angel in genius. 
 
 Look at our chimney-pieces, what ornaments crowd 
 their beauty"? 
 
 An endless mixture of indisputable facts! First, 
 there's a bit of the Great Pyramid ; then, a brick from 
 the Tower of Babel ; next, a drop of the Red Sea in a 
 bottle, and a pebble from the very brook where David 
 got his stone from, which killed Goliath, with certain 
 collateral hints there is a probability this may be the 
 stone. This is not from a love of property, it is not 
 from a selfish desire to accumulate ; it is nothing but 
 an intense relish for the indisputable evidence of the 
 existence of celebrated things. Will you believe, I 
 picked up at a stall an old edition of Waller, and in it 
 I found a bit of black paper stuck inside ; underneath 
 it was written, " This is a bit of one of the celebrated 
 Cartoons at Hampton Court!" 
 
ON FAINTIXi. 
 
 97 
 
 Now, gentlemen, suppose every visitor for 200 years 
 had been inspired with similar veneration, how many 
 Cartoons do you think would now be in existence"? 
 — Again, why do our interesting friends, William and 
 Mary Smith, in Easter week, write their immortal 
 names on the cheek of the Venus, or cut their distin- 
 guished initials in a true lover's knot, or the no-less- 
 never-to-be-forgotten day of the month, on the palace 
 door of their queen ; on the same principle, a relish for 
 a fact. Betsy and Henry, their first cousins, mai/ visit 
 the same retreat, William has no desire of immortality, 
 — " that last infirmity of noble minds," not he ; onli/ 
 if Harry come after, he will have undoubted evidence 
 that Billy was there first. 
 
 This principle, the love of fact., will also account for 
 that infantine imbecility to touch every thing we see; 
 wlicther it be a fine picture, a beautiful statue, or an 
 extraordinary man. Do the English feel assured of the 
 correctness of their eyes? — not in the least ; after seeing, 
 up go the fingers, and very often not satisfied with sight 
 and touch, they taste. 
 
 When the well was pointed out in which the poor 
 Italian boy was burked, a genteel woman, well dressed, 
 knelt down and tasted the water ! 
 
 And when Blucher and Platoff were in England, 
 people were not satisfied with seeing or shaking lumds, 
 they insisted on bits of their dress, and portions of the 
 hairs of their very heads ! 
 
 In fact, an Englishman never seems convinced of 
 the truth of his i)erceptions, until every sense has con- 
 veyed them to every iota of his understanding. 
 
 No class of life escapes this contagion; men of high 
 birth will laugh at this weakness, and tell you anecdotes 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 of themselves; — which actually happened to me; for a 
 friend of Lord Byron joined me in censuring this 
 propensity, and then told me a story of himself, about y 
 bringing away a bit of the chair of a celebrated man ! 
 
 Of Eve's first fire he had a cinder, 
 The broomstick of the Witch of Endor." 
 
 But, gentlemen, it is time to tell the country that such 
 childish propensities disgrace us in the eyes of the world. 
 
 It is time to* assure you all, that the meanest pauper 
 in Italy or France, would rather cut his name on his 
 own body, than disfigure a beautiful statue, or steal a 
 bit from a celebrated picture. 
 
 Painting never will, and never can, in its noblest 
 walks, ever take root among us, nor all the lectures in 
 the world inculcate a love of it, if such barbarism be not 
 exposed, corrected, and put an end to. Let us shew 
 more sensibility to the beauty of imaginative truth, the 
 foundation of which exists in our nature, than to that 
 propensity to fact and fact only, which in morals I grant 
 is the foundation of all principle, but which must be 
 relaxed a little, when works of poetry or painting are 
 to be felt or estimated. 
 
 In our respective circles, let us check our friends and 
 correct our children: if we do this, in a few years, 
 gardens will be enjoyed, without the flowers being de- 
 stroyed or the fruit being eaten ; pictures will be relished, 
 without being touched; statues contemplated, without 
 having their beauty disfigured or disgraced by initials; 
 and great men will come among us without danger of 
 losing their hair, or the skirts of their coats. 
 
 In Egypt, the French remained two years, and pre- 
 served a beautiful sarcophagus in one of the Pyramids; 
 
()\ PAINTINO. 
 
 99 
 
 the English army had not been two days at Cairo, 
 before orders were issued from head-quarters to prevent 
 English officers and soldiers knocking off bits to carry 
 to their friends. 
 
 You will have perceived I have a great enthusiasm 
 for the Elgin marbles, because I can prove them the 
 only works where vitality and ideal beauty are united. 
 
 Before concluding this lecture, it may be useful to 
 say a word or two on the manner in which the Elgin 
 marbles may be best studied by the student; because, 
 if studied at the wrong time, they may mislead as much 
 as they will benefit at the right one. 
 
 It is my opinion, they should be the conclusion, and 
 not the beginning of the first years of application. I 
 would advise most strenuously, that the student should 
 accustom himself to draw figures only, which are 
 perfect in head, hands, and feet, and not habituate his 
 hand and mind to the lazy indulgence of sketching 
 fragments, however divine. After he is able to go 
 through a complete figure, the Gladiator, the Apollo, 
 or the Laocoon, — let him make the Klgin marbles the 
 intermediate course to nature, directly after mastering 
 these academic and stately examples. 
 
 His hand being correct as to proportion and parts, 
 the Elgin marbles will prepare him for nature, shew 
 him the diff'erence between mere system and vitality, 
 and he will then go to the natural model, capable of 
 taking full advantage of her transient beauties. 
 
 I beg to reiterate the soundness of the principle 
 inculcated by Reynolds, viz., that of copying the model 
 before you, with all its defects, without presuming to 
 alter one single weakness, not even the distortion of 
 the toes, when you make a study. 
 
 II 2 
 
100 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 I will predict at any time from a drawing in the 
 Life Academy, the fate of any young artist, let his pro- 
 mise be what it may. 
 
 When I see a drawing square and impudent, dashing 
 and ideal, — small knees, large calves, with granite flesh, 
 and iron joints, and dandy figure — let that heaven- 
 born boy, whoever he be, turn a deaf ear to mamma's 
 flattery and uncle's predictions, and break his stilts at 
 once. But when I see a drawing with all the modesty 
 of nature, square only where nature is square — curved 
 where she is curved ; and straight where she is straight ; 
 which has all the individual langour of a tired model, 
 such as models always are, with no flourish of trumpets, 
 and no anatomical skinning of nature; then, I know 
 if that boy have imagination, there is a basis on which 
 to calculate future excellence, and if he have not, he 
 will be sure to be excellent where imagination is not 
 essential. 
 
 If you do not draw nature, first, exactly as she is, 
 what basis, hereafter, will you have to make her as 
 she ought to be^ How can you refer to your drawings 
 as documents of what nature is, in order to make her 
 as she ought to be'? how can you clear accident from 
 essence, if you do not first be sure what is accident and 
 what essence'? Such were the drawings of Wilkie, 
 Edwin Landseer, Eastlake, Lance, Collins, and Mul- 
 ready ; but such were not the drawings of hundreds of 
 papa-geniuses, and where are they^ 
 
 Too much cannot be said of the Elgin marbles, but 
 they may be studied at the wrong time, and then they 
 would ruin a student just as much as they would serve 
 him at the right one. 
 
 The Royal Academy has done a great deal of good 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 101 
 
 as a school ; it is a great pity it ever went further than 
 a school ; and in the course of time all the academies of 
 Europe will be reduced to schools only, as they were 
 at first.* 
 
 There is nothing in the world so annoying to patrons 
 and academicians as a painter's writing or lecturing: so 
 long as mere critics write on art, the nature of the sub- 
 ject is never properly explained, and the authorities are 
 perfectly indifferent when critics are the only instructors 
 of a nation; but there is nothing so much dreaded by 
 the profession as a qualified artist taking up the pen on 
 general principles, without condescending to individual 
 criticism, to improve the taste of the people or advance 
 the views of the nobility. 
 
 Whatever the artist says is to the point : he knows 
 the ground, and is aware of the abuses ; he concentrates 
 his thoughts; "and one paper written by an artist," 
 says Reynolds, "is of more value than pages poured 
 forth by the theoretical connoisseur." 
 
 When principles are laid down in writing, they are 
 before the world, and can only be refuted by opposite 
 principles written with more truth or equal power. 
 
 By writing^ you get rid at once of all the petty sub- 
 terfuges, made use of by a certain class in society, to 
 destroy the effect of unwelcome truth. 
 
 By tvritinrf, you weaken the silent sneer of conscious 
 ignorance, that conceals its own want of knowledge, 
 
 * What we want in art is the same disciplined system of educa- 
 tion we have in literature, medicine, and the church ;— were men 
 allowed only to practise in art, on the same principles as they 
 are allowed to take a degree, we should have the same general 
 diffusion of correct drawing as we have now of literature and 
 physic. 
 
102 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 and spreads an icy doubt over the unanswerable con- 
 clusions of its adversary. 
 
 By writing, you negative the solemn nod of self- 
 importance, which receives your deductions as if you 
 only explained the previous convictions of his own 
 understanding. 
 
 By writing^ you paralyse the pale-faced doubter, who, 
 unable to bring forth a single argument in support 
 of his objections, yet contrives to throw a mysterious 
 apprehension into the minds of your auditors that he 
 sees deeper than yourself. 
 
 When I used, thirty years ago, to state what I have 
 stated to you now, as to truth of association from feature 
 and form, face and skull, the superiority of the Elgin 
 marbles, and the revolution they would produce; a few 
 shakes from the awful heads of old amateurs, or a 
 condescending smile of admission from an old B.A., 
 dismissed my listeners with pity and contempt for my 
 unripened presumption. 
 
 Directly on seeing the Elgin marbles, it was my lot 
 to feel the future in the instant; and what I asserted in 
 their future influence and enormous superiority, Canova, 
 eight years after, conlirmed. On my introduction by 
 Hamilton,* I asked Canova what he thought of them ; 
 and he instantly replied, with a glistening Italian fire, 
 lis renverseront le systeme des autres antiques." Mr. 
 Hamilton replied, " Ihad always said so,but whobelieved 
 me? and what was the result of the principles I laid 
 down '? why many a squeeze of the hand to support me 
 under my infirmities, and many a smile in my face in 
 mercy at my delusion." " You are a young man," was 
 often said, "and your enthusiasm is all very proper 
 
 Because the minds of those who thus talked to me 
 
 * Author of ^gyptiaca. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 103 
 
 ivere unfurnished with materials on which to be enthu- 
 siastic, they imagined my mind was equally unfurnished ; 
 and as they saw no cause on which to he enthusiastic 
 themselves, they concluded that niy enthusiasm was the 
 dream of a distempered imagination, or the immature 
 fancy of thoughtless inexperience; whereas mij enthu- 
 siasm was then, is now, and ever will be hereafter, the 
 consequence^ and never the cause of my conviction. 
 
 I have lived to see the triumph and the glory of these 
 immortal productions! I have lived to see them pur- 
 chased by an English Parliament, and contributed by 
 my writing to influence that purchase ! I have lived 
 to see England visited l)y illustrious foreigners to study 
 their principles, after having studied them myself, night 
 after night, in a damp and dusty pent-house! I have 
 lived to be the first to send a cast of the Ilyssus to 
 Home to Canova.* I have lived to be the first to 
 
 * Extract from Canovas Letter of Acknowledymcutf 
 (Received Dec. 2, 1817). 
 Je viens de rccevoir la leUrc que vous mc fites I'lioiineur do 
 ni'dcrire le 10 dii mois pass*^, pour m'annoricer rexpcditioii dii 
 pjjitre d'llyssc que vous m'avez envoyo, si la veritt' je I'ai re^u il y 
 a qttelques scmaines, et je vous j)rie d'agi cer les sentiniens de inon 
 amc recoiirioisante k voire bonte. 
 
 " Vous ne pouviez (h vous dire vrai), ine doniier un li'nioiirna<je 
 d'amitie plus marque, et vous ne vous etes pas trompe sur le <lesir 
 ardent que j'avais de poss^der quelques morceaux de ces fameux 
 chefs d'/uvre de Tart qui ont forme mon admiration. Vous voycz 
 qu'cu vous teraoignant ma haute reconnoisance je vuux bien me 
 char<jer du devoir de vous rendre quelque service, et de vous 
 prouver par les fails que Ton ne peut pas Ctre plus sensible que je 
 \v suis au prccicux souvenir que vous d^igiiez avoir de moi, et de 
 I'estinie dont vous m'honorez. 
 
 Je vous rt nouvelle njaintenant les assurances de mon resj)ec't, 
 et de la consideration avec laquelle j'ai I'honneur de Tetre. 
 
 Votre tr^s humble servileur, 
 a M. B. 11. JIaydon. Ant. Canova. 
 
104 
 
 HAYDON S LECTURES 
 
 introduce them into Russia, and I shall yet live to see 
 the glory of English art and the emancipation of British 
 artists. 
 
 England has ever had to fight her way through con- 
 tempt of foreign nations, to greatness in every thing, 
 where accidental and not natural causes obstructed her 
 advance so rapidly as the continental nations. 
 
 Through contempt and sneers, she forced the world 
 to acknowledge she could produce great soldiers ; and 
 the time is fast coming, when Europe shall believe she 
 can produce great painters too. 
 
 But let me tell the youth who hear me, it will only 
 be done by the energy of their successive martyrdoms ; 
 till the attention of all classes be roused to the injustice 
 of letting men suffer, when a drop from the ocean of 
 public expenditure would place the art at once on that 
 level, from which the absurd excesses of the Beform- 
 ation and Civil Wars drove it, and from which the embody- 
 ing the portrait painters in power have kept it ever since. 
 
 If there be any noble-minded boy who hears me, 
 who is resolved to devote himself to keep alive the 
 historical feeling which Hussey, Barry, West, Beynolds, 
 Fuzeli, Etty, Hilton, Lane, and myself, have contrived 
 to save, that is all, from utter decay; let me tell him 
 his bed will not be a bed of roses, and his habita- 
 tion as often perhaps a prison as a palace; but if he 
 be of the true blood, if he possess that great charac- 
 teristic of our dear country — Bottom! — neither calumny 
 nor want, difficulty nor danger, will ever turn him aside 
 from the great object of his being. 
 
 But, if such a youth shrink from endurance — if his 
 heart cower at opposition — let him be assured he is not 
 built for a Reformer in Art — his light is any light but 
 light from heaven! 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 105 
 
 The spirit which must animate a boy in England 
 for High Art, is the spirit of Luther, who, when he was 
 told he would be murdered if he went to the Diet at 
 Worms, replied, — "if every tile on the house-tops of 
 Worms was a devil — I'd go!" 
 
 Remember, the cross which now glitters on the 
 domes of our cathedrals as the guide to heaven, was 
 once the gallows of the Romans ! 
 
 Rememljer that labour is the price of every thing 
 valuable, and si(ffcring the only medium for the correc- 
 tion of error. 
 
 West said, in his letter to the Northern Society, that 
 he knew no people since the Greeks so likely to revive 
 grand art as the English ! and Richardson said, I am 
 no prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but if ever the 
 great and beautiful style of art revive, it will be in 
 England. 
 
 It is prophetic of our future eminence, the nation is 
 getting rapidly enlightened ; and is it not singularly 
 interesting in the history of this great country, that 
 exactly at the very right time, the linest productions 
 of the Ancient Greeks, works which they themselves 
 estimated as their highest efforts, should come among 
 us, after being unknown comparatively since the decay 
 of the Romans; and that they should instil principles 
 which will enable us in time to rival that ilhistrious 
 people from whom we received such models, in poetry, 
 philosophy, oratory, and art. 
 
 Reynolds said, the last words he should wish to pro- 
 nounce in the Academy, were, Michael Angelo! jNlichael 
 Angelo! The last words I should wish to utter in 
 this world, till art gave way to more awful reflections, 
 while my voice was articulate, and a fibre of my vitality 
 quivered, — are, Elgin Marbles! Elgin Marbles! 
 
LECTURE III. 
 ON THE MUSCLES. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 ON THE MUSCLES. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 My last Lecture was on the Bones — the 
 foundation on which the muscular arrangement acts; 
 on which the muscles arise, and are inserted ; and with- 
 out which the animal machine could have neither con- 
 sistence, basis, nor motion. 
 
 The proportion and shape of the bones are visible in 
 the head, joints, hands, feet, and shoulders; the bones 
 are r»oved by the muscles, influenced by the will, 
 excited by an idea, or an intention, of the brain — how, 
 the deepest anatomists are not wiser than we are! 
 
 A muscle has generally a tendinous origin, but 
 always a tendinous insertion, more or less ; tendons 
 are a species of string at the end of the muscles; the 
 muscle contracts and pulls the tendon, which drags the 
 part after it. 
 
 Remember, the distinction between muscle, tendon, 
 and bone, is the cause of all the variety of form in the 
 human body. 
 
 Bones are angular; tendons, straight; muscles, cir- 
 cular in action, and elliptical in repose. 
 
 Never forget that the form of every part of the 
 human body varies with action and repose ; that the 
 opposite contours of a limb can never be the same 
 from inherent formation, nor of a trunk, if the least 
 
110 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 inclined from the perpendicular; that the bones are 
 the things moved, and the muscles the things moving; 
 and that both muscles and tendons are covered by 
 skin, which the great Italian painters were apt to forget 
 if they were skilled in anatomy, but the illustrious 
 Greeks — never ! 
 
 MUSCLES OF HEAD AND FACE. 
 
 The first muscles for the artists to study and master 
 are, of course, the muscles of the head and face, by the 
 action of which passions are expressed, and feelings 
 communicated to the spectators. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The first muscle of the head and brow is the occipito 
 frontalis (I), which spreads over the scalp, and by two 
 
 little rih])on tendons (2 2) goes in at the root of the 
 nose. 
 
 By its action you can move the hair, and its insertion 
 delicately unites the brows of a beautiful woman with 
 the beginning of her beautiful nose. In painting or 
 drawing a head, be careful not to miss this essential 
 beauty. 
 
 The tendons are broadly separate, and complete the 
 drawing of the root as well as the Ix-ginuiiig of the 
 
112 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 nose, and sweep the circle of the eyebrows into the 
 line of the nose. 
 
 The next muscle is the corrugator (3), which is 
 antagonist to the last, knits the brows, and wrinkles 
 the skin between ; the levator palpebrce superioris, the 
 lifter of the upper eyelid, is of no use to us. The fron- 
 talis raises the eyebrows, and by the slip of tendon here 
 pulls them down; the corrugator pulls them inwards, 
 and knits the brows — the hidden lifter of the upper 
 eyelid opens the eyelid, and the orbicularis oculi (14), 
 closes the eye when we have dust in it. 
 
 These are the muscles of the brows and eyes, and 
 must be carefully remembered in expression. 
 
 Mere fright lifts the brows. Terror and horror, 
 partaking of emotion deep and pathetic, knit them ; 
 rage, anger, pain, knit them. In insanity, the brows 
 are vacantly raised, while the sneer and malignity of 
 insanity are visible in the mouth and eyes. 
 
 Now come the muscles of the face and nose ; and 
 every student in painting should master them like his 
 alphabet, and be able to sketch them at once. 
 
 LEVATOR LABII SUPERIORIS ALiEQUE NASI (4), 
 
 Lifter of the upper lip, and wings of the nose, 
 
 arises from the nasal process close by the tendon of 
 orbicularis oculi; it is divided; one part is implanted 
 into the cartilage of the nose, the other to the upper 
 lip; it raises the upper lip, and spreads the nostrils 
 wide, in great rage, violent hysterics, and asthmatic 
 spasms. 
 
 THE LEVATOR PROPRIUS, ETC. (5), 
 
 The real lifter, etc 
 It is called real, because there are two others, one to 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 113 
 
 the angle of the mouth, and one common to the lip 
 and nostril ; it arises from the upper jaw, close to orbit, 
 it runs down, and obliquely, to the middle of the lip, 
 and meets its fellow just in the filtrum or gutter. 
 
 It pulls the upper lip upwards, and when a man 
 receives a blow on the suture of the skull, as in one of 
 the Metope heads of the Parthenon, the action of this 
 muscle on one side of the face pulls up the lip, which 
 you may see exquisitely marked in a Metope. The 
 next muscle is 
 
 Levator anguli oris (6), 
 
 the lifter of the angle of the mouth. It arises above 
 the dog teeth; it is mixed with the orbicularis oris, at 
 the corner of the mouth, and raises the angle upwards. 
 After that must be remarked the Zygomaticus Major 
 (11), which has nearly the same direction, and goes to 
 the angle of the mouth. It is the muscle that marks 
 the face with that line from the cheek-bone to the 
 corner of the mouth, in laughter, rage, and grinning. 
 
 Buccinator (7), 
 or trumpet-blower; it fills the walls of the cheek — it 
 flattens the cheek in action, and assists in drinking ; in 
 blowing wind instruments, it receives the wind and 
 expels it, from whence its name. It comes from the 
 coronoid process of the upper jaw, and is put into the 
 corner of the mouth. 
 
 Depressor anguli oris (8), 
 
 of the mouth, is a neat muscle ; arises triangularly in 
 a line with the jaw; it grows smaller, and goes to the 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 corner of the mouth, right opposite the zygomatic and 
 levator muscles. 
 
 In cheerful motions, as laughter, smiling, etc., the 
 zygomatics and levators pull the angles upwards. 
 
 In Fear, Pride, Hatred, Revenge, Disgust, Contempt, 
 Consciousness of Power — like Satan — the Depressor 
 pulls the corner of the mouth downwards; and where 
 the tendons of all these muscles meet, the corners of 
 the mouth make a roll of skin, very characteristic of 
 the antique ; the muscles pull the skin at angles, and 
 the roll crosses the direction of their action. 
 
 Depressor labii inferioris (9), 
 The Depressor of the Lower Lip, 
 
 is a small muscle lying on each side of the chin. It 
 arises on each side of the chin from the lower jaw-bone. 
 It goes obliquely upwards and inwards till it meets its 
 fellow in the middle of the lip ; and where the muscles 
 of the opposite sides meet, there is a little filtrum or 
 furrow of the lower lip, as in the upper one. 
 
 It pulls the lip downwards ; it is on both sides square, 
 and has been named Quadratus^ the square muscle of 
 the chin. 
 
 Orbicularis oris (10), 
 
 is the last visible muscle of the face which is useful 
 and can be seen; it is very regular, and constitutes the 
 thickness of the lips, and is of a circular form, surround- 
 ing the mouth, as that of the eyes does of the eye. 
 
 Its fixed points are the two angles of the mouth, at 
 that roll or swelling which is forjned by the union of 
 the zygomatic, triangularis, and other muscles, and its 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 115 
 
 chief use is to contract the mouth, and to antagonise the 
 other muscles which 1 have just described. 
 
 Thus end the muscles of the forehead, lips, nose, 
 and face, upper and lower jaws, all of which are con- 
 tinually in request with the painter of passion. 
 
 Those of the nose and lips are not merely useful in 
 expressing the passions; that is a secondary and acci- 
 dental use, though to painters a primary object; their 
 great ofiice is to perform the continual movements which 
 breathing, speaking, chewing, and swallowing require. 
 
 There are muscles for opening the mouth, which are 
 all antagonised by this one — the orbicularis oris. 
 
 The I'lffer and depressor of the upper and lower lips 
 separate the lips and open the mouth. 
 
 The lifter of the angle of the mouth along with the 
 zygomatic muscles raise the cheek, and dilate the 
 corners of the mouth. 
 
 The buccinator pulls the corner of the mouth directly 
 backwards, opening the mouth. 
 
 The annularis oris dilates the mouth, pulls the angle 
 of the mouth downwards and backwards, and forms it 
 into a circle, if the others act at the same time ; but the 
 orbicularis oris being the largest and strongest, shuts the 
 mouth, and antagonises them all, and from an opening 
 as wide as the mouth can require, shuts the mouth at 
 pleasure so closely, as to retain the very breath against 
 all the force of the lungs. 
 
 It is the true antagonist of all the other muscles, and 
 they and the orbicularis mutually act on each other in 
 opening and shutting the mouth. 
 
 It is a paralysis of the muscles that so often occasions 
 a hideous distortion of the face; for, when one side of 
 the body falls into palsy, the muscles of the one cheek 
 
 i2 
 
116 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 cease to act; the muscles of the other cheek continue to 
 act with their usual degree of vigour. 
 
 This contraction of the muscles of one cheek excites 
 also the orbicularis oris to act, and so the mouth is 
 pursed up, and the lips and angles are drawn towards 
 one side. 
 
 Not one in ten thousand perhaps, Mr. John Bell 
 says, can move his ears. 
 
 The celebrated Mr. Mery used, when lecturing, to 
 amuse his pupils by sa,ying, that in one thing he surely 
 belonged to the long-eared tribe ; upon which, he 
 moved his ears very rapidly backwards and forwards; 
 and Albinus, the celebrated anatomist, had the same 
 power, which is performed by those little muscles 
 not seen. 
 
 I tried it once in painting with great effect. In my 
 picture of Macbeth,^ when he was listening in horror 
 before committing the murder, I ventured to press his 
 ears forwards like an animal in fright, to give an idea 
 of trying to catch the merest sound ; and it was certainly 
 very effective, and increased amazingly the terror of the 
 scene, without the spectator's being aware of the reason. 
 
 The Temporal and Masseter (12 and 13) 
 
 move with great power the lower jaw. The temporal 
 muscle arises from the flat side of the temporal, parietal, 
 and sphenoid bones, and is inserted into the end of 
 the lower jaw. 
 
 The masseter is short and thick, and rounds the 
 cheek in shape, and takes off the too great flatness and 
 softens the angle. 
 
 * Painted for Sir G. Beaumont, 1812, now at Colchorton Hall. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 117 
 
 When we bite, we feel the temporal muscle on the 
 temples, and the masseter upon the back part of the 
 cheek. 
 
 In rage, when the teeth are clenched and fixed, 
 the temporal and masseter muscles act with great 
 power, and the veins of the forehead swell out. 
 
 It will be essential for the painter and sculptor to 
 recapitulate generally, and to learn distinctly by heart, 
 the leading offices of the muscles of the head and face: 
 when thus they are expressing Passion, they will be 
 enabled to dash out the results of their separate actions 
 with truth and feeling. 
 
 The occipito frontalis 
 
 wrinkles the forehead; the corrugator knits the brows; 
 the levatorcs lahiorum^ lift up the lips, spread wide the 
 nostrils, and open the mouth ; the depressores lahiorum 
 depress the lip; the triangular muscles draw down the 
 corners of the mouth; the zygomatic muscle distorts the 
 cheek, and the orbicularis oris antagonises all these, 
 and closes the mouth. 
 
 " These muscles, while they are performing more 
 important duties," also, says John Bell, express the 
 passions, and mark the countenance, with traits never 
 to be effaced;" to us painters the expression of the 
 passions is the most important duty they have to do. 
 
 The shapes of the bones determine the general form 
 of the face. One great muscle, the masseter, gives the 
 rounding of the cheek; the rest are all moveable and 
 delicate muscles, and the great character of the face 
 centres round the mouth and nostrils where those 
 muscles converge; the lean and delicate face gains in 
 expression where the cheek is hollow, the angle of the 
 
118 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 mouth, the lines strong; but in those who are bloated, 
 the cheek is fatter, the lines obliterated, the delicate 
 turnings of thought and feeling are lost; all but the 
 more violent strains of passion are buried in the mass. 
 The great lines of character are the lines of the zygo- 
 matic muscle, coming from above, and of the triangular 
 muscle, coming from the chin; and the moving point 
 towards which they all act, is the corner of the mouth. 
 
 In cheerful emotions, the features rise all towards the 
 eye, which becomes full and turgid. In the depressing 
 passions, the features sink, the eye is languid, and the 
 whole countenance gets a thoughtful, serious cast ; and 
 still it is the corner of the mouth, that is the central 
 point of all these changes. 
 
 The corners of the mouth are continually supported 
 by the action of the levator and of the zygomatic 
 muscles. They are raised high in smiling, so as to form 
 a dimple; then they are raised higher in laughter, so 
 as to swell the cheek, wrinkle the eyelids, and compress 
 the eyes, till tears begin to flow. And the corner of 
 the mouth, which is thus raised in laughter, is distorted 
 in pride, malice, hatred; dilated and drawn back- 
 ward in rage, drops lower in grief, and in palsy falls 
 quite down. 
 
 These movements round the angle of the mouth, are 
 the chief indications in the face itself; while all other 
 indications of passion, proceed from the general system. 
 A healthy body and cheerful mind have the face full, 
 the eye full, the back braced, the whole body in 
 a moveable, active, and highly excited state. But 
 when the heart beats languid in grief, or palpitates in 
 fear, the face becomes pale, the features sink, the limbs 
 tremble, the whole frame is unbraced, cold, and unapt 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 119 
 
 for motion, and from these general conditions of the 
 system proceed all those other marks of passion which 
 accompany the changes of the face; for in grief, fear, 
 and despair, the blood ebbs, the face is pale, and the 
 features sink; while in anger the face is red, the eye- 
 brow corrugated, the eye turgid, and strained towards 
 the most violent action; the breath is retained, while 
 the pulse beats high, and so the face ])ecomes turgid; 
 the eye is fiery and red, there is a grinding of the teeth ; 
 the angles of the mouth are strained backwards; the 
 nostrils are raised and dilated: the zygomatic, masseter, 
 and temporal muscles, are in violent action, which gives 
 an angular and linear hardness to all the features, and 
 saliva and foam proceed from the universal pressure 
 upon all the glands. 
 
 At the battle of Waterloo, many of the British and 
 French soldiers, in the fury of contest, had their mouths 
 as much covered with foam, as the fiercest and most 
 savage animals in fight, from violent pressure on the 
 glands. 
 
 We have now done with the interesting muscles of 
 the face and head, the hidden causes of the expression 
 of the Passions by feature. The next thing to proceed 
 to is the throat: a beautiful throat is a very necessary 
 adjunct to the completion of a fine form, more especially 
 in women. 
 
 The Throat 
 
 is complicated in its anatomy, but we have nothing to 
 do with anything but the visible; and the first point to 
 be remarked in the draAving of the throat, is a projection 
 of the thyroid cartilage, called Pomum Adami^ i). 
 It is the most projecting part, is more visible in 
 
120 haydon's lectures 
 
 men than in women, and yet influences the shape of a 
 woman's throat, even the most delicate. 
 
 The next projection is below, and owing to the 
 windpipe. So that, first, is the chin, a; then the 
 muscles which go to it, b; the os hyoides, c; a little 
 hollow, E ; and either the windpipe or cricoid cartilage, 
 F, brings the shape to between the tendons of the 
 mastoideus, g. 
 
 In the Niobe and Venus, and in all beautiful throats 
 of men or women, the two projections originating in 
 the Pomum Adami and thyroid cartilage produce those 
 exquisite concave and convex lines, till the throat ends 
 upon the clavicles. 
 
 The reader is now referred to Albinus, or any correct 
 Anatomical Plates, to which he should refer as he reads 
 the Lecture. 
 
 First muscle, 
 sterno'hyoideus^ arises from the sternum, goes into the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 121 
 
 OS hi/oides; next, sterno-thyroideus and omo-hyoideus 
 are seldom seen, except in violent blowing of trumpets, 
 tben, in a muscular man, tbey separate and are seen 
 distinctly: these three muscles pull the throat down. 
 
 Muscles, to pull up. 
 The mylo-hyoideus and stylo-hyoideus go from the 
 lower jaw and styloid into the os hyoides^ and make 
 the first line of form b before your pencil comes to 
 the Pomum Adami. 
 
 The DiGASTRicus. 
 
 is extraordinary evidence of previous thinking, in 
 arrangement. It arises at the mastoid process; slips 
 through, the stylo-hyoideus^ like a loop, and goes right 
 to the jaw: in acting it is kept down by the above 
 muscle, and pulls the jaw down by an insertion, 
 which is actually on a level with its origin; yet, by 
 going through the other muscle, it accomplishes its 
 object. 
 
 I believe Paley alludes to this. 
 
 The rest of the muscles of this beautiful part are all 
 internal, and of no use to painters: though the great 
 mJlstoideus belongs to the neck, it comes from the 
 trunk, and it will be irregular to do more than draw 
 your attention to it, — as essential in forming that 
 beautiful pillar of which the head is the capital, 
 viz. the neck. 
 
 We now proceed to the muscles of a most singular 
 bone, viz. the Scapula^ which is neither articulated 
 nor attached to any part of the body, but floats upon a 
 mass of muscle, producing all those infinite varieties 
 of marking so visible in back and shoulders, whether 
 in action or repose. 
 
122 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Let every artist recollect, that the muscles which 
 move the scapula lie on the body; the muscles w^hich 
 move the arm lie on the scapula; the muscles for the 
 fore-arm lie on the arm; and the muscles to move the 
 hand and fingers lie on the fore-arm. 
 
 This is John Bell's admirable arrangement, and 
 clears the mind of a painter at once. 
 
 One of the great distinctions between a quadruped 
 and a man, is the power the man has of making a 
 free circle with his hand — the shoulder-joint being the 
 centre of motion — and the perfect freedom of supination. 
 
 Man can turn his wrist down ; his elbow is a perfect 
 hinge ; the shoulder-joint is a ball and socket; and to 
 complete all these, the scapula itself is moveable— -the 
 centre of all the motions. 
 
 Remember, the moment the arm-bone moves above 
 the horizontal position, the acromion process of the 
 scapula stops it, and the scapula rolls on the trunk 
 before the arm can move higher. 
 
 What an incessant variety of motion ! The muscles 
 which move the scapula, come from the breast to move 
 it forwards^ from the neck to move it upwards^ from 
 the spine to move it backwards^ and from the side, that 
 is from the ribs, to move it downwards. 
 
 As each part of the form comes under review, I shall 
 call your attention to the difference of the quadruped 
 in the construction of the same part. Thus you will 
 perceive the European has the power of making his 
 actions perfectly free from the shoulder joint, whereas 
 the quadruped is free only from the olecranon, which 
 restraint ties, as it were, the shoulder to the elbow, and 
 gives only horizontal motion to the quadruped. 
 
 It follows then, first, that freedom of action from the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 123 
 
 shoulder joint is a human characteristic ; and second, 
 that whatever in bone, or muscular construction, which 
 enables a human being to do this to perfection, is essen- 
 tial to his figure, and must be dAvelt upon by the great 
 artist in his construction; therefore, all the muscles, 
 or leading portions of these muscles, which are essential 
 to the performance of these characteristic actions, must 
 be selected and arranged in a standard man. 
 
 The first muscle in the back, and the most essential 
 to its beauty in man or woman, is the 
 
 Trapezius. 
 
 It arises from the back of the head, in equal portions, 
 each side, quite to the mastoid process (remember this). 
 It covers all the back and neck, quite to the fore part 
 of the shoulder, — the two portions go to the tips of the 
 shoulders, and nearly down to the loins. 
 
 One portion, each side, is implanted into one-third 
 of the clavicle, nearest the shoulder, and into the tips 
 of the acromion ; the acromion sometimes making a 
 beautiful marking in the midst. 
 
 This portion raises the scapula; it then branches 
 round the upper angle of the scapula, leaving a hole, 
 E e; after going along the spine, it adheres to the 
 scapula, to its end. 
 
 This portion moves it towards the spine: it then 
 branches down into the back, in a point, completing its 
 lozenge form. This portion helps to pull it down. 
 
 The drawing of the back, nape, and shoulders, is 
 one of the most difhcult things, as well as most beau- 
 tiful, in the form; for the trapezius is not only import- 
 ant eiternallij, but its form is so varied by internal 
 construction, that unless a painter descend in dissection 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 125 
 
 to the very bone, a knowledge only of tjie trapezius 
 will help him very little way. 
 
 In forming your back, at once go to the vertebra 
 prominens (a): the two upper parts of the trapezius 
 come from the bottom of the skull, close to the mastoid 
 process; they go down and twist at B B, in order 
 to branch off to the acromion ; they pass over the spine 
 of the scapula X X X X, and twisting again, leave a 
 hole E E, which in a woman's lovely shoulders is a 
 dimple, and in a man is a hole: it then glides over, and 
 branches out again at the bottom of the scapula into 
 the back r r. Between the edge of the scapula and 
 the bit of Trapezius r r, is seen f f, the rhomboideus. 
 The serratus g g, comes from the ribs to the edge of 
 scapula and is visible underneath the latissimus dorsi 
 p p, which spreads over the longissimus dorsi, h h. i, is 
 obliquus descendens; j, gluta^us; K, teres major; l, 
 infra-spinatus ; m, portion of deltoid, which comes from 
 spine of scapula ; N, portion from acromion ; o, portion 
 from clavicle. 
 
 This comprises the external back, the essentials of its 
 motion, and none more or less, in which nothing can be 
 left out, for the action of arm, scapula, or body. 
 
 The levator scapuhc is not necessary, to be seen. 
 The next underneath is the rhomboideus ; it comes from 
 the spine, and goes along the whole length of the 
 scapula at the base; f f is the bit seen. 
 
 These muscles raise the scapula and carry it ])ack- 
 wards. On the fore-part of the breast lies the serratus 
 major anticuSy which moves it forward. 
 
 The serratus g is most important; it arises by dis- 
 tinct teeth from all tha trae ribs and three of the false 
 ones, it is a part of that cushion on which the scapula 
 moves, it goes into the whole base with the rhomboid. 
 
126 ' haydon's lectures 
 
 In violent breathing, in collecting the breath, in 
 heaving up the ribs, its chief action is on the scapula; 
 and the scapula can hardly move without the serratus 
 being in action. 
 
 In the fighting Metope, of the Elgin marbles, it is 
 beautifully marked; but it must be only marked dis- 
 tinctly v^hen not in repose, — for repose lessens its 
 visibility ; though w^hether in action or repose, it in- 
 fluences the shape ; it is pov^erfully seen in the Torso. 
 
 The pectoralis minor goes to the comcoid process, it 
 is seen in the Gladiator. 
 
 Thus, this singular bone, the scapula, is moved in 
 every direction, and its various slippings about, are the 
 causes of all the variety of shape and projection, a back 
 in action exhibits; and the great Phidian principle, viz. 
 "that the form of a part varies with its action or its 
 repose," can never be better illustrated, than by the 
 various movements of the scapula, — every movement 
 giving a different shape ; and here I would venture to 
 say, the Torso is not so pure in principle as the 
 Elgin marbles. 
 
 As the space from the spine to the base of the scapula 
 is diminished b b, or increased A a, so will the quantity 
 of muscle always contained in that space be compressed 
 or distended. 
 
 While I was painting Dentatus (1808), I observed 
 this in nature ; but finding the protrusion of muscle in 
 the Torso equal nearly on one side as on the other of 
 the spine, though the movements of the scapula were 
 certainly not equal, I feared to put into the back of 
 my Hero, what I saw in nature, because I did not 
 see it in the antique; such, at that time, was our 
 bigoted and blind admiration ! 
 
128 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 It was during my anxiety on this very point, I saw 
 the Elgin marbles; and perceiving at once, in the 
 back of the Theseus, attention paid to the different 
 shapes, produced on the different sides of the back, by 
 the different motions of the scapula, you may judge of 
 my enthusiasm — on my return I dashed out the whole of 
 the paltry back of Dentatus, and from that hour to this, 
 took nature, and common sense for my guide in art, 
 and laughed for ever at your heau ideal; which, however 
 splendid may be the art which develops it, is utterly 
 worthless, if any of the great inherent principles of 
 life are violated for any purpose whatever, however 
 imposing ! 
 
 Torso, No. 1, / jb first space and greatest, a a 
 second space and least. 
 
 Theseus, No. 2, a a first space and greatest, b b 
 second space and least. 
 
 No. 3., A a first space and greatest, second space 
 and least b b. 
 
 In all, the muscles ought to be protruded in the 
 compressed space b b, and stretched in the extended 
 space A A. Now, in the Torso, though the space a a 
 from scapula to spine, is more than b b, the protrusion 
 is stronger, or as strong, when it ought to be flatter. 
 
 One scapula is evidently pressed a little back, the 
 other pulled forward: whatever may have been the 
 muscular protrusion of any man, compression and 
 extension must have had their relative influence. 
 
 While I thus point out with difiidence what is evi- 
 dently false, on comparing this immortal fragment with 
 the Phidian fragments, still more worthy of immor- 
 tality, let it be remembered, the Torso is famous for 
 containing all the standard -elements of an heroic form, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 129 
 
 as compared with the brute. At the end of one of the 
 pediments of the Parthenon was a fragment, according 
 to Nointel's drawings, in the same action as the Torso 
 precisely ; and it is a curious coincidence, though the 
 Torso has evidently been disfigured intentionally, and 
 with art. 
 
 Muscles of the Arm. 
 
 The great and striking muscle which moves the arm 
 is the pectoralis major; it forms the characteristic of 
 the heroic figure, viz., the broad and manly breast, the 
 reverse of the brute, for the brute has a narrow and 
 confined one. It covers all the breast, and is inserted 
 into the arm-bone. 
 
 The latissimus dorsi is the broadest of the back and 
 whole body; it is a beautiful muscle, most essential to 
 an artist, and goes into the arm-bone, forming the 
 armpit with the pectoral. 
 
 It arises from the lower vertebnc of the loins and os 
 sacrum, it forms that fine shape p p (fig. 4), with the 
 various markings beneath, shewing through g g serratus 
 and 1 1 obliquus descendens. These vary the evenness 
 of one muscle, and are exquisitely developed in that 
 sublime exaggeration, the Torso. 
 
 The action of these two muscles, pectoral and latis- 
 simus, is most powerful ; the pectoral pulls the arm 
 forward, the latissimus brings the arm down in cutting 
 with a sabre; when the arm is fixed on a beam, it 
 raises the body. The next muscle is 
 
 The Deltoides. 
 
 The mort conspicuous in drawing the shoulder, de- 
 cidedly human in comparison with the brute, which has 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 scarcely any, or what is feeble, and in point of power 
 and importance one of the most beautiful, if not really 
 the most beautiful muscle in the human frame. 
 
 One portion (fig. 1, a) rises from the clavicle, to pull 
 forwards; one portion B from the acromion, to pull 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 131 
 
 upwards; one portion c, from the spine of the scapula, 
 to pull backwards. 
 
 And this arrangement comprises under three heads, 
 all the various portions and various actions of this 
 beautiful muscle. 
 
 The insertion of the deltoid in the most heroic and 
 finest forms is half way down the arm-bone, between 
 the humerus head and elbow. 
 
 The quadruped (fig. 2) has hardly any deltoid E. In 
 his horizontal action he requires it not, and there is no 
 part of the two species where the contrast is so palpable 
 as in the shoulders. 
 
 In drawing the deltoid, recollect the swelling c is 
 below the head b. The 
 
 CORACO BRACniALIS 
 
 is a very useful muscle, and when in action is always 
 seen between the biceps and triceps inside ; it is finely 
 marked in the Elgin marbles. It is inserted into the 
 arm-bone, between the brachialis and third head of the 
 triceps; it helps in dashing out tlie arm. 
 
 There are two muscles belonging to those which 
 move the arm, called supra spinatus and infra spinatus ; 
 the first arising above the spine of the scapula, and the 
 other beneath it. 
 
 Supra spinatus 
 is inserted into the great tuberosity of the arm -bone, 
 and performs the same motion with the middle part of 
 the deltoid. 
 
 The Infra spinatujs 
 is half larger than the other: it comes from all the 
 base below the spine ; it is inserted w ith the former, 
 
132 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 and both are essential and always seen in drawing the 
 back; though the first is underneath the spinal portion 
 of the trapezius, it affects the shape. The teres minor 
 is never seen, but the teres major is always seen; it 
 arises from the angle of the scapula, it passes under 
 the long head of the triceps, under the arm-bone, turns 
 round, and is inserted into the ridge; it goes with the 
 latissimus dorsi, it acts with it, and is essential to a 
 standard back. 
 
 These, then, complete the muscles of the nape, back, 
 scapula, and arm; let artists imprint them well on their 
 memories, till they can place them blindfolded, without 
 failure. 
 
 No back can be formed by painter or sculptor, who 
 does not thoroughly understand every muscle, from the 
 nape of the neck to the end of the sacrum, deeply- 
 seated or superficial. 
 
 When once understood, nothing is easier; what was 
 complicated becomes simple, and, like a map of Europe, 
 can be traced to a child. To recapitulate — 
 
 1st, The Vertebra Prominens (see fig. 4); 2dly, 
 Branch of Trapezius, along the spine of scapula to the 
 acromion, each side splitting round vertebra prominens, 
 and twisting a little as the occipital portion makes a turn 
 to go into the shoulder-tip downwards; then, 3dly, 
 comes the back part and lower part; 4thly, the Deltoid, 
 and its three portions; 5thly, Supra Spinatus, Infra, and 
 Teres Major; 6thly, Bit of Rhomboid, then Latissimus 
 Dorsi; and this completes that portion of the back 
 and shoulders. 
 
 These muscular divisions are the standard causes of 
 action in those parts, and can no more be dispensed 
 with than the bones on which they hang. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 133 
 
 I am not a believer in the assertion, that the ancients 
 built their figures by selecting different parts from 
 different figures to make a whole — as Pliny relates of 
 Zeuxis. 
 
 It is my belief, that no part of any one figure will 
 harmonise with the parts of any other figure. That 
 each man and woman is a distinct character, and that 
 the ancients fixed a standard or canon as to the human 
 characteristics distinct from brutes, and could perfect 
 any imperfect model by assimilating the shapes and 
 characteristics in that figure, where it was incomplete, 
 with those parts which were found to be complete. 
 
 Pliny was a mere connoisseur, Zeuxis might study 
 the finest virgins, not to select different parts from 
 different virgins, but to select the best of the four, and 
 on a standard system supply her defects, she being the 
 least defective of the four. 
 
 It is a most interesting and delightTul study, and 
 entirely lost, both now and in the great Italian schools, 
 neither Michael Angelo, Bandinelli, Giovanni di 
 Bologna, nor Leonardo da Vinci, had any idea of the 
 principles of the Greeks in these points. Condivi says 
 Michael Angelo had some theory he meant to detail, 
 but he never did, — that of Greece is yet to be revived, 
 and would be as new as it originally was, when dawn- 
 ing first in Greece. 
 
 There is no doubt the Greeks had advantages no 
 nation has had since. But still, their principle may 
 be ascertained, and if once ascertained it must have 
 great influence on the advance of design in any 
 country. 
 
 Muscles of the Fore-arm. 
 They are four, the biceps and hrachialiSy for bending, 
 
134 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 and the triceps and anconceus, for extending. In the 
 quadruped there is little extension. 
 
 The biceps is a very essential muscle; there is no 
 muscle so dependent for its shape on action and repose 
 as this, — bend the arm, and it contracts like a ball, 
 extend it, and the biceps stretches like a string. It 
 arises by two heads, which in the arms of strong men 
 are quite visible, especially in pugilists, till the separa- 
 tion melts into one. The biceps is inserted into the 
 round tubercle of the radius. It bends the fore-arm, 
 it assists supination, as both heads are from the scapula, 
 it assists to lift the arm. Michael Angelo always 
 finely marked the biceps w^ith its great vein swelling 
 out, as it is seen always in powerful arms. 
 
 Brachialis internus, 
 
 lies immediately under the biceps, it comes down each 
 side the deltoid, about two- thirds of the os humeri, and 
 goes to the coronoid process of the ulna. 
 
 In a strong man it is always finely seen inside, pro- 
 jecting from the edge of the biceps. Upon the back 
 part of the arm, three muscles are described — extensor 
 longus, brevis, and brachialis externus. John Bell 
 says, they are one three-headed muscle. 
 
 The longest head is the middle ; it comes from the 
 edge of the scapula, under the neck, and a little way 
 from the origin of the long head of the biceps. 
 
 The second head is on the outside of the arm; it 
 comes from the arm-bone under the great tuber, and 
 just below^ the insertion of the teres minor. These two 
 meet in the middle. 
 
 The third is the shortest of all, it comes from the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 135 
 
 inner side of the humerus, under the insertion of the 
 teres major; joins the second head about the middle. 
 All the heads are implanted by a strong tendon in the 
 projecting heel of the ulna, the olecranon. By which 
 projection it has great power. 
 
 In quadrupeds the projection is still greater; and 
 increasing the power, it assists the animal in making 
 prodigious leaps. 
 
 The three form a very powerful muscle, and cover, 
 with beautiful variety, the whole back of the arm ; and 
 their various muscular and tendinous endings, produce 
 the most beautiful variety of shape, in action and repose, 
 and must be carefully attended to in drawing or in 
 forming the arm. 
 
 The Anconeus 
 
 arises from the ridge, and from the external condyle of 
 the humerus, by a thick short tendpn, and is inserted 
 into the ridge of the ulna. 
 
 Besides the muscles, there are various sheets of ten- 
 dinous expansions, which issue out and spread over 
 and enclose the arm, and which, by bracing down the 
 muscles when in action, increase by resistance the force 
 of the action, as if tying the arm with cords. 
 
 The shoulder-blade, arm, fore-arm, and hand, in 
 bone, muscle, tendon, and action, must be mastered by 
 the painter and sculptor so entirely as to have every 
 part pass before his mind's eye with the correctness of 
 a drawing ; and he must be able to draw instantly — 
 first, the bone construction ; then the muscular order ; 
 then the different shapes j)roduced by action and by 
 repose, the external covering; then he must know 
 the characteristic ditference between the same parts of 
 
136 
 
 HAY don's lectures 
 
 the quadruped and the man, and frequently be able to 
 draw them. What I say of the arm must be applied 
 to the whole figure, and is equally applicable. 
 
 The construction of the quadruped for horizontal 
 action is not like the construction of the man in this 
 part. The freedom of the arm from the shoulder 
 joint, requires and possesses a gradation of power — the 
 strongest power being placed at the origin of the motion 
 of the arm, viz., at the blade and back. 
 
 First — the muscles which move the blade are more 
 powerful than those which move the arm; and those of 
 the arm than those of the fore-arm; and those of the 
 fore-arm than those of the hand: there is a beautiful 
 gradation of motion, from the beginning to the end, and 
 this is a peculiar human characteristic. 
 
 Now the lion merely requires a backwards and for- 
 wards motion, and consequently there is not that grada- 
 tion of power; but^ the greatest power surely lies in 
 this cat species in the fore-arm. 
 
 In proportion, too, the arm of the human being is 
 the same length from the elbow to end of middle 
 knuckle, as from elbow to top of shoulder. 
 
 Now in the quadruped see the difference, — the fore- 
 arm is as long as the upper arm, and the hand paw 
 nearly as long as each. 
 
 Therefore, remember, a long arm and short fore-arm, 
 are human characteristics of heroic form, and are found 
 in the finest Elgin marbles and finest nature ; and the 
 long fore-arm and short upper arm are wholly brutal, 
 because belonging to the formation of the brute. 
 
 There is nothing the ancients shewed their superiority 
 to the moderns so much in, as never making a useless 
 display of anatomy, if not warranted by life. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 137 
 
 The most difficult thing in forming a fine arm, is 
 managing the stringy muscles of the fore-arm; Michael 
 Angelo always cut up his fore-arms. The ancients 
 always massed them ; and when action obliged them 
 to display the muscles of the fore-arm, they always gave 
 one the predominance to keep the eye easy, either the 
 minimi digiti or communis digitorum. 
 
 In the arms of the Moses, the muscles of the fore-arm 
 are displayed with all the vulgarity of a paviour's or 
 blacksmith's arms; the sort of muscular division, which 
 is the characteristic of a working man's arm, is quite 
 different from the muscular division of heroes, born 
 strong and high-bred, which the heroes of antiquity 
 all look. The ancients, in so high a character as Moses, 
 would not have given you an idea of physical violence, 
 but latent powxr! Moses was a man brought up in a 
 luxurious court, and not a blacksmith. The standard 
 figures of the ancients seem born what they are. It is 
 perhaps an odd expression to use, but all the naked 
 heroes of the ancients look like gentlemen strij)ped; 
 whereas, Michael Angelo's naked men appear pugilists, 
 ready to knock you down for presuming to look at 
 them. 
 
 Remember, one of the chief difficulties in forming an 
 arm is the management of the muscles of the fore-arm. 
 
 The muscles of the fore-arm are of great strength, 
 and covered by thick fascia. 
 
 The motions to be performed are three; to roll the 
 hand, to bend the wrist, to bend the fingers. The 
 turning of the hand is performed by rolling the radius 
 on the ulna; it is named jnonation when turned down, 
 and supination when turned up. 
 
 All the muscles of the fore-arm are named from (heir 
 
138 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 uses chiefly; but, if two perform one motion, they are 
 distinguished by peculiar marks. Then there are two 
 benders; one superficial (sublimis), another deep, or 
 (profundus): there are two flexors of the wrist, one 
 called of the rad?us, the other of the ulna; one going 
 along the radius, the other along the ulna. 
 
 Your understanding by this method is cleared. There 
 are also two pronators; one round( teres), the other square 
 (quadratus). 
 
 All the muscles rise from two points; inner or outer 
 condyle. 
 
 The inner condyle is the longer one, and gives more 
 power — more power being required for grasping than 
 extending; therefore, all the muscles which bend the 
 fingers, and turn the palm down, come from this con- 
 dyle. 
 
 The exterior condyle is shorter; it gives less power, 
 being required merely to open the fingers. 
 
 All the extensors and supinators come from the outer 
 condyle, and all the pronators come from the inner. 
 
 By this simple arrangement, which is John Bell's, 
 the brain of an artist is cleared at once; after impress- 
 ing it on your minds, you can never be at a loss to draw 
 the arm. 
 
 And here allow me to add, how much the Arts of 
 Europe owe to the anatomical researches of the illus- 
 trious John Bell; to him, we owe every thing in ana- 
 tomical arrangement; in fact, this lecture, in all the 
 origins and insertions, is compressed from his bones 
 and muscles, with such illustrations as my own prac- 
 tical experience can add; to Charles Bell,* too, truly the 
 
 * It was a luisfoi'tuiie to the students that the Royal Academy 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 139 
 
 Painter's Anatomist, we owe that book on Expression ; 
 both Wilkic and myself drew, and dissected under him; 
 and there is hardly a day passes in which 1 do not feel 
 the benefit of his taste and science. 
 We will now proceed with the 
 
 Flexors, 
 
 pronator teres, flexor carpi radialis, flexor carpi ulnaris, 
 digitorum sublimis, digitorum profundus, flexor longus 
 pollicis; and lastly, pronatur quadratus, which is the 
 exception to the origins from the inner condyle. 
 
 Pronator teres 
 
 arises from inner condyle, and coronoid process; it is 
 chiefly fleshy and conical, stretches across, and goes 
 to the outer edge of the radius, al)out the middle; it 
 turns the hand down, is very powerful in man. and very 
 weak in the quadruped. It is most essential in the 
 drawing of the male and female, and makes that beau- 
 tiful variety in the contour of the inner and lower part 
 of the fore-arm. 
 
 Palmaris 
 
 arises from inner condyle, and is the first of five 
 muscles, which have one common origin, and which 
 go out like radii from one common centre; it goes 
 into the annular ligament of the wrist, and must never 
 be omitted in drawing or painting the wrist, for it is 
 
 rcjoclcd IJcIl in two attempts to become Professor, viz., after 
 Sheldon's death uiid Cariiele's resignation. 
 
140 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 next to the tendon of the flexor, is always seen, and is of 
 great beauty. 
 
 Nothing can be finer than the wrists of the arms of 
 the great figures on Monte Cavallo; the tendons start 
 a little, and a beautiful vein crosses them ; there is more 
 variety of tint in this part of the body than in any other 
 in colour; and Sir George Beaumont told me. Sir Joshua 
 used always to hold up his wrist, to the flesh of a 
 picture, to try its variety of tint. 
 
 The palmaris bends the wrist, assists in pronation, 
 and in bending the fore-arm too, by acting from the 
 condyle, at the elbow joint. 
 
 Flexor ulnaris 
 
 runs along the outer edge of the ulna, gives shape to 
 the outer contour of the arm; it is inserted into the 
 pisiform bone, — this muscle balances the radius flexor, 
 and when the ulna flexor acts alone, it pulls the hand 
 sideways. 
 
 The suhlimis and profundus you hardly see, though 
 in grasping tight, they swell up, under the two tendons 
 of the palmaris and flexor, and produce a variety of 
 shape. 
 
 They both rise from the inner condyle, and at the 
 insertion they are split, to let the deeper muscle pass 
 through. 
 
 The lumbricales and flexor longus pollicis are of no 
 use to us ; the quadratus is also invisible. 
 
 Extensors. 
 
 The muscles which lie on the outside of the arm are 
 the supinators and extensors^ viz., extensor carpi radialis 
 longior arises from the ridge of the humerus above the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 141 
 
 external condyle, becomes tendinous in the middle, and 
 is inserted at the root of the metacarpal bone of the 
 forefinger, in that edge next the thumb; it extends 
 the wrist. 
 
 Extensor brevior. 
 
 Same as the last, and is inserted into the root of the 
 metacarpal bone of the middle finger. 
 
 Supinator 
 
 arises from the ridge of the humerus, is inserted into 
 the radius at the wrist. 
 
 These three muscles form the mass of shape in draw- 
 ing the fore-arm. In comparing them with the same 
 muscles of the quadruped, they are entirely of a different 
 character. 
 
 The supinator in the European, must be long, low 
 and full ; because supination is a human characteristic, 
 and very feeble in the animal. A full supinator is 
 standard human muscle. 
 
 Extensor ulnaris 
 
 lies along the ulna edge of the arm; it is fixed into 
 the outside of the lower end of the metacarpal bone of 
 the finger, in drawing the hand; it is always visible in 
 the rein hands of the riders in the Elgin marbles. It 
 cannot be omitted even in repose. To form a hand 
 completely, therefore, you must remember on the inside, 
 the flexor carpi radialis and palmaris, which end in 
 these two slanting beautiful tendons, with a blue vein, 
 not straight in the centre, but a little athwart; then 
 come the sublimis and profinidus influencing beneath ; 
 the flexor ulnaris on the edge ; the shape of the radius 
 
142 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 coming between the inner extensor of the thumb, and 
 the outer; the pisiforme bone, the head of the ulna. 
 The two tendons of longior and brevior extensors going 
 into the root of the two first metacarpal bones; the 
 ulnaris going into the root of little-finger bone ; three 
 extensors of the thumb, and communis extensor^ the 
 abductor minimi digiti and abductor indicis, with 
 abductors and adductors of the thumb, and the drawing 
 of your hand and wrist will be correct. 
 
 All these numerous tendons and muscles must be 
 learned and remembered as a child learns his lesson ; in 
 fact, to be a great artist, you must become a little child 
 first ; and be assured, that neither Raffaelle nor Phidias 
 could form a hand, or ever attempted one, without first 
 entering into and fully understanding these essential 
 and component parts. Now comes 
 
 Extensor communis digitorum, 
 
 going from the outer condyle ; it grows very fleshy as 
 it descends; about the middle it gets tendinous, and 
 passing under the ligament of the wrist, goes to the 
 three first fingers, and occasionally sends a slip to the 
 little finger. 
 
 It extends all the fingers, and sometimes assists the 
 wrist in striking backwards. 
 
 Extensor minimi digiti 
 
 comes from the outer condyle, along with the other 
 tendons; it extends the little finger, and the ancients 
 sometimes shewed no other muscle, which kept the fore- 
 arm broad ; this management is visible in the arms of 
 the Hyperion guiding the horses, from the pediment of 
 the Parthenon, and it masses the stringy, vulgar look, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 143 
 
 which the arms of the Moses have, and which destroys 
 the rotundity and ])readth of the fore-arm. 
 
 Three Extensors of the Thumb 
 
 go from the edge of the ulna across to the thumb; they 
 shew themselves between the common extensor and 
 carpi radicalis, crossing over the latter, and going into 
 the joints of the thumb. 
 
 The indicator and supinator hrevis are not seen. 
 
 Muscles of the Hand. 
 
 Lumbricales — of no use to artists. 
 
 Abductor pollicis, opponens pollicis, and adductor 
 pollicis, form that fine mass, peculiarly human, which 
 the quadruped is absolutely without, and which the 
 Greeks always marked with such decided power that it 
 convinces me it was done on principle. 
 
 The various actions of these muscles enable a human 
 being to grasp with such perfection. In drawing the 
 hand, mass them without separation, as the ancients 
 did; but there may be actions where tlieir sei)aration 
 may be necessary. Next comes 
 
 Abductor indicts, 
 
 which carries the fore- finger towards the thumb, forms 
 the beautiful oval shape between the thuml) and fore- 
 finger, so essential in drawing. 
 
 Abductor, and Adductor minimi digiti. 
 
 Abductor lies inside, on the palm ; adductor outside, 
 on the edge. Thus ends those beautiful j)ortions of the 
 body— shoulder, arm, fore-arm, hand, and fingers. 
 
144 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The arm should taper from the shoulder, the deltoid 
 being the greatest power; reverse this, let the fore-arm 
 and hand be the longest and largest, and you have a 
 quadruped at once. 
 
 In a human being, the motion of the scapula, arm, 
 fore-arm, and hand, is perfect — not so in the qua- 
 druped. 
 
 It therefore follows, in building a standard figure, 
 that whatever in bone or muscle contributes to the per- 
 fection of the motions which are ascertained as being 
 peculiarly human, should be selected and marked. 
 
 The rhomboids, the trapezius, the supra and infra 
 spinati, the teres major, the three heads of the deltoid, 
 biceps, triceps, brachialis internus, supinator, pronator, 
 extensors and flexors, abductors and adductors, are 
 essential to the perfection of this motion, cannot be left 
 out, are, and must be there. 
 
 This principle of essential selection is applicable to 
 every other part of the body; and no man can distract 
 his limbs with useless anatomy, if he take the trouble 
 to distinguish that which is essential and that which is 
 useful, from that which is accidental and useless. 
 
 The Trunk. 
 
 The muscles of respiration, as painters, we have 
 nothing to do with ; the ribs are expanded by the inter- 
 costal and internal, levators costarum, serrati, postici 
 et inferiores, and not visible to the eye of a painter. The 
 splenei, which antagonise the mastoid, the complexus, 
 and trachelomastoideus, are not seen, with many others 
 not seen, and utterly deep. 
 
 The trapezius, in a full-grown powerful man like the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 145 
 
 Theseus, covers all; and is so thick that neither of these 
 muscles influence its shape. 
 
 Wherever internal muscles influence the shape of the 
 external ones, a painter should always dissect them up. 
 
 The leading muscles of the trunk, are, quadratus, 
 longissimus dorsi, et sacrolumbales ; the two latter, and 
 important ones, lie under the 
 
 Latissimus dorsi. 
 
 It has been described; and I must allude to the qua- 
 dratus, a deeply seated but useful muscle; it keeps 
 the trunk erect, if both sides act together, and pulls it 
 on one side, if one side only acts. 
 
 In the Torso and fine nature, it makes that flatness 
 over which the obliquus seems to roll. 
 
 Sacrolumbales and Longissimus dorsi, 
 
 come from one broad tendon at the loins, sacrum, and 
 ilium ; the longissimus is nearer the spine, and on each 
 side of the line of the back makes a projection like the 
 Torso ; the other is further from the spine. 
 
 Just opposite the lowest rih, the two separate from 
 the common tendon: the longissimus goes to be im- 
 planted into the vertebrae, the sacrolumbales into the 
 ribs. The sacrolumbales become fleshy in the shape 
 of two lozenges, and shoot away most beautifuly under 
 the insertion of the trapezius. 
 
 1 shall never forget my delight at my first dissection 
 in thus ascertaining the cause of these beautiful mark- 
 ings in the back of the Torso. 
 
 These two lozenge forms are solely occasioned by 
 the flat tendons ending, and the muscles beginning to 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 burst out, and they are in all backs two of the finest 
 markmgs m the human body.'^ 
 
 Study well the Theseus and Torso for these very 
 muscles. 
 
 To pass over the endless internal muscles connected 
 with the spine, there is a cutaneous muscle, called pla- 
 tisma myoides; it is a species of expansion from the 
 breast, up the throat, and over the lower jaw ; visible 
 in old men and women, and must be attended to by 
 painters. 
 
 * As I am continually alluding to the Torso, it may be inte- 
 resting to the reader to have some particulars concerning it. It 
 was dug up near the ruins of Pompey's Theatre, in Rome. 
 
 Michael Angelo said he could perceive every principle of art 
 in this fragment ; and all his finest figures in the Sistine Chapel 
 are little else than the Torso, with heads, feet, and hands, added 
 to its action in various views; in fact, it regulated and was the 
 foundation of his gigantic style, with this exception, that there was 
 no gross and useless display, except in the instance pointed out, 
 such as one continually sees in Michael Angelo. 
 
 It was executed hy Apollonius, an Athenian. Winklemann 
 thinks, from the form of the Greek letter omega in the inscription, 
 it was long posterior to Alexander, because the omega about that 
 time was formed like oo — w— whereas the earlier inscriptions have 
 always the letter like one long 0 or Q. 
 
 Visconti thinks it was executed about the time of Pompey, at 
 Rome: the inscription is Apollonius — 
 
 The Son of Nestor, the Athenian, executed it. 
 
 Mengs says, there are irons in the thighs, which proves the 
 ancients held it in high estimation. It certainly represents a 
 reposing Hercules. Mengs says, it was Hercules deified, because 
 there are no veins. But had Mengs lived to see the Elgin marbles, 
 he would have seen veins in the breast of a god, Neptune, of the 
 Parthenon pediment. 
 
 Phidias never deified a hero by depriving him of his essential 
 human characteristics; blood is as requisite as muscle. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 147 
 
 The Mastoideus 
 is a great muscle, forming the throat, or the two great 
 sides of the neck. 
 
 It arises partly from the clavicle and partly from the 
 sternum. 
 
 These two origins join, and go into the mastoid process. 
 
 When one side acts, it pulls the head sideways; when 
 both act, they pull the head down. 
 
 A perfect understanding of this muscle is requisite, 
 and its length from the process to the sternum in the 
 Theseus and heroic life is three noses. Again, we must 
 skip a mass of internal muscles, useful only to surgeons; 
 scalenus, longus colli, the recti of the neck, and come 
 at once to 
 
 The Great Muscles of Ahdomen and 
 Diaphragm, 
 
 which are as essential as the back muscles to us. 
 
 The abdominal muscles bend and turn trunk , 
 and fix it when the limbs act. 
 
 They give stability to the body in lifting weights, in 
 })earing loads, and in all our violent exertions. There 
 are five on each side: first, the outer oblique; second, 
 the inner oblique; third, transversalis; fourth, rectus; 
 fifth, the pyramidalis. 
 
 External Oblique 
 
 comes from the eight lower ribs by distinct tongues, 
 and in the Torso shews its teeth between the scrratus. 
 
 It lies out broad on the border of the chest, which is its 
 thickest and most fleshy part; and when in the antique 
 you see the ])order as it were arched upwards, it is not 
 (I think), as it has been supposed, meant by the ancients 
 
 l2 
 
148 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 for the border of the ribs which is underneath, but the 
 fleshy part of the external oblique taking the shape 
 over the border of the ribs. 
 
 I had a model which was marked like the antique, 
 precisely in this way; its fleshy belly ceases at the 
 side, its flat tendon goes over the belly, till it meets its 
 fellow exactly in the middle and forms a white line, 
 called linea aspera, and finally this muscle goes into the 
 spine of the ilium, and is that beautiful muscle always 
 so finely marked on the hips of the antique, and which 
 the waistband of our trowsers flattens and destroys 
 in us. 
 
 This is the whole of its insertion, all the way from 
 the pubis to the sternum; the forepart of the spine of 
 the ilium and Paupart's ligament. The inner oblique 
 comes thick and fleshy from the ilium, and increases the 
 projection of the external oblique at this part, it goes 
 into the ribs and sternum ; the transversalis comes also 
 from the ilium, and all contribute to the fulness of the 
 hip muscle. 
 
 Rectus 
 
 belongs equally to the sternum and pubis ; it is divided 
 beautifully by cross lines of tendon, which Nature and 
 Phidias always made subservient to the laws of com- 
 pression or extension, but which the ancient artists 
 after him kept always rigidly visible, whatever might 
 be the position of the belly. 
 
 In the Ilyssus, at the Museum, you will see that the 
 stretching of one side has destroyed the cross tendinous 
 divisions of the rectus, so has the doubling of the other 
 side. Now, in the Theseus, the rectus being in action, 
 the cross markings are beautifully developed; but if 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 149 
 
 the Theseus, rolled over like the Ilyssiis, they would be 
 in nature instantly lost. 
 
 To such excess Jiad the markings of the celebrated 
 antique figures, viz., Torso, Gladiator, Laocoon, been 
 carried, that the historical painters always put the 
 markings in one action in all ; for instance, there is a 
 slip of the oblique doubled up in the right side of the 
 Torso, but the moment the Torso stood upright, it would 
 disappear; again, the belly of the Torso projects, the 
 ])owels being pressed by the bending of the figure. 
 
 Fuzeli put these markings in every action of the 
 body; and when I went with him to the Elgin marbles, 
 which I did the first time he ever saw them, on seeing 
 the flatness of the belly of the Theseus, in consequence 
 of the bowels having naturally fallen in, he exclaimed, 
 " By gode, the Turks have sawed off his belly !" His 
 eye was so completely ruined. 
 
 Pyramidalis 
 
 is the next, and is beautifully seen in the Torso, at the 
 bottom of the belly; it comes from the crest of the 
 pubis, and aids in pulling the sternum down, as in the 
 action of the Torso. 
 
 The efforts of the abdominal muscles in moving the 
 trunk cannot be mistaken. The recti pull the ribs 
 downw^ards in breathing, flattening the belly, and bend 
 the body forwards. 
 
 The two oblique muscles acting on one side, turn the 
 trunk upon its axis; but if both sides act, they help the 
 rectus, and the transverse muscles lighten the linea alba. 
 
 The diai)hragm is of no use to artists, and the next 
 and last muscles of the human figure, are those of hip, 
 thigh, leg, and foot, which in action are as free and 
 
150 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 perfect as the shoulder, arm, and hand; and distinct 
 from the formation or peculiarities of the quadruped. 
 
 In comparing the trunk of the human being with 
 the trunk of the brute, it will seem at once; the man 
 is much shorter in body and back than the brute, because 
 the action of the brute being horizontal, if the body was 
 no longer than in man, the hind and fore-quarters would 
 strike each other in running. 
 
 The brute has eight or nine vertebrae in the loins, man 
 but five, or rarely six, which makes all the difference. 
 
 The body of the brute is therefore long, compared 
 with his limbs, and that of man — short. A short body 
 is then a characteristic of a standard human figure. The 
 brute does not require muscular support for his body ; 
 for his body leans on his limbs, therefore, the oblique 
 in him is feeble, with man powerful. A powerful 
 oblique in an antique is therefore a human characteristic, 
 and is certainly one of the reasons why the ancients 
 always dwelt with such power on the oblique muscle 
 of the loins. Believing, as I conscientiously do, that 
 they built their standard figures on the principle of 
 contrast with the brute, and laid particular stress on 
 those parts which, by that theory, they ascertained to 
 be peculiarly human. 
 
 Muscles moving the thigh bone. 
 
 The muscles moving the thigh bone arise all from 
 the pelvis and trunk; those moving the leg come from 
 the thigh, and those moving the feet and toes come 
 from the leg. 
 
 First— Psoas magnus and Iliacus internus 
 come from within the body, pass under Paupart's liga- 
 
ON FAINTING. 
 
 151 
 
 ment, and go down to be implanted into the trochanter 
 minor, and by the obliquity of their insertion turn the 
 toes out, and bend the thigh. 
 
 Secondly — Pectinalis, Triceps, and Obturator 
 extern ls. 
 
 arise from the arch of the pubis, are implanted into the 
 linea aspera, and pulling the thigh towards the body, 
 are called adductors. 
 
 Th I R D L Y — G L UT/EI , 
 
 and others, arise from the sacrum and back part of the 
 pelvis, and coming directly forwards, pull the thigh 
 back. 
 
 Psoas, iliacus, pectinalis, triceps, obturator bentl the 
 thigh. 
 
 Glutaci, gemini, pyraformis, obturator, and quadratus 
 extend the thigh. 
 
 In walking, when the leg is on the ground, resting 
 for the advance of the other leg, the muscles of the leg 
 being fixed, roll the pelvis and trunk upon the lind). 
 
 Remember the thigh is moved backwards and out- 
 wards by glutaeus magnus, medius, and minimus 
 implanted into linea, aspera, trochanter major, and top 
 of trochanter. 
 
 Remember the thigh is rolled backwards, and rolled 
 on its axis, by pyraformis, gemini, obturator, and quad- 
 ratus, implanted into root of the trochanter. 
 
 Forwards and inwards, by psoas magnus, iliacus, 
 internus, pectinalis, and triceps, implanted into tro- 
 chanter minor, linea, aspera. 
 
 Fascialis. 
 
 This is a muscle most essential to an artist in form 
 
haydon's lectures 
 
 ing a knee, and which no artist can have any idea of but 
 by dissection. 
 
 I remember my wonder and astonishment at finding 
 that one of the finest markings by the side of the knee 
 (fig. 8, a), between the biceps and patella, so powerfully 
 shewn, always in the heroic figures of the antique, 
 was owing to the tendon of this muscle, which is very 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 153 
 
 finely shewn in a limb belonging to one of a group at 
 Florence. It is owing to the ending of a long sheath 
 of tendon which comes from the fascialis, and goes in 
 for insertion at the outside of the knee, that this essential 
 and beautiful marking is produced. 
 
 The fascialis arises from the upper spinous process 
 of the ilium, from the fore part or very point of the 
 spine, by a tendon of about an inch in length ; it sends 
 down and incloses the whole of the outside of the 
 vastus eternus in its sheath of tendon, all the way to 
 the knee. 
 
 Psoas magnus 
 
 arises very high up the verte])ral loins from the last of 
 the back vertebra, and descends with the iliacus internus, 
 which filling up the basin of the pelvis, joins the psoas 
 magnus, and winds round into the lesser trochanter; 
 they are muscles of great power, they bend the thigh. 
 
 Pectinalis 
 
 arises from the pubis, and goes to the linea aspera ; tliis 
 muscle closes the knees, and pulls the thigh forward, 
 performs rotation by turning out the toe, and will pull 
 the thigh back by assisting the extensors. 
 
 Michael Angelo always finely marked the groin, 
 which is composed principally of these three muscles. 
 
 The psoas magnus is continually in action, either 
 moving the thigh, or when the thigh is stationary, 
 pulling forwards the pelvis. 
 
 Triceps femoris 
 is a broad flat muscle with three heads, arising from the 
 
154 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 pubis, and inserted into the whole length of the linea 
 aspera, to the condyle. 
 
 It draws the thighs together, and when riding, is 
 powerfully in action, as it enables you to grasp your 
 liorse. In horse soldiers, it is powerfully marked, while 
 the leg hangs feebly, and it is always the marked part 
 in the figure of a cavalry model; the triceps, from 
 various sizes, are called, longus, brevis, and magnus. 
 
 LONGUS 
 
 is close to the pectinalis, and ranges with the border; it 
 comes from the upper part of the pubis at its forepart; 
 it swells into a flat muscle; ends at the linea aspera, 
 like a web. 
 
 It is triangular, with its apex at the pubis and base 
 on the thigh; it lies between the gracilis and pectinalis, 
 its upper edge ranges close to the pectinalis, its lower 
 a little over the magnus. 
 
 Adductor brevis 
 
 lies hid in another layer; the outer layer is composed 
 of pectinalis, triceps, and gracilis. 
 
 Adductor magnus. 
 
 The third head is long and flat ; it arises under the 
 brevis, goes into the linea aspera, and ends by a powerful 
 tendon into the inner condyle of the thigh bone. It is 
 most beautifully seen in the right inner part of the knee 
 of the Theseus (fig. 1, a). 
 
 The use of these muscles is the same, viz., to pull 
 the thighs together or grasp with them. The obturator 
 is not seen by us, being deeper than the brevis of another 
 layer. Now come 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 155 
 
 The Glut.i<i, 
 
 each under the other: there are three: the first arises 
 from the back of the ilium, back of the sacrum, and 
 forms the whole hip; and descends so low as to be 
 inserted into one-third of the linea aspera, and the root 
 of the great trochanter. The second head arises from all 
 that portion of the ilium in front of the first, and goes 
 into the great trochanter; the third is of no use to us. 
 
 The first is one of the longest muscles in the body ; 
 pulls the thigh backwards w ith the other two heads, or, 
 as John Bell says, the body forwards when the thigh is 
 fixed, and being a wide muscle, it acts different in its 
 relative positions. 
 
 The GLUTiEus medius 
 is as necessary to the drawing of the hip (fig. 1, a), 
 as the maximus, and makes in conjunction with the 
 other muscles tlie most beautiful form. It comes from 
 all that portion of the pelvis not occupied by the 
 maximus; its chief part lies before (fig. I, a), though 
 a i)ortion lies under, and is not seen. 
 
 The Glut/Eus minimus 
 lies under, and is deep, and never seen for us. 
 
 Muscles to he learned, though never seen. 
 
 Gemini, pyraformis, obturator, and quadratus. These 
 muscles of the thigh are very strong, and i)erform other 
 motions than those for which they seem adapted and 
 intended. 
 
 There are two points for insertion ; viz., the trochanter, 
 major and minor. 
 
 When the adductors act hy themselves, they pull the 
 
156 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 thigh forwards, move the leg, roll the thigh-bone, and 
 turn the toe out in a graceful step. This refers to the 
 pectinalis and triceps. But when we are to finish the 
 motion by pulling forward the body, which is the same 
 as pulling back the thigh, it is not merely the antagonist 
 of those muscles, as the glutaei, which must act. Where 
 they act alone they would rather turn the thigh upon 
 its axis outwards than pull it back ; but the triceps act 
 in conjunction, and fix the thigh at the inner trochanter, 
 so that further rolling is prevented and full effect given 
 to the glutaei, which, when they act alone, pull the 
 thigh directly back, as in the Gladiator, assisted by the 
 triceps, pectinalis, and iliacus internus; and now the 
 thigh-bone is so far advanced before the body, that 
 those muscles, as triceps, which were benders of its 
 thigh in its first position, are extensors when it is 
 advanced a step before the body; or, perhaps, it will be 
 more explicit to say, that when the thigh is moved one 
 step before the body, the triceps, pectinalis, iliacus 
 and psoas, co-operate with the glutsei in bringing the 
 trunk forwards to follow the limb, and then in fixing 
 and stiffening the trunk upon the limb, till the other 
 thigh is advanced a second step before the body. 
 
 Michael Angelo, though he drew the groin with 
 such anatomical beauty, did not mass the result of the 
 muscles (like the Greeks) acting on the skin. Con- 
 vulsion is more the character of Michael Angelo's figures 
 than action; he occasionally, as Fuzeli says, perplexed 
 his limbs with useless anatomical knowledge. I am 
 perfectly sure, without disrespect, from having studied 
 the Moses, the Christ, and Lazarus, he could not select 
 the superfluous from the accidental ; and that no naked 
 figure he ever executed, could be compared with the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 157 
 
 heroic standard figures of Greece ; the Torso, the 
 Theseus, the Ilyssus, the Laocoon, or the Gladiator. 
 
 Muscles of the leg. 
 
 The knee being a mere hinge, the muscles of the leg 
 are the simplest of all. There is no action, but flexion 
 and extension. 
 
 1st. The extensors of the leg are four : rectus femoris, 
 cruraeus, vastus externus, and vastus intcrnus, and those 
 are all implanted by one tendon. 
 
 2d. The flexors of the leg are on the outside, and 
 four on the inside of the leg. 
 
 The tendons of the outside being implanted into the 
 upper knob of the fibula, and those on the inside into 
 the rough head of the tibia, forming the hamstrings, and 
 extending their tendons by expansion downwards upon 
 the leg. 
 
 Inside Flexors. 
 
 Sartorius . . Gracilis, 
 Semitendinous . Semimembranosus. 
 
 Outside Flexors. 
 
 Biceps . . . Flexor in the ham. 
 Popliteus . . Extensors. 
 
 Rectus Femoris 
 
 rises from two heads — wc have only to do with one; 
 this one rises from the lower spinous process of the 
 ilium, and is implanted into the knee-pan. 
 
 Vastus externus 
 arises from the fore-part of the minor trochanter; it 
 
158 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 descends much lower in a fleshy form than the externus 
 does, and forms that fleshy cushion which covers the 
 inner side of the knee joint. 
 
 The Crureus, 
 
 and then these muscles form one fleshy mass, which is 
 the principal cause of the form of the thigh. 
 
 The use of these four muscles is to extend the leg as 
 we do, and to bend the thigh on the trunk, or the trunk 
 on the thigh. 
 
 They have all great power; and by the resistance of 
 the patella, into which they go, their powder of extending 
 the leg with great force is greatly increased. 
 
 The quadruped cannot extend the leg as we do, and 
 he is miserably deficient in the vastus internus and 
 rectus, at least compared with us ; his patella is narrow, 
 and thus the power of resistance is diminished. 
 
 The patella, being a species of lever to increase the 
 action and power of the extensors, the greater tfie 
 resistance of course the greater the power, and the 
 broader the pan-bone the greater the resistance; there- 
 fore, a broad pan -bone is a decided requisite of a 
 standard knee, and the reverse, of the feeble character- 
 istic of the animal one. 
 
 There is nothing young men are so apt to err, as in 
 conceiving the knee is beautiful when small. In all 
 the finest Greek works, you will find invariably a full- 
 sized pan-bone, while in the mannered forms of the 
 modern schools of Florence, a knee affectedly small, and 
 a knee-pan like a pea, w^ere considered proofs of strength, 
 manliness, and beauty; and so are they considered to 
 this day, by all the young dandies of painting. 
 
ON PAINTING. 159 
 
 The patella is again attached to the tibia by a strong 
 ligament, to sustain the pulling of these great muscles. 
 
 The Knee joint 
 
 is a joint not always imdcrstood by painters, even those 
 "who dissect. 
 
 First, comes the pan-bone (fig. 9, a), then the vastus 
 internus b, then the ligament, wliich holds the patella, 
 
160 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 c, then the bump of the tibia, to which the ligament 
 comes, D. 
 
 On each side of the ligament appear the hollows, 
 made by the ends of the thigh bones, e e, and these 
 hollows are filled by a substance called cellular sub- 
 stance. When the knee is extended, g g, the patella is 
 pressed down on this substance, and it squeezes out, 
 each side the bit of ligament at g g, in the above shape; 
 when the knee is bent, the thigh condyle opens, the 
 hollows become larger, and the substance sinks in, and 
 is hardly visible each side the ligament. 
 
 Phidias, and his immortal school, marked with the 
 most scrupulous care all the varieties of shape, from 
 the utmost extension to the last degree of flexion, as in 
 nature. 
 
 In the fighting Lapitha,^ the knee is half extended, 
 the calf of the leg supporting the thigh; the cellular 
 substance is feebly seen. In another, the leg and thigh 
 are violently extended, the patella is pressed flat, and- 
 the bits of cellular substance are visible on each side. 
 
 Consider the exquisite distinction between the slightly 
 extended and the fiercely extended ; this is the history 
 of the knee, and every artist ought to know it by heart; 
 if every artist did, we should not see it as we sometimes 
 do, represented so full of absurdities, not even excepting 
 the knees in some of the ancient statues of the corrupt 
 periods. 
 
 I dissected a knee specifically to understand it, and 
 can recommend this detail as authentic to the student. 
 
 Knees do, like every other part of the body, vary in 
 character and shape; but the above is the essential 
 elements of a knee, in which nothing can be left out, 
 * Elgin marbles. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 161 
 
 without a deficiency in an inherent characteristic of 
 human form. We now come to the 
 
 Flexors of the Leg — Sartorius, 
 
 or tailor's muscle, is so named, because it draws the 
 legs across. 
 
 It arises from the upper spinous process of the ilium, 
 crosses the thigh, and goes to the inner tubercle of the 
 tibia. 
 
 It is seen in the Gladiator and Torso — not like a 
 ribbon, as artists sometimes mark it — but lost and pro- 
 jecting alternately. 
 
 The Gracilis 
 
 is next, and completes the inner contour of the thigh in 
 front. 
 
 It arises from the pubis, and is inserted with the 
 Sartorius. 
 
 It is chiefly a flexor of the leg, though John Bell 
 says it cannot bend the leg of itself; yet when the leg 
 is bent by the regular flexors, and they can act no more, 
 it comes into play ; artists should remember this. 
 
 Semitendinosus, 
 
 so called from its lower half being composed of a small 
 round tendon. 
 
 It comes from the tuber ischii, and is inserted at the 
 tuber, at the head of the tibia; its tendon, which begins 
 high up, gets flat, and grasps the inner side of the 
 knee. These muscles, Sartorius and Gracilis, are im- 
 planted like one muscle, and, in drawing the knee 
 inside, they wrap round and take ofi" the too hard 
 edges of the bone. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Semimembranosus 
 comes from the tuber ischii by the side of the last, and 
 goes down behind, the head of the tibia is inserted 
 there, — these two last form the hamstrings. 
 
 POPLIT^US 
 
 lies deep in the ham; and the last of these great 
 flexors is the Biceps cruris, so called because it has 
 two heads, a long and a short one. 
 
 It lies immediately under the skin in the back part 
 of the leg, running from the pelvis to the knee, and 
 forms the outer hamstring. To artists it is a muscle 
 of immense importance to understand. It arises from 
 the tuber ischii, on the outer part; the tendon begins 
 about or above the middle, and continues the whole 
 way down. About a third way down begins the other 
 head. The tendons of the two join a little above the 
 inner condyle, and are inserted into the head of the 
 fibula, and form the outer hamstring. In front, the 
 tendon forms the outer contour of the knee, and is seen 
 in all views of the knee, front and back. 
 
 Muscles of the foot (Fig. 10). 
 Six Extensors and one Flexor. 
 
 Extensors, gastrocnemii, solaeus (4), tibialis posticus, 
 peronseus longus and brevis, and plantaris, — all lying 
 on the back of the leg. 
 
 Flexor. 
 
 Tibialis anticus (3), lying on the fore-part of the leg. 
 
 Gastrocnemius (5) 
 is the great muscle of the brawn. Its two heads are 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 163 
 
 very large and fleshy, which arise from the tubercles of 
 the thigh bone. The inner head is the larger and 
 longer, and arises by a strong tendon from the back of 
 the inner condyle; the outer head is the shorter, and 
 arises from the outer tubercle, and the two muscles 
 meet about the middle of the leg. 
 
 In drawing the leg, remember always the inner calf 
 is the larger and the longer. 
 
164 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 SOL^US (4) 
 
 arises by two heads; one from the head of fibula, the 
 other from the head of tibia; they join immediately, 
 and are seen in the separation of the heads of the 
 gastrocnemius. 
 
 A little below the middle of the leg, the tendon of 
 the solseus is joined to the tendon of the gastrocnemius; 
 and the' two bellies of the former dive, as it were, most 
 beautifully into the solaeus; they all three end in that 
 prodigious tendon, the tendo Achillis (8), which has 
 more to bear in point of straining than any other 
 tendon in the body. 
 
 This tendon is large, it grows small as it approaches 
 the heel. 
 
 In running, walking, leaping, etc., this muscle, with 
 the extensors of the leg, are the great muscles. The 
 gastrocnemius has double power, for, arising as it 
 does from the tubercles of the thigh bone, it is both an 
 extensor of the foot and flexor of the leg, and, by acting 
 from the heel, braces the leg and thigh together, and 
 helps to keep the leg and thigh straight. 
 
 On that account I estimate the gastrocnemius muscle 
 as peculiarly human ; as the quadruped cannot straighten 
 his leg to the same degree of perfection as a human 
 being, he is comparatively weak in the gastrocnemius, 
 which is high up the leg. 
 
 Plantaris 
 is to painters of no use; the 
 
 Peron^i 
 
 arise from the fibula, and are of the greatest conse- 
 quence to the action, and progressively to the shape 
 and drawing. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 165 
 
 PeRON/EUS longus (1), 
 
 is so named from its lying along the fibula; it arises 
 partly tendinous, and partly or chiefly fleshy, from the 
 upper knob of the fibula and from the ridge of the 
 bone down to within three inches of the ankle; its 
 tendon begins very high above the middle of the leg; 
 it runs down behind the outer ankle, and gives shape 
 to that part of the leg; it passes under the arch of the 
 foot, and is inserted into the ball of the great toe. In 
 pressing the ball to the ground, this muscle is in very 
 strong action. 
 
 About one-third down the bone begins the brevis; it 
 goes pretty nearly with the longus, but it runs on the 
 outer edge of the foot, and is inserted into the root of 
 the metacarpal bone of the little toe. 
 
 The marking is a difticulty in a common leg, and 
 very complicated in an ordinary model, but in the finest 
 forms it is clear and simple; first, comes tlie longus (^1 ) 
 from the fibula, then the brevis a third down (2); this 
 is the way the Greeks marked them in their heroic 
 limbs. The tibialis anticus (3) crosses oljHquely 
 the fore part of the leg; it arises on the outside of 
 the tibia goes under the annular ligament into the 
 cuneiform bone, and turns the great toe towards the 
 leg. 
 
 Muscles of the toes (Fig. 11). 
 
 The long muscles of the toes are four — two fiexors 
 and two extensors; the flexors lie on the tibialis posticus, 
 or between it and solaius. 
 
 The extensors lie under the tibialis anticus, and their 
 bellies appear only about the middle of the leg. 
 
 The flexor tendons follow the tendon of the tibialis 
 
166 
 
 HAYDON S LECTURES 
 
 posticus behind the inner ankle into the hollow of the 
 foot. 
 
 The tendons of the extensor muscle keep with that 
 of the anticus, and cross over the fore part or rising of 
 the ankle where the tibia is united with the astragalus. 
 
 1. Flexor longus pollius 
 
 arises fleshy from three-fourths of the fibula to within 
 an inch of the outer ankle. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 167 
 
 The tendon can be seen only to within two inches of 
 tlie ankle, it passes behind the ankle into the arch of 
 the foot to the last bone of the great toe. 
 
 2. Flexor longus digitorum 
 
 is not sufficiently seen to be marked by a painter with- 
 out destroying the breadth of his limb. He had better 
 mass the posticus and flexors together behind the ankle, 
 and, except as a matter of curiosity, not detail the 
 flexors, the pressing of the solseus inside the leg nearly 
 covers them in a fine liml). 
 
 Massa carnea jacobi (c) 
 
 is a very short and important muscle; it arises from 
 the heel c, and joins the tendon of the flexor longus; 
 it forms, by its adhesion to the bones of the foot from 
 the heel, that beautiful tleshy arch so essential to be 
 thoroughly understood in drawing the foot. 
 
 Flexor brevis and Lumbricales 
 
 of the toes, are so covered by the sole of the foot as 
 scarcely to influence the form in drawing it. It will 
 be useless to do more than name them. 
 
 Extensors. 
 
 1st. Extensor longus (6) appears in the leg between 
 the peronsei and til)ialis ; it ends in three distinct ten- 
 dons, which go obliquely inwards and pass under the 
 annular ligament of the ankle to the toes, from the 
 little one to the first toe. The great toe has an extensor 
 of its own, which runs along the instep into the second 
 joint of the great toe. Then comes the peronaeus ter- 
 tius (7), which accompanies the great extensor, and 
 
168 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 goes obliquely towards the metatarsal bone of the 
 little toe. 
 
 2nd. Extensor brevis (9); it is placed where the 
 buckle lies, originating from the heel, and running 
 obliquely inwards ; its tendons cross under the tendons 
 of the communis, and go to the toes, except the little 
 one. 
 
 In drawing the foot it is indispensable to attend to 
 the shape produced by this brevis. 
 
 There are many flexors as well as muscles belonging 
 to the sole of the foot which are never seen, the whole 
 being enveloped in a strong plantar aponeurosis, which 
 goes to the toes from the heel, and forms the sole of 
 the foot. 
 
 Thus ends the muscles and bones essential to an 
 artist. The bones are the foundation and the muscles 
 the causes of action, — both indisputably contributing 
 to external shape by the varieties produced externally 
 by internal action or repose. It would be absurd to 
 declare that without the knowledge of construction 
 no man was ever able to develope his genius at all, 
 because Keynolds is an evidence to the contrary; but 
 all that can be said of Reynolds is, that in spite of his 
 ignorance of form and construction, he contrived to 
 attain a great name in portrait, — where there are so 
 many contrivances to conceal form, and where colour 
 and light and shadow, a pleasing likeness, and a beau- 
 tiful and skilful effect, can hide a want of knowledge in 
 deeper requisites. Had Reynolds been earlier and 
 better educated, his historical works would have been 
 equal to his portraits; because he would have been 
 induced from confidence in his hand, to make such 
 attempts at an earlier period of his practice, and not 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 169 
 
 have delayed it as he did, to the latter end of his life, 
 when he was too much habituated to the individualities 
 of portrait, to be able to idealize with power. There 
 is no knowing how much the art has lost by the state 
 of English art when he first appeared : had he been 
 severely disciplined, and his mind thoroughly versed in 
 the construction of the species he represented — had he 
 mastered the figure as a preparatory basis, with his 
 beautiful mind, his exquisite feeling for colour and nature, 
 his relish for surface, there is no saying to what a degree 
 of excellence he would have carried the art; but this 
 want fettered his hand through life, and withered his 
 efforts in High Art whenever he attempted it. Let 
 the deficiencies of such a genius be a fatal warning to 
 the present generation. In Reynolds' time, had there 
 been schools of design, he would have felt their bene- 
 ficial consequences. It is not that by schools of design 
 you can produce genius like pine-apples; no, but by 
 establishing such elementary means of instruction, you 
 put into the hands of instructors a power of judiciously 
 training a genius, should one appear. Genius will 
 develope itself, whether you have a source of educating 
 him or not; but surely it will not be an obstruction to 
 that development if, while his powers are maturing, 
 you teach him the elements of wielding the instruments 
 with correctness, knowledge, and science, by which 
 hereafter he is to enlighten or instruct mankind. 
 
 You may wonder at the originality of a conception, 
 but if it be awkwardly or inefficiently executed, the 
 power of impressing the spectator to the greatest degree 
 must be and ever has been materially weakened, lioy- 
 nolds' ignorance of form, his undecided execution, are 
 endured, because his feeling was so exquisite antl liis 
 
170 
 
 HAYDOTS'S LECTURES 
 
 genius so refined. But, unfortunately, hundreds of 
 young men, idle and inefficient, palliate the same care- 
 lessness in their own works, without the same genius 
 to make it pass. 
 
 This is the great cause why his example has been so 
 extremely pernicious, and why he is so unfit in an early 
 stage of study to be ever held up for imitation or copy. 
 His beauties are the rich beauties of refined and accom- 
 plished practice, not the modest and solemn proprieties 
 of preparatory study: when the student has mastered 
 the rigid land-marks of the art, and has acquired too 
 much self-control and experience to run any risk of 
 being seduced from the main road Jay Reynolds' glitter- 
 ing attractions, he may be permitted to indulge in the 
 witchery of his practice ; but to begin by the debauchery 
 of his habits, to flounder without the compass, is run- 
 ning before you can walk, or walking while your bones 
 are but sinew ; deformity is sure to be the result in the 
 one case, and tumbling in the other: there may be such 
 inherent vigour in the baby, as to enable it at last to 
 get upon its feet, but through life, be assured, bad 
 nursing will be visible; the legs may be strong, the 
 calves vigorous, and the body firm, but will there be no 
 bow in the legs*? be assured there will; be assured 
 bad nursing and bad education leave their cursed marks 
 to the grave, on the most heroic form or most gigantic 
 mind. 
 
 In practice, his mind was absolutely without basis 
 and ballast, he was consequently at the mercy of every 
 freak, every whim, and every dream, of others less 
 gifted than himself. And there is hardly an idle wish, 
 a foolish whim, an indigestible fancy or absurd weak- 
 ness, that young men mistake for symptoms of genius, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 171 
 
 that cannot find their prototype in the practice of 
 Reynolds. 
 
 This is the reason why he was so uncertain: he 
 seemed to imagine the ancient masters had some 
 secret; he destroyed many pictures to find it out — 
 there was no secret! Their vehicle was the simplest 
 for painting, their mode of drawing the figure the most 
 unaffected; they dissected before they drew, and drew 
 before they painted: to be sure, they had one little 
 secret, very rare! and not to be discovered by rubbing 
 down, any more than the philosopher's stone, viz. 
 Genius. To find this, you may scrape and rub, and 
 pumice and wash, but you will end as you began, 
 and discover, after all, that the best way is to get rid 
 of such superstition, and begin to dissect and draw, 
 to master the construction of every thing you repre- 
 sent; not to begin to paint till you have vanquished 
 these elements ; and, take my word for it, you will 
 then discover that the art of the Italians and Greeks, 
 of Phidias and of Raffaelle, Corcggio or Titian, con- 
 tained no secrets but the secrets of sound science, open 
 to all, and no trick, but industry without end. 
 
 Having thus gone through the Anatomical Construc- 
 tion of the Human Frame, and occasionally compared its 
 individual parts with the same parts in the quadruped, 
 I shall in the next Lecture endeavour to hiy down laws 
 from such comparison for the formation of a Standard 
 Form, and give you the opinions of my distinguished 
 predecessors, Reynolds, Fuzeli, and Opie ; and thus 
 conclude the basis of Design. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 CONCLUSION ON THE SUBJECT OF FORM, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 In my last Lecture, I laid before you the 
 superficial muscular arrangement of Man, and only so 
 much of w hat is deep seated, as influences the external 
 shape. 
 
 Man is the principal instrument an artist uses in 
 conveying his conceptions to the spectator; and con- 
 sequently it must he evident to you all, that to ascertain 
 what are the leading characteristics of his figure as a 
 species, such as it may be supposed he issued from his 
 Creator's hands, free from disease or accident, is a very 
 important desideratum. 
 
 It may be right, in the first place, to lay before you 
 the ideas on this important subject of my distinguished 
 predecessors, Reynolds, Fuzeli, and Opie, as to what 
 were the leading principles of a Greek standard or 
 cannon form. 
 
 Reynolds' theory like his pictures, was broad, beau- 
 tiful, graceful, general, and undefined. Fuzeli's essen- 
 tial and grand without detail, as if detail was beneath 
 him. Opie's keen, sagacious, grappling, and in the 
 direct road to truth. 
 
176 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 All these had one irremediable defect; they had 
 never dissected man or animal, the only way for ascer- 
 taining a basis for a principle of heroic form, they 
 trusted to their capacities and practice ; — and all these 
 have left nothing behind them but vague generalities; 
 though Opie was a great deal nearer the point than 
 either Fuzeli or Reynolds. 
 
 Reynolds says (Discourse III.), " all objects which 
 are exhibited to our view by nature, upon close exami- 
 nation will be found to have their blemishes and 
 defects. The most beautiful forms have something 
 about them, like weakness, minuteness, or imperfection ; 
 but it is not every eye which perceives those blemishes. 
 It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and 
 comparison of these forms, and which by long habit of 
 observing what any set of objects of the same kind have 
 in common, has acquired the power of discerning what 
 each wants in particular." 
 
 Now let us try this system. Suppose we take a hun- 
 dred men from the crowd in the streets ; suppose we 
 find, as we should in England, that all the hip muscles 
 were compressed, and only two had the full swelling of 
 the hip (obliquus descendens), would it be a sound 
 principle to lay down, that the hip muscle ought to be 
 flat, because ninety-eight of the one hundred had it flat, 
 and because this was the greatest number which a given 
 number had in common ? and that the t wo were defective, 
 because they were in the one hundred the particular"? 
 Surely not! Now we know that the two, who were par- 
 ticular, and exceptions, were on the sound principle of 
 clearing accident from essence ; and that the ninety-eight 
 were defective ! and that therefore the principle, what the 
 gi'eatest number have in common, is not always the basis 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 177 
 
 for essential form in man ; because accident or disease 
 may be the reason. But if you dissect, and ascertain what 
 is wanted for the leading actions of the frame, you find 
 out that the muscle of the hip is as necessary for the 
 full perfection of action as any other ; you can say, these 
 ninety-eight, though they have the flatness in common, 
 are not so essential as these two out of the one hundred; 
 because w^e know from examining human construction 
 that these muscles are essential to action, and tliat if 
 they be essential, they must be developed; development 
 insures projection, and flatness on that particular part is 
 defect. 
 
 *' Again," Reynolds says, "this long laborious com- 
 parison should be the first study of the painter who 
 aims at the greatest style." 
 
 There is no doubt of that; but a painter will get 
 nothing by external comparison of exterior figure, if 
 he do not first ascertain what is the interior ])hysical 
 man, — what the species must have, and what it cannot 
 exist without having. 
 
 Sir Joshua says again, " by this means he acquires 
 a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects nature by 
 herself." 
 
 That is, he immediately reduces the two with natural 
 projecting obliqui,to the level of the imfortunate ninety- 
 eight, where the obliqui by the pressure of the waistband 
 are flat. 
 
 These are the vague theories of a great portrait 
 painter. I should like to know by this theory, how an 
 artist is to correct nature by herself — where is the basis? 
 where is the line of definition? how, l)y comparing a 
 parcel of people together, without first ascertaining 
 what belongs to them as a species, an artist is to know 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 what they ought to have, and what they ought not, 
 would be difficult to answer. 
 
 But the instant you dissect, and compare the brute 
 and the man, you know what any given number of 
 human beings want as human beings, and what they 
 ought to have as distinct from the animal ; without dis- 
 section, all is vague and confused ; and Reynolds could 
 no more have defined what he meant from the unin- 
 formed condition of his own understanding as to the 
 human form, than he could have defined a human 
 figure with his pencil. 
 
 Considering the way in which he was brought up, 
 it is extraordinary he knew what he did ; and nothing 
 says more for the nobleness of his real nature, than the 
 condemnation throughout all his Discourses of his own 
 practice, and the perpetual urging of the rising youth 
 into a higher path ; though his not doing so himself 
 makes one attribute it to policy rather than to feeling. 
 So utterly unskilled was he in drawing, that Fuzeli 
 called on him once and found him making circles all 
 over the body of a female on his canvass, before he 
 could place the bosom rightly.* 
 
 Reynolds saw what was the foundation of the true 
 ideal beauty, viz. " The perfect state of Nature;" but 
 he is wrong in the direction he gave for finding it. 
 
 " The whole beauty and grandeur of the art consists, 
 in my opinion (he continues), in being able to get above 
 all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and 
 details of every kind." 
 
 This passage has been literally the ruin of English 
 art, or rather was. 
 
 So far from the omission of details of every kind 
 being the basis of grand art, there is not a grand work 
 
 * Fuzeli. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 179 
 
 of art on the earth where any essential detail is omitted. 
 Grandeur of style does not consist in the omission of 
 all details, but in the judicious selection of the leading 
 ones. 
 
 Consider the Neptune's breast of the Elgin marbles, 
 there is the roll of skin under the arm-pit, which be- 
 longs to man, there is the vein on the ribs, these are 
 essential, they cannot be omitted; but, according to 
 Reynolds' theory, all details must be omitted, therefore 
 these ought not to be there. 
 
 " By this principle," says he, " Phidias acquired his 
 fame." 
 
 Did he ? — above is named one of the great works of 
 this very Phidias from the pediment of the Parthenon ; 
 and you perceive he acquired his fame by the very 
 reverse. 
 
 " This is the idea (he repeats) which has a right to 
 the epithet Divine, and may be said to preside like a 
 sovereign judge over all the productions of Nature, 
 appearing to be possessed of the will and intentions of 
 the Creator, as far as regards the external form of man;" 
 depending, 1 add, on his internal construction. This 
 is finely expressed, and does apply to the principle of 
 Phidias, but not to Reynolds' immature idea of what 
 that principle was, viz., leaving out details of every 
 kind, or comparing a given number of human beings, 
 and laying down as a law that which most had in 
 common, without reference to accident, disease, or con- 
 struction, was what all ought to have in general; never 
 was a greater absurdity ! 
 
 Phidias, when he made his Jupiter, says Proclus, 
 contemplated the image only in his mind from Homer's 
 description. Cicero says, when Phidias executed his 
 
 n2 
 
180 
 
 HAY don's lectures 
 
 Jupiter and Minerva, he did not copy any human model, 
 but the idea in his mind. 
 
 Now, this idea in the mind, I shrewdly suspect 
 Phidias might have contemplated till now, and Jupiter 
 would never have made his appearance; but Phidias 
 had more sense than to depend on such vague gene- 
 ralities to give a physical identification of the god. He 
 knew the elements of man, as a species; he understood 
 the characteristics of the brute, as an animal; he had 
 mastered the construction of both, and till he had, he 
 would have been ever impotent in his struggles to define 
 the conceptions of Homer, or the idea in his own mind. 
 So much for blind enthusiasm! 
 
 After Reynolds came Fuzeli; a grand genius, but not 
 a sound one: with a fancy bordering on frenzy, he too 
 despised detail; he too forgot the physical necessities 
 of the language of art: had his mind been regulated in 
 early life — had he disciplined his design by dissection, 
 so elevated were his conceptions of form, so essential 
 his notions of style, that no man since the Greeks would 
 have so beautifully portrayed the heroic. 
 
 Though apparently a dissector, he never had dissected, 
 and he vainly attempted to generalize the human form 
 without knowing correctly a single muscle of its con- 
 struction. 
 
 " By nature," says Fuzeli, " I understand the general 
 and permanent principles of visible objects not dis- 
 figured by accident, not distempered by disease, not 
 modified by fashion or local habits. 
 
 *' The imitation of the ancients was essential, cha- 
 racteristic, ideal. 
 
 " The first cleared nature from accident, — the second 
 found the stamen that connects character with the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 181 
 
 central form, — the third raised the whole and the parts 
 to the highest degree of unison." 
 
 This is beautiful, a little further than Reynolds; but 
 where is the land for the machinery of Archimedes? 
 we have nothing yet positive, clear, defined; — what this 
 central form is, I could never get Fuzeli to tell me. 
 
 After Fuzeli came Opie : vigorous, philosophical, 
 coarse, uneducated, and original; equally ignorant of 
 the human form as Reynolds, less skilled than Fuzeli, 
 and never having dissected any more than either; yet 
 by the mere shrewdness of his powerful understanding, 
 enlightening the road at last to truth: plunged at once, 
 as Opie was, from a Cornish village, a wonder before 
 the world in his boyhood, inundated with commissions, 
 borne down by fashion, he had no time, in the whirl of 
 his first explosion on the town, to ground himself by 
 dissection or drawing; yet, by the mere force of his 
 perspicuous reason, he obtained more than a glimpse of 
 what was the principle of the Greeks in form, scarcely 
 comprehending himself the right marking of a knee. 
 In his first Lecture he says, most admirably — 
 
 " Of the laws and latent principles of form, the 
 ancients, by long and laborious experiments, made 
 themselves completely masters; they saw -what par- 
 ticular proportion uuuked the physical powers, — they 
 understood what denoted the moral, — they observed how 
 the situation and shape of the head varied witli the 
 increase or decrease of intellectual power, and by 
 judiciously exaggerating the peculiar distinctions of 
 man, compared with the classes of inferior animals, etc., 
 they produced those personifications of strength, beauty, 
 majesty, and wisdom, we see in the Jupiter, Venus, 
 Apollo, Minerva, and Hercules." 
 
182 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 I think you will agree with me that this process was 
 much more likely to produce the Jupiter of Phidias, 
 than Cicero's plan of sitting still and contemplating 
 the idea in his mind. 
 
 "The prime object," says Opie, again, "is the re- 
 discovery of the principle on which their works are 
 formed, which none of the moderns have attempted, 
 comprehended, or suspected. 
 
 " The best of them have taken some favourite figure, 
 and used it on all occasions. Thus, in escaping the 
 meanness and vulgarity of common nature, they con- 
 founded all distinctions of character, and became in- 
 curable mannerists, insipid or extravagant, according to 
 the choice of the model." 
 
 The soundness of this quotation is, indeed, admirable, 
 and ought to be learned by every student, and repeated 
 daily in his early years. It applies to Michael Angelo, 
 and in modern times to Fuzeli, both of whom made the 
 Torso the god of their worship. 
 
 In the right side of the Torso, a slip of the obliquus, 
 is doubled up; Fuzeli always marked this, though 
 the moment the figure stood upright, it would dis- 
 appear; this fact completely illustrates the remark of 
 Opie, of using one figure, with the muscular markings 
 of that action, on all occasions. 
 
 There can no longer be any doubt that the secret 
 principle of the ancients, in the construction of the 
 figure, was what Opie calls a judicious exaggeration of 
 man's peculiar distinctions, when compared with the 
 brute. 
 
 In my first Lecture, I have told you how it occurred 
 to me to ascertain this principle, so palpable in compar- 
 ing the head of the brute and the man; and in raising 
 the lion I was dissecting on his hind legs, resting like us 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 183 
 
 on his heel and toe, the whole system flashed on my 
 mind at once. 
 
 1 placed the lion standing on his two heels and toes, 
 and holding out one arm and hand. I placed a man 
 in the same position, and found the Quadruped had a 
 large face, small brain, and eyes above the centre of his 
 head. 
 
 Man, a small face, and large brain, and eyes in the 
 centre of his head. 
 
 Quadruped, long body and short limbs. 
 
 Man, short body and long limbs. 
 
 Quadruped, narrow chest, short upper-arm, long 
 fore-arm and hand. 
 
 Man, broad chest, long upper-arm, and short fore- 
 arm and hand. 
 
 Quadruped, flat and long feet, and inner ankle 
 lowest. 
 
 Man, short and arched feet, and inner ankle highest. 
 Quadruped, narrow knee-pan and bent knees. 
 Man, broad knee-pan and straight knees.* 
 
 The standard form of man in bone-construction is, 
 therefore, the reverse in form and proportion to the 
 quadruped placed on two feet, the natural position of 
 man. 
 
 Let us, then, try the same experiment with their 
 mutual muscular arrangement, and we shall complete 
 the comparison, and distinctly settle what are the 
 peculiar characteristics of a noble human figure in 
 muscle as well as bone. 
 
 * See Plates. 
 
184 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The quadruped is incapable of free rotatory motion 
 at the insertion of the shoulder-joint. 
 
 Man is entirely capable of the freest motion of 
 describing a perfect circle, the shoulder-joint being the 
 centre. It follows that all the muscles which enable 
 him to do so are peculiarly human, and must be pro- 
 minently visible, and none more or less be selected for 
 his form in that part. 
 
 The quadruped is defective in the above muscles, 
 and is defective in the muscles that enable a man to 
 grasp with his thumb and turn his wrist with such 
 facility; therefore, man being able to grasp to per- 
 fection, and turn his wrist with facility, it again 
 follows, that all the muscles which enable him to do 
 this must be vigorously marked, because they are 
 peculiarly human. 
 
 The quadruped is confined at the hip-joint, and is 
 feieble in the oblique. 
 
 In man, motion at the hip is free, and he is power- 
 ful in the oblique. 
 
 The quadruped cannot stand on his two feet, because 
 he is feeble in all the muscles, and in the bone 
 construction, which enable man to stand; therefore, 
 man must have, and has, in bone construction and 
 muscular arrangement, all the muscles vigorously 
 developed, which enable him to stand on his feet and 
 to keep his limbs perpendicular. 
 
 Thus, then, is produced the standard form of man. 
 In building him on the above unerring principles, make 
 his feet arched; second toe longest, his inner ankle, 
 highest; his calf low and vigorous; his knee-pan broad, 
 because it is a lever, and the broader, the more resistance 
 it offers, and the greater power it gives to the extend- 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 185 
 
 ing muscles of the leg. All the muscles which enable 
 him to keep his lim])s straight and powerful, all the 
 muscles of scapula and breast, vigorous, as well as 
 shoulder, arm, fore-arm, and hand, hand arched, and 
 large ball to the thumb. 
 
 In proportion, the reverse of the brute will establish 
 you in the same way; viz., head, same height as foot is 
 long; two feet to the top of pan-bone, when leg is 
 straight; two feet to the spine of the ilium; two feet 
 from bottom of belly to the top of the sternum ; half 
 a foot to the chin; one foot to the top of the head. 
 From top of shoulder to the elbow, two faces; from 
 elbow to middle knuckle, two more ; the hand, a face. 
 
 This is the general standard of human proportion. 
 But, for a god, the ancients increased the length by 
 diminishing the heads and extremities, as may be seen 
 in the bas-reliefs of the Elgin frieze. 
 
 For a god, two feet and a half to the top of patella; 
 two feet and half to the spine of the ilium; two feet 
 from pubis to sternum ; one foot or three quarters 
 to chin ; one foot to top of head ; head and foot same 
 length, or not, as it suits your purpose. 
 
 Two faces and a half to elbow from shoulder top; 
 two faces to knuckle; the hand, a face; as to breadth, 
 use your discretion according to character. 
 
 I am quite sure the ancients did not perplex their 
 minds or their statues with the petty minutiic of Audran ; 
 they were guided in proportion, as in every thing tliey 
 did, by some great leading principle of Nature and 
 common sense, and the relative size of head and extre- 
 mities to body and to each other appears to be the 
 basis. 
 
 The proportions I have thus laid before you, are 
 
186 
 
 HAYDON*S LECTURES • 
 
 found in all the Elgin marbles and Greek vases. Must 
 there not have been some code of laws equally open to 
 the workman and the artist? — Surely. Would to God 
 may yet be discovered the treatises of Apelles, Eu- 
 phranor, and Pamphilus; all the great artists wrote on 
 their divine art, told all they knew, and shortened the 
 road to their successors. 
 
 There is always a harmony of parts in reference to 
 each other: thus, if wrists are tendinous, so are ankles; 
 if elbows are clear, so are knees ; in fact, lay it down 
 as an everlasting principle, that if there be any two 
 parts of any body which can fairly bear comparison, 
 they must be similar in character and in essence. 
 
 In comparing our illustrious modern sovereign of 
 design, Michael Angelo, with Phidias, or the Greeks 
 generally, in the naked figure, he must unquestionably 
 yield the palm! Michael Angelo, as Fuzeli says, often 
 perplexed his limbs with useless anatomy ; and from his 
 Moses and his Christ holding the cross, casts of which 
 I have studied, it must not be denied and cannot be 
 refuted, that he did not know how to clear the accidental 
 from the essential. 
 
 If the principle be a sound one, as it is, viz. that 
 any two parts of a body bearing comparison must be, 
 to keep a consistency throughout, similar in essence 
 and development, then is Michael Angelo's grossly 
 inconsistent, because, if the spine of the ilium in front 
 be covered fully by the muscles round it, so ought the 
 spine of the scapula behind to be equally covered; if 
 the one be, and the other be not, then the figure is 
 inharmonious. The spine of the scapula in his Christ 
 is visible, meagerly and meanly marked, belonging to a 
 thin man; the spine of the ilium is surrounded and 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 187 
 
 covered by its attendant muscles, beautifully and fully, 
 belonging to a muscular man. What authority in 
 nature or antiquity had Michael Angelo for such 
 management'^ None: it was his caprice, his anatomical 
 caprice; these are the excesses which bring dissection 
 into contempt, and which induced John Bell and others 
 to doubt whether the Greeks dissected or not; because 
 they were never guilty of such absurdity, and because 
 they had too much self-control to make that an end of 
 art which is but a means of the perfection of art. 
 
 And yet, Vasari says,* this very figure is mira- 
 hillissima (most extraordinary!) This shews the extent 
 of Vasari's judgment, for it is most unquestionably the 
 most affected, absurd, pedantic academic figure, that 
 ever came from a great genius, even in the tortures of 
 a night-mare dream. Fuzeli thought the same of it, 
 and in his Lectures condemns it. This figure, and the 
 figures of Lazarus in the National Gallery, which he 
 evidently painted for Sebastian, are justifiable grounds 
 for asserting he was not equal to Phidias in the naked, 
 though, in the conception and an-angement of a vast 
 work to illustrate a grand principle, he approaches, in 
 the Capella Sistina, but surely does not equal, much 
 more surpass the Parthenon and its glories in concej)- 
 tion; in execution he must not be compared, gigantic 
 as he is, or (in speaking of perfection) mentioned in 
 the same page, without explanation. 
 
 His figures may be giants, but they have not that 
 air of refinement the Greeks combined with strength. 
 
 Their actions are affected, their expressions ferocious. 
 His women may be, as Fuzeli calls them, moulds of 
 generation, but certainly not of love. 
 
 Reynolds says, he has seen figures by his hand 
 * In his Life of Michael Angciu. 
 
188 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 which it would be extremely difficult to say, whether 
 they were the height of the sublime, or extremely 
 ridiculous. I should say, in that case, there could be 
 nothing more easy to decide. 
 
 Phidias and RafFaelle have one great decided beauty 
 in their works. Their figures, whether in action, or 
 repose, or expression, always look as the unconscious 
 agents of an impulsion they cannot help ; you are 
 never drawn aside from what they are doing by any 
 appearance in them, as if they wished to make us con- 
 sider how very grand they were, or how very gracefully 
 they were moving. They seem impelled by something 
 they cannot control ; their heads, hands, feet, and 
 bodies, immediately put themselves into positions the 
 best adapted to execute the intentions wanted. Whereas 
 often in Michael Angelo, and always in his imitators, 
 there is a consciousness, as it were, in their arms and 
 legs which destroys all idea that the figures are the 
 mere unconscious agents of a predominating idea, which 
 acts by means of the will on the muscular system. 
 
 The moment limbs and body appear to have been 
 moved, for any other purpose not connected with the 
 intention for which they were first called into action, 
 all feeling vanishes of their being in the position the 
 best able to execute it; and the effect of the action or 
 expression is weakened by an uncalled-for air of 
 affectation. It must be so ; for it is an inherent prin- 
 ciple in nature, whether in action or repose, never to 
 disturb itself for grace, or any other purpose, not imme- 
 diately the consequence of either. 
 
 Style in design is a result, and not a cause; what- 
 ever object is represented in painting or sculpture, the 
 intentions of God in its bodily formation should be 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 189 
 
 ascertained; the means which God has bestowed on 
 that object to enable it to execute its own will, or 
 gratify its own instincts, should be investigated, — and 
 then the aberrations produced by time, accident, disease, 
 or other causes, will be clearly known; so that he who 
 takes on himself to represent any object in painting 
 will be able to reject accident from essence by this 
 deep investigation, and shew the object in all its 
 essential properties of body, as God first created it. 
 The external forms of that body will thus be essential, 
 and the result of its completion in art will be style in 
 design. 
 
 On this principle, every thing represented in nature 
 can have a style of its own: that is, it can be repre- 
 sented with its essential properties of body bestowed on 
 it by God at its birth; while manner is to represent 
 every thing imitated from nature in one way, totally 
 regardless of the separate intentions of God, in his 
 formation of every species on earth. 
 
 There are certain inherent principles of our common 
 nature to which all bodies must yield; viz. that com- 
 pression and extension must have different effects, and 
 so must action and repose; now, if a great artist repre- 
 sents a figure, and makes its parts the same in action 
 as in repose, and the same in extension as in com- 
 pression; either he was ignorant of the principles, or 
 considered they were too common for elevated art. No 
 doubt the conception of an idea may be so grand ; the 
 beauty of a character may be so angelic; the pathos of 
 an expression may be so deep, that the errors or 
 inadequacy in the means of representation may be 
 forgiven; but in order to bring the art to the perfection 
 the Greeks brought it, there must be notliing to forgive. 
 
190 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 An idea or conception, being the nobler part of the 
 art, we may, in our conviction of human frailty, overlook 
 any inadequacy in the means of imitation; but this very 
 admission proves there must be something to be over- 
 looked, and something we have a notion has not been 
 adequately represented. 
 
 An art, the modes of which to convey thought, being 
 the imitation essentially of natural objects, ought surely 
 to have the imitation perfect; because the imperfection 
 of the means has always detracted from the impression 
 of the thought. 
 
 Poets are not endured, if their grammar is bad, or 
 their language obscure, or their versification defective ; 
 and why should drawing, form, construction, colour, 
 light and shadow, and surface, the grammar of our art, 
 on the same principle, be excused more than in the 
 poef? 
 
 Of course the languages are different in their essence, 
 ours being the actual imitation of the things themselves, 
 and the slightest representation of any visible object is 
 at once understood; yet this facility of comprehending 
 the thing imitated, the immortal Greeks never suffered, 
 like Michael Angelo, to act as an excuse for any affected 
 violation of principle or imperfection of form, and why 
 should the moderns'? 
 
 Michael Angelo was a tremendous genius, and a 
 grand moral being, with a vast power of intellect, as is 
 displayed in the Capella Sistina, — his effect on the art 
 was vital; but he did not allow, like the Greeks, the 
 unalterable principles of life to keep in check his ana- 
 tomical knowledge of the human figure. 
 
 This was an error; because we can imagine no beings, 
 and no world, where malleable matter is not influenced 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 191 
 
 by the common principles of the solar system, or where 
 any creatures composed of bones, muscles, tendons, and 
 skin, must not yield to the laws which God instituted 
 for their government when he created them. 
 
 Michael Angelo thus often overstepped the modesty 
 of truth, and gave a swaggering air; every figure of his 
 looks as if he was insulted, and preparing to return a 
 blow; if they sleep, they seem as if they would kick; 
 and they move when they are awake, as if all their 
 muscles were cracking. 
 
 His art is a perpetual effort, his figures always seem 
 irritated, and in a passion. Jeremiah and the meditating 
 Lorenzo are immortal exceptions. I aUude more par- 
 ticularly to his naked figures. 
 
 Fuzeli said Michael Angelo was the salt of art — no, 
 he was the pepper! very little indeed wdll do for 
 seasoning. 
 
 In poetry of sentiment, the Medici tombs would 
 perhaps have competed with Phidias; for Michael 
 Angelo, being a painter, as well as Phidias, he com- 
 bined in his sculpture a knowledge of elTect; and in 
 magnificence of conception and poetry of character, in 
 selection of subject and fearless execution of hand, none 
 of the great works in painting of the ancients could 
 have surpassed it. But in the naked figures, both at 
 the tombs and the Sistine chapel, Michael Angelo must 
 yield to Phidias. 
 
 The naked figures at the tombs would have been 
 demolished by the hammers of the journeymen of 
 Phidias! One can imagine the horror that would have 
 seized master, pupils, and workmen, with the llyssus, 
 the Theseus, and the Fates, preparing in the workshop, 
 had these galvanistic spasms suddenly been let down 
 through the roof. 
 
192 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Why is Phidias superior to Michael Angelo in the 
 naked? because his most abstract and heroic figures 
 were based on common sense. Common sense is the 
 basis of Raffaelle's expression, and Titian's colour is 
 equally founded on common sense. 
 
 "What are these marbles remarkable for?" said a 
 respectable gentleman at the Museum, to one of the 
 attendants, after looking attentively round all the Elgin 
 marbles. 
 
 "Why sir," said the man with propriety, "because 
 they are so like life ! " 
 
 " Like life," repeated the gentleman with the greatest 
 contempt; "Why, what of that?" and walked away. 
 
 To this gentleman it might appear no great thing to 
 render works of art like life ; but if he had reflected — 
 so many are the by-paths which branch from the main 
 one, — so much do men sophisticate in favour of their 
 own propensities, — so easily are all deluded by the 
 seductions of idleness — that, in 4000 years, few indeed 
 are the men who have made their imitations like that 
 life with which they are eternally surrounded. 
 
 I yield to no man in veneration for the immortal 
 name of Michael Angelo ; but remember we have now 
 evidence there was a greater: the longer you live, the 
 more you do, the more knowledge you acquire, in that 
 proportion you will be all convinced I am right, and 
 that I have exaggerated nothing for the sake of novelty, 
 or the impudence of conceit. 
 
 So extraordinary was the revolution the works of 
 Phidias produced in England, as to what was the true 
 high style ; so completely were all old academic adora- 
 tions shook to their foundations, that it required no 
 ordinary philosophy in the old painters, to admit the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 193 
 
 feelings they experienced. After seeing them myself, 
 I called and took Fuzeli to see them, and being a man 
 of quick sensibility, he was taken entirely by surprise; 
 never shall I forget his uncompromising enthusiasm; 
 he strode about, thundering out, the Greeks were gods! 
 the Greeks were gods! When he got home he wanted 
 to modify his enthusiasm, but I always reminded him 
 of his first impressions, and never let him escape. 
 
 West, NoUekins, and Lawrence, behaved no])ly. 
 Flaxman, after having called the Apollo a dancing- 
 master, in comparison with the Theseus, was never 
 sincere in his affectation of feeling for the Elgin marbles; 
 his style was so entirely the reverse, that it could not 
 be sincere. 
 
 I therefore respectfully differ from Reynolds in his 
 incautious recommendation, without qualification, of 
 Michael Angelo; so far from getting casts of his sculp- 
 ture, banish all traces of his pedantic twistings. 
 
 Reynolds was a great genius, but also a worldly 
 politician; he had the repute of i)eing gentle, complying, 
 and bland. Nothing renders a man so gentle as unin- 
 terrupted success, accumulation of fortune, and elevated 
 dignities. Reynolds kept his temper while he had 
 every thing his own way ; but the first time he was 
 thwarted, he lost his temper and threw up his title. 
 
 Proofs of good temper are not to be drawn from the 
 bland self-approbation of self-will and good fortune, all 
 men can be exceedingly amiable with 70,000/. in the 
 three per cents. Adversity is the touchstone of tenq)er, 
 honour, character, and talent; and adversity he never 
 knew. 
 
 Of all men on earth he was the most unfit to judge 
 of Michael Angelo. Influenced by the graces of fashion, 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 living in the heat of high life, bending to the caprices 
 of beauty, painting like Rembrandt, and sacrificing all 
 to colour, not knowing rightly the shape of a knee or 
 the marking of a muscle. Passing through the great 
 Vatican chambers, with their beauty, their nature, their 
 grace, their composition, their drawing, and their dra- 
 peries, — insensible to all these, and then asking in 
 ignorance for the great works of Rafifaelle. If such was 
 his utter w^ant of feeling from nature, is it plausible to 
 conceive such a mind an adequate estimator of the giant 
 of Italian art*? 
 
 Either Sir Joshua did this, or he did not; if he did, 
 as he says, it displays an ignorance not to be accounted 
 for; if he did not, as I shrewdly suspect, he was guilty 
 of a political fib to illustrate a principle. 
 
 Reynolds set the fashion of this blind admiration, 
 and every portrait painter since thinks himself on safe 
 grounds to imitate him, till he fancies himself in a 
 poetical enthusiasm. With respect to the enthusiasm 
 of Reynolds and others (for this great man), they who 
 spent their whole lives in yielding to the vulgar preju- 
 dices of their employers, and who sacrificed their noble 
 art, and the taste of the country to their own love of 
 money and personal ease, I estimate their enthusiasm 
 as a mere bit of political pretence ; at the same time, it 
 is some sacrifice to a great principle to try the policy of 
 pretenders. 
 
 It was exceedingly fine of Sir Joshua, after making 
 a large fortune, to tell the young men ; " Were I now 
 to begin the world again, to catch the slightest of 
 Michael Angelo's perfections, to kiss the hem of his 
 garment, would be glory and distinction enough for an 
 ambitious man: I would tread in the steps of that great 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 195 
 
 master." The question is, why did he not do it when 
 he began the w^orld? for this simple reason, he never 
 had genius for it! 
 
 Genius, be assured, is not a passive quality, and 
 cannot conveniently be buttoned up for another oppor- 
 tunity, to be let out as ^Eolus does the winds, whenever 
 the possessor is in the caprice. Genius is a gift which 
 sits on a possessor like a night-mare; haunts him when 
 a lisping child, a restless youth, or in confirmed man- 
 hood. Reynolds, Romney, Lawrence, and Chantrey, 
 were always predicting what grand things they would 
 do, as soon as they were above the necessities of life ; 
 as soon as snow ceased to fall, and water to be frozen ; 
 as soon as babies ceased to be tormented with abdomi- 
 nal twangs, and Daffy's elixir was no longer wanted; 
 as soon as all was calm and sinless, and free from bad 
 passion: when they were so, would not their judgment 
 be more mature*? When they have secured an indepen- 
 dence, would not their genius be in a fitter condition for 
 fancy? To this millennium of quiet they are always 
 looking ; at last it is the very time, to-morrow they'll 
 begin. In comes another sitter — then come the guineas 
 — then the dining-out — then the bewitching flattery of 
 some darling he has just painted successfully, and very 
 like about the eyes. In the mean time, some youth, 
 whom God has gifted, in poverty and struggle, spends his 
 money, meant for food, to get clay for a model ; con- 
 ceives a grand figure — sets to work, without waiting 
 for the three per cents., and you find, in an obscure, 
 cheerless, wretched room, a gigantic figure of Milo 
 towering to the ceiling, as fine a combination of High 
 Art and true Nature as has ever appeared since the 
 Greeks ! 
 
 o2 
 
196 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Amiable impostors in genius; while you, conscious 
 of your feebleness, are always the victims of delusions 
 — the grave opens, 
 
 Et voilk la farce finie I 
 
 One of the finest evidences of genius in a young man, 
 after his preparatory studies are over, is a restless desire 
 to begin. 
 
 The excuses of idleness are endless. I have known 
 men who never began, and yet were morally sincere in 
 their intentions to begin, and yet they have died actually 
 without beginning. 
 
 Even after genius is evident, it is a curious matter of 
 speculation to reflect, on what an exquisite balance 
 of qualities and propensities, principles and tendencies, 
 to ensure a full development of its inventions, one 
 absolutely requires. 
 
 Some men are always putting their whole hopes on 
 some ulterior discovery of some subordinate requisite ; 
 idleness is at the bottom, — because, find what they will, 
 they never find exactly what they are looking for. 
 
 I have known some who never began to invent or to 
 paint till they had discovered a fine light; they went to 
 Italy, still the light there was not the very thing! I 
 met one of these very ingenious friends, after some years, 
 in Bond-street. " Well, Haydon, I have got a light at 
 last." Would you believe, he went to Italy again, and 
 he died in Italy without ever beginning. 
 
 I knew another who was for twenty-five years in 
 pursuit of a fine blue. Dozens lose their lives in pre- 
 paring a ground; and hundreds in every part of Europe, 
 thinking they are earning an immortal name, and will 
 have the fairest claims for original genius, by spending 
 
ON PAINTING. 197 
 
 months copying favourite works, executed by illustrious 
 men, who have been remembered solely because they 
 never copied at all; and from the very dawn 
 
 Of the prime in youth where boyhood ended, 
 
 had thought for themselves, drawn for themselves, and 
 painted for themselves, or else they would never have 
 been examples to the world. 
 
 What matter where," says Satan, " if I be still the same?'' 
 
 Wherever you are, begin; no cant about foggy climate; 
 no nonsense about dog-days or winter; no folly about 
 this master, or that country. Have you imagination? 
 yes; "then the proof. Master Shallow." No trash about 
 your taste being superior to your practice; surely that 
 is no fault but your own; hard work and incessant 
 application will soon bring your practice superior to 
 your taste. But then you must be always on the watch; 
 in the enthusiasm of youth, wrack your invention to 
 save time, endless schemes will occur to you ; but here 
 idleness will assume the bustle of industry, and here 
 you must watch too. 
 
 Ambition for distinction, eagerness for improvement, 
 exciting your mind by doating over the biographies of 
 greatest men, — these things are the best incentives. 
 
 Never leave nature ; base your highest flights on her 
 unalterable simplicity ; begin to be apprehensive at too 
 great a facility of inventive sketching. Rul)ens always 
 sketched with a model ; and though no part of the 
 model was adopted, be assured there was something 
 more vigorous, more like life, than if he had sketched 
 without it. 
 
 Reynolds says, in early life he knew an artist at 
 
198 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Rome, fully capable of estimating the great works 
 before him, but that he always felt the want of that 
 nature so admirable in the lower schools. 
 
 Reynolds says he was nearly led astray by his plau- 
 sibility at the time. 
 
 This artist was only wrong in the excess of the 
 principle — the narrow idea of nature, in the Dutch 
 school, would never do in High Art; but this was not 
 his precise meaning ; what he meant was, he was never 
 satisfied with natural effect of the objects imitated in 
 the grand style ; that he did not see why a sword in 
 the hand of a hero, should not be painted with the 
 nature of Teniers, or the face of a Helen should not 
 have the fleshiness of Vandyke, and yet not be deterio- 
 rated in style or beauty. Reynolds admitted this here- 
 after, as we shall see in a future Discourse. 
 
 This Frenchman was decidedly right, because this 
 was the practice and principle of our masters in every 
 thing— the Greeks ; and why Michael Angelo and the 
 fresco painters did not acquire such a look of nature 
 in their works, was from the very mode fresco requires. 
 Cartoons are first drawn, and part by part are traced on 
 the walls, as much only as can be done in a day ; the 
 great artist then painted without any model but the 
 Cartoon, and lost that vigour and nature you see in 
 Titian and Rubens, and which you can never get, 
 unless you paint directly from the object on your finished 
 work, which Raffaelle and Michael Angelo did not do 
 in fresco. 
 
 Reynolds thus laid down principles which were purely 
 the result of the defect of fresco practice, and the 
 Frenchman had certainly a dawning which Reynolds 
 himself at last perceived.* 
 
 * See note on Du Fresnoy, etc. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 199 
 
 This combination of nature with idea was the glory 
 and the greatness of Phidias and the Greeks of that 
 time. This was the touch that vibrated then and now 
 on the chords of every human heart; this was the secret 
 of the enthusiasm of antiquity, and of the enthusiasm 
 of our own time, when but the fragments of his mighty 
 genius have re-appeared. This w^as the secret of Homer 
 and Phidias, and of our own dear Shakspere. In gods 
 or men, they never forgot the principles of our being; 
 though Achilles was superhuman in force, he does 
 nothing unnatural, and his men wxre like them in 
 principle. Lysippus made men as they ought to he 
 made, says Aristotle, forgetting what they are; I fear 
 Phidias made them what they ought to be, based on 
 what they are ; and this makes all the difference 
 between a grand style, which is a violation of nature, 
 and a style where nature is visible, whatever be the 
 height to which the style is raised. 
 
 " Nothing is more perfect than Phidias," says Cicero, 
 orat. 71. *' You cannot praise him enough," says 
 Pliny, lib. xxxvi. " lie made gods better than men," 
 says Quintilian, lib. xii. " Phidias was skilful in 
 beauty," says Plato, quoted by Flaxman. 
 
 We know what his men are, his Theseus, his Ilyssus, 
 his Neptune's breast; and yet one of the most acute 
 critics of antiquity says he made gods better! Plutarch 
 mentions the awe of Paulus ^Emilius, the Roman, on 
 seeing his Olympian Jupiter: in fact, being idolaters, 
 as the Greeks were, we Christians, who worshij) the 
 pure in heart, in preference to the beautiful in form, 
 can have no idea of the perfection of Greek art in their 
 greatest works, either of sculpture or painting. 
 
 The road to the blessings in this life, and to Elysium 
 
200 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 in the next, was then the perfection of art. The back 
 of the Theseus was never seen when once up on the 
 pediment of the Parthenon, but it was finished by 
 Phidias, on a principle of religious enthusiasm for 
 the honour of Minerva, as if it had to be seen every 
 day. 
 
 This is the principle to be revived ; it revived among 
 the Catholic Italians, who equally believed that in perfect- 
 ing the beauty of the Virgin, as by the sacred sufferings 
 of our Saviour, they ensured the road to heaven. What 
 I maintain is, we have the elements of the same principle 
 in us, without the absurdity. Our feelings are political, 
 why cannot the enthusiasm for art be developed amongst 
 us, without the superstition of the Catholics, or the 
 idolatry of the Greeks'? why cannot we shew to the 
 world our power of enthusiastically raising a grand 
 style, by illustrating the immortal events which have 
 occurred in our struggles for our constitutional inde- 
 pendence Should we not in that case afford a species 
 of enthusiasm, that would bear the test of reason, and 
 not fear the progressive advance of human enlighten- 
 ment. 
 
 In proportion as we ascertain the moral characters 
 of the ancient gods, we must despise them; and admire 
 their art as we may, we cannot help lamenting the 
 infatuation of the genius of Greece, in perpetuating the 
 personal perfection of the wretches they immortalize. 
 But in any glorious, national, moral, and constitutional 
 illustration of the histories of England, Scotland, or 
 Ireland, no genius, if it were ten times more refined 
 than Phidias, could do otherwise than honour to itself 
 for ever, by the identification of Alfred, and his deeds 
 in England; and Bruce, in Scotland; which ought to 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 201 
 
 adorn every hall, and every public building, and every 
 hearth of our country. 
 
 Let us correct the excesses of our Reformation, and 
 no longer associate idolatry with art. 
 
 " Do you expect," said a distinguished foreigner to 
 me, in prison, a friend of Edmund Burke, " to make a 
 trading nation feel the beauty of the Theseus'?" 
 
 " I do," was my reply; " at any rate a trading nation 
 produced Spenser, Shakspere, Bacon, Milton, Locke, 
 and Scott." 
 
 '*Ah!" said he, " 1)ut these are individuals in the 
 nation, but not the trading nation itself." 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "but who purchases, relishes, and 
 reads their works? — the trading nation. You are 
 confounding genius itself, witli susceptibility to its pro- 
 ductions. It is no proof because one-half the nation 
 is not Shakspere, that the other half do not under- 
 stand him ! The British people are sound in taste, 
 whatever may be their propensities to commerce ; and 
 I maintain, there exists a feeling of art, independent of 
 the domestic tendency to portrait, that would enable them 
 to relish grand attempts, if the authorities would give 
 them the opportunities ; they want instruction, but 
 that is all they want. The feeling which produced the 
 demand for Milton, Shakspere, and Spencer, would 
 induce the sanction to any plan of the authorities for the 
 works of a llaffaelle, or Michael Angelo." 
 
 " But the style of Michael Angelo has never been, and 
 never will be, popular in England; here is a proof they 
 have no taste," said he.* 
 
 " To my mind," I replied, " this is a decided proof 
 
 • Do you suppose a coiniiicrcial nation care about the naked 
 
202 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 their taste is of the purest order. The very ground 
 taken to prove the British people have no taste, is the 
 very ground I take to prove they have. To admire 
 Michael Angelo has heen synonimous with fine taste." 
 
 The grand style! the style of the gods! O yes, 
 when you saw an outline like iron, and the skin like 
 brick-dust; and you told a youth there was no outline 
 in nature, and the skin of heroes had the due mixture 
 of tints, 
 
 Which nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on, 
 
 you were immediately regarded with a look of ineffable 
 contempt, and told it was the grand style ! 
 
 If his lights were scattered, and your eye distracted 
 — it was the grand style ! 
 
 If kings were clothed in blankets, as well as prophets 
 and beggars, — that was the grand style! 
 
 If all look of nature was discarded — hips out of joint, 
 toes in a spasm, one leg up and the other so far from 
 the body as to make its return a hopeless expectation — 
 this was the true Epic! And to paint the chariot of 
 the sun with no more ornament than a dray-cart, as 
 Michael Angelo has done, in the Fall of Phaeton; to 
 paint a horse, with no mark of his nature; little chil- 
 dren, like little men; to make a joint bent, with the 
 same markings as one stretched; to turn your back on 
 nature, and curse her simplicity for putting you out, — 
 was the grandest of all grand styles — the style of the 
 
 form ? Yes, and I'll try them. You will be pelted from the stage 
 was the reply, or run your head against the wall. 
 
 In England and Scotland I have shewn the naked form, 
 and have I been pelted? let the intense attention, the decided 
 approbation and enthusiasm, of all classes be the reply. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 203 
 
 gods. But, alas! for the beauties of the grand style: 
 certain little works in marble came over, after shipwreck 
 and many adventures, opened the eyes of your professors 
 of the grand style, as well as their adorers; and the 
 poor grand style gave an expiring puff, and shriveled 
 up like an airless bladder: alas, for the poor grand 
 style ! 
 
 I know well, thus ridiculing the grand style, as it 
 has been taught in all the academies of Europe for the 
 last three hundred years, will subject me to imputations 
 of presumption; but, with my foot on the Neptune's 
 breast of the Elgin marbles, with its roll of skin under 
 the arm-pit, and its veins on the ribs, I defy all the 
 academies on the face of the earth! Because common 
 sense is the basis of my ridicule; and the real grand 
 style can never revive in Europe, or exist as it existed 
 in Greece, but in reversing all the absurdities which 
 have been the principles of instruction in Europe for 
 three hundred years! 
 
 It cannot revive but by making Nature the basis of 
 all grandeur, and not exaggeration the excuse for 
 violating her unallcraljle simplicity. 
 
 It can never revive but by considering all parts in 
 the imitation of her beauty essential; and essential 
 detail, in form, colour, and light and shadow, in effect, 
 contriljute to High Art, as much as drawing and 
 expression. 
 
 Reynolds says, "It is better to diversify on parti- 
 culars from the broad and general idea of things, than 
 vainly attempt to ascend from particulars to this great 
 general idea." 
 
 Now, it is really the reverse. You must first ascer- 
 tain the particulars before you can discover the essentials. 
 
204 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 For, if you begin to generalize without knowing the 
 particulars, how can you select the one from the other 
 without the risk of banishing what is essential, or 
 retaining what ought to be banished altogether*? 
 
 In your broad idea of things, you may leave out the 
 pan-bone of the knee as a useless particular; this 
 would be certainly very broad, but very inconvenient. 
 
 In thus doing my duty, in exposing what I consider 
 to be the errors of great minds, you must not suppose 
 I am insensible to their genius in art, or their influence 
 on it. I hope I bow before the occasional grand senti- 
 ment of Michael Angelo. I hope I venerate his gigantic 
 genius in architecture, sculpture, and painting. I only 
 say, he is not pure enough for a model of style to 
 regulate the taste of a country ; and as I know, and can 
 prove, there was a purer, a greater, a truer school, and 
 that we have now among us fragments of his mighty 
 genius, sufficient to revive the principles of his truth 
 and sublimity, am I then to be daunted from telling you 
 so, for fear of offending the infatuated adoration of 
 an authority that did not know^ the construction of 
 a leg?* 
 
 The slightest variation or violation of the principles 
 of life, in this glorious school, was treason against the 
 intentions of God. It issued from the simplicity of 
 the Greek Republics at their finest time — Marathon ! 
 and it is suited to the manliness, to the love of moral 
 truth, that is the characteristic of the British mind. 
 It is suited to that glorious country which settled the 
 constitutional liberty of man. 
 
 " The mental disease of the present generation," says 
 
 * Reynolds. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 205 
 
 Dr. Johnson, "is impatience of study, contempt of the 
 great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to 
 rely on unassisted genius and natural sagacity; the wits 
 of these days have discovered a way to fame, which the 
 dull caution of our laborious ancestors dared never 
 attempt. 
 
 " Fame cannot spread wide, or endure long, that is 
 not rooted in nature, and matured by art." 
 
 This caution is particularly applicable to the danger- 
 ous tendencies of the present age, when every thing 
 that is invented in art or science, is the triumph of 
 science at the expense of lal)our; it pervades every 
 thing, and has been gaining ground at a prodigious 
 rate, so that there is absolutely no limits in imagination 
 even to its termination. 
 
 A lady of fashion, who was once ordered by her 
 sovereign to attend a foreign duchess of high distinc- 
 tion, while she remained in England, had so long 
 retired from foreign society during the war, that she felt 
 the necessity of brusliing up her Italian and French ; 
 a master was sent for, and engaged on the express 
 condition that he did not plague her witli vcrljs and 
 participles ! Dryden said there was no royal road to 
 knowledge; let me assure all the youth who arc present 
 there i-s no railroad to perfection in art. 
 
 The great principle of modern times in " saving 
 labour" may do, and must do, in commerce, where time 
 is so valuable ; but in education, or art, if adopted, it 
 will render the next generation superficial and pert. 
 
 Labour is the price the gods have set upon every 
 thing valuable ; and be assured no man, let his genius 
 be what it will, ever rose to eminence but by unwearied 
 devotion ; no local disease was ever cured by a local 
 
206 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 remedy, if the system was neglected ; no great classic 
 hero ever yet appeared by interlinear translation. No 
 great sculptor, who had not mastered the construction 
 of men and animals by patient dissection, and no 
 great historical painter, ever did, or ever will, arise, 
 as Burke says, " who did not make the knife accom- 
 pany the pencil." 
 
 It would certainly be a great convenience to 
 have statues made, pictures painted, or undiscovered 
 meanings of ancient authors developed, by domestic 
 steam-engines ; nor is it at all improbable the next 
 generation may make the attempt; but at present I 
 advise the student to be assured, that anticipated system 
 is but in dawn ; and in the mean time let them be 
 thoroughly convinced, till our faculties are amazingly 
 extended, there is no idle way of becoming great or 
 illustrious in any science or art. 
 
 We have now got through the four foundation 
 lectures; and as I began, so I will conclude the series, 
 by earnestly begging you to consider Dissection to be 
 the only true basis of knowledge in Design. 
 
 " By anatomy," says Charles Bell, " considered with 
 a view to the arts of design, I understand not merely 
 the study of the individual and dissected muscles of the 
 face, or body, or limbs; I consider it as including a 
 knowledge of all the peculiarities and characteristic 
 differences which mark and distinguish the counte- 
 nance, and the general appearance of the body, in 
 situations interesting to the painter or statuary. 
 
 "The characters of infancy, youth, age; the pecu- 
 liarities of sickness or of robust health; the contrast of 
 manly and muscular strength and feminine delicacy; 
 the appearances of disease, of pain, or of death — the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 207 
 
 general condition of the body ; in short, as marking to 
 the eye of the beholder interesting situations. All these 
 form a necessary part of the anatomy of painting, as 
 the tracing the muscles of expression in their unexerted 
 state, and of the changes induced upon them as emo- 
 tions arise in the mind. The anatomy of painting," 
 he proceeds in his beautiful work on Expression, " taken 
 according to this comprehensive view, forms not only 
 a science of great interest, but that from which alone 
 the artist can derive the true spirit of observation, learn 
 to distinguish what is essential to just expression, and 
 be able to direct his attention to the appearances which 
 might otherwise escape his notice, but on which much 
 of the effect and force, and much even of the delicacy 
 of his delineations, will ])e found to depend." 
 
 In page 10, he adds, " that anatomy is the true basis 
 of the Arts of Design. It bestows on him (the artist), 
 a minuteness of observation which he cannot otherwise 
 attain; and I am persuaded that, while it will enable 
 him to give vigour to the whole form, it will also teach 
 him to represent certain niceties of expression, which 
 otherwise are beyond his reach." 
 
 This is the opinion of a man peculiarly the painter s 
 anatomist; and I shall ever lament, as a very serious 
 loss to the arts, that he was not induced to persevere in 
 his favourite study, by the gratitude, or the enthusiasm 
 of the art; so far from that, though honoured by his 
 sovereign, and his noble profession, from the painters 
 he has received little else but incivility. It remained 
 for the portrait painters to shew that a man was incapa- 
 citated for a professorship, exactly in proportion to the 
 proofs he had given of being eminently adapted for it; 
 and that in their opinion he only was fit, who had 
 
208 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 given indisputable evidence he knew nothing about it 
 at all. 
 
 Finally, consult Nature for every thing, let your 
 flights be ever so poetical; remember, your engine is 
 man; never wish, never try to be independent of Nature 
 it is the first step to incurable mannerism. 
 
 Fuzeli used to say, Nature put him out ! of course, 
 not having proved his allegiance by constant adoration, 
 he forgot that nature had no particular pleasure in dis- 
 locating her limbs, or putting herself into positions, 
 which seemed blown so by the explosion of a powder 
 magazine. The consequence was, when Fuzeli got 
 nature, her simplicity put him out, and he discarded 
 her in a fit, never thinking he was the person cor- 
 rupted. 
 
 So irresistibly impressive are the works of God, so 
 pure is their simplicity, so overpowering is their expres- 
 sion, that it argues an ordinary nerve to stand unshaken 
 in their presence ; the attempts in painting of the 
 greatest human beings by the side of her divine beauty, 
 look so inefficient, that it is not till her impressions 
 wear off from a man's remembrance, that he can bear 
 to think of or look at his own efforts. It is not till 
 men forget what they wanted to do, that they find out 
 what they have done is not so insignificant; the limits 
 of human capacity, and the bounded checks of this 
 life, depress at times the conqueror and the peasant. 
 Alexander, after conquering the earth, wept in bitterness 
 of heart, at having his ungratified desires confined by its 
 wretched limits ; and Raffaelle and Titian, after paint- 
 ing their finest pictures, both felt that inexpressible void 
 at the miserable inadequacy of their attempts, in com- 
 parison with their burning impressions. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 209 
 
 It seems, at moments of painful musing, as if we 
 had all fallen from a brighter sphere, and passed this 
 life in futile struggles, to realize our dreaming remem- 
 brances of it! Go to Italy, say all. Why'? Did Phidias 
 or Zeuxis, Euphranor or Praxiteles, leave Greece*? Did 
 Michael Angelo or RafTaelle, or Titian or Corregio, 
 leave Italy? Go to Italy! We have the Cartoons 
 and Elgin marbles, higher and purer standards than 
 Italy can shew. 
 
 I say, stay at home. In Italy every thing has been 
 done: in England, every thing is to do. 
 
 Stay in Britain, all ye who glory in enterprise; stay 
 in Britain, and make her greater than Italy ! 
 
 P 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 ON COMPOSITION. 
 
I 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 ON COMPOSITION. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Having, I earnestly hope, settled to your 
 satisfaction, first, the importance of a knowledge of 
 the human figure as the basis of all excellence of design 
 in art; and, secondly, what are the characteristic dis- 
 tinctions of man as a species, distinguished from brutes 
 in form and feature, and as the principal instruments in 
 painting and sculpture, to convey intellectual associa- 
 tions ; — permit me to develope the basis of the next 
 part of this beautiful art, called Composition, which 
 is the art of arranging the quantities composed of the 
 parts which make up the materials used, to convey to 
 the mind through the eye the story intended. 
 
 In all great events, adapied or selected for painting or 
 poetry, there must be a predominant passion, a leading 
 object, and a principal person ; and the subject chosen 
 must either astonish, delight, affect, or terrify; and one 
 of the finest evidences of a refined taste and an elevated 
 imagination, is a disposition to great enjoyment while 
 contemplating grand moments of pathos or terror, either 
 in poetry or in painting. 
 
 " Every man that can paint at all," says Reynolds, 
 
214 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 " can execute individual parts ; but to keep those parts 
 in due subordination, as relative to a whole, requires a 
 comprehensive view of the art, and more strongly implies 
 genius than any other power." 
 
 And whatever may be the genius shewn in individual 
 parts, any composition in poetry, painting, and music, 
 where there is no leader, no principal point of interest, 
 no evidence in the inventor of a capacity to wield his 
 materials with reference to some positive feeling, or the 
 development of some illustrious character, — man or 
 woman, — will be turned from with disgust by the reader 
 or spectator; for there can be neither repose, nor excite- 
 ment, nor will the work be executed on any one prin- 
 ciple applicable either to the head or heart of a human 
 being. 
 
 Great works by great geniuses have always preceded 
 rules: first, came Homer, without rules, and then Aris- 
 totle, who laid down rules to produce beauties which 
 Homer conceived without them. But let art or poetry 
 be ever so encumbered or crippled with profound 
 rules, the originality of native genius will never be 
 crippled; there will always be something done which 
 will bewilder critics, and something a great genius will 
 add that was never added before, whilst nature con- 
 tinues to shine with her accustomed splendour, or there 
 is no limit to the variety and power of God. 
 
 In my first lecture, I laid it down as my conviction, 
 that there was no fixing the period when art was 
 invented, because the very first man born with such an 
 inherent capacity to receive impressions of the external 
 form, colour, and light and shadow of objects, as to be 
 irresistibly impelled to convey his intellectual associa- 
 tions by their positive imitation, — in him originated 
 Painting. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 215 
 
 Since I wrote this, I have seen it proved in the last 
 volume of the Dilettanti on Ancient Sculpture, that 
 Egyptian art existed in its glory 1900 years before 
 Christ. This was not far from the Flood ; and as it took 
 500 years to arrive at anything like the perfection of 
 Phidias in Greece, and the Egyptians were certainly 
 by no means so acute a people as the Greeks, there is 
 little doubt the art must have existed long ])efore the 
 Flood; and perhaps the Egyptians carried it on only from 
 remnants of previously existing principles, which had 
 been brought amongst them by those who had escaped, 
 or were not destroyed by it. 
 
 Though there be little skill in the compositions of 
 the Egyptians, there is always a principal figure, and 
 a great deal of nature and ])eauty in the actions and 
 expressions of their animals and men. 
 
 It is to the Greeks we owe (as we owe every thing 
 in art) the geometrical principles of arranging figures or # 
 parts taken as lines in the way most agreeable to the 
 eye, and most effective in telling a story to the under- 
 standing, without confusion, distraction, or pain. After 
 choice of subject,* the first great point is to have a 
 principal figure; and in order to render the parts of 
 which a composition is made, agreeable to the percep- 
 tions, the next is to ascertain the inclination his figure 
 makes in position, taken as a line; whether it be per- 
 pendicular to its base, or at an acute or an obtuse angle. 
 
 Whatever be the inclination of the line of the prin- 
 
 * Socrates, in a dialogue with Parihasius, which Xenophon 
 has preserved, after discoursing on tlie power of painting to express 
 tlie manner and cliaracter of mankind, advises liim to paint those 
 rather which are expressive of goodness, beauty, and loveliness, 
 than their opposites. 
 
21G 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 cipal figure, or the principal part in that figure, that 
 inclination as a line must be repeated by the inclination 
 of other figures in parallel, but not equal lines, except 
 for a particular purpose. Then, on the principle of 
 contrast, other figures, taken again as lines, must reverse 
 the inclination of the line of the principal figure; and 
 by a judicious balance and repetition of one inclination 
 of line against another, always giving the inclined 
 repetition of the principal figure and all its parts the 
 superiority, you will complete your composition in 
 quantities and lines. 
 
 This is the basis or anatomy of all arrangement of 
 any given number of objects in painting and sculpture, 
 and applies to every species of art — landscape, animals, 
 portrait, still life, sea painting, designs for the artizan, 
 or in any style or department where more than one 
 object is to Be arranged, — and for High Art above all 
 other art. 
 
 Having thus settled the lines or basis of our com- 
 position, we must now settle the groups or masses, the 
 light and shadow and colour, which equally can be 
 brought under the dominion of lines and shapes. 
 
 If you have genius, the whole will flash upon that 
 '^inw^ard eye"''^ which is the bliss of solitude, with the 
 object you have in view in selecting it, — the principal 
 figure to express it, the line it makes, the colour to 
 convey the story delightfully, and the light and shadow 
 to develope the masses clearly. 
 
 After this comes the choice of shape in composition 
 of the groups or quantities. 
 
 There are several modes of arranging figures and 
 parts. 
 
 * Wordsworth. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 217 
 
 First — The circle or the ellipsis, like Ananias. 
 
 Second — The pyramid, with two wings, like Elymas. 
 
 Third — The large group with one figure, like Christ 
 and the keys. 
 
 Fourth — The three distant groups, like the Beautiful 
 Gate. 
 
 Fifth — The serpentine line, like Rubens, and still 
 many others which may occur to you. 
 
 This is a matter of feeling, and is never thought of 
 by the great artist till he has conceived and settled the 
 principal actor and subordinates, and then he arranges 
 them so as to set off the actors and their expressions to 
 the best advantage. 
 
 The leading repetitions of line may be three, one 
 predominant; the repetitions of colour may be three, 
 one always the principal and the source; the leading 
 lights may be three, one always brightest; there may 
 be three masses of shadow, and one always the darkest. 
 
 The line the principal figure makes should be the 
 principal line in the three repetitions, as much as a 
 tigure is a principal figure, and his expression the prin- 
 cipal expression; but you must always remember to 
 take care he is not too principal, as a part of a whole, 
 and therefore it is not advisable to place the principal 
 colour on him, or either the principal light, or the prin- 
 cipal shadow, unless for a particular purpose. 
 
 Of course, in all compositions there will be lesser 
 repetitions of all parts, making more than three to con- 
 nect the greater; but there is no laying down a definite 
 principle for them, it must be left entirely to the skill 
 of the painter and sculptor. 
 
 Avoid always in arrangement of lines, or masses, a 
 right angle, it is ofi'ensive in placing lights, shadows, 
 
218 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 or colours, either as to masses or parts ; and nothing is 
 so awkward as lines of limbs coming to a point like 
 radii. RafFaelle always avoided this; but Leonardo 
 has done it in the Last Supper, and it is offensive. 
 
 The distances between your groups, either of colours, 
 shadows, lights, groups, or figures, cannot be settled. 
 There is no part of the art, so much a matter of eye 
 and feeling; I have never been able to ascertain a rule 
 from the greatest works. 
 
 An able professor thinks it will be brought to cal- 
 culation by and by; if it be, it will be a proposi- 
 tion thus: — if the elbow of a b be three feet six from 
 the chin of d c, then the great toe of e f must be two 
 feet sixteen inches from the nose of f g. Respectfully, 
 I differ ; the only regulation is, that one group should 
 be within gunshot of another; if they are too separate, 
 of course they do not tell in a connected whole. 
 
 It is agreeable to have your lights diagonally, at 
 acute or obtuse angles, but never at right angles (unless 
 for a specific purpose). Thus, beauty of form, truth of 
 expression, harmony of colour, shape of light and 
 shadow, distinction but not separation of groups, incli- 
 nations of lines, whether of figure or drapery, make up 
 the quantities of the various parts, which define the 
 whole of that quantity called Composition. 
 
 The greatest poets, musicians, painters, and sculptors, 
 have been the greatest composers; however brilliant 
 their imaginations, however intense their capacities, 
 however mellifluous their language, or harmonious their 
 colour, it was the power of arranging their materials 
 which rendered their genius useful to their fellow 
 creatures. 
 
 Without the lucidus ordo of Horace, of what use in 
 the world are the most superb ideas? 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 219 
 
 There is no greater delusion in young men, than 
 the idea of what they call simplicity, getting rid of 
 all thinking for arrangement. " Simplicity," says Sir 
 Joshua, " when so very inartificial as to get rid of the 
 difficulties of the art, is a very suspicious virtue." No 
 doubt of it: you must not place figures scattered or 
 solitary, with a flat bit of sky, and a solitary boat, and 
 tell me there is simplicity! Balance your quantities, 
 your masses, your colour, your light and shadow, and your 
 expression; tell a story, and elicit or embellish a cele- 
 brated fact, and be as simple as you please, of course; 
 but do take care it is not the simplicity of ignorance or 
 laziness. There is one great principle of composition, 
 if not the greatest, and this, 1 am quite sure, will 
 require very little eloquence to enforce. 
 
 Let your colour be exquisite, let your light and 
 shadow be perfect, let your expression be touching, let 
 your forms be heroic, let your lines be the very thing, 
 and your subject be full of action, — you will miss the 
 sympathy of the world, you will interest little the 
 hearts of mankind, if you do not lay it down as an 
 irrefutable law, that no composition can be complete, 
 or ever will be interesting, or deserve to be praised, that 
 has not a beautiful woman, except in a series. 
 
 This was the secret of Raffaelle and Corregio's magic 
 over our hearts; and be assured it is the truest, the 
 deepest, and the most delightful principle, and one in 
 which I defy refutation, for it applies to our convictions 
 at once, that a picture without a beautiful woman is, 
 and must be, in opposition to all the symi)athics of 
 mankind, especially in an art the object of which is to 
 instruct by Ijcauty. 
 
 Another cunning and touching secret of RafTaelle's and 
 
220 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Coreggio's power over us, was that, in every face of a 
 beautiful woman they painted, they gave a tender air 
 of sympathy and love. So that in most of Coreggio's 
 and Raffaelle's women, if you clear all the figures away 
 but the women, you may, without the least alteration of 
 look whatever, put a lover declaring his passion on his 
 knee, and you will find the expression in the woman's 
 face do exactly. 
 
 This, though it may seem trifling, is the real, unob- 
 trusive secret, by which we are all enchanted and 
 delighted, without knowing why, and let every one try 
 the experiment with their works. 
 
 It is not my business to enter into minute technical 
 detail, — my principle in lecturing is the same as in 
 teaching; namely, to put my pupils in the right road, 
 and leave them to their own sagacity; yet, as all the 
 principles I have laid down can be illustrated by refer- 
 ence to a fine work of Raffaelle's (the Cartoon of giving 
 the keys), I think the detail of its expressions and 
 arrangement will be interesting and instructive. 
 
 At Peter's earnest inquiry, whether he was beloved 
 by his master, the reply he received was, " Feed my 
 sheep." 
 
 At this simple command, such, as seen in this Cartoon, 
 were the expressions, the characters, the actions, the 
 grace, the composition, the beauty, the sentiments, and 
 scenery, which instantly filled the imagination of 
 RafFaelle. 
 
 In the hands of an ordinary painter, what could 
 have been done with " Feed my sheep." But it is the 
 inherent power of conceiving from such simple sug- 
 gestions, and what from the circumstances of the case 
 must have happened, which ever marks the great 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 221 
 
 capacity from the ordinary academic graduate of the 
 grand style. 
 
 Painters had ever better thus choose subjects from a 
 suggesting line, than merely fill up the characters the 
 poets have previously pictured for them. Poets should 
 only be called in as assistants. 
 
 Painters degrade their art, if they do nothing but 
 realize the conceptions of the poet; they should shew, 
 by every subject they paint, that Nature has given them 
 the same power of imagination, the same fertility of 
 thought, the same capability of exciting sympathy by 
 the characters and expressions they display, with this 
 advantage, that the language of the painter needs no 
 translation to be comprehended by other nations. 
 
 Painters, if they borrow from poetry or history, 
 should ever take a suggesting line, and by adding, 
 inventing, and adapting from nature, prove the right 
 their art has to be considered one of the legitimate, if 
 not the elder sister of poetry. Could any man have 
 believed th;it, without the graces of women, any subject 
 could have been made so interesting and delightful as 
 KaU'aelle has made this ? Few but RafTaelle have ever 
 done it, none but great geniuses could ever do it, for by 
 none but by such can it ever be done. 
 
 What it wants in variety of character, as to sex and 
 age, he has supplied by exhibiting the various ways in 
 which ditTerent temperaments are affected by the same 
 thing. What in picturesque l^eauty of dress, by infinite 
 variations of the same dress affected by variety of action, 
 which is the result of different sensation acting on the 
 figure ; and by harmony of colour and Ijy arrangement, 
 he has made it very little less full of attraction than any 
 other of the Cartoons. 
 
222 
 
 HAYD0]S'S LECTURES 
 
 Christ is the first figure which attracts, standing in 
 an unaffected and simple manner, not resting on one 
 leg and throwing the whole behind, like the eternal 
 action of the run of antique figures, but as all men 
 generally stand when they are not standing to be seen, 
 and only as their convenience or ease induces them. 
 His expression has a mixture of melancholy and pathos, 
 beautifully touching; it is the finest head of Christ in 
 all the Cartoons. 
 
 He is pointing to a flock of sheep, indicative of the 
 text, and to the keys in Peter's hand, as connecting him 
 with the Catholic church; St. Peter being the head 
 of it. 
 
 St. Peter is on his knees, watching with eagerness 
 the looks of his Divine Master, and listening with an 
 inquiring submission to the utterance of his will. 
 
 St. John presses forward full of anxiety and affection, 
 his hands up, as if in adoration; his nose, eye, and 
 mouth, motion, action, and expression, denoting regard, 
 as lovely and as delicate as the soul of the divine 
 painter who conceived and painted him. 
 
 Though Rafifaelle's St. Johns are built on the St. John 
 of all the great painters from Cimabue downwards, yet 
 Raffaelle added a beauty they all missed, and which 
 would have rendered all representations of him incom- 
 plete without this addition. He seems to say, " Do not 
 think I have less love of thee than another; believe me 
 as intensely devoted, O Divine Master, as the Apostle 
 to whom thou hast committed this charge." 
 
 Another Apostle, by his side, seems to lift his hands 
 in rather envious astonishment; the one behind is 
 rather pressing forward towards Christ with affection ; 
 the next turns round to his companions with simple 
 
ON PAINTINO. 
 
 223 
 
 wonder and inquiry, and without speaking, looks with 
 a scrutinizing vigour, first to ascertain what the other 
 thinks by his air, before he ventures an opinion; while 
 the other, with graceful simplicity, is holding his robe, 
 and expressing also surprise, but mingled with pleasure. 
 
 The one immediately behind this last is too far off to 
 comprehend or hear exactly what is passing, and, with 
 his head half dropped, he seems in a breathless mixture 
 of half eye and half ear to make out as well as he can 
 what is happening in front; he is so placed that he 
 could see Jesus between the head of the others, but is 
 scarcely near enough to hear him. 
 
 Of the remaining three, the hair only of one is seen ; 
 and the faces of the two others denote no particular 
 emotion. This skilfully exhibits the interest dying 
 away, as it were, the further it is removed from the 
 cause of excitement. 
 
 By studying carefully the figure of Christ, as a com- 
 position, immense knowledge may be gained to all. 
 It is a fine example of management, so as to prevent 
 a single figure coming flatly and meagerly on its back- 
 ground. 
 
 On the left side, see how rich and full it is by the 
 great variety of shapes produced by the folds of the 
 drapery ; then comes part of a sheep feeding, and then 
 some weeds, while a creek, running in from the lake, 
 crosses the left hand at the thumb-joint; and again, 
 the other line of this creek goes from the inside of the 
 elbow to the drapery; all these produce a variety of 
 quantities as to shape and figure, and break the meagre 
 line of a naked arm, and take off the perpendicular 
 and angular endings of contour which the drapery of 
 Christ on this side would produce. On the other side, 
 
224 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 the right hand issues from a mass of broad drapery; 
 and the flock of sheep, by their heads and bodies, break 
 the uniformity of shape which there would be, if it had 
 nothing but a flat surface.* 
 
 This is what is called supporting a figure, preventing 
 it rising abruptly out of the background, which would be 
 the case if there were nothing behind but a flat surface, 
 and nothing between the figure and distant objects. It 
 can be done by light and shadow, or by line; it was 
 this which Sir Joshua so admirably understood, because 
 he studied the great works of Raffaelle, and took up por- 
 trait, as Burke said, as if he had descended from a higher 
 department: Reynolds's portraits are all " historical 
 pictures" in composition, all his smaller parts support 
 and carry off his larger qualities. Rubens's portraits 
 are equally excellent. Titian's, superb as they are in 
 character, look too often like single figures inlaid on a 
 background; and Raffaelle's have often too much the 
 air of being the portraits of an historical painter. 
 Reynolds appears to have hit the exact point, neither 
 composed of too many parts, nor too little ; and as 
 models of the degree of composition to be admitted into 
 portrait, are, in my opinion, finer examples than either 
 the portraits of Titian, Rubens, Raffaelle, Sebastian 
 del Piombo, or Vandyke. 
 
 People are, I think, in the present generation, too 
 apt to underrate composition; it is a question whether 
 it be not, after expression and character, the most 
 important. Without composition, expression would be 
 thrown away. In an art, where the mind is affected 
 through the eye, that part which is the arrangement of 
 the quantities to affect the mind through the eye is 
 certainly not unimportant. 
 
 * Refer to the Cartoon. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 225 
 
 Young painters are too apt to think nakedness of 
 figure more important in composition than a quantity 
 or mass ; but, though a complete knowledge of the 
 animal machine is the foundation of all excellence, it 
 is only a component part of the quantities of a whole; 
 when you compose one, you must remember that the 
 whole is of infinitely more importance in painting, 
 where a variety of figures, characters, objects, and 
 expressions, are to be arranged to tell a story, and 
 it is never to be sacrificed for the mere display of the 
 naked form, unless the naked form be the essential 
 requisite to develope the story chosen. 
 
 What parts of the figure are seen must be perfect; 
 but many a fine leg, and many a beautiful arm, must 
 be sacrificed to the quiet and repose of the mind. 
 
 The first object in composition is to please the eye. 
 Composition is the means of conveying the story to the 
 mind; all objects must, however individually exquisite, 
 Ije sacrificed to this. 
 
 If a mass be wanted, for harmony, for breadth, for 
 repose, or to fill the eye as it were, and prevent useless 
 gaps in arrangement, it must be had. 
 
 The naked form now, remember, however beautiful 
 (as you have got through the foundation lectures, 
 where the naked form was every thing), must yield 
 to that overpowering principle, the ponere totum:" 
 if 'the naked form, or its parts, be not broad, flat, 
 or ponderous enough for the situation, otlier materials 
 must be had, and as drai)ery is the most pliable ol' all 
 materials, drapery by the greatest composer, KalTaelle, 
 was usually chosen. 
 
 This was KalTaelle 's great basis, and sound it is in 
 every part; the eye must be carried from one i)art to 
 
226 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 another, from one quantity to another ; then there must 
 be vacuities to give value to the projecting masses, and 
 then no mass must be of the same size, but one must 
 predominate, as well as one light, one shadow^, one 
 figure, one colour, and one line. 
 
 There must be a sun to the system, a general to the 
 army — colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants, all in 
 due gradation. 
 
 What would the solar system be without a sun? 
 Chaos. What a nation without a king? Anarchy. 
 So in composition, without a leader in every part, and 
 yet every leader subordinate to the leader of all, the 
 eye would be distracted, the mind pained, the under- 
 standing in confusion; and neither story, object, nor 
 aim would be attained, comprehended, or impressed 
 upon the looker-on. 
 
 Raffaelle's great excellence being expression, and the 
 head, whereon expression lies, being little as to mass, 
 he could always put heads into any part, and supply 
 their deficiency as to mass by quantities of other 
 materials about or beneath them ; therefore he was 
 never obliged to sacrifice that in which his chief 
 excellence lay for the sake of composition: while 
 those who rest their reputation in beauty of figure will 
 often find themselves condemned to cover, for the sake 
 of harmony of effect, many a beautiful body, and many 
 a beautiful limb individually considered, but which are 
 often not of size enough in the masses to be kept ; and 
 thus they are obliged to sacrifice what they were 
 perhaps most qualified to represent. 
 
 The same bit of road which crosses behind Christ's 
 right shoulder passes out behind his left, and cuts, at 
 gentle angles, the hand of the astonished Apostle next 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 227 
 
 St. John. On that road there are two small figures, the 
 want of which would be felt, as they connect this hand 
 and the shoulder of Christ, and prevent there being 
 too great a distance between them, which is always 
 painful. 
 
 Every hand, and head, and line, throughout this 
 Cartoon, is placed on this principle. Lines and inclina- 
 tions of figures must be repeated like colour, especially 
 the predominating line or colour of the principal figure: 
 thus St. Peter and St. John leaning forward, by their 
 inclination, as lines, repeat that of Christ's drapery, etc.; 
 then the bit of a creek, which so beautifully by its 
 bank crosses and connects the line of the left hand of 
 Christ to the face of St. Peter, comes out again at the 
 back of the last figure of all ; and then a bit of drapery 
 cutting the even line of the last back, prevents the 
 back coming perpendicularly against the boat; this is 
 repeated in inclination by the line of the Ijoat, which 
 carries the composition right out of the picture. The 
 boat too shews that they have just been fishing, and 
 have just landed. 
 
 Every bit of weed, line of ground, town, house, tree, 
 or drapery, is introduced for these purposes ; and yet 
 so contrived as to have the appearance of being the 
 natural consequences of natural causes, independently 
 of all art or arrangement. 
 
 Many parts, heads and drapery, of these very Cartoons, 
 are painted with all the truth and power of touch of 
 the Venetian school: the woman frightened in Ananias, 
 and looking at his apoplectic agony, is a model of brush 
 execution.* In fact, the Cartoons are his finest works, 
 
 * Wilkie and I cxaininctl it iiiiuutely, and af^iccd it was equal 
 to any Venetian in touch. 
 
 V 2 
 
228 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 either for composition, or for arrangement of colour; 
 for Titian could not have arranged colour, as to shape or 
 harmony, with more exquisite taste, than Rafifaelle has 
 done in this grand and awful composition of Ananias ; 
 and where he has gone over heads or drapery, the 
 touch announces an enormous advance in power of 
 hand.^ 
 
 What an extraordinary being Raffaelle was! His 
 character, as well as his art, was the very converse of 
 his illustrious rival Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo 
 hated his equals, was kind to his inferiors, and to his 
 superiors he was always insolent; while Raffaelle was 
 kind to all, and the idol of the society in which he 
 moved. Michael Angelo lived much alone — it suited his 
 tremendous genius ; and if he ever associated with any 
 men, he selected none but adorers; the consequence 
 was, that the life of Michael Angelo was written by 
 his great flatterers Vasari and Condivi ; and they have 
 both, as might have been expected, sacrificed Rafifaelle 
 whenever they could, to the god of their adoration. 
 
 Vasari insinuates that Raffaelle owes much to Michael 
 Angelo ; and Reynolds, following Vasari and Condivi, 
 goes further than either, and asserts that Rafifaelle owes 
 his existence to Michael Angelo. 
 
 Was there ever such gratuitous assumption ? If it 
 mean anything, it means that but for Michael Angelo 
 his genius would never have been developed. Is such 
 an absurdity worthy of Reynolds' understanding'? Surely 
 not. I deny that Rafifaelle owes his existence to Michael 
 Angelo: if he owe anything to Michael Angelo, he 
 owes the corruption of his own inherent purity of style. 
 After the Capella Sistina was opened, Rafifaelle, bitten, 
 * Remember, prints are the reverse way to the Cartoons. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 229 
 
 like everybody else, by its heavy, cumbrous, vulgar, and 
 circular design, immediately tried it; but it did not suit 
 his beautiful nature, any more than it would suit the 
 graceful godlike length of limb, and elliptical beauty of 
 the heroic forms of Greece. 
 
 What does Reynolds mean, when he says, " Raffaelle 
 had more taste and fancy; Michael Angelo, more genius 
 and imagination'?" If genius be nothing but the 
 ordinary faculties of man carried to a greater pitch of 
 intensity than ordinary men possess them, wherein had 
 Michael Angelo more genius than Raffaelle? Their 
 geniuses were equal, but the road which each took for 
 the exercise of his genius was different. Raffaelle ex- 
 celled in expressing the passions; Michael Angelo in 
 sublimity of character, expressed by form, independent 
 of all passion or emotion. 
 
 " Michael Angelo's works," says Reynolds, " have 
 a strong, marked, and peculiar character ; they seem to 
 proceed from his own mind entirely ; and that mind so 
 rich and abundant, that he never needed, or seemed 
 to disdain to look abroad, for foreign help. Raffaelle's 
 materials," he adds, " were generally borrowed, etc."* 
 To say that Michael Angelo disdained to look abroad 
 for foreign help, proves that Reynolds's practice and 
 habits of thinking rendered him unqualified for such a 
 subject. 
 
 Fuzeli, who certainly did not know less of Michael 
 Angelo than Reynolds, asserts, and asserts with truth, 
 that Michael Angelo scattered the Torso throughout 
 his works ; and I will venture to add, that there is not 
 
 * I made use of this lecture in my History of Art in the 
 Encychfcedia Britannica. Black, Ecliiiburgli ; which is published 
 separately by Whittakcr, London. 
 
230 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 a prophet, or a sibyl, or an individual figure, in the 
 Capella Sistina, in which the Torso cannot be traced ; 
 in fact, he has often only added heads, hands, and 
 limbs, to its body and thighs, in different views, and 
 then arranged drapery accordingly. Let any student 
 take the Torso, and turn it about in the action of the 
 prophets, and he will see it directly. 
 
 Though the materials of Raffaelle's art are generally 
 borrowed, are they more so than Michael Angelo's'? 
 Is not Michael Angelo as much indebted to Luca 
 Signorelli, and the Campo Santo, for his choice of 
 subjects in the Sistina, as Raffaelle is in the Vatican 
 chambers*? In short, are their works both in the one 
 and the other any more than an improved completion 
 of the ideas with additions which all their predecessors 
 had invented for the previous 300 years'? But this does 
 not invalidate their genius ; because they were the full- 
 blown flower, and their predecessors the root, the stem, 
 the leaves, and the bud. 
 
 Shakspere's plots are all borrowed; Lady Macbeth 
 is not his own. That dreadful exclamation " know, 
 Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped," 
 is Hollingshed's. But what of that? It is the new 
 thoughts, the deep touches, he adds, that give him his 
 claims. Michael Angelo was a great genius, and so 
 was Raffaelle, and each owed his reputation to a power 
 totally independent of the other. Vasari and Condi vi 
 would have never been allowed, as Lanzi says, to have 
 published these falsehoods, had Raffaelle been living ; 
 but where were Julio Romano, Luca Fa Penni, and 
 Polidoro, w^hom Raffaelle had raised from a mason's 
 boy to a great painter — where were they? Where were 
 his dear pupils? alas! as Johnson says, *' Let no man 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 231 
 
 look for influence beyond his grave." Perhaps 
 Raffaelle's pupils then were like some other pupils 
 now, — a grave or a prison makes a vast difference in 
 the estimation of their god! 
 
 Vasari asserts that Michael Angelo, in flying to 
 Florence, when he quarrelled with the pope, Julius II., 
 left the keys of the Sistine Chapel, which he was then 
 painting, with Bramante, Rafi*aelle's uncle, who disho- 
 nourably let Raff*aelle in; and that he directly, on seeing 
 the grand style of the Prophets, altered his whole style. 
 This absurdity was current in Europe for 250 years, 
 till Lanzi, with his usual acuteness, opened the eyes of 
 all the world. 
 
 Would you believe that, when Michael Angelo fled 
 to Florence, it was in 1506, two years before liaffaelle 
 was ever in Rome, and four before the chapel was ever 
 begun to be painted ! * 
 
 There is nothing unjustifiable in saying there is 
 strong ground for inferring that Raff*aelle did not sur- 
 reptitiously derive any advantage from works four years 
 before they were executed; nor is it iniproljablc that 
 he really could not get into a chapel by stealth two 
 years before he ever entered the city ; and, lastly, I 
 really think you will agree with me, that Bramante 
 could not give Rafl'aelle the keys to open a door which 
 was never locked, especially too, as Michael Angelo did 
 not leave any keys (if ever he left them at all) till four 
 years after the time Vasari dates as the period. 
 
 * If Mass were celebrated by Julius, at Christmas 1512, at tlie 
 conclusion of painting the chapel, and Michael Angelo was twenty 
 months j)ainting it, he must have begun to paint it in May 1511, 
 which will make the time of beginning four years and four months 
 after he fled to Florence, 1500, though the Cartoons were begun 
 1511, probably long before. 
 
232 
 
 aydon's lectures 
 
 The Prophet Isaiah, which Vasari says directly 
 shewed an alteration of style, in consequence of the 
 stolen views of works which were not in existence, was 
 painted at the period of the school of Athens, one or 
 two years before Michael Angelo touched this very 
 chapel. 
 
 So much for Vasari's sacrifice of glorious Raffaelle to 
 the great Dagon of his idolatry, and so much for Rey- 
 nolds's absurd and unthinking assertion that, but for 
 Michael Angelo, Raffaelle never would have existed! 
 Have I not made out grounds for acquittal?- Are 
 there any twelve men of any jury on earth who would 
 not now give a verdict for Raffaelle"? 
 
 Vasari's is a delightful book: all his principles of 
 art are sound, you may rely on them, they are the result 
 of conversation with the greatest men; he was most 
 intimate with Michael Angelo and Titian, and all the 
 great artists of the day, and constantly in their painting 
 rooms, at their tables, and in their society.* 
 
 There has existed a supposition, for many years, 
 which is gradually diminishing, that the ancient Greeks 
 were not skilled in composition as a whole, from the 
 drilled regularity of their bas-reliefs, and the ornamental 
 pictures found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
 
 Reynolds said they were perhaps excellent in a solo, 
 but not exactly fit to join in with a full concert of 
 musicians. 
 
 Good heavens ! what an assertion, relating to such 
 a people. 
 
 The Elgin marbles have completely destroyed this 
 ignorant belief, as much as they have enlightened us on 
 
 * If I were confined to three books, in a desert island, I would 
 certainly choose the Bible, Shakspere, and Vasari. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 233 
 
 the principles of the Greeks in heroic figure. I do not 
 wonder, really, before the Elgin marbles came, at any 
 man so concluding; but I do wonder at Reynolds 
 taking the works in the private rooms of Pompeii, 
 as justifiable grounds to estimate the extent of the 
 genius in the finest period of Greek art, about 500 
 years before. 
 
 After all, what are the pictures of Pompeii? It was 
 a provincial city ; and perhaps the designs in the houses 
 and palaces would rank as high in ancient art, as the 
 designs of our ornamental painters, or the pictures you 
 see in temjjera on the room papers, in Bond or Regent 
 street. 
 
 Suppose, some 3000 years hence, London should be, 
 as it most likely will be, a mountain of endless brick, 
 like Babylon now : suppose a deputation of learned 
 antiquaries just arrived from the great capital of the 
 Australasian Empire (then in its glory), in search of 
 the site of the once immortal city of their Fatherland: 
 suppose, in poetic musing, they stood on Primrose hill, 
 to survey the ocean of ruined brick, before they began 
 to excavate: suppose, at last, they began to dig where 
 once stood Grosvenor square: suppose they were to 
 lay open a house miraculously preserved, with the rooms 
 ornamented l)y our ornamental painters, in decent j)re- 
 servation — \vhat would they see? Little union with the 
 ground, less perspective, still less colour, and of com- 
 positi(m, as a whole, nothing indeed! Lnmediately they 
 would write a learned treatise to prove that the admi- 
 ration of the contemporaries proceeded from ignorance; 
 that neither Reynolds, West, Wilson, Hogarth, Gains- 
 borough, Wilkie, norLandseer, could be entitled to the 
 praise of the authors who had alluded to their genius; 
 
234 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 and that the art of the English, from what they saw, did 
 not deserve the praises they had read. 
 
 We all know the absurdity of such conclusions from 
 such data now ; and not more absurd would Aristotle 
 and Plato think the conclusions of Reynolds, for his 
 basis of deduction is not one atom more sound. 
 
 You surely must agree with me, that the pictures on 
 the walls of a Roman city, destroyed sixty or seventy 
 years after Christ, are no just grounds for estimating 
 the degree of merit possessed by the greatest Greek 
 painters, Polygnotus, Aglaophon, Apollodorus, Zeuxis, 
 Parrhasius, or Apelles, 500 years before Christ was 
 born, any more than you could think that the sculpture 
 dug up there has ever given us any true idea of the fine 
 period of Phidias; and Reynolds might as well have 
 inferred, that the enthusiasm of antiquity for the glories 
 of the Parthenon was as little to be attended to, because 
 it was contemporaneous, as the enthusiasm for Greek 
 painting by the same authority, because on the whole 
 they hardly ever praise sculpture ; but painting follows, 
 in a strain, if possible, far more excited, and the same 
 objections will just as well answer in the former case 
 as in the latter. 
 
 Since the works of Phidias have come to England, 
 we have positive evidence that the Greeks knew the 
 great principles of composition and grouping, as applied 
 to painting, because the Metopes are instances of arrange- 
 ment of line that will do exactly in a picture ; therefore, 
 at once, Reynolds's assertion, viz. that the Greeks ex- 
 celled only in a solo, must fall to the ground for ever. 
 Having thus seen the finest works, estimated by 
 the Greeks themselves as their finest, and finding all 
 the enthusiasm of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 235 
 
 Horace, Juvenal, Martial, Valerius Maximus, sanc- 
 tioned, and more than sanctioned, have we not a justi- 
 fia])le basis to argue from what we do see, that what 
 we do not was equally beautiful*? Why should we 
 doubt the enthusiasm for works we cannot see, when we 
 find works spoken of in the same breath by the same 
 men, bear out, on inspection, all that has ever been 
 said, before we were enal)led to judge for ourselves? 
 Reynolds admits that their single figures might have 
 been drawn finely, and coloured finely, but he presumes 
 to deny their power of comprehension for great works. 
 Why should the great men, above quoted, lose their 
 judgment only when they alluded to Greek painting? 
 Is there any analogy of reasoning here*? You are con- 
 founded to silence, as to their praise of Greek sculpture, 
 because you can deny it no longer. But had the Elgin 
 marbles, or the finest of the old sculpture, never appeared, 
 do you not think that the same sophistry would have 
 been made use of to negative the praises bestowed by 
 the authors above, on the sculpture? Nothing can 
 be more perfect than Phidias," says Cicero, orat. 2. 
 " You cannot praise him enough," says Pliny, lib. xxxv. 
 '* He made gods better than men," says Quintilian, lib. 
 xii. " He was skilful in beauty," says Plato. You believe 
 all this, because you cannot help yourselves; but the 
 moment Quintilian says Zeuxis discovered light and 
 shade; Pamphilus was exquisite for subtlety of line; 
 Protogenes, for finish; Apelles, for grace; Theon, for 
 poetical conceptions (0 s), Pamphilus, for prin- 
 ciple; Polygnotus, for simplicity of colour and form, — 
 when Horace says of Parrhasius — 
 
 Liquidis ille coloribus 
 
 Solcit* nunc homincin, poncrc nunc Deum: 
 
236 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 when Pliny s speaks of Aristides, for expression ; Am- 
 phion, for composition (to whom Apelles ceded in that 
 point); and of the grand assembly of the gods of Zeuxis, 
 as well as the single figures of Apelles, — Reynolds 
 replies: " Admiration often proceeds from ignorance of 
 higher excellence. I will not believe contemporaneous 
 praise." I reply, admiration often also proceeds from 
 knowledge of superior excellence, as often as from 
 ignorance of it; and that neither Quintilian, Cicero, 
 Horace, Juvenal, Strabo, Polybius, nor Pausanius, Vale- 
 rius Maximus, iElian, nor Pliny, were contemporary, 
 therefore the praises of Aristotle and Plato, who really 
 were so, are justified and confirmed by distinguished 
 authors who were not ; and therefore Reynolds's thought- 
 less conclusions against the great Greek painters on such 
 data are proved to be equally unfounded and unjust. 
 
 Taking the Elgin marbles as a criterion for a standard, 
 you cannot but suppose that the great works of Greek 
 art had the finest drawing, the most wonderful know- 
 ledge of form, the finest grouping, and the finest expres- 
 sion, — to which I will add colour, which I can prove. 
 Light and shadow, of which there can be no doubt; 
 enough of perspective to make objects recede and 
 advance; foreshortening, and above all, what has never 
 been believed, execution of the brush, on the great 
 leading principles of the Venetians and Flemings, — 
 and now to the elucidation. 
 
 The French, twenty years ago, used to argue with 
 me in Paris, that the School of David was on the prin- 
 ciple of the Greeks; that is, the principle of bestowing 
 as much labour on a button or a chair, as on a passion, 
 a face, or a figure. 
 
 I used to reply, if David were right, all other schools 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 237 
 
 in the world are wrong: they again said, that was my 
 prejudice as a Briton; to which I used to say, how was 
 it, as Britons, we were not inclined to say the same, or 
 think the same, of Greeks, Romans, Italians, Germans, 
 Dutch, Flemings, Spaniards, or their own Claude or 
 Poussin ? Every great painter in these schools seemed 
 always to be aware of the imperfection of his materials 
 to equal or rival nature: this is the first knowledge 
 requisite in art, as the first in morals is, the conscious- 
 ness of human weakness. 
 
 Every great painter, therefore, puts his whole strength 
 and art into those parts which express the intellectual 
 part of painting — head, face, expression, and figure; ljut 
 as it is much easier to paint a chair, or a button, nearer 
 to nature, than a face or expression, the great painters, 
 Michael Angelo, Ralfaelle (not always), Titian, Tin- 
 toretto, Veronese, Rubens, Vandyke, and our own 
 Reynolds, dwelt with all their miglit, all their art, and 
 all their genius, on the face and the figure, and elegantly 
 touched olT the subordinate parts. 
 
 The French used to alhrm their system was the 
 reverse, and the right one, and that there was no doubt 
 the ancient Greeks painted in their way. 
 
 In Plutarch's life of Alexander, at the very beginning, 
 he describes to his readers his own plan of Avriting his 
 lives, and concludes with this extraordinary passage: 
 " like painters that paint portraits, who dwelt on the 
 face, caring little about the remaining parts;" meaning 
 his lives would be on the same basis, viz. dwelling on 
 the leading points in the history of the great men. and 
 touching off the detail less carefully. 
 
 Could Plutarch have made such an allusion with the 
 idea that the general reader would have understood him. 
 
238 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 if the practice of the great painters had not been fami-^ 
 liarly known? 
 
 Is this not conclusive as to the mode of execution 
 among the Greeks, that it was on the same irrefutable 
 principle as the great modern Titian; and again, Horace 
 says in the art of poetry, — 
 
 Ut pictura poesis erit, quae, si proprius stes, 
 Te capiat magis ; et quasdam si longius abstes. 
 
 So in painting, as in poetry, some things you must look 
 at close; others, when you stand at a distance, to see the 
 proper effect: that is, pictures for close inspection are 
 small and wrought up; pictures to be seen afar off, 
 must be executed on the principle of touching the lead- 
 ing points only, leaving atmosphere to soften, unite, 
 and fill up the intermediate parts. As to mere handling 
 of the brush, this is conclusive too : Horace would not 
 have made such an allusion, if he had not been certain 
 it was a common principle of fine ancient art, and 
 would be directly understood. 
 
 We now come to their colour, which it is impossible 
 to deny, after studying Pliny. Though Pliny is but a 
 rapid and very careless compiler, yet he gives evidence, 
 being a mere connoisseur, that he must have read the 
 writings of Euphranor and Apelles, as Yasari must 
 have read the manuscripts of Raffaelle; and whenever 
 anything occurs in Pliny, like a practical description of 
 a technical principle, you may be sure it is not his own, 
 because he often spoils what he quotes, and shews the 
 principle is better than the description, and that, if his 
 knowledge had been the result of experience, he never 
 could have been so often obscure. 
 
 For the purposes of art, Pliny wants what he never 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 239 
 
 has had, a good pictorial commentator. Reynolds has 
 quoted his description of the practice of Apelles, of 
 spreading over his painted tablet a thin rich and brown 
 colour, in a varnish, as a last operation, to keep down 
 the glare which every thing previously done shone 
 through; this mode the Venetians practised too; it is 
 called glazing!* It is impossible Pliny could have 
 known this, as a gentleman connoisseur unpractised in 
 the art ; and there is another passage which is con- 
 clusive in favour of the colour of the Greeks, and I am 
 astonished it has been missed or mistaken — 
 
 Adjectiis est splendor, alius hie quam lumen, quern 
 quia inter hoc et umbrani esset appellaverunt Tofou. 
 
 Plint/j lib. XXXV. 5. 
 
 Nothing to a painter's mind can l)e so delightfully 
 conclusive. 
 
 " Now was added splendor, a dilTcrcnt thing from 
 light, which splendor (because it was l)ctwecn light 
 •and dark) was called Tone,'' 
 
 This is exquisite in distinction; first, the colours on 
 the tablet were fresh, unmixed, and raw; then was 
 spread over a transparent glaze, to tjdvo olT this crude- 
 ness; then, this crudeness Ijcing reduced, it w as called 
 " splendor," glowing, rich, and deep, different from 
 light, which is white and crude. This splendor the 
 
 * Inventa ejus et ceteris profuere in arte; unum imitari nemo 
 potuit, quod absoluta opera atramcnto inlinebat ita tenui, vel 
 idipsum repercussu claritates colorum excitaret, custodireique a 
 pulvere et sordihus: admotum intuenti demum adpareret: s<^d et 
 turn ratione magna, ne claritas colorum, oculorum aciem ollenderet : 
 veluti per lapidum specularcm intuentibus e longinquo: et cadeni 
 res nimis floridis coloribus austeritatem occulte darof. 
 
 Plint/, lib. XXXV. 
 
240 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Greeks called To7w^ which the Venetians called it, and 
 which we call it; and which Tone is the evidence in any 
 school of an eye for colour, for without Tone there is no 
 colour. 
 
 Plutarch says, the pictures of Dionysius had force 
 and Tone; one W'Ould think Reynolds was speaking. 
 Quintilian says of Zeuxis, " Luminum umbrarumque 
 rationem invenit." He found out the principle of light 
 and shade, lib. xii. c. 10; and as to their perspective, 
 Yitruvius says, lib. vii. " Agatharcus was the first who 
 painted a scene, in the time of iEschylus, w^hen he 
 exhibited his tragedies at Athens; he has left a treatise 
 on the subject. From this hint, Democritus and 
 Anexagoras wrote on perspective; explaining in what 
 manner we should, agreeable to appearances in nature, 
 from a central point, make the lines to correspond with 
 the eye and the direction of the visual rays; so that 
 from an apparent confusion may result a real effect, and 
 the scene become a true representation of buildings, ^ 
 and that those objects which are drawn on a perpen- 
 dicular plane, may appear, some retiring from the eye, 
 and some advancing towards it." 
 
 This means something, or nothing: if anything, it 
 surely proves they were aware of the point of sight and 
 the horizontal line; that the line of all objects at an 
 angle and above it descended to it, and all objects 
 below ascended; that near objects w^ere larger than 
 distant objects, and that therefore they could make 
 objects recede or advance, turn off, or turn up, accord- 
 ing to the angle they made with the eye of the spectator; 
 that they foreshortened is clear, from the pictures at 
 Pompeii, even then ; and Pliny describes Pausias making 
 a bull go right back into the background, by being 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 241 
 
 })ainted frontways. Aristides and Timanthcs were as 
 fine in expression as Raffaelle. Aristides painted a 
 beautiful mother, dying of the plague, and with her 
 last effort, pushing the dear smiling baby from her 
 infected nipple; the other, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, at 
 Aulis, and with the greatest skill concealed the father's 
 face, to excite greater sensibility to his agonies. 
 
 To shew you Pliny detected differences, he says, 
 Aristides was defective in colour (very likely, like 
 Raffaelle), and Parrhasius' great beauty was losing his 
 outline like Coreggio. 
 
 Now, I hope the inferences to be reasonably drawn 
 from all these quotations can only be, first, that, from 
 Plutarch and Horace, the Greeks painted as to execu- 
 tion, like Titian or Vandyke; second, from Pliny, that 
 they must have had fine colour; third, from Quintilian, 
 that light and shadow was knowm ; fourth, that Vitruvius 
 gives evidence of sufiicicnt perspective ; and, lastly, 
 from the Elgin marbles, executed by and in the school 
 of a man, Phidias, who was first a painter, that expres- 
 sion, form, and composition, cannot be disputed. Thus, 
 if execution, colour, expression, light and shadow, 
 composition and form, can be inferred ; or rather, if 
 expression, form, and composition, can be proved, and 
 colour, light and shadow, and execution, can be more 
 than inferred; — what right has Reynolds, in tlie im- 
 perfect knowledge of ancient art then existing, to 
 talk so presumptuously of Greek painting? 
 
 While these great works in painting lasted, we find 
 the enthusiasm continued through successive ages, till 
 time, ill usage, and barbarism and religious enthusiasm 
 had utterly destroyed them; we find, through all the 
 Byzantine authors, no suspicion of their beauty, or that 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 haydon's lkctures 
 
 they were not equal to the works in sculpture ; we find, at 
 the sacking of Constantinople, that the Greek artists who 
 fled to Italy carried their grace and practice with them, 
 and actually rekindled art all over the world; and then, 
 about 2280 years after Apelles and Zeuxis lived, comes 
 an English portrait painter, as a painter of " high art" 
 grossly deficient, conjecturing they could not be great 
 in extensive compositions, because the painted walls of 
 private houses in a provincial city of Rome gave no 
 evidence of such excellence, though executed 500 years 
 after the greater eras of Greek perfection: it is more 
 than absurd, it is not to be read with patience. 
 
 How Mengs would have gloried to have seen in the 
 Elgin marbles his sagacious predictions verified, and 
 Canova was so enraptured he could scarcely speak. 
 Before these things came before the world again, Europe 
 was in the dark, and filled with false notions of the 
 ideal and the grand style ; every thing natural was low, 
 and nothing grand, but when nature was lost sight of 
 and forgotten, children were made like little men, horses 
 had their eyes sunk, and figures their joints dislocated, 
 in order that you might never think of what you saw 
 every day. The poor student went abroad to be 
 bewildered, and came back more bewildered than when 
 he set out; the portrait painter, the low-life painter, 
 and the landscape painter, coming daily and habitually 
 from life, of course hated High Art; for as then practised 
 they saw nothing to remind them of Nature (which they 
 saw every day) in anything done. 
 
 This was the state of art when these divine things 
 came, — and the error was in the principle laid down, 
 that the higher walk of art addressed the mind; the 
 lower, the eye, — and that the union of the two was 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 243 
 
 incompatible: whereas, the true principle surely was, 
 that both styles addressed the mind through the eye, 
 but in diflferent ways; the one making the imitation of 
 the actual substance the great object of pleasure only; 
 the other (the high walk) making the imitation of the 
 object with more selection, the means of conveying a 
 ])cautiful expression, a fine form, or a grand idea with 
 greater power; the imitation though more select, not 
 less real or effective as an imitation. 
 
 Sir Joshua affirmed that the look of truth, which fine 
 colour, light and shadow, and reality gave, distracted 
 the eye from the poetry of the conception, or the depth 
 of the expression; whereas I maintain that in an art, 
 the elements of which are laid in imitation, the beauty 
 of an expression, the grace of a motion, and the sub- 
 limity of a conception, will be increased in proportion 
 to the look of reality in the objects ; and the practice of 
 all the great Greek painters, and latterly of llalTaelle 
 and Titian in their latter works, the Transfiguration 
 and Pietro Martyre, proves they had both come to the 
 same conclusion. 
 
 But yet Reynolds, with his usual sagacious policy, 
 appeared to waver lest he should be wrong. After 
 criticising the Horses fed by the Hours of Julio Romano, 
 and denying they would have been improved ])y the 
 pencil of Rubens, says, " But who knows if Julio had 
 possessed the practice and colour of Rubens, he would 
 not have given some touch of poetical grandeur not yet 
 attained to?" and a little further on, in spite of his own 
 principles (page 175, vol. iii.), he says, "There is no 
 reason Vvhy the great painters might not have availed 
 tliemselves with caution and selection of many excel- 
 lences in the Venetian, Flemish, and Dutch schools ; 
 
 II 2 
 
244 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 there are some not in contradiction to any style —a happy 
 disposition of light and shade, and breadth in masses of 
 colour. The union of these with their grounds, and 
 the harmony arising from a due mixture of hot and 
 cold hues, with many other excellences, which would 
 surely not counteract the grand style." And then he 
 concludes, " a subdued attention to these excellences 
 must be added, to complete the idea of a perfect 
 painter." 
 
 Why this is all I am contending for! So far from 
 being incompatible with grandeur of style, they are 
 essential; they are the elements and basis of it; they 
 cannot be left out ; and if they are, the style is deficient, 
 absurd, and not founded in nature. 
 
 There is not the least doubt that the Greek painters 
 considered the power of imitating natural objects by 
 colour, and light and shadow, as necessary a requi- 
 site in preparatory study, as drawing or composition ; 
 and the greatest painters in the grand style in ancient 
 Greece were just as capable of imitating still-life as the 
 professors of it now in England. 
 
 There seems to have been no sophistry in Greece 
 about effective imitation being a hindrance to poetry 
 of conception; Zeuxis painted grapes so exquisitely, 
 that birds were attracted; Parrhasius, a curtain, that he 
 imposed on Zeuxis ; and Apelles, a horse so well, that 
 horses neighed ;* and these were all men celebrated in 
 High Art, and in subjects requiring the most perfect 
 abstractions of beauty and form. 
 
 * I can bear testimony that this is not a mere legend, for in my 
 old studio, I had the Elgin horse's head high up over my chimney; 
 in leading a fine blood horse into the room to paint from, he looked 
 up at the Elgin head, and neighed with the greatest delight. 
 
ON PAIiNTING. 
 
 245 
 
 These arc mere talcs, says the sceptic: granted they 
 are all inventions; but invented tales, regarding cele- 
 brated men, have generally a reference to their charac- 
 teristic habits. I believe them to be authentic, and 
 told without object or view. 
 
 Reynolds was too fond of reducing things to one 
 principle ; and Burke said of him he found great traces 
 of Sir Joshua in the venerable Dr. Mudge, of whom 
 there is so fine a portrait by Reynolds, and whose 
 character Johnson alluded to. 
 
 Any one would have thought that the facts of, first, 
 RafTaelle's struggling in the Transfiguration to add all 
 parts of the art ; secondly, INIichael Angelo's adding his 
 design to Sebastian's colour in our National Gallery, 
 Tiazarus ; and thirdly, Titian's succeeding in the Pietro 
 Marty re, in increasing the terror, poetry, and sublimity 
 of the scene, by adding colour, and light and shadow, 
 to drawing and expression, would have staggered Sir 
 Joshua, before he laid down such des[)otic dogmas 
 drawn from the defective practice of the Roman school. 
 
 What Titian, Michael Angelo, and RalTaelle, tried 
 to do, was the habitual practice of the Greeks ; and it 
 is unquestionable it was accident and not intention 
 that kept the Venetians ignorant of form, and accident 
 and not principle which kept the Romans ignorant of 
 colour, for when each school found its error, each school 
 set about remedying its defects. Titian, after his return 
 from Rome, set about drawing, as the sight of Titian's 
 Pietro Martyre will convince all, though Overbeck told 
 a friend that the Transfiguration was the downfall of 
 the art! and the Pietro jMartyre must be set aside, though 
 it is the perfection of art. What wretched sophistry ! 
 
 It may therefore be fairly deduced from the conclu- 
 
246 
 
 haydon's lectures. 
 
 sions made, and the reasons laid down for those con- 
 clusions, that the Greeks possessed all parts of the art, 
 and none in particular to the exclusion of others ; that 
 therefore all parts of the art in due subordination, 
 may be considered essential to the painter of the highest 
 walks as in the more humble department; that the 
 system which excludes the ideality and power of reality 
 from judicious imitation of the objects painted, com- 
 bining colour, and light and shadow, as well as ex- 
 pression with form, — is false, and should be exploded 
 from all systems of education in art ; when art is con- 
 sidered a matter of importance to the dignity as well as 
 glory of a great nation. 
 
L E C T U R K V I. 
 
 ON C O L O U 1{. 
 
0 
 
 LECTURE VT. 
 on colour. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Having settled the great basis of all art, 
 first, the princi[)les of a standard form ; second, tlie 
 mode of arranging tliat form in conjunction with other 
 forms under the head composition, we now come to the 
 other component parts of a perfect imitation of reality, 
 viz. colour, light and shadow, light and dark, surface, 
 and execution. 
 
 There are three primitive colours, viz. red, yellow 
 and blue ; red and yellow are felt by artists as warm 
 colours, and blue is considered a cold colour. 
 
 The proportion of warm colours to cold ones, as you 
 perceive in the primitive arrangement, is as two to 
 one; w^armth is therefore the principle, coldness the 
 exception. 
 
 The code thus laid down by our great master of 
 colour in modern times, Ileynolds, has a much deeper 
 foundation than the mere habitual practice of the eye, 
 or of this school or that school ; it is, in fact, the 
 arrangement of God himself. 
 
 The colours which are produced by the mixture of 
 
250 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 red, yellow, and blue, viz. orange, purple, and green, 
 have the same relative proportion of warm and cold; 
 orange and purple being the warm, and green the 
 cold colour; in short, in every part of the imitation of 
 Nature, the darkest as well as the lightest parts, the 
 perpetual combination of warm as the rule, and cold as 
 the exception, must never be lost sight of; for no tint 
 can be borne, dark or light, cool or brilliant, when this 
 beautiful combination is not to be traced ; even in Rem- 
 brandt's darkest tints, it can be discovered on searching. 
 Perhaps there is nothing in creation so beautiful, in- 
 offensive, and so evident a proof of the kind feelings of 
 the great Creator, for the innocent enjoyment of his 
 creatures, as the property bestowed by God on all 
 visible substances in earth and heaven to reflect light 
 on the brain, through the eye, under the delusion of 
 various and harmonious colours. 
 
 It was not necessary to the constitution of any of the 
 great latent principles of the solar system; the earth 
 could have revolved round its own axis and round the 
 sun; spring with its freshness, summer with its splen- 
 dour, autumn with its decaying glory, and winter with 
 its icy chill, could have gone on, as they had ever gone 
 on; the principles of gravitation, attraction, repul- 
 sion, pneumatics, hydraulics, magnetism and mechanics, 
 would have existed, and would have been discovered in 
 spite of the absence of the harmony, the beauty, the 
 touching sensibilities produced by the reflection of 
 colour. 
 
 Consider, then, for a moment, if all the great prin- 
 ciples of life, thought, and creation, could have existed 
 independent of colour, how much we owe to the good- 
 ness of the Creator in bestowing so beautiful a quality, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 251 
 
 which could have no other object than to convey impres- 
 sions of the world, delightfully, by the senses to the 
 mind. 
 
 What would be the blush of beauty without colour*^ 
 What would be the paleness of sorrow, agony, despair, 
 death, without colour? and where would be the beauty, 
 the rich, emerald, crimson, milky loveliness, and azure 
 glory of flowers, without its overpowering and fascinating 
 reflections ? 
 
 The greatest poets, Homer, iEschylus, Euripides, 
 Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, Shakspere, Milton, Dante, and 
 Spenser, have all given evidence of exquisite sensibility 
 to its impressions; and yet it has Ijeen, t\v cathedra, 
 pronounced, to be sure with hesitation, incompatible 
 with the highest style of painting. 
 
 It must be clear, from what I said and read in my last 
 lecture, that the Greeks thought colour as necessary 
 a part of education in art and imitation of nature, as 
 drawing, or light and shadow. Pliny says, they used 
 but four colours, and extraordinary as it may seem, 
 blue is not one of them."* White from the island of 
 Melos, Athenian yellow, red from Sinope in Asia 
 Minor, with black; but as the first black used was 
 blue black, made from burnt vine stalks or wine lees, 
 a cool tint approaching blue was attained, modest, 
 simple, and a beautiful contrast. 
 
 Ivory black from burnt ivory discovered by Ai)elles, 
 was not then in use ; yet without ' blue, it would be 
 impossible to get that brilliant colour, the great charac- 
 teristic of the Venetian school ; for the secret of \'eiietian 
 splendour is the judicious and fearless dashing in of 
 overpowering blue. 
 
 * Pliny J lil). xxxv. 
 
252 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Reynolds says, from Pliny's assertion that the ancients 
 used but four colours, he has the highest opinion of 
 their colouring, because four are enough for all combi- 
 nations; now in fact, three are enough for all combina- 
 tions, viz. red, yellow, and blue, considering black and 
 white as no colour; but it is impossible if blue was left 
 out, that they could have carried colour to the splendid 
 brilliancy of the Venetians, though they might have 
 done so, to the depth and solemn splendour of Rem- 
 brandt or Ludovico Caracci. 
 
 I very much suspect that the painters who used four 
 colours, including black and white as colours, which 
 are generally excluded, were the earlier painters, viz., 
 Polygnotus, Aglaophon, Mycon, to whom Quintilian 
 applies the appellation of simpleo) color \ but in the 
 refined period of Apelles, all the colours must have been 
 used to perfection. Whilst writing this, I referred to 
 a correspondence I had in 1823, with Sir Humphry 
 Davy, and to my great delight, I found him of the same 
 opinion. In an admirable paper of his in the Philo- 
 sophical Transactions, he says, "Pliny himself describes 
 with enthusiasm the Venus dpaSvo/idve of Apelles, and in 
 this picture, the sea was represented, which required 
 azure." * 
 
 In further confirmation, there is a passage in Cicero, 
 in the Brutus (chap, xviii.), wherein allusion is made 
 to those who used but four colours; they were Zeuxis, 
 Polygnotus, Timanthes, and were celebrated for "formas 
 
 * Pliny does not mean blue was not known, only that it was not 
 selected by the great early Epic painters as being incompatible 
 with that solenm tone so approved by Reynolds, and practised 
 with such perfection in later time by Ludovico Caracci and 
 Rembrandt, who scarcely admitted blue into their arrangement. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 253 
 
 et lineamenta" (form and contour); whereas all things, 
 he says, were perfect in the works of Echion, Pro- 
 togenes, Nicomachus, and Apelles. 
 
 Pliny, therefore, is proved right in saying some of 
 the works which constituted the opulence of towns 
 were executed in four colours; he was not sufficiently 
 clear in distinguishing the periods or the names of the 
 great artists to whom this applied. 
 
 Quintilian, a man of infinitely greater shrewdness, 
 at once fixes the period and the men, by Polygnotus, 
 who was distinguished for his simple colour, which the 
 aljsence of blue would produce; whilst Cicero names 
 the artists who used only four colours, and contrasts 
 them with the men of a later and more refined period, 
 by saying they were perfect in all things; inferiing that 
 the absence of blue, in the four colours, black, white, 
 red, and yellow, did not, and could not, produce such 
 splendour as when no primitive colour was left out. 
 
 It is extraordinary that Reynolds did not allude to 
 the a])scnce of blue, in the enumeration of Pliny; great 
 depth, fine tone, simplicity and modesty of colour, can 
 he j)roduced without blue; but certainly not that 
 vigorous brilliancy, such as we see produced by the 
 contrasts of the tremendous azures of the Venetian 
 school. 
 
 The general principles of colour have been so distinctly 
 laid down by our great master of modern colour, 
 Reynolds, that it is hardly possible to conceive any 
 English picture to be executed, with a defective and 
 inharmonious arrangement; colour is indisputably the 
 characteristic of the English school. Canova and 
 Cicognara both remarked to me while in England, that 
 there was no colour in any other school on earth, and 
 
254 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 yet colour requires a brilliant climate more than anything 
 else; so true is the principle of the power of innate 
 genius over external circumstances, however unfavour- 
 able or obstructing. 
 
 Such was the condition of Venice as a school of art, 
 that when a friend of mine was consul, some years 
 since, he could procure no painter to paint the king's 
 arms, and he was obliged actually to paint them himself 
 to put up over his consular door. 
 
 What would Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Por- 
 denone, have said in their glory, had such a state of art 
 been predicted to them? 
 
 The use of colour in painting is perhaps more 
 regulated by the great law of association than any 
 other part of the art. With white, and all colours 
 which approach it, we associate gaiety and gladness; 
 while sorrow, pain, horror, and mystery immediately 
 arise in the imagination with black and solemn browns. 
 These feelings are inherent, you cannot get rid of them; 
 they are in the nature of things; you must not defend a 
 nation who puts on white for mourning; I say, gaiety 
 and joy are connected with white, and the contrary 
 with the reverse. The Chinese, therefore, who put on 
 white for their loss of a friend, are wrong; while the 
 European, who puts on black, is reasonable, on all the 
 principles of our inherent associations connected with 
 the human mind. It is this unerring principle, from 
 the nature of things, which ought to be the guide of 
 the great artist in the use of colour, and the subject 
 should regulate the style of colour used to accompany it. 
 
 Schools of art are defects in art: there ought to be 
 no set system, to which all subjects, gay or sorrowful^ 
 dark or light, gaudy or solemn, should be forced to 
 
ON PAINTINC;. 
 
 255 
 
 bend ; the su])ject chosen should always be the guide 
 in colour. A marriage fete would ill be expressed 
 by the obscurity of Rembrandt; or an entombment of 
 Christ, by the gay luxuriance of Veronese. The 
 silvery hue of the Dutch school, the gaudiness of 
 Rubens, the splendour of the Venetian, and the solemn 
 crudeness of the Roman, are but portions of the 
 perfection of art, and ought each in its turn to be 
 adopted by the great artist, according to the subject 
 which each will suit. 
 
 Reynolds's belief, that the union of colour with grand 
 design was incompatible, arose from his conviction 
 that the colour of Rubens was incompatible. Now, 
 the style of Rubens was but one style, and would be 
 inconsistent with terror, if even used by himself. 
 Rubens was the last man Reynolds should have 
 quoted; Rubens dipped every thing in the rainljow. 
 But for subjects of death, agony or grief, the rainbow 
 would be absurd. 
 
 When colour in a grand subject is consistent and 
 harmonious, instead of inconsistent and gaudy, surely 
 it must assist and not detract from the poetry or 
 sentiment. 
 
 Ah, but! say people, it requires a wonderful capacity 
 to unite such perfection. No doubt of that: but it 
 has been done by the Greeks, and will be done again ; 
 its rareness in art is no proof of its impossibility; ljut 
 because it is rare, what right has any man to lay down 
 a principle, that it ought never to be attempted. 
 
 After mature deliberation, after having studied 
 deeply the finest works in the world, in the Louvre 
 and England; after having seen much, and reflected 
 nmch on what 1 have seen, as Reynolds says, I cannot 
 
256 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 come to the conclusion of any other principle than this: 
 viz. that appropriate colour is never inconsistent with 
 the highest style of thought, expression, or conception; 
 and that the intensity of the thought is certainly 
 weakened when the colour is offensive, much more so 
 than when the colour is even inconsistent, if it be 
 beautiful. 
 
 The Caracci tried to make a perfect school, by the 
 union of the principles of all others ; but what was the 
 results In design, they had the lumbering vulgarity 
 of Michael Angelo, without his grandeur; and they 
 were perfect in no one great requisite of art. 
 
 All the Caracci w^anted was that inspired spirit which 
 vivified the colour of Titian, the expression of Ratfaelle, 
 the beauty of Coreggio, the vitality of Phidias. When 
 you study their works after the works of those gifted 
 beings, you feel as if their excellence was attainable 
 by labour, and a common understanding; but you 
 retire from the works of the others, convinced there 
 was something divine, which no labour, no effort could 
 reach, unless the Almighty gifted the individual. 
 
 In applying this delicious part of this divine art to 
 the higher walk, to the highest walk of Painting, base 
 it, like form, on what is essentially natural. 
 
 First, consider the nature of your subject. 
 
 Secondly, the character of your hero; was he a war- 
 rior, constantly fighting, in the open air, by night or 
 by day, in sun and in tempest; or was he a king, 
 brought up in the luxuries of a palace, and shelter of 
 peace and refinements'? Were your people Egyptians 
 or Negroes, Greeks or Romans, Britons or Thracians? 
 
 In using models for such purposes, the individual 
 rarely serves ; here comes into play your science, your 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 257 
 
 principles, your knowledge of man as a species, and of 
 the imaginary man to be painted as a character. 
 
 The hero will have a different skin from the king, 
 the beauty from her slave; furniture, buildings, trees, 
 plants, climate, animals, must have equal reference to 
 truth and country. 
 
 Inasmuch as you clear the accidental from the essen- 
 tial in form, so you must do in colour. But ideal or 
 individual, to be fine, it must be on the principles of 
 harmony that nature has laid down; and the art of 
 arranging the masses of colour is divided into three, 
 like light and shadow, composition, or, in fact, any part 
 where quantities arc to be settled. 
 
 Three is the leading number, but there is no limits 
 ing, remember, the lesser repetitions; thus, to improve 
 the shape of a light colour, or shadow, you may intro- 
 duce a smaller repetition of a portion which, without 
 coming under the head of a leading repetition, may 
 make, by its junction, a more agreeable shape of the 
 quantity to the eye, and be regulated by the same prin- 
 ciple which regulates the larger ones. 
 
 In all the world perhaps there never was such a 
 splendid opportunity for studying to perfection the 
 principles of the great men in the art, as was afforded 
 at the Louvre in its glory; and injurious as it was to 
 the cities of Italy, and perhaps painful to the Italians, 
 yet the great genius. Napoleon, gave a dignity and an 
 importance to the art it has not had since, by making 
 the productions of its great men subjects of treaty, 
 and receiving them as equivalent to territory or to 
 treasure. 
 
 Never shall I forget my impression of this gigantic 
 collection ! I left Wilkie calmly trotting up, step by 
 
258 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 step, whilst I, darting up three stairs at a time, and 
 hurrying along, never stopped till before the Trans- 
 figuration ! 
 
 You rushed from the Eomans to the Venetians, from 
 the Flemings to the Spaniards, from Titian to Raflfaelle, 
 from Rembrandt to Rubens, and settled principles in 
 half-an-hour, which took months, perhaps years, to 
 accomplish. 
 
 It cannot be denied that in point of brute force of 
 effect, Rubens bore down all opposition, from his 
 breadth, brightness, and depth ; and let every painter 
 be assured, that if he keep these three qualities of 
 effect, the leading qualities in the imitation of nature, 
 he will defy rivalship in the contest of exhibition. 
 
 Rembrandt, with all his magic painting on too con- 
 fined a principle, lost in power, and looked spotty and 
 individual. Paul Veronese and Tintoretto had not 
 that solidity, the character of Rubens. Titian seemed 
 above contest, and to rely on his native majesty of 
 colour; there was a senatorial repose, which gave a look 
 of impertinence to Rubens, but still you could not keep 
 your eyes off the seducer, even if you turned your back 
 you kept peeping over your shoulder. 
 
 All peculiarity suffered. The silvery beauty of Guido 
 looked grey; the correctness of Raffaelle looked hard. 
 Rembrandt failed most by the brightness of Rubens, 
 the magic of Coreggio, or the sunny splendour of Titian ; 
 and after wandering about for days, you decided that 
 he suffered most whose works had most peculiarity; 
 and with all this grossness, want of beauty, and arti- 
 ficial style, Rubens' brightness and breadth carried the 
 day, as far as arresting the eye, and forcing you to look 
 at him, hate as you must his vulgarity, his Flemish 
 women, and his Flanders breed of horses. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 259 
 
 Susceptibility to the beauty of colour, or the expres- 
 sion of the passions, can never be taught, even if your 
 instructor were an angel from heaven. 
 
 You can teach to draw and compose pretty fairly; 
 but to colour and invent, if you are by nature defective 
 in imagination and eye, no instruction on earth can 
 give you. 
 
 The great schools of colour in modern times, are the 
 Venetian, the Spanish, the Flemish, and the Dutch 
 and old German. 
 
 The Roman, the Florentine, the Bolognese, the 
 Pisan, the Parman, and Neapolitan, are not essentially 
 schools of colour. 
 
 The most gorgeous is the Venetian: they seemed to 
 imagine the sun always on the object; the leading cha- 
 racteristic of their colour is a golden splendour. 
 
 I once lighted my models by lamp, shaded them 
 from daylight, and painted in daylight myself. 1 got 
 a golden look, exceedingly Venetian. I wonder if the 
 Venetians ever played the same trick. 
 
 The Spanish school is founded on the Venetian. In 
 character and expression, both schools are deficient, 
 and of ideal beauty of form and design, both schools 
 seem equally ignorant.* 
 
 The Flemish school may be illustrated by the works 
 of Rubens and Rembrandt, and the Dutch by Teniers 
 and Ostade. These four illustrious schools sacrificed 
 every thing to colour. 
 
 The splendour of the Venetian school was produced 
 by laying on every colour in its native purity on white 
 grounds without mixing, never losing the effect of the 
 
 * Excepting the Pietro Martyre always, in speaking of Venetian 
 defects. 
 
 s2 
 
260 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 ground in the dark portion, and bringing the whole into 
 harmonious glory, by glazing with transparent tints, 
 which lowered the gaudiness without losing the power 
 of the original painting. 
 
 That this was the practice of the Athenian or Attic 
 school of Greece, I have proved to you from Pliny's 
 description of the practice of Apelles. 
 
 That no other method of colour can in the least 
 compete with this, it is only necessary to see a fine 
 Venetian work by the side of a work from any other 
 school, and Rubens even is rendered vulgar by the con- 
 trast of the refinement of glazing. It gives a zest, a 
 richness, a magnificence; but you must not rest too 
 much on it; paint as nearly as you can without it, and 
 then enrich, entone: in drapery you may play with 
 glazing as if you had a sunbeam in your hand, but be 
 careful in flesh, it flatters from softening, and if not 
 used in a thick and gummy vehicle, wiW run detestably 
 into the veins of your surface. Nothing is so hideous, 
 nothing is so detestable as a picture glazed with a thin 
 vehicle which was not prepared for it. 
 
 The fault of the English school in glazing, is, it is 
 too palpable, agreeable to our blunt, manly Gothic 
 character; Titian concealed it; his imitators could not. 
 Rubens certainly did not make it the basis of his 
 practice ; he laid on, too, every tint pure ; but he har- 
 monized them in an open manly style, by the vast 
 power of his unerring hand. Rembrandt did both; 
 and Teniers is distinguished by the silvery splendour 
 of his colour, not glazing to produce his beauty as an 
 ultimate resource, but glazing over a white ground in 
 the first instance, and never losing sight of it, except 
 in the light, producing richness in the same way, but 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 261 
 
 not at the same period of his progress ; whereas Ostade 
 glazed from first to last, and often is as deep-toned 
 and splendid as the great Venetians on a larger scale. 
 Reynolds divides colour into warm and cold; and he 
 lays it down, and is borne out by the practice of all 
 the great schools of colour, that the lights should be 
 principally of warm colour: he is right, not because it 
 was the practice of the great schools, but because it is 
 the principle of nature ; warmth is more agreeable 
 than coldness at all times; and in the regulation of the 
 ('reator, as developed in the rainbow, warm colours 
 seem the rule, and coldness the exception. 
 
 Gainsborough, in defiance, painted his Blue Boy, 
 now in the possession of Lord Westminster; but here 
 he was obliged to render the blue so rich, he rather 
 proved Reynolds's axiom than refuted it. You will 
 find Reynolds did not lay down this as a principle, till 
 he was sanctioned by the great works of the great 
 colourists; and you will hardly see a fine work of 
 Titian, Coreggio, Tintoretto, Rubens, Veronese, Velas- 
 quez, or Murillo, where this great principle of rendering 
 colour and effect agreeable to the eye is not palpably 
 apparent. 
 
 The present modern schools of Europe, from want of 
 eye, especially neglect, as if by consent, this sound 
 decree, and, without exception, the colours of all the 
 modern schools are enough to scare the student to 
 disgust. 
 
 Faint raw insipid blues; nauseous filthy yellows; 
 dirty brick-dust flesh, with thick shadows, hatched 
 feebly, with a timid hand, in spite of correct drawing 
 and skilful composition, are the characteristic at present 
 of the Italians. 
 
262 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Thus, then, settled on a basis, is colour, — first from 
 the Creator's own arrangement; secondly, the practice 
 of the great schools. Remember, colour always on 
 this principle, whether you are gay or sorrowful; 
 tender or terrible, whatever your scale be; high or low; 
 let the warm colours predominate, and you can hardly 
 help being agreeable ; and in every part of your picture, 
 the highest as well as the lowest, omit not the due 
 mixture and relative gradation of red, yellow, and 
 blue. 
 
 Having thus settled the principles of the primitive 
 colours, their modes of application so as to produce 
 harmony and pleasure, and that all colour should be 
 consistent with the subject chosen ; the next step is 
 enchanting, viz. the mode of application practised by 
 the great schools, and the vehicle in which they mixed 
 them. 
 
 The Greeks painted in tempera, and varnished 
 intensely ; in encaustic or wax and fresco, either melting 
 the wax and using it cool, or mixing it with oil when 
 hot, and using it hot; or putting on the colour cool, and 
 working it by fire and a ctvXo^, In the former method, 
 the brush was used; in the latter, the (nvXo^, or iron 
 point, only. 
 
 From Pliny's description of one method, cerd 
 punka cum oleo liquefacta, Reynolds introduced wax 
 into English practice. 
 
 After the decay of Greek art, the encaustic with the 
 stulos was lost. But encaustic by brush was handed 
 down and never lost sight of, as well as tempera; and 
 fresco was substituted by the early Italians for encaustic 
 on walls, though tempera continued till the revival of 
 oil-painting. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 263 
 
 When oil-painting appeared in Italy, says Vasari (it 
 never was extinct), tempera was given up; which 
 is not true, because long before Vasari 's date for its 
 introduction, it was known in England; * and accord- 
 ing to Cennini's interesting tract, in Italy too: when it 
 was revived in Italy, it would be more correct to say, 
 tempera was mostly given up: but I shrewdly suspect 
 the Venetians mingled the two, and that it was never 
 wholly obliterated. 
 
 The first requisite to be attended to, is the ground 
 or preparation spread over the canvass, to receive the 
 colours. 
 
 It is cither of a nature to absorb the oil, or to 
 resist the absorption: if it resist the absorption of the 
 oil out of the colour put on it, it is an oil ground ; if it 
 absorb the oil, it is a water ground, and it has long 
 been an interesting question, whether the Venetians 
 used an absorbent ground, or an oil ground; whether 
 like the Greeks they worked in tempera, and varnished 
 out, or whether they judiciously mingled both oil and 
 tempera occasional ly.f 
 
 One would think that Vasari, living as lie did with 
 
 ♦ See Smith's Antiquities of Westminster. 
 
 -|- See Cennini, fourth part, section cxiii. Abbi il tuo olio de 
 senieiiza de lino." See aUo xci., where lie treats on paiiitinj^ on 
 walls in oil. He directs you how to boil your oil, and never to 
 varnish under a year. 
 
 The practice seems to have pone out, and to have been revived. 
 
 Vasari alludes to a curious and valuable treatise by Cennini, in 
 1437, on fresco and oil, etc. but perhaps never saw it. It was 
 long lost, and found in the Vatican, and published 18*21, by 
 Tanibroni. 
 
 Dr. llaspe says, in his treatise on oil painting, he found the colours 
 on a mummy shining, and that, as no spirit whatever (however 
 
264 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 all the great painters, would not l)e ignorant of their 
 various methods of practice; he called in 1567 or 1568 
 on Titian, saw him, stayed with him, was in his paint- 
 powerful) had the least effect, he thought he had good reason to 
 affirm the colours on the mummy were varnished and preserved 
 with an oil varnish, though the colours might be tempera. 
 
 Pliny says, chap, xxxv., the Greeks made a varnish of punic wax 
 and oil. Here is a varnish undeniably known; and artists we 
 know often use a varnish for a vehicle, as well as a varnish. 
 
 In the tenth century, Theophilus wrote on the arte pingendi, 
 and de omni scientia picturse artis," chap, xxiii. ; and also " de 
 coloribus oleo et gummi terendis," how to grind colours with oil 
 and gum; —he then tells how to paint doors red with oil colour, 
 and never to paint one coat till the first is dry. This, says he (in 
 imaginibus), for historical pictures, diuturnum et tediosum nimis 
 esty is too tedious (as if known so by experience), not would be, 
 as if never tried. Heraclii Libri tres de Coloribus et Artibus 
 Romanorum, is another treatise of later date. 
 
 Merimie, a Frenchman, passes over est (is), and takes it as (would 
 fee), and says this is a proof oil was not practised by history 
 painters. Was there ever such argument? Yet, directly after this, 
 Theophilus tells how to paint a picture, (pictura translucida), a 
 transparent picture, and says, tere colores imponendos diligentis- 
 eime oleo lini, with linseed oil. 
 
 Thus it is proved, in the tenth century, oil was used in colours, 
 and pictures were painted so, and houses also, — the discovery was 
 not made then, but long before, because this monk gives the result 
 of his own, and the experience of previous centuries. 
 
 We now come to Cennini: he wrote a treatise on painting 
 in fresco and oil, etc.; he was a pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, who was a 
 pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, who was a pupil of Giotto, who was a pupil 
 of Cimabue, who was a pupil of the Greeks who fled from Con- 
 stantinople, and who brought the practice of their ancient school 
 with them. 
 
 Cennini published his treatise 1437, and in the fourth part, 
 section cxii., he says, abbi il tuo olio di semenza di lino ;" in 
 section xci., he says, "you must boil your oil section cxiii., 
 
 how to grind colours in oil." 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 265 
 
 ing room, and must have talked on art, and I dare say 
 dined with him or supped. Vasari distinctly says, in a 
 sort of receipt introduction, before his Lives, ed. 1568; 
 their ground on wood was gesso (plaster of Paris), 
 and that then they mixed three colours; white, yellow, 
 and umber, and spread equally over the white ground, 
 and that after tracing from their Cartoons, they painted 
 their pictures. 
 
 A more abomina])le ground never was mixed; and 
 though it might be, and is likely to have been, the 
 ground of the Roman and Florentine schools, indis- 
 putably never would have been endured by the Vene- 
 tians. 
 
 This was the method, he says, for pictures on wood; 
 but on canvass, the gesso being likely to crack in 
 rolling, they made a ground of flour (farina), white lead, 
 and nut oil, after the canvass had been smoothed by 
 size. 
 
 This is Vasari's account (pp. 51 — 53, volume i. 
 1568, Fireuze). Now when this was published, Titian, 
 Tintoretto and Veronese, were all living and daily at work, 
 and therefore it is rational to conclude, had it been false 
 it would have been contradicted; — Vasari concludes, 
 so are painted the great w^orks in St. Mark's, Venice. 
 
 It is thus brou«rlit down to Italy, 1437; and before this 
 century, before Van Eych was born, or Ccnnini eitlier, it was 
 practised in Enghmd, in 1*239. Henry III. orders his treasurer 
 to pay one hundred and seventeen shillings and tcnponce for oil 
 and colour and varnish for pictures, " factis in camera regice 
 nostrse." fValpole, vol. i. }). (3. From the Egyptians to the Greeks, 
 from tliem to Tlieophilus, from him to Henry III., and from him 
 to Cennini and Van Eych, we have evidence of oil, eitlier as 
 vehicle or varnish, clear and distinct. 
 
266 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 In that place was the miracle of the Slave, by Tintoretto, 
 seen by all of us in the Louvre. 
 
 Lanzi says the Venetians preferred canvass, that first 
 they painted in tempera, then came (il segreto) oil 
 painting, and that they first adopted it. 
 
 Did the Venetians ever give entirely up their practice 
 of tempera ? 
 
 A ground of gesso or farina, if mixed with water, 
 is absorbent, and more or less so with size ; if colour in 
 oil is put on, at once on such a ground, the oil would 
 have been sucked out, and made the white ground an 
 oil ground; and as far as my experience goes, an ab- 
 sorbent white ground charged with oil, never recovers 
 its purity ; but if the first be tempera painting, and oil 
 be the latter, so that tempera intervene between the 
 ground and the oil, the white gesso ground would keep 
 its original whiteness. 
 
 On the first arrival of the Bacchus and Ariadne in 
 England, I saw it at the late Lord Kinnaird's. In the 
 corner, a bit of colour was chipped off, and the ground 
 was of a snowy whiteness. 
 
 Titian's great works were not painted at once ; Pietro 
 Martyre was eight years in hand, and the Last Supper, 
 from his letter to Charles the fifth, in Ridolphi's life, 
 seven. ''I send your Majesty the Last Supper," says 
 Titian, " doppo, setti anni lavorandovi quasi continua- 
 mente," after working at it almost daily. " Remember 
 that, ye immortals" — artists who send a canvass with 
 nothing on it but a head, and dash up the rest on 
 varnishing days, to suit the effect of its neighbour. O 
 divine system, to improve the public taste, and add to 
 the dignity of England ! 
 
 Lanzi distinctly says, when tempera ended, and when 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 267 
 
 oil began; but what does Vasari mean in describing a 
 work of Titian, of St. Mark among Saints — " no cui volti 
 sono alcuni ritratti di naturale fatti a olio," in which 
 there are some heads from nature done in oil. If all 
 the picture were done in oil, why distinguish some 
 peculiar heads, and point them out as it were an excep- 
 tion? 
 
 In the Pietro Martyre, there certainly was a look of 
 the crude execution of tempera softened by a glaze, 
 especially in the projecting leg of the assassin. 
 
 That the basis of Venetian pictures was a white 
 gesso ground, there can be no doubt; Tintoretto and 
 Bassano used sometimes dark grounds to save trouble, 
 but they are ruinous, as half-tints thin by time, the 
 dark ground comes through, and leaves the work, like 
 most of the Lombard school, a spotty mass of dark 
 and light. Perhaps fresco induced white grounds. 
 Most of the Venetian pictures, painted one hundred 
 years before the Lombards, have stood, when many of 
 the works of the latter are ruined.* 
 
 It is, therefore, my conviction, after thirty-eight years 
 
 * Fresco buono (genuine fresco), is painlinc: in water colours on 
 the wet mortar put upon the last coat on the wall. Fre>;co secco 
 (dry fresco), is painting on the dried mortar, after moistening the 
 wall, with the same colours as used in genuine fresco. It was known 
 to Theophilus — "Cum imagines vel aliarum roruni effigies protra- 
 huntur in muro sicco, statim aspergentur aqua tam dixi donee 
 omnino madidus sifet in eodem liniuntur omnes coloresqui super- 
 ponendi sunt, qui omnes calce misceantur et cum ipso muro sic- 
 centur ut ha3rcant." — Theophilus, Quomoilo pingalur in Mitro, p. 83. 
 This treatise was first noticed 1^8 years ago; a copy is at Lcipsic, 
 Feller, 1G8G; one at Wolfenbuttel, Duke of Brunswick's; one at 
 the King's Library, Paris; one at Trinity College, Cambridge ; 
 complete the number, (No. 4J37, Library.) — /?. E. llaape (Oil- 
 Painting)y m.dcc.lxxxi., Cadcll in the Strand. 
 
268 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 practice, that the best of all grounds is one of brilliant 
 whiteness (luce de dentro); you can do anything with 
 it: your shadows will be preserved from getting too 
 obscure, and your lights and half-tints kept pure and 
 brilliant; many of Paul Veronese's works in the Louvre 
 were as clear as azure, and milky as the first day they 
 left the easel.* 
 
 Pliny says, with his usual connoisseur gossip, Pro- 
 togenes painted his pictures four times over; so that, if 
 one was destroyed, another might be ready. 
 
 This was certainly a very ingenious method. But 
 the fact is, I have no doubt, that he proceeded as I 
 suspect Titian did, with four distinct layers, each the 
 ground for the other, till the work was done. 
 . Pliny has certainly let us in to a great secret, but 
 not exactly the secret of Protogenes. How the destruc- 
 tion of one layer was to stop exactly when the other 
 began, would be a greater secret still, if to be got at. 
 
 As Titian's great works were not produced at once, 
 I believe he proceeded on some progressive principle, 
 and that principle was the same as the one ascribed to 
 Protogenes. 
 
 Vasari says, as I have shewn you, that gesso was the 
 ground for wood, and farina for canvass, and over this 
 white preparation came an oil mixture, which being 
 opaque, injured the purity of the white ground; 
 secondly, if oil colour was placed at once on, the oil 
 
 * Reynolds, in his Private Memorandum Book, in possession 
 of Mrs. Gwatkin (Plymouth), says, " My own portrait (Florence) 
 is on a rough cloth, cera solamente" (wax alone). — Wilkie says, 
 of this very portrait (p. 448), in his letters, " Reynolds's portrait 
 at Florence, never varnished, not cracked, as perfect as the day 
 it was painted." 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 2G9 
 
 would sink the white ground and destroy it, but if 
 tempera intervened, the secret of the whiteness of the 
 ground of the Bacchus and Ariadne is developed.* 
 
 During the time I was investigating this matter, 
 1823, 1 wrote to Sir Humphry Davy, and asked him if 
 he thought a white absorbent ground would keep its 
 purity after three hundred years, if painted on at once 
 without oil. 
 
 I give you an extract from his interesting reply: — 
 Sir Humphry Davy's compliments to Mr. Haydon. 
 He has never made experiments on the pictures of the 
 Roman and Venetian schools, though he has often 
 wished for an opportunity to do so; as oils often become 
 varnishes in the process of drying, it is possible that 
 oil may have been used in an absorbent ground. 
 
 " The Greeks and Romans, in the time of Pliny, 
 painted on an intonaco, made of finely powdered marble 
 and lime, and this composition seems to have been used 
 (in the framework made of Abies) by Apelles, but his 
 varnishing probably gave to his pictures the look of 
 oil paintings. 
 
 " When a picture in distemper (tempera) or crayon is 
 intensely varnished with a resinous varnish, it must 
 require minute examination to ascertain if it is on an 
 oil or on a water basis, on wliich it has been applied. 
 ***### 
 
 " It would be easy, by a few experiments, to ascertain 
 if Titian painted on an oil, or like Apelles, varnished 
 intensely his pictures laid on an intonaco, but the sacri- 
 
 * Haquin planed away the wood till he came to the ground 
 of Titian's Pietro Martyre, which was calcined pipe-clay, chalk 
 and size; pipc-clay is not so soluble as chalk. — See Buchanan s 
 Memoirs of Painting^ vol. i. p. 335, Appendix A. 
 
270 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 fice of a part of the ground would be requisite for that 
 object." 
 
 Thus the greatest authority in modern chemistry, 
 asserting that oils become varnishes by time, it is not 
 impossible oil may have been immediately used, and by 
 becoming a varnish in time, not impair the whiteness 
 of ground ; it is barely possible ; thirty-eight and three 
 hundred years are different periods, my experience is 
 confined to thirty-eight years. The Venetians tried their 
 experiments three hundredyears ago; and afterthat time, 
 oil may decay, and leave the colour, or become a varnish. 
 
 As to the vehicle, both Vasari and Ridolphi say it 
 was oil, seme de lino^ (linseed), and olio de noce (nut 
 oil). It could not have been tempera finally; for 
 Titian put a fine picture of his to dry in the sun, which 
 would have melted tempera at once. 
 
 A gentleman, who had the care of the king's pictures, 
 told me he used a liquid which dissolves gum, that 
 Venetian pictures bear it with impunity, but Claude's 
 surface immediately melted. 
 
 Fatti a olio, done in oil, and nut-oil, ingialla meno 
 (gets yellow less than linseed), are expressions of 
 Vasari, so there can be no longer any doubt. 
 
 Be assured there is no vehicle so pure, so lasting, or 
 so rich, if used with discretion; it is adapted for every 
 purpose of art, except glazing, and there gum is requi- 
 site for consistency. 
 
 The next important requisite for advancing the imita- 
 tion of reality to completion, is surface, in the technical 
 
 * Oil is composed of oleine and stearine (the latter being a solid), 
 and margarine (an acid), stearine is siccative. Time or heat will 
 give predominance to stearine in the three, hence drying oil either 
 by heat or time. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 271 
 
 language of English art, and impasta in that of the 
 Italians. Rembrandt and Reynolds are remarkable 
 instances, but in them it was a little too apparent. A 
 Devonshire artist* told Reynolds, it should look like 
 fine old cheese; this was an admirable simile, and 
 Reynolds often nearly lost himself in endeavouring to 
 get it; every species of artificial help was had recourse 
 to, and to such excess did he use his materials, that, 
 once when he placed a lady's portrait by the fire to 
 dry, her face slipped very deliberately down on her 
 shoulders. 
 
 When Wilkie and I began the art, oil was never 
 heard of, and the painter was considered a poor creature 
 to think of it. Putty, glue, gum frankincense, gum 
 arabic, gam mastic, gum copal, resin, spirits of wine, 
 and all the gums that earth produces were in use. 
 
 Poor Sir Joshua! had he looked out of his grave in 
 1805, he would have hurried back to his cofiin desolated 
 at the horrid condition his genius had brought English 
 art into. 
 
 We owe the first reform indisputably to an academy 
 student at the time, David Wilkie; the unalTectcd 
 beauty of the Village Politicians," | of which oil was 
 
 ♦ Gandy. 
 
 f Never was anything- iiioru extraordinary than the modesty 
 and simplicity of tliis «j;reat genius at the period of this early pro- 
 duction. Jackson told me lie had the j^reatest difficulty to persuade 
 him to send this celebrated picture to the Exhibition ; and I re- 
 member his (VVillvie's) bewildered astonishment at the prodi«riou8 
 enthusiasm of the people at the Exhibition when it went, on the day 
 it opened, May 18U6. On the Sunday after the private day and 
 dinner, Friday and Saturday, the News said, "A young Scotch- 
 man, by name Wilkie, has a wonderful work." I immediately 
 sallied forth, took up Jackson, and away we rushed to Wilkie. 
 I found him in his parlour in Norton-street, at breakfast : " Wilkie," 
 
272 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 the vehicle, first startled English art from its bewil- 
 dered infatuation, and founded our domestic school. 
 
 The feeling for a surface cannot be taught, it is in- 
 tuitive, and is visible in the very first essay. Mr. 
 Rogers has one of the very earliest pictures of Coreggio, 
 and his rich surface is visible throughout: from its 
 awkward drawing and childish disproportions, it has 
 been doubted, but it need not; all that nature gave him 
 is there budding, all that he acquired of course is not to 
 be found, it is a genuine and a curious specimen, and 
 who doubts it has no perceptions in art. 
 
 If it be asked, what is the use of surface? it can be 
 replied, it is on the natural principle of things. 
 
 Painting is an optical delusion, acting on the eye, 
 through the medium of atmosphere, which softens, 
 flattens, and unites the pores of surfaces. In looking 
 into the face of the greatest beauty, it is anything but 
 smooth; but at the given distance, the pores of the skin 
 are united, and the skin has the look of the polished 
 pearl-like cheek, soft, tender, and beautiful. Ivory is 
 the reverse of flesh; it is smooth near, but hard at a 
 distance; the atmosphere has nothing to act on, there- 
 fore the invisible pores are rendered still more invisible, 
 and the effect is one of a smooth hardness, while skin, 
 having something for atmosphere, has the real look of 
 softness. Vanderwerf, Denner, Mengs, and David, are 
 instances of this laboured smoothness looking anything 
 but flesh, on the above principle. One of the greatest 
 evidences of genius in the imitation of nature, is the 
 
 said I, "your name is in the paper." Is it really?" said he, 
 staring with delight. I then read the puff "ore rotundo/' and 
 Jackson, I, and he, in an ecstasy, joined hands and danced round 
 the table 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 273 
 
 use, more or less, a man makes of atmosphere. A 
 power of calculating the effect of atmosphere in effect 
 is one of the great attendants of the highest genius. 
 It was the characteristic of Phidias, in sculpture; and 
 Michael Angelo, Titian, Rubens, and others, in painting. 
 
 There exists a beautiful story of Phidias and Alca- 
 menes, his pupil, which will illustrate the meaning; 
 they were both employed in a public work, and their 
 works were each to be placed high. Phidias, calculating 
 the effect at such a distance, regulated his execution 
 accordingly. Alcamenes, less experienced, finished to 
 look well near. In the public exhibition everybocly 
 preferred the w^ork of Alcamenes. Phidias, confident 
 of his principles, smiled at the vulgar admiration of 
 the people ; and when they touched it with their fingers, 
 and exclaimed 'how delightfully smooth !' looked another 
 way, I doubt not, to conceal his contempt: at last came 
 the time for elevation; the respective works were duly 
 hoisted up, and the work of Phidias fell into its pro- 
 portions, the atmosphere softening its dashing execution, 
 — while the work of Alcamenes, fitted only for the room, 
 became totally lost and inefficient. 
 
 In Rembrandt and Reynolds, surface is too artificial; 
 in Rubens it does not predominate; but in Titian, it is 
 perfection; unobtrusive, but existing,— relishing but 
 retiring. There it is, nobody knows how ; but take it 
 from 'i'itian, half the charm goes with it, and yet it is 
 hardly perceived, except by its consequences. Remem- 
 ber, there is not a more hideous character for a picture 
 or a fresco to have, than that of a poor, starved, thin, 
 watery and flat impasto. 
 
 So important did the great Venetians consider this 
 part of the art, that Lanzi says, " No man ever got the 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Venetian surface who was not bred up in Venice from 
 a boy." 
 
 The imitators of Reynolds endeavoured to get this 
 beauty in their pictures by all sorts of solid materials, 
 never considering it was not the solidity of the vehicle, 
 but the manner of using the vehicle. The richest and 
 most solid impasta can be got by taking the colour 
 half dry and touching into it, thus half dragging up 
 what was put on before, and embodying both in one 
 rich gummy surface; this requires that rare quality — 
 genius. The continual outcry of imbecility is, that the 
 Italians had better reds, better yellows, better oils, and 
 better brushes, than the moderns : this is a great 
 delusion. Titian got his colours from the colour shops 
 in the Rialto, as we get ours from Brown's ; and depend 
 on it, if Apelles or Titian were living now, they would 
 paint just as good works with our brushes and colours 
 as with their own. Sir Humphry Davy says, that the 
 finest works of the Greeks and Italians were executed 
 in the ochres, reds, blacks, whites, and blues, we all 
 now use. 
 
 Reynolds, from a craving for superior excellence, was 
 at the mercy of every new freak — fancying one day, 
 one material was the thing, and the next, trying a new 
 one; to shew you his extreme readiness to try every 
 thing, Mr. Prince Hoare told me he once carried him 
 a colour in a shell from India, a beautiful purple, — he 
 was glazing those three angels embracing each other, 
 — he dipped a brush at once into it, and used it ; the 
 next day, it had all flown. In reality, the Old Masters 
 had by no means so many advantages as ourselves: 
 Titian painted often on table-cloths ; Rubens's pictures 
 are often seamed ; canvass was then narrow and coarse. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 275 
 
 It is astonishing how incredulous people are on this 
 score, and how inclined people are to believe the great 
 artists, had some concealed secret and touch of pro- 
 ducing their excellence. 
 
 I remember once an artist asking another what 
 vehicle he used in painting a celebrated picture before 
 their eyes, the artist replied with great simplicity, 
 
 linseed oil," which was the fact. " Come, come," 
 said the other, " that won't do." Here was the artist 
 himself, alive and able to answer, distinctly dis- 
 believed; how is it likely to expect we can agree about 
 the vehicle of those who lived three hundred years 
 before us*? It is also curious to see how imbecile and 
 weak men dwell upon the importance of their vehicle, 
 how every fault is palliated by their want of some 
 spirit or some oil, that would have done the very thing 
 aspired after. There is nothing young men so often 
 " lay the flattering unction to their souls " about, so 
 fallaciously, idly, and viciously, as this. 
 
 In a very curious little book, by Boschini, 16G4, 
 called " The Rich Mines of Painting," there is given 
 a most interesting account of Titian's manner of paint- 
 ing. Boschini had it from the young Palma, who 
 had it from his father, who knew Titian well, and had 
 seen him paint. 
 
 "Titian was strictly believed to be the greatest painter 
 of those who practised, his pencil always imparted life 
 and expression. 
 
 " The younger Palma told me, so called to distin- 
 guish him from the old Palma, who had the good 
 fortune to enjoy the learned instructions of Titian, 
 that Titian based his pictures with such a mass of 
 colour, that they served, as he said, as a base to build 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 on after; and that he has seen him with bold touches 
 and penciled masses of colour, and sometimes with 
 a mass of red earth (light red) purely, which became 
 half-tint; sometimes with touches of white, with the 
 same pencil, tints of red, black, and yellow, he gave 
 the force of daylight; in four pencillings he gave the 
 promise of a beautiful figure on these admirable prin- 
 ciples." 
 
 Reynolds used to be always saying to Sir George 
 Beaumont, "He could not tell how Titian got his flesh 
 so warm without yellow." 
 
 Here is evidence yellow was used. 
 
 After having laid these precious foundations, he put 
 his pictures aside, and left them several months without 
 seeing them; and when he wished to touch them again, 
 he examined them with rigorous scrutiny, as if they 
 were the productions of his greatest enemy, in order 
 to find every defect, and lay open every thing which 
 might not be agreeable to a refined taste — like a surgeon 
 treating the diseased; he reduced all excess, corrected 
 arms, legs, or feet, and so working, he brought his 
 pictures to the symmetry of beautiful nature and art; 
 and after doing this, he proceeded to others, if they were 
 dry ; and so, from time to time, he covered with living 
 flesh those works of such essence, reducing them to such 
 perfection by continually retouching, that only breath 
 was wanting ; he never did a figure at once, for he was 
 in the habit of saying, " He who sung like an impro- 
 visatoire, never produced verses which could be referred 
 to as authority." 
 
 " But the last seasoning of all," says Boschini, " was 
 given by touches day after day, by uniting the high 
 lights with rubbings of his thumb, melting them into 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 277 
 
 the half-tint, and uniting one tint with another ; some- 
 times with all his fingers dashing in a dark touch in 
 some angle to give force ; at other times with a soften- 
 ing of red, like drops of blood, which gave life to some 
 superficial part, and he thus went on perfecting his 
 breathing figures." 
 
 Palma assured me on his faith, that, in finishing, 
 Titian always preferred his fingers to brushes. 
 
 In another very curious and valuable book, by Bo^- 
 chini (1660), written in the Venetian dialect, called 
 " La Carta del Navegar Pittoresco," is a most remark- 
 able line, which describes the whole process of a 
 Venetian painter. 
 
 Macchia, Colpizza, Impasta, Unisce e tenze 
 
 — flat laying in, striking on lights, surface, uniting, 
 and glazing. This book is full of interesting matter. 
 
 In the former work some capital touches are given of 
 Paul Veronese's method, from his own son's account of 
 the process of his father. 
 
 First of all, Paul Veronese disposed the proportions 
 of his figures according to the size of the canvass ; he 
 then touched in the flesh, draperies, architecture, and 
 every thing in a beautiful half tint; all the masses 
 being thus disposed of in half-tint, viz. figures, orna- 
 ments, architecture, landscape, animals, and every thing 
 in its proper place, he then touched flesh, lights and 
 darks, with great force of pencil, but leaving the half- 
 tint as first prepared. 
 
 Boschini says, if anybody asks me how I know these 
 things, not being old enough; I reply, I knew, and 
 worked with Gabriel his son, father of the one called 
 Joseph. I have heard him repeatedly relate it from his 
 own mouth. 
 
278 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Paul Veronese's favourite colours, in flesh were lake, 
 and minium ; and Bassan used lake (lac) and asphaltum; 
 the Venetians got (lac) lake from India, as we do now. 
 
 In the same way, as the above descriptions come 
 direct from the great men themselves, I can give you 
 authentic intelligence from Vandyke's own painting- 
 room. 
 
 An old lady of eighty sat to Richardson ; she, when 
 a girl, had sat to Vandyke. She told Eichardson, 
 Vandyke's pictures looked whiter and fresher than at 
 present; Richardson told Hudson, Hudson told Rey- 
 nolds, Reynolds toid Northcote, and Northcote told me. 
 So that I can give you positive information up to 
 Vandyke; and it is curious to calculate how easily, if 
 these records of conversation were kept, positive facts 
 might come down from Cimabue, or from the Greeks. 
 The Greeks might remark to Cimabue, he to Giotto, 
 Giotto to Taddeo Gaddi, he to his son, who might tell 
 Cennini, so on clearly to Masacco, Lionardo, Raffaelle, 
 Vasari, and Michael Angelo. People might tell the 
 Caracci, who well remembered Michael Angelo and 
 Titian, others tell Rubens, who knew the Caracci; 
 Rubens, Vandyke, Vandyke, the old lady, she, Richard- 
 son, and then from Hudson to Reynolds and Northcote, 
 he to me, and I to you. Thus, it is clear, if everybody 
 kept journals of their minds, and all they hear authentic 
 in their time, great benefit must accrue to art and 
 science in future generations. I do not mean journals 
 of trifles, or which way the wind is, or where you 
 supped, or when you took a walk to the Junction 
 Canal; but of the remarkable sayings of great men you 
 know, the first dawn of thought on a deep subject, 
 embryo sketches of embryo ideas, etc. Coypel, in his 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 279 
 
 admirable Lectures, very seldom met with, thus connects 
 us with the Caracci; he knew people who knew them 
 and their pupils, Dominichino, Guido, etc. 
 
 Reynolds certainly made great use of Coypel. It will 
 be a useful lesson to contrast the i)ractice of that giant 
 in art, Rubens, with another, Titian, his reverse in every 
 way. The saying of Titian, relating to the little value of 
 improvisatoire painting or poetry, convinces me it came 
 from him. His whole practice was the opposite to the 
 improvisatori of art, Luca Giordano, Pietto di Cortona ; 
 but Rubens is an evidence a man may be one, and yet 
 put forth sterling thoughts. Though no improvisatore 
 can have the depth, finish, intensity, and refinement of 
 Titian, yet he may have brilliancy, power and attraction. 
 
 Proverbs are generally the result of the accumulated 
 experience of a country ; and stories of great men, if true 
 or false, should always be considered; because, even if 
 false, they would not have been invented had not their 
 peculiarity tended to illustrate the known character of 
 him to whom they refer. 
 
 Titian's practice, as you see, was to perfect by degrees; 
 Rubens evidently to perfect at once ; he did not keep 
 pictures for years ])y him, dwell on them, muse on them, 
 dream of them; he sketched, painted, and completed. 
 
 One evening, after a day's work, Rubens left his 
 painting-room, to take his exercise, as he did always 
 daily. His pupils began to play, and knocked down a 
 picture Rubens had been working on, and rubbed out 
 the very shoulder he had just finished. They all in 
 turn tried to repaint it; but all failing, it was proposed 
 to call in Vandyke, who was working, and not playing, 
 in the next room; Vandyke set it all right, and it was 
 earnestly hoped Rubens would not l)e able to discover 
 the difference. 
 
280 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The next morning, Rubens, on standing back to look 
 at the effect, said, " that shoulder looks better than it 
 did last night ;" the story was then told him, and he 
 shewed a predilection for Vandyke ever after. 
 
 Now, we learn from these two things: first, that 
 after his picture was settled, he finished it part by part, 
 regulating the effect by the sketch ; and that, after 
 leaving work for the day, he did not return to his room 
 till the morning; and then forgetting what he wanted 
 to do, was a, better judge of what he had done: the 
 knowledge how to manage the caprices of the mind, 
 and give the judgment fair play, is a very important 
 knowledge. 
 
 In all these glorious men, one thing must strike the 
 student, viz. their incessant industry; whether Greeks 
 or Italians, their application was unwearied; their 
 pursuit, their rapture, and success, were only another 
 step for a higher achievement. 
 
 Though gifted by God in the highest degree, they 
 knew their hands could only develope the power of 
 their minds by incessant practice. 
 
 In an interesting little book, published within a few 
 years after Rubens' death, it will be delightful to see 
 his daily habits. He rose regularly at four, and made 
 it a law of his life to begin the day by prayer; after 
 which, he went to work, and before breakfast made 
 those beautiful sketches, known by the name of his 
 breakfast sketches, always having in the house an 
 educated person, who read to him Livy, Plutarch, or 
 Virgil. As work was his great happiness, he was very 
 abstemious, that he might not be prevented painting all 
 day. He worked on till five, when he mounted his 
 favourite horse, and rode round the ramparts at Antwerp ; 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 281 
 
 at his return, he found his friends assembled to supper: 
 his chief relaxation was riding, or studying his fine 
 collection of gems, or reading; and as he painted every 
 thing from nature, and painted horses often, he had 
 some of the finest breed in his stables. He rarely 
 visited, except when requested to do so by artists, in 
 whose works he always found something to praise. 
 
 There is nothing so delightful to us all as these traits 
 of private habits in great men, the effect they have in 
 stimulating the well-disposed and ambitious youth is 
 extraordinary. Remember, the greatest men have done 
 their greatest works before thirty. Never suffer youth 
 to be an excuse for inadequacy ; if you do at nineteen 
 what others have not done till thirty, you are the greatest 
 man. At sixteen, Alexander commanded a wing at 
 Cheronea ; Napoleon fought his immortal Italian 
 campaign at twenty-six; Raffaelle entered the Vatican 
 about the same age; and I have heard that Vandyke 
 painted his finest head at eighteen. 
 
 One cannot help considering the beautiful piety of 
 one so highly gifted as Rubens, without contrasting it 
 with the conceited infidelity and impudent scepticism 
 one has witnessed occasionally in the most imbecile 
 in the art. 
 
 Reynolds said, " the painter who looked forward 
 to Sunday as a relief, would never be a great painter." 
 I reply, the painter whose capacity was hindered from 
 being developed by devoting one day in seven to 
 meditate on his moral condition, would never have 
 been great had there been no Sabbath at all. It is 
 impossible not to conclude that those whom God has 
 most endowed with genius, have been always the most 
 pious and the most conscious of their imperfections. 
 
282 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 We now come to another glorious part of this glorious 
 art, Execution," of which there is no people estimate 
 so lightly, talk of so ignorantly, or know so little about, 
 as the English. 
 
 It must be admitted that painting is altogether a 
 deceptio visus. It is the effect of objects as they seem 
 to the eye at the given distance where the whole can 
 be most conveniently taken in. It must be admitted 
 that atmosphere intervening between one object and 
 another renders the most distant more and more invisible, 
 till it is lost sight of altogether. The maximum of 
 distance to see the object given, is where that object 
 can be best seen as a whole, and that should regulate 
 the distance for which every object should be painted. 
 Now, as atmosphere unites, softens, and flattens, the 
 greatest geniuses in the art, both of sculpture and 
 painting, have aimed at producing the effect of objects 
 on the eye, by touching the leading points of those 
 objects with their pencil, and leaving the atmosphere, 
 as in the case of ' surface,' to unite and soften the 
 separate touches into union and finish. 
 
 There is nothing, therefore, at which the ignorant 
 are so astonished as, after having been delighted at the 
 proper point, when they approach and find the cause of 
 their rapture to be a few rough touches of the brush — 
 they put up their fingers and express bitter anger; but to 
 the real judge of painting, nothing can be more enchant- 
 ing than the difference between the effect and the cause; 
 and the evidence of a sound taste, in fact, is always 
 proved, where the collector prefers execution to high 
 finish. 
 
 The man who has no power to combine extreme points 
 in his mind, rests feebly on detail, and loves to gloat 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 283 
 
 on the individualities of which the masses are composed; 
 he cannot comprehend in his mind a whole, and he 
 imagines that by following one detail after another, the 
 leading points will come of course, though, when he 
 has completed his combination, to his astonishment, the 
 general effect is utterly confused, and not to be discovered. 
 The criterion of merit with many is the end of the 
 forefinger; if a picture be smooth, they call it complete, 
 how^ever imperfect may be the imitation : whereas the 
 roughest sketch of Vandyke or Velasquez is more 
 finished than the smoothest thing of Vanderwerf or 
 Dow. Roughness of actual surface has nothing to do 
 whatever with softness of effect: a picture may be as 
 rough as a plastered wall or a pumice-stone, and yet 
 at the given distance have the softness of a peach; a 
 picture may be full of distinct and decided touches, and 
 some parts appear to be neglected to a microscopic eye, 
 but at the proper distance look completely the reflection 
 of nature. 
 
 To the ignorant person, these disjointed touches look 
 like haste, carelessness, or idleness; to an artist, they 
 are known to be the result of the most refined know- 
 ledge and the deepest thinking: for, let the ignorant 
 remember, that every touch of a great artist on the 
 leading points of any object is a separate thought, and 
 the marks of cliisel and Ijrush in the greatest masters 
 are evidence of extension of view and genius — 
 
 Artificial strife 
 
 Lives in these toiiclics, livelier than life. 
 
 While polishing up objects, till the whole is lost in a 
 mass of insipid smoothness, are the marks of mean 
 minds of little extension. David, Denncr, Mengs, and 
 
284 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Vanderwerf, will not be successfully contrasted "with 
 Phidias and Titian, Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, 
 Rubens and Velasquez, Eeynolds and Wilson. Execu- 
 tion of the chisel or brush is the sure test of originality: 
 the Venus was evidently original ; the Apollo had, from 
 its smoothness, the look of a copy. A copyist, not 
 being inspired by original thinking, cannot give to his 
 chisel or pencil that air of the touch accompanying the 
 thought which an original work always has. 
 
 If at the exact point where you can best see the 
 whole picture, and the whole of every figure from head 
 to foot, — the expression, the form, the colour, the light 
 and shadow, appear finished as reality; if the imagina- 
 tion is affected, — what right have you for a subsequent 
 examination, as a matter of curiosity, to look close into 
 the mode, and complain it is rough or smooth? you 
 ought to be delighted to see means so inadequate pro- 
 duce effects so extraordinary: is this the w^ay to judge 
 of an art which is not like sculpture the object itself, 
 but the effect of the object on the eye, produced by 
 means apparently totally inadequate to the end, and 
 which ought to raise your wonder exactly in proportion 
 as you ascertain the slightness, the apparent dispro- 
 portion, of the means employed to attain the end? 
 
 What would be thought of a lover who, after having 
 been smitten by a beauteous look at that given point of 
 distance where the effect of the lovely features could 
 best be seen, should shrink back on approaching her, 
 and " Bless me, my love, you have pores in your skin, 
 and down on your lovely cheeks, and little veins in your 
 luscious eyes, which I could not see when my heart 
 was pierced; you are quite disagreeable; you are not 
 finished ; I cannot propose under such horrid im- 
 pressions." 
 
ON PAINTING 
 
 285 
 
 It is exactly the same in art; a critic has no more 
 right to find fault with a picture where the effect of 
 smoothness is given by roughness, than a lover has 
 because the softest face of a beautiful woman is not 
 as soft apparently, however soft in reality, on close 
 inspection, as where it can be best seen. 
 
 I remember an old lady being astonished at the Duke 
 of Wellington's Velasquez, and expressing great delight, 
 and then looking close in, and saying in disgust, " Why, 
 it is painted for the distance I see." 
 
 Reynolds calls " execution," very finely, the genius 
 of mechanical performance. Yet says he, " he that 
 does not express particulars, expresses nothing." 
 
 But there are in all objects great characteristic 
 distinctions that press on the senses, and affect the 
 imagination ; these the man of comprehension views, 
 sees, transfers, and hits off by touches, leaving the 
 aggregate of useless particulars to the imagination of 
 the spectator: while the man of narrow understanding 
 dwells only on the aggregate of particulars, deceiving 
 himself that the leading points will come. Never was 
 a greater delusion. 
 
 I do not mean, says Sir Joshua again, " a trick 
 formed by guess ; but that science which, by a profound 
 knowledge of ends and means, discovers the shortest 
 way to its purpose." 
 
 On the other hand, caution is necessary to be incul- 
 cated to the youth, if he believes this execution is the 
 beginning ; it is the end, — it is the consequence of the 
 severest individual correctness. He who begins by 
 execution wall end by emptiness ; because you leave 
 daubs for touches, because you are rough, because you 
 neglect particulars and talk generally of generalizing, 
 
286 
 
 haydon's lectuhes 
 
 it will not follow you are a great genius, or that your 
 objects are properly represented. Never was such a 
 mistake: it is the child running before it can walk, 
 and we all know the result. 
 
 Rubens is the greatest in execution, but it is too 
 palpable; Tintoretto is a giant, but he is too careless; 
 Vandyke is truly delicate ; but to Titian, and him alone, 
 you must turn for the perfection of execution, stopping 
 at the exact point, and conveying the impression of the 
 object so predominantly, that the execution is lost in 
 the effect. 
 
 One of the purest examples I can recommend, was 
 the Diana and Acteon, at the late Bridgewater House ; 
 though there are great defects in drawing, yet the colour 
 and execution are perfect. 
 
 Titian has the air of breeding, that fears to intrude ; 
 Rubens the frankness of genius, which is careless of 
 offending. 
 
 The softness of the touch in Diana is suitable to the 
 loveliness of the subject; the very water bubbles as if 
 timid of discovery, and the Nymphs shrink as if there 
 were danger in the very air. 
 
 At this period of his life, he was not master of the 
 figure, and in form it is not what it ought to be.^ 
 
 With what companions have I studied this exquisite 
 work ; with Beaumont, the friend of Reynolds, Garrick, 
 Gainsborough, Wilkie, Davy, Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 
 * Reynolds, Discourse IV. quotes Vasari, to shew what Michael 
 Angelo said of Titian, after their visit to him in the Belvidere, viz. 
 that it was a pity the Venetians did not adopt a better manner of 
 study, — but he did not quote all ; for, in continuance, Michael 
 Angelo certainly infers colour and design can be united, and his 
 own assistance to Sebastian, in Lazarus, proves he thought so. 
 
ON PAINTINO. 
 
 287 
 
 and the founder of our National Gallery; it was not 
 possible to believe without witnessing it, the exceeding 
 delight of Sir George: there was not a tone, a touch, 
 a principle, that he did not feel to his heart's core, ay, 
 his heart of hearts; he relished the execution, the 
 colour, every thing; and eloquently, and like a painter, 
 increased one's enjoyment; his loss was a loss never 
 to be supplied, his society was a pleasure not now to 
 be estimated. 
 
 To the Titians in this collection, and to the liberality 
 of the late Duke of Sutherland, I owe all my notions of 
 colour and effect, however imperfect. I used to mix up 
 tints and carry them every Wednesday, hold them close 
 uj) to the Four Ages, by Titian, and ascertain scale and 
 tint, that no copying on earth would so impress. I then 
 returned, and proceeded with my own picture: this is 
 the real plan, viz. to have an original picture of your own 
 in hand, and regularly go, before beginning, and look at 
 the great masters, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Raflaelle, 
 but never an inferior; then, after dwelling and studying, 
 go to your own work. The sympathy becomes enchant- 
 ing; you will thus feel beauties of the great masters, 
 by linding in the model before your eyes the very 
 tints they aimed at and got; you will perceive in their 
 efforts the very things you see in your model ; you 
 will hourly, daily, drink their excellence, and be roused 
 to extraordinary eilbrt to rival or outstrip them if pos- 
 sible; possible it is, because they are but mortals, and 
 great and beautiful as they arc in their effects, how 
 feeble, how flat, how ineflicient, by the splendour of 
 nature ! 
 
 What a wonderful creation is the world! how beau- 
 tiful in ornament, how intensely deep in principle, how 
 
288 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 simple in arrangement; how singularly delightful, that 
 the elements of our physical being should thus afford 
 materials for the exercise of our intellectual faculties. 
 
 Surely, having an original picture to put into practice, 
 what you discover in the works of the great men, with 
 nature by your guide — and a higher guide, is a much 
 more likely method to guide your eye to see nature 
 rightly than mere copying; besides your vanity, the 
 mortal is flattered by the air of originality with which 
 you put your acquired knowledge into practice, and you 
 finish your first picture with an air of independence 
 that is the surest foundation of greater efforts. 
 
 Take my advice and never copy, except in making 
 coloured studies in oil, of the conduct, management, and 
 composition of celebrated works ; but never dwell for 
 months in poring over great works, dulling all your 
 original powers of thinking, and leaving off less capable, 
 as Reynolds says, than when you begun. 
 
 In concluding these remarks on Execution, remember 
 that every touch of a great master, in imitating nature, is 
 a separate and distinct thought ; not put on the canvass, 
 as the vulgar believe, in haste, but after the maturest 
 thinking and comprehension of the object imitated; and 
 in that very situation where at the given distance it 
 will by the help of atmosphere give the impression to 
 the spectator of the same feeling as the painter himself 
 possessed when he put it down; therefore, as I have 
 said, if the touches be rough and distinct, and separate 
 when you look near, but the object represented looks 
 soft and natural and perfectly effective at the point for 
 seeing it, rely on it that imitation is based on the highest 
 principles, — these effective touches are always the guide 
 in deciding on the originality of a picture, — it is the pro- 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 289 
 
 duction of a great genius; for it possesses evidence of 
 the highest character, viz. the power first of seeing, 
 comprehending, and transferring the leading points in 
 the effect of objects, to convey thought by that imita- 
 tion as a whole, when all the details are involved 
 without attracting, and all the leading points without 
 omission. 
 
 With respect to the instrument of execution, the 
 pencil, that " balm of hurt minds," never use a flat one. 
 It is the paltriest excuse for a feelde touch, and was 
 introduced by Lawrence. I remember no such brush 
 in Reynolds' time, nor did the old masters use it, except 
 in glazing or spreading. It is a mere help to do what 
 you ought to do by the decision of an unerring hand ; 
 it is following the example of painters of doors, who, 
 unable to imitate the different kinds of wood by skill 
 and practice, help themselves with wiry flat brushes, to 
 save time, and palliate their own inefhciency. 
 
 Pardon this bit of technical detail, but be assured it 
 is not beneath you. 
 
 Having thus given you the leading principles of 
 Colour, Execution, and Impasta, as means of imitating 
 reality, I will conclude with Light and Shadow; and 
 Light and Dark are as much regulated by the great law 
 of association as colour, and, if not the most important, 
 are certainly as important as any of the great requisites 
 of the art in imitation. 
 
 Light and shadow are one thing, light and dark 
 another. Rembrandt is the great master of light 
 and shadow; here the lights are the effect of real 
 lights, and the shadows of real shadows, produced by 
 the direction of the lights upon the ol)jects; and the 
 Venetians are the model for light and dark, that is, the 
 
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290 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 production of the effect of shadows, by real dark colours, 
 and lights by light ones, though both are in the same 
 light, indeed, in one mass of light, without any shadow 
 at all. This is a magnificent artifice. 
 
 Nothing is more sunny than the scheme of the Vene- 
 tians, nothing more awful than the principles of 
 Rembrandt. 
 
 Our great master in these points, Sir Joshua, has 
 laid it down, and no man that ever adorned the art had 
 more right to do so; that the most advisable and general 
 principle was, to make one quarter of your picture as 
 light as possible, one quarter as dark as possible, and 
 the remaining half in half-tint. 
 
 Let this be the law, to be varied from, as the subject 
 requires it should ; more light, more dark, as the subject 
 is sunny, or sublime. 
 
 Rembrandt, for all subjects, has scarcely an eighth 
 for light, and every thing is sacrificed to this bit of 
 brilliancy ; but it is too particular, and as I told you, 
 genius as he was, by the great men in the Louvre he 
 was demolished. 
 
 The lights and darks of a picture are regulated just 
 like colour. There may be three of each at obtuse and 
 acute angles, but never at right. The lights sometimes 
 go across the picture from corner to corner, sometimes 
 wave down in a serpentine curve, sometimes the great 
 men have a mass of light in the centre, and surrounded 
 it by dark, and sometimes a mass of the deepest dark 
 or shadow, surrounded by light. 
 
 But the subject should regulate every thing, and be 
 subservient always to the nature, character, expression, 
 and object of the composition. There is not a finer 
 example in the world for arrangement of colour, light 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 291 
 
 and shadow, composition or execution, than the Cartoon 
 of Ananias: it arose in Raffaelle's mind from the nature 
 of the su])jcct, and ought to have proved to Reynolds' 
 understanding, the perfect compatibility of all parts of 
 the art. 
 
 Zeuxis, among the Greeks, as I have shewed you 
 from Quintilian, discovered the principle of light and 
 shadow. In the Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Venetian, 
 and English schools, I refer you for the most powerful 
 examples: — how to find the art of spreading light by 
 light objects, and dark by dark ones; how to give 
 fulness of effect by losing all contour in dark, or light 
 backgrounds ; how to make some objects sharp against 
 a sunny cloud, and some lost and melting into them ; 
 how, in fact, to ascertain the enchanting artifices of 
 conveying thought by a little brush, a little oil, and a 
 little colour, used in imitating nature by light, shadow, 
 colour, drawing, expression, combined in a bewitching 
 way, no one part obtruding before the other, but all 
 used with such skill, so that the thought should be 
 conveyed without the means being remembered, has 
 been the object of all my life to ascertain, and the object 
 of all these Lectures to convey to you. Of such power 
 is light and shadow alone independent of all colour or 
 form, that without cither it can ])e made to excite feel- 
 ings of awe and mystery; imagination comes in, and 
 you people the awful void. 
 
 Breadth is a very significant word in art, and expres- 
 sive of comprehension in seeing and feeling. Titian 
 illustrated breadth by a bunch of grapes, a very excellent 
 example to illustrate. Breadth, remember, does not 
 mean emptiness; the essentials ought not to interrupt 
 breadth, but to be comlnnrd in it. Painting is the 
 
 u2 
 
292 
 
 haydon's lecturfs 
 
 effect of the object, and where all its parts cannot be 
 seen: Sculpture is the object itself, and none of its parts 
 ought to be omitted , because it can be seen like nature 
 in various lights, and thus becomes an object for paint- 
 ing. There is no doubt that breadth without detail, 
 proves more comprehensive than detail without breadth, 
 but we are not contending for a balance of evils, but a 
 principle of perfection; a mind that cannot comprehend 
 the two, is not the the highest mind, for all the greatest 
 minds in the art have combined the two. 
 
 Phidias did not think the roll of essential skin in 
 Jupiter's breast was inconsistent with the highest prin- 
 ciples of form ; nor did Titian, or Michael Angelo, 
 believe the breadth of a body destroyed the correct con- 
 struction of its parts, — these are sophistries to excuse 
 ignorance;*' the breadth of Reynolds was often empti- 
 ness. But in Opie, and all his imitators for some years 
 after Reynolds' death, the splashing emptiness of effect 
 was dreadful; no artist can have any idea of the exhibi- 
 tions of 1804 and 1805. Yet Opie had a powerful 
 mind, and a perception of what was sound in principle. 
 
 * Certainly the most enchanting painter in the Louvre, was 
 Coreggio; he gave a bewitching air and interest to the simplest 
 and sweetest expressions of nature. His surface reminded us 
 strongly of Reynolds; his forms were incorrect, his light and 
 shadow artlessly exquisite, his colour pure and fascinating, his 
 execution beautiful, but something like Reynolds, as if we should 
 say in literature, ^' they had never been taught to write." It had 
 not the perfect mastery of brush, nor the perfect knowledge of the 
 object, displayed by Rubens and Titian. 
 
 His marriage of St. Catherine made the Raffaelle look hard, his 
 divine mind was the mind of an angel, and his works seemed the 
 production of some heavenly spirit, who had drooped its wings in 
 its flight over the earth, and stopped a short time to enchant us 
 with visions of a purer and more smiling existence. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 293 
 
 In my early life, when every word of encouragement 
 was delightful, Bome endeavoured to ridicule me out of 
 my plan of dissection, while Opie said, they know you 
 are right; were I to begin the world again, I would do 
 as you are doing. But why did he not begin then'^ 
 Tintoretto learned to draw at forty years, and Titian 
 later. If health and vigour of mind still exist, what is 
 to hinder a man of eighty years from remedying his 
 deficiencies'? nothing, but want of self-will. 
 
 I am no friend to that lachrymose croaking about time 
 of life; I am just as able now, at fifty-eight years, to set 
 to work on a new acquirement as at eighteen years, and 
 perhaps more able. Was I to begin the world again," 
 said Reynolds; of course he would do all sorts of things 
 he had neglected to do, and follow Michael Angelo's 
 steps. Now, he had been saying this forty years, 
 why did he not at once, like Tintoretto, write over the 
 door of his painting- room, " The day to Titian, the 
 night to Michael Angelo"?" and in six months, we 
 should have had his liml)s more like legs and thighs 
 than nine pins. Why *^ because he only had the con- 
 sciousness of imperfection without sufficient power to 
 impel the remedy. After lamenting thus to Burke, he 
 would sit down to a game of whist, or sojourn to the 
 club, to listen to the declamations of Johnson. Let every 
 man begin at once, not to-morrow, but to-day, not by 
 and by at four, but now, at six in the morning, or as 
 soon as it is light. No, no; Lawrence never would have 
 executed a great historical picture, Chantrey, a grand 
 heroic statue, nor Reynolds have become the Michael 
 Angelo of the eighteenth century, had he began the 
 world again ; he would have done precisely what he 
 did when he began it before: these lamentations of 
 
294 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 mispassed time are only artful palliatives to conscious 
 defects. 
 
 It is a refutable sophistry to say, the higher walk 
 addresses the mind, the lower, the senses; the higher 
 walk addresses the mind through the senses, and if the 
 senses are shocked by the wretchedness of the imitation, 
 and the want of power in the instrument of producing 
 reality, the thoughts conveyed are not more impressive, 
 because the means are inefficient — they are less so — 
 and every thought, poetical, epic, pathetic, or comical, 
 will have ten times more effect on the imagination in 
 proportion to the abstract perfection of the reality 
 of imitating the objects used to convey them. 
 
 Study the great works of the great men for ever, but 
 never as a substitute, always as an assistant to nature. 
 
 Never hold any communion in early life with those 
 who set out despising the illustrious dead, and you 
 will find many — don't argue, fly; and above all things 
 study alone. I can always predict the fate of any 
 student who shares a painting-room with another for 
 the sake of society. God help him who feels such a 
 want with such a delightful vision in his brain, or at 
 his side, by day and by night, as Painting! 
 
 Remember the great principle of Apelles — * ' Nulla 
 dies sine linea;" and the more glorious axiom of Napo- 
 leon, — " line heure perdue est une chance pour le 
 malheur de Tavenir." And let Napoleon be a warn- 
 ing, that unless your pursuits are virtuous, unless you 
 make your object one the Deity must approve, your 
 genius will be a curse, your loss of fame a demon, and 
 all your ideas and all your estimation of time, useless 
 on earth and despised in heaven. 
 
 Jf you -have genius, industry alone will make you 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 295 
 
 ready for its inspirations; if you have not, industry at 
 least will give you knowledge. 
 
 A young man may bring himself to revolt in feeling 
 at a lost hour, as if it were an unpardonable crime; 
 but he must watch himself hour after hour, and every 
 night before going to rest, balance the accounts of his 
 day's employment. If he do this sincerely, if he put 
 down every hour he has really worked or really idled, 
 how long he actually was breakfasting, dining; and 
 sleeping the last night, he will be astonished at the 
 habit they will engender. We should all remember 
 that a man who spends two hours a day at his food, 
 has lost eight years when he has painted fifty; and he 
 who begins at four, like liubens, will, in fifty years' 
 practice, have gained in painting over him who does 
 not begin till eight, sixteen years! Great men have 
 divided their time into threes — eight hours study, eight 
 hours sleep, eight hours relaxation. Eight hours sleep 
 is too much. I should say in youth twelve hours study, 
 six hours sleep, and six hours relaxation. This is a 
 fair division. 
 
 The greatest geniuses, however conscious of their 
 high calling, never forget they are mortals! CtEsar, 
 Alexander, Wellington, and Napoleon, always remem- 
 bered, in all thei^" movements, their men must eat. 
 
 It is the pretender who affects to be above the frail- ^\ 
 ties of mortality, and therefore falls its first victim. ' 
 Always look temptation " in the face," and never shirk 
 it. There is no being takes so many shapes as Miss 
 Mary Idleness. She is a beautiful devil, with lus- 
 trous teeth, raven hair, black eyes, and a nose and 
 cheeks, chin, and dimple lips and forehead not to be 
 mentioned; and the worst is, whatever she proposes is 
 
296 
 
 LECTURES ON PAINTING. 
 
 alvtays for your good. If the day is sunny, would it 
 not do you a great deal of good, she says, laying a 
 lovely hand on your shoulder as you set your palette, 
 to walk to Hampton Court and study the Cartoons'? 
 or might it not add vastly to your knowledge to saunter 
 to the Exhibition'? What harm can there be in sailing 
 to Richmond; there are such fine backgrounds in the 
 way! or are not the streets a beautiful study of cha- 
 racter*? A brush must not be always in your hand. 
 The mind, the mind ! says she to a young Tyro, that 's 
 the thing ; and directly the day is given up without a 
 struggle. 
 
 Your only protector, and the noblest stimulant to . 
 sound habits, is "a ruling passion;" and this once 
 possessed, in its full intensity, defies the seductions, 
 the calumnies, the oppression and injustice of life. It ' 
 closes your eyes at night with aspirations for its triumph ; ' 
 it haunts your dreams, and flashes on your brain at the 
 first dawn of morning thought; provided always, re- 
 member, it be noble and virtuous, and that its success 
 must elevate and not disgrace your country or your 
 species; that it will bear the scrutiny of your con- ' 
 science, and that like Rubens' it can be prayed for 
 without a crime, — then it becomes the greatest bless- 
 ing of God. 
 
 "Whatever abstracts the mind," says Reynolds, 
 " from sensual gratification, must advance, in some 
 measure, the dignity of our nature." 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 ON INVENTION. 
 
l.ECTURE VII. 
 
 ON INVENTION. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Invention in poetry or painting is divided 
 into epic, dramatic, and historic; and though on any 
 sul)ject in either art, it is ahnost impossible to sepa- 
 rate them, ^vhere human beings are the instruments, yet 
 the definition is judicious, and we owe this judicious 
 distinction to Fuzeli. 
 
 The epic rehites to any high and abstract principle, 
 which elevates our nature in thought or action morally ; 
 or to any power, natural or supernatural, of element, 
 flood, pestilence, or earthquake, to resist which is im- 
 possible, physically; and the highest species of Epic, 
 the sublime, is when the mind, soaring above the 
 miserahle inefTiciencies of the body, defies the destruc- 
 tion of both for any impassioned affection, noble 
 sentiment, grand object, or great patriotic principle. 
 The Dramatic, illustrates some deep human emotion, 
 by feature, form, and action; and the Historic identifies 
 somes illustrious fact; though a dramatic passion may 
 be sublime and dramatic, yet I question if the purely 
 sublime in poetry and painting too, be not where the 
 
300 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 scenery predominates over the man, or at least divides 
 empire. 
 
 These three definitions are again divided into the 
 invention illustrative, the lowest order, or mere realiza- 
 tion by form, expression, and colour, of the actual 
 description of the poet or historian. The invention 
 incidental, that is, inventing an original circumstance, 
 but not actually described, in order to add truth to the 
 description, and enforce in a stronger manner the pro- 
 bability of the event selected to be painted; and lastly, 
 the invention intuitive, the highest order of invention 
 in art, — v^here the subject is invented, the expressions 
 are invented, and the characters are invented, consonant 
 to nature and truth, yet unknown to fact, independent 
 of historic relation or poetic description, and arising 
 only in the mind of the great artist from his imagina- 
 tive power, or his past experience, and thus proving 
 the right of painting in its highest regions to rank as 
 the sister, the twin sister of poetry ; whether the first 
 born or not, must ever be matter of doubt, though not 
 with me. 
 
 " Painting," said Dr. Johnson, " can illustrate, but 
 cannot inform." This assertion with the usual " Sir," 
 and no qualification also, as usual, is not true. 
 
 Let us suppose a man deaf and dumb, accidentally 
 shipwrecked on an unknown island; let us suppose 
 him, after several years residence with the inhabitants, 
 observing their religion, their amusements, their habits 
 of war, their pursuits, domestic, agricultural, rescued 
 and restored to his country. Would Dr. Johnson affirm, 
 if he could paint and draw, he could convey no informa- 
 tion of the species of their birds and animals, their 
 plants, their dresses, their food, or their habits of 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 301 
 
 government, even their notions of a Supreme Being, 
 and a future existence"? If he did, I reply he affirmed 
 what he could not maintain, for on all these things 
 painting could convey positive information. 
 
 Painting can inform as well as illustrate, but it 
 cannot inform to the same degree of refinement as 
 language. What is essentially poetical, cannot be 
 painted; refined definitions, morally or metaphysically, 
 which form or feature cannot express, are beyond the 
 pencil. 
 
 " The aim of the Epic painter," says Fuzeli, is to 
 impress one general idea, without descending to those 
 subdivisions which the detail of character presents." 
 
 I reply, it is impossible to illustrate one general idea, 
 without descending to the detail of character. Does 
 Fuzeli mean to say, that the Sibyls and Prophets in 
 the Sistine (Jhapel, his favourite evidence of the epic, 
 are not distinguished from each other by detail or 
 difference of character? 
 
 " Homer," proceeds he, "impresses one forcible idea 
 of war." Of course; but are not the heroes and 
 heroines of Homer distinguished by detail of character V 
 Are Agamemnon and Achilles, Thersites and Ulysses, 
 Diomed and Nestor, Helen and Andromache not different 
 in character? 
 
 If the epic, or sublime, in painting is to be developed 
 only in one character, then Homer is not epic, Milton 
 is not epic, Michael Angelo is not epic; for in all 
 their great works which give them their immortality, 
 those actors and actresses are as distinct in character 
 and essence, as in the works of poets and painters who 
 make no such pretensions to elevation. 
 
 The subject of the Sistine Chapel is " 'I'heocracy." 
 
302 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 How does Michael Angelo illustrate this aim ^ first by 
 a series of beings, sibyls and prophets, sublime but dis- 
 tinct in character, who look, as Lanzi says, like beings 
 to whom the Almighty God has spoken! — then, by a 
 selection of subjects from sacred record. The creation, 
 the deluge, the bronze serpent, all illustrating the 
 empire of religion on the mind of man; but all these 
 subjects are both dramatic and historic, and detailed 
 in character. 
 
 The sublime in painting consists in the invention or 
 choice of subject more than in the materials, because 
 the dramatic and historic are so perpetually mixed up, 
 it is hardly possible to separate them, if human events 
 and human beings are the instruments for illustrating 
 the principle of the subject. 
 
 Fuzeli distinguishes the styles — epic, dramatic, and 
 historic — beautifully. But the distinction lies more in 
 the principle than in the materials used, for the same 
 instruments are used in all styles, men and women; 
 and no man nor woman was ever the same in form, 
 feature, or proportion. 
 
 After Fuzeli has said, " the detail of character is not 
 consistent with the epic," he goes on to shew the great 
 difference of character between each Prophet, as decided 
 as any character chosen by Eaffaelle in any of his more 
 essentially dramatic works. " Nor are the Sibyls," 
 continues Fuzeli, " those female oracles, less expressive, 
 or less individually marked." What is this but distinc- 
 tion of character? 
 
 Michael Angelo winds up the Sistine Chapel with 
 the Last Judgment; of which Salvator Eosa says in 
 his satires, — 
 
 Michael Angelo mio, non parlo in juoco 
 Del judizio, voi n'avete que poco. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 303 
 
 In which I most cordially agree. From the beginning 
 to the end of this vast fresco, there is little else but great 
 academic skill; as a whole, it is infamously deficient. 
 The groups are isolated and graceless; the figures hea\^ 
 and vulgar; there is no colour, light and shadow, com- 
 position comprehensively, or suitable expression, to 
 mark it; and the figure of Christ is a disgrace to his 
 conception. 
 
 Fuzeli thinks the dramatic variety of RafTaelle, — 
 father meeting son — wife, husband — lover, mistress — 
 and children, parents, — would have not added to its 
 sublimity: respectfully I differ, if there ever were a 
 subject where pathos would add to, and not detract 
 from, its sublimity, it is the Last Judgment. 
 
 It is extraordinary how utterly ignorant the great 
 poets and painters were of fallen angels, and their true 
 nature. Dante, Tasso, Rubens, Michael Angelo, all 
 seem to consider them as legitimate offsprings of hell, 
 whereas they were the fallen angels of heaven! Their 
 glory was obscured, not extinguished ; their majestic 
 forms still existed, though in ruin; their beauty was 
 only disturbed by passions, not destroyed; they were 
 the same grand, heroic, terrific beings as ever; but 
 scathed by lightening, singed by fire, dingy from dark- 
 ness, lacerated by thunder, their beauty and splendour 
 sparkling through the horrid obscurity in which they 
 meditated revenge, — to give them mouths like wolves, 
 ears like asses, noses like pug-dogs, and feet cloven 
 and misshapen, and tails like hytenas, — is not to repre- 
 sent a fallen angel, but a deformed monster. They 
 were beautiful, but evil. 
 
 His form hud not yet lost all its original brightness! 
 Drawn from the tliigh of mighty Cherubim. 
 
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 haydon's lectures 
 
 Do I repent or change, though changed 
 In outward lustre! — (says Satan.) 
 
 Forthwith from off the pool he rears 
 His mighty stature. 
 
 He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend 
 Was moving toward the shore. 
 
 Yours the advantage all, mine the revenge. 
 
 All this is evidence of the epic in thought, spirit, 
 stature, and expression. 
 
 Of the epic and sublime in scenery, one example 
 more from Milton, and one from Apollonius Rhodius, 
 will illustrate the principle. Satan prepares to plunge 
 into chaos. 
 
 At last, his sail broad vans, 
 He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke 
 Uplifted, spurns the ground, thence many a league. 
 As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides 
 Audacious! But that seat soon failing, meets 
 A vast vacuity. All unawares, 
 Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops 
 Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour 
 Down had been falling, had not by some ill chance, 
 The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud. 
 Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him 
 As many miles aloft. 
 
 Here Satan, the mighty rebel angel, becomes a part 
 only, but the leading part, of the scenery; but let 
 Satan, after all that magnificent description, utter one 
 sentiment of defiance, and the epic in scenery becomes 
 subordinate to the sublime in thought, — and the whole 
 nature is altered. 
 
 The next example is when evening approaches, and 
 the heroes of the Argonautic expedition are sailing 
 along the Black Sea: suddenly they see arise out of the 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 305 
 
 horizon an enormous and stately eagle; with the most 
 intense anxiety they watch its flight, and feel the air 
 tremble, as the motion of his vast wings approaches; 
 at last, he comes right over the ship, which he over- 
 shadows, and, as he passes, the ship shakes ; they 
 look after his unerring and steady flight, and see him 
 at an immense distance hover over Mount Caucasus; 
 he balances his wings, as if to pitch, and closing them 
 in, darts down, and disappears. Suddenly the long 
 agonizing screams of a suffering creature echo along 
 the shore, — it was Prometheus, who, chained to Cau- 
 casus, was tortured at a certain hour every day by a 
 vast eagle. The screams cease: they see the grand 
 eagle rise majestically into the heavens; its vast wings 
 again move; it again passes the ship; the ship trembles, 
 and it disappears in the horizon. 
 
 These two examples are the finest evidences of the 
 epic in scenery; but in poetry, never take the descrip- 
 tions to the extreme: similes are often made use of to 
 raise associations, which are all very well where every 
 thing is left to the imagination, but when identified 
 become extravagant, from not making the distinction. 
 
 Of the purely imaginative, glorious in poetry, — but 
 not to be identified without absurdity in painting, — the 
 following is one of the most awful conceptions on earth. 
 
 The Archangel Michael reproaches Satan for pre- 
 suming to attack God, who, says he — 
 
 Out of smallest things could without end 
 Have raised incessant armies to defeat 
 Thy folly; or with SOLITARY HAND, 
 Reaching beyond all limit, at one blow. 
 Unaided, could have finished thee, and whclm'd 
 Thy legions under darkness. 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Fancy the solitary hand of Almighty God grasping 
 Satan and his rebel host, and hurling them to darkness. 
 Your brain akes, as you perceive, its sublimity ! There 
 are not a great many purely poetical conceptions in the 
 world, "quas Graeci vocant," Satan's sudden 
 
 burst into sight, at the council, after crossing Chaos, 
 with his blazing star, is one. Minerva shouting to the 
 Greeks in the burning of Troy, which ^neas sees 
 only when Venus touches his eyes, is a second. 
 
 The next style of invention is the Dramatic, or the 
 development of passion or emotion consistent with the 
 character which expresses it, and not bound down to 
 the literal fact of historic relation. 
 
 The finest example in the world, perhaps, of the 
 dramatic variety of character is in the two men hired 
 as murderers, in Macbeth. Shakspere is full of those 
 delicate and deep touches equally applicable to paint- 
 ing. The men are not murderers by nature, but you 
 see they are in a state of mind which renders them 
 open to corruption, and is at the same time some 
 palliation: — 
 
 I am one, my liege. 
 Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world 
 Have so incensed, that I am reckless what 
 I do, to spite the world." 
 
 And I another ( says the second ), 
 So weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, 
 That I would set my life on any chance. 
 To mend it, or be rid on't. 
 
 This is the perfection of the dramatic: a whole life 
 expressed in the essence of a few words: no long dis- 
 cussions and preparations like a modern novelist, — no 
 
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 307 
 
 pages of useless detail. As Shakspere has made them 
 talk, so Raffaelle has made them look ; the one would 
 do it by the leading points of feature and form, expres- 
 sions and character; the other, by the leading points 
 of thought expressed in words. The following is 
 dramatic and sublime. 
 
 Nae cauld faint-hearted doubtings tease him, 
 Death comes!— wi' fearless e'e he sees him, 
 Wi' bluidy hand a welcome gi'es him, 
 
 And when he fa's 
 His latest draught o' l)reathin' lea'cs him 
 
 In faint huzzas. Burns. 
 
 The last style is the Historic; but though styles are 
 thus separated, they are almost always united; in paint- 
 ing, nearly so. In fact, how can it be otherwise? Jf 
 yoiTput the face of a god in a passion, it belongs to the 
 dramatic. If you introduce him into any well-known 
 event, it is historic ; and if the subject be terrible, or 
 superhuman, it is epic: indeed, as in colour, and in 
 every thing in art, the subject must regulate the style. 
 
 We now come to invention as a power of mind. It 
 must be innate, or acquired. 
 
 No two men are physically the same: a dancer must 
 have a leg, a boxer an arm ; and yet it has been asserted 
 that invention and power of mind, the most wonderful 
 of all power, can be accpiired. " Invention," says 
 Reynolds, " I am convinced can be acquired." Though 
 all the efforts on earth would never give a weak man 
 the power of Hercules, if he was physically deficient, 
 yet Reynolds thinks that practice, habit, and diligence, 
 will create invention, if the germ exists not. 
 
 What absurdity! The germ for improvement in 
 muscle must exist, so must the germ for invention. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Experience, exercise, diligence, may add to its original 
 power and its knowledge, but will no more bestow it 
 if it exists not, than watering, ploughing, or dressing a 
 barren soil will produce the flower, if inherently deficient. 
 
 This faculty of picturing images on the brain, the 
 Greeks called the Romans, Visiones. Fuzeli 
 
 says they are radiant recollections; no, they have no 
 reference to memory. By this power of inward vision, 
 we picture situations for the development of the ex- 
 pressions and thoughts of the individuals concerned, of 
 which we can have no experience, except we have been 
 guilty of the crimes and suffered the consequences of 
 such actions. How could any conception which has 
 any reference to the spiritual world be a radiant recol- 
 lection"? Where did Shakspere see the ghost of a king"? 
 Where Puck put a girdle round about the earth in 
 forty minutes? Where Ariel who drank the air before 
 him*? Where Homer the gigantic stride of the shade 
 of Achilles in hell, when Ulysses told him his son was 
 worthy of his sire! Where Milton the effulgent blaze 
 of Satan to his astonished council after his success on 
 earth "? Where Virgil that glorious vision of Minerva 
 shouting to the Greeks in the flames of Troy*? Where 
 Tasso that exquisite conception of the angel Gabriel 
 tipping the hill as the morning sun arose — 
 
 " ■ ma piu liicenti." 
 
 If this power be not intuitive, how comes the great 
 poet and painter to feel and express all the variations 
 and approaches of every passion which agitates a human 
 mind without having felt them? How could they 
 give us the thoughts which agitate the murderer, the 
 seducer, the hypocrite, the villian, or the madman? If 
 
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 309 
 
 the power of doing this be only a radiant recollection, 
 you must admit the memory of the sensations accom- 
 panying a murder can only be generated by first 
 committing the murder; and if Shakspere could only 
 call up the feelings of the murderer of a king by 
 experiencing them, of course he must have first mur- 
 dered a king to have had them — see the absurdity ! 
 
 iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, must have 
 murdered their mothers, and have married them too ; 
 for if the feelings of such crimes be radiant recollec- 
 tions, such surely must only have been remembered from 
 experience, and such must have been the conduct of 
 these great geniuses, or how could they represent the 
 horrors of GEdipus and Orestes'? Shakspere must have 
 been raving mad like Lear, butchered like Richard, 
 been dishonoured like Othello, or enchanted like 
 Caliban. Milton and Dante must have been in hell 
 and in heaven, and Ariosto rode through the air on 
 winged horses, and Homer must have been stuck 
 through the body in five hundred places, and died as 
 often, to have known so well and described so exqui- 
 sitely the various modes of wounding, and the various 
 modes of giving up the ghost, in consequence of the 
 particular thrust. We know Shakspere was fonder of 
 a pen than a stilletto, Milton loved to help 
 
 Waste a sullen day 
 With neat repast of Attic taste with wine. 
 
 ^.schylus was a Marathonian hero; Soj)hocles, a 
 philosopher; and therefore, when they describe the 
 feelings of crime so truly, it is much more likely they 
 did it from an intuitive power of feeling exactly how 
 men would feel and act in such situations, especially 
 as we know the feelings they have described they never 
 
310 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 did know by being in any part of their lives criminal 
 in a similar way. 
 
 There is a constant dispute which is the greatest art, 
 poetry or painting; and which is the greatest man, 
 the great poet or the great painter. 
 
 Poets generally settle the question in their own way, 
 which painters are not allowed to do. Of course their 
 languages are different in their essence ; the language of 
 poets, with reference to visible objects and invisible 
 feelings, is an artificial arrangement of words agreed 
 on by the respective nation to which each poet belongs 
 to mean the things and the thoughts to which they are 
 applied, although they have few natural claims to such 
 associations, and although no neighbouring nation to 
 which they might be read would find them at all intelli- 
 gible ; while our language is the positive imitation of the 
 things themselves, and the most imperfect imitation of 
 the thing selected to convey the thought is at once 
 comprehended. This power of imitation in a painter 
 is as distinct a power as that of versification in a poet, 
 and is excited by the same faculty of invention pos- 
 sessed by each; in the painter, it chooses the imitation 
 of forms, instead of the selection of words, to express 
 its creations. 
 
 Poets can make their characters speak their thoughts ; 
 painters can only make them look; abstracted reflec- 
 tions or subtle conclusions in morality can never be 
 looked to be comprehended, or painted to be compre- 
 hended ; no painter could make Newton look as if he 
 had discovered the tides, without extraneous help ; but 
 a poet could say so at once. Painting is therefore in 
 this view a more limited art than poetry ; in others, it is 
 more extended; but what painting does look, recollect, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 311 
 
 the world can comprehend; poets speak only with the 
 full effect to their own nation. 
 
 A poet who conveys his ideas hy the imitation of 
 natural objects, is a poet who paints, when by language 
 and versification, is a poet who speaks: the minds are 
 of equal range, but the mind of the painter is limited 
 by the language he uses. 
 
 Imitation of forms is inadequate to express all the 
 infinite refinements of intellectual distinctions ; and 
 language is equally inadequate to convey all the mute 
 subtilties of feeling, when nature is too much affected 
 to speak : then nature looks only what she feels, and 
 then is the painter and lover's triumph. One look of 
 Juliet's eyes would shake Romeo more than endless 
 words the most impassioned; what painting can do is 
 more intense in its immediate operation, and more 
 extended in its effect, than poetry, when it attempts to 
 do the same thing. 
 
 Poetry can do well what painting can do a million 
 times better; but painting cannot express the slightest 
 notion of other things equally important, that poetry 
 can convey gradually to the understanding. 
 
 Poetry is therefore an art not so limited as painting 
 to the full exercise of all the powers of the under- 
 standing. Surely this is as impartial a conclusion by 
 a painter, on the two arts, as ever was made by a poet; 
 he generally concludes at once in ftivour of his own, 
 and nobody thinks him warped by prejudice, though he 
 generally proves he knows nothing of the other; but 
 when painters have done this, there has been at once a 
 cry of narrow views. 
 
 liubens, Raffaelle, Titian, Michael Angelo, Leonardo 
 da Vinci, and Phidias, or Apellcs, were as capable of 
 
312 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 coming to a sound conclusion on the respective rank of 
 the two arts, as Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Milton, Shak- 
 spere, who, greater than all, except Phidias, seems to 
 have felt their relative value more than any other, and 
 to have expressed them clearly. 
 
 Many years ago, Wilkie, a musician, and myself, 
 passed the evening together in my studio, and we got 
 upon the respective powers of the three arts : of course 
 the musician insisted upon it, that there was nothing 
 painting or poetry could do, music could not do as well. 
 Wilkie said, once upon a time, a poet, musician, and a 
 painter, had the same dispute, when it was agreed they 
 should all three retire to a tavern, and ask for their 
 supper by their respective arts, and whoever made him- 
 self the quickest understood should be crowned victor. 
 
 The musician played most exquisitely for three- 
 quarters of an hour, but the waiter shook his head; the 
 painter dashed out the resemblance of a roast fowl, and 
 the poet at once said he would have a boiled one. It 
 was agreed the poet won, and when Wilkie came to 
 this part, our friend the fiddler rushed out of my room 
 in a fury, saying we had no feeling, and never forgave 
 us to the day of his death. 
 
 So ignorant were the English of the degree of intel- 
 lect required to be a great painter, that Reynolds was 
 suspected for years not to have written his own Lectures. 
 Burke was accused, but the fact is, in style, they are too 
 pure for Burke: as a curious evidence of their being 
 his own writing, at the sale of his works in Pall Mall, 
 many years ago, when every thing was scraped together 
 that could be found, in a portfolio of sketches, I saw 
 a part of one of the Discourses copied fairly by an 
 amanuensis, and a very important and intellectual cor- 
 
ox PAINTING. 
 
 313 
 
 rection in Reynolds's own handwriting put in between 
 the lines; though Burke might have dictated this, it 
 is rather far fetched to believe it. 
 
 As specimens of three species of invention, I would 
 instance, as Fuzeli has done, the death of Germanicus, 
 for the Illustrative; the opulent man in the Cartoon of 
 Lystra, who is lifting the garment and contemplating 
 the cured limb, as an exquisite bit of the Incidental ; 
 and the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, as the purest 
 order, viz. the Intuitive. 
 
 The central group of Lystra is taken and adopted 
 from an antique bas-relief in the Admiranda, and 
 suggests the question whether it be justifiable to plunder 
 in this way; surely, if you find anything in the ancients 
 suitable to your invention, it is justifiable. But there 
 the praise must stop: the utmost praise that can be 
 given is, that you have shewn skill in the adoption ; 
 and what struck me w ith amazement in the Louvre, was 
 the little original invention in the world. Even Rubens 
 pilfered wholesale from the old Germans. Reynolds 
 says, it is by being conversant with the inventions 
 of others you learn to invent. It is an extraordinary 
 feeling in Sir Joshua, of owing every power in the art 
 to secondary causes; how much he must have owed in 
 that way himself. If you have no power from nature, 
 how can you learn by looking at others if you have no 
 faculty to receive the impression*? Reynolds was what 
 Fuzeli called a modern painter, a bold adopter. 
 
 Remember, adoption and copying are difTerent things. 
 To adopt and modify a figure require skill and taste; 
 but the merest dolt can copy. Young students pore 
 over so continually the inventions of others, and so 
 eternally study them, that they become inoculated. 
 
314 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 The purest and the most legitimate invention is when 
 the event is distinctly told by thorough-bred human 
 passions and actions, independent of all superhuman 
 and allegorical assistance. 
 
 Allegory, in a long series of works, like the Luxem- 
 bourg Gallery, is justifiable, because it is an addition 
 in beauty to the composition of the work. Beauty is 
 always an addition, and allegory is principally repre- 
 sented by women; but who on earth, when they see a 
 beautiful girl with a castle on her head, ever thinks of 
 a city*? Thus has Rubens represented Lyons, congra- 
 tulating Mary de Medicis on her safe accouchement. 
 
 Raffaelle would have made a deputation from Lyons, 
 with fine senatorial heads, and would he not have been 
 more in taste and common sensed 
 
 The introduction of existing people as portrait, and 
 as witnesses of remote events, such as EafFaelle has 
 made Julius IL, supported by Mark Antonio, and others 
 of his palace, looking at the two angels driving out 
 Heliodorus, destroys the allusion ; it cannot be defended, 
 it may, as it does, prove Raffaelle 's amiability to oblige 
 his patron,^ but it proves also he sacrificed common 
 sense in a way for that purpose that no English painter 
 would now be allowed to do. 
 
 Portrait disguised in the dress of the period is fair; 
 a friend may have a very fine head, use it of course, but 
 do not paint a fine-headed friend with a round hat, a 
 black cravat, and Wellington boots, charging at the 
 battle of Cheronea; yet this is not more absurd than 
 to make a venerable Pope looking at Heliodorus in the 
 Temple of Jerusalem, when he (the Pope) was not born 
 till 1500 years after. 
 
 In allusion to invention as regards portrait, in com- 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 315 
 
 parison with invention as regards " High Art," they 
 will not bear comparison; and perhaps there never was 
 a more absurd assertion made by any human being 
 in the w^orld, than that by an Honourable Member 
 on the presentation, by Lord Brougham, in 1823, of 
 my first petition on Historical Painting, viz. that por- 
 trait was the only true legitimate high art, inferring 
 that the biography of an individual required as much 
 extension of view and powder of mind as the history of 
 a great nation with all its political bearings and secret 
 principles of rise and decay, as the immortal invention 
 of an epic poem. 
 
 Absurd as this may seem, and refuted in a moment, 
 it got into the heads of honourable members for the 
 season, and RafTaelle himself, with Aristotle and Phidias 
 to back him, would have been coughed down with order, 
 order, and chair, chair, had they })resumcd to argue this 
 sophistical and triumphant excuse for doing nothing for 
 high art, which this remark afforded the cold-blooded 
 and the unthinking. Did the Honourable Member 
 mean to say that it required the same powers of mind 
 to tranfer the best expression of a sitter s face, and to 
 make it like, so that it be recognised, as to invent the 
 Ananias^ where all the characteristics were never seen, 
 and yet so truly represented, as to excite associations so 
 exactly of the characters and story, as if the individuals 
 had stood to be painted. If an expression must be 
 seen before it can be done, there is an end of invention, 
 and there is an end of all the petty and thoughtless 
 presumption of the portrait painters, for a moment 
 placing their art on a level with High Art." 
 
 The curious thing is, that portrait painters, when they 
 paint High Art, are always too individual for even a 
 
316 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 likeness; and when the historical painter paints a por- 
 trait, he is more individual than the portrait painter. 
 It proceeds from the different character of the genius 
 and practice of each. The portrait painter selects the 
 best of what he sees, but still keeps the likeness. The 
 historical painter selects the best of what he sees to 
 realize what he imagines. The painter of High Art 
 makes a portrait of what he imagines by the help of 
 his model, without retaining an atom of likeness. The 
 portrait painter of what he sees. Thus, when a portrait 
 painter comes to High Art, he cannot help making a 
 portrait of his model; and when the historical painter 
 comes to portrait, he cannot idealize without losing 
 likeness; and as likeness is the first requisite, he makes 
 it so like for fear of not making it at all like, that nine 
 times out of ten the portraits of the greatest historical 
 painters are never great favourites with the rich. 
 
 There is something in the thorough-bred, regularly 
 drilled portrait painter, that no imaginative painter ever 
 got or ever will. 
 
 The greatest art in practice is the art of using nature 
 for poetical invention; it is intuitive, it cannot be com- 
 municated by words or deductions, it is visible in the 
 very first production of a youth. It must not be too 
 individual, it must not be too general, it must be like 
 nature, and not too much like nature; it must be nature 
 restored to her essential properties, and nothing more 
 nor less. 
 
 There it is that Reynolds, Vandyke, and even 
 Titian, fail, as w^ell as Rubens. Reynolds especially 
 could elevate what he saw, if he kept the elements of 
 what he had before him ; the moment he left his model, 
 he was abroad. Mrs. Siddons, as the tragic muse, is 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 317 
 
 more poetical than his own inventive tragic muse, in 
 Garrick ])etween her and comedy. Mrs. Siddons was 
 an elevated portrait, and the other his own invention, 
 and these two completely illustrate the principle laid 
 down. 
 
 Reynolds w^as a great artist in the second rank, but 
 with a different education, and in a different period he 
 would have been a great artist of the first rank, but 
 his genius for High Art was not sufficiently intense to 
 make him a great artist in spite of time and education. 
 Of course, the nearer a poetic painter can get a model 
 to equal his conception the better, but the habit and 
 power of supplying the deficiency of individual nature 
 is a gift of God ; and the sooner it is exercised the 
 better, like every other gift, bodily or intellectual, and 
 the more certain will the poetic painter become of his 
 hand hitting the conceptions of his mind. 
 
 This is the delightful reward for all his labours: till 
 this stupendous power is acquired, what anxieties, what 
 labours, what struggles, must he not undergo; but if he 
 have resolution to proceed firmly through them, then 
 indeed will his reward be great, then indeed will his 
 mind be impregnated with science, and his hand, fear- 
 less by practice, be enabled as fast as visions float on 
 his fancy, to shower them on his canvass with inspired 
 profusion. 
 
 The poet practises the language of his art from the 
 first word he utters to the last; whereas the painter, 
 after having completed the ordinary education, has yet 
 to begin a new language to express his thoughts, and 
 generally dies just as his hand is getting obedient to his 
 conceptions. 
 
 The next, and by no means the least important part 
 
318 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 of invention, is the choice of subject, and the choice of 
 the most interesting moment in that choice. There is 
 nothing more important than this tact, for nothing is so 
 often intruded on painters as subjects for painting, the 
 prospects of which exist only in the imagination of the 
 chooser. 
 
 Coleridge, with all his wild dreams, was always 
 selecting for the artist; and I never in my life remember 
 one of his subjects which had a single qualification. 
 Coleridge was seldom intelligible, with the subtle dis- 
 tinctions of words, much less likely was it in art, 
 which requires gross palpability, he could make himself 
 understood. 
 
 I have seen the finest scenes in the world between 
 Coleridge and Sir George Beaumont. Sir George's 
 adoration of Sir Joshua was sincere. Coleridge would 
 often attack him ; the agony of Sir George between his 
 enthusiasm for the genius of Coleridge and his awe for 
 his departed friend are not to be done justice to. 
 
 Sir Joshua relates a very curious anecdote of some 
 one wishing to have painted what passed in Council 
 with James the Second before the Revolution. 
 
 As a painter has but one moment, — first, it must be a 
 subject of palpable and gross interest, big with the past 
 and pregnant with the future; next, your actions must 
 be doing, your passions expressing, your lights and 
 shadows fleeting, something must have passed, and 
 something must be coming, and you choose the point of 
 interest — the point between. 
 
 There is Ananias, he has just dropped, why"? for 
 some cause passed, it is the moment, because the effect 
 has not yet reached the extremities. 
 
 For choice of moment, subject, and composition, 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 319 
 
 Raffaelle is perfection, study him for ever. To retuni 
 to the epic or sublime, 1 conceive it more peculiarly 
 belongs to the elements, the air, earth, fire, water, 
 heaven, chaos, hell ; and all passion, emotion, or action, 
 must be component parts of the mass. 
 
 I believe Martin's examples of scenery to be the 
 purest examples of the epic, when men and his passions 
 are swept like a whirlwind in the elements he breathes 
 to illustrate some great and striking event in the 
 world, the flood, the destruction of the world, Nineveh, 
 Babylon. 
 
 I instance the success of Martin, amongst the middle 
 classes, as indisputable evidence of the feehng of the 
 British people for subjects of the highest poetry in art. 
 
 By the public, Martin has been overrated, by the 
 artists, underrated. He has no power of passion, he is 
 not an historical painter, he cannot paint, but he is a 
 great epic scenist, who burst the cerements with which 
 he was encumbered, and made his way to the light, 
 putting forth his subHme conceptions like an inspired 
 child, who has never learned to draw, to paint, or to 
 compose. He has honoured English art, and cut out a 
 new recess in the Temple of Fame for himself, where 
 there was none before. 
 
 There is a very interesting question in art, viz. 
 whether the great characters introduced should be 
 painted as they were with all their peculiarities of dress 
 and figure. Reynolds says they ought not. It ap[)ears 
 to me to depend on the period of their lives; if it be 
 recent, like Napoleon, Nelson, and the Duke, the pecu- 
 liarities are historic facts; if it be so remote as to ])e 
 beyond the reach of history, the period partakes of the 
 epic, as well as the man; therefore, a painter is not 
 
320 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 inconsistent in taking advantage of the obscurity to 
 make the hero in form and feature. On the other hand, 
 what could be more ridiculous than to make Napoleon 
 six feef? 
 
 Reynolds says, St. Paul was of mean stature, but 
 Raffaelle has not made him so ; now I affirm, if St. Paul 
 was little and deformed, RafFaelle ought to have made 
 him so, as much as he ought to have given Alexander 
 his peculiar neck, Ceesar his bald front, Socrates his 
 short nose, Edward his long legs, Richard his terrific 
 hump, or Napoleon his little figure. All these pecu- 
 liarities, so far from detracting from the grandeur of 
 their picturable actions, would have increased by their 
 very singularity and contrast the power of their actions 
 and expressions. 
 
 Reflect for a moment on the dreadful look of a little 
 mean figure, eager and inspired, of St. Paul striking 
 Elymas blind, or preaching the living God to the 
 Athenians. 
 
 This erroneous principle of leaving out all pecu- 
 liarities was the leading principle of Reynolds, but you 
 see what it leads to. 
 
 The fact is, he did not know what was accident and 
 what was essence, and therefore cleared away all acci- 
 dent for fear of mistaking accident for essence, and he 
 left ESSENCE so entirely devoid of accident bordering 
 on the essential, that his principle leads to emptiness 
 for breadth, generalities for truth, and indistinct hints 
 for historical expression. 
 
 This is a very important question in art, and would 
 not have been mooted in it as a matter of doubt with us 
 any more than with the Greeks, had not Reynolds held 
 it up to shelter his own want of knowledge, and had it 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 321 
 
 not a tendency to destroy all characteristic distinctions, 
 and to reduce man, woman, and animal, to insipid efTu- 
 sions without mark or likelihood, or any other single, 
 relishing peculiarity, in form, feature, or expression, 
 which gives such gusto to the identities of Shakspere. 
 
 I cannot give you a higher idea of the Elgin marbles, 
 than by saying they are essentially Shaksperian. 
 
 So far from the great painter painting man in the 
 abstract when he paints the heroic individual, he paints 
 the particular man, whose genius has sanctioned his 
 individual marks. Of expression, little can be said: 
 there are principles, said Guido, which influence a 
 great painter in the refinements of expression, far 
 beyond even his own reach of thinking for discovery. 
 
 This a})plies essentially to expression : it cannot be 
 explained ; it was visible in the first dawn of RafTaelle's 
 early works, it was seen in the slightest line of his pen. 
 No principle can be laid down: you muse on the 
 characters and stories introduced, and at the time of 
 execution you see the very face agitated by the very 
 look you want, in the innermost depths of your brain, 
 and there the vision remains till you have put it on your 
 canvass. 
 
 In the dignity of portrait, no heads exceed Reynolds', 
 though Titian's and Vandyke's are more delicate in 
 execution. He was a great man, but certainly a light 
 thinker ; and yet, considering his incessant practice in 
 individual resemblance, it is extraordinary he did write 
 as he did. He first brought the princii)lc's of art into 
 something like consistency ; and, though greatly indebted 
 to Coypel, he first rescued it from the trash of De Piles, 
 the common-place receipts of Lionardo, great man as 
 he was, and all the old bewildered theorists ; and, in his 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 immortal notes on Du Fresnoy, he has settled on a 
 basis, never to be shaken, the leading rules of effect, 
 light and shadow, and colour. Here he was truly great; 
 it was only where his previous education and previous 
 habits had not been deep enough that he wandered 
 in his theory of beauty and form, which nothing but 
 dissection of the brute and man can ever illustrate 
 clearly. His eye for colour was so exquisite that I do 
 not think there is a single instance in all his works of 
 a heated tint which is called foxy. This cannot be 
 said of Rubens or Hembrandt; and I believe in my 
 conscience it can only be said of Reynolds and Titian. 
 
 One of his dearest friends was Sir George Beaumont 
 — he was one of those links between people of fashion 
 and artists, who placed artists at their table with all 
 who were distinguished in poetry, philosophy, oratory, 
 rank or fashion. 
 
 There was a school in High Life of this description, 
 which was formed by Sir Joshua, they looked up to 
 him as a god, listened to him like an oracle, and believed 
 a great painter to be the greatest of mortal beings. 
 
 On them Sir Joshua left his mantle, and they were 
 principally instrumental in founding the British Gallery, 
 and keeping alive in the fashionable world the taste 
 for pictures. The loss of Sir George nothing has com- 
 pensated us for, — his taste and genius were exquisite. 
 Had he not been born in high life, in my opinion, 
 he would have been our greatest landscape painter — 
 he talked of art, he dreamed of art, and seemed to 
 think nothing else on earth worthy consideration. 
 
 The moment he came to town, he set the whole 
 world in an uproar, and made it an evidence and a 
 necessity for any one of any pretensions of fashion to 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 323 
 
 meet artists at his table, and to visit their painting - 
 rooms, and buy their pictures. 
 
 He it was who laid the foundation of our National 
 Gallery; he was the friend of Wordsworth, when the 
 world denied his genius; and though he was capricious, 
 and laid the foundation of all my distresses, as well as 
 others, yet as painters we felt his loss bitterly in the 
 art — a loss that never has been repaired, and probably 
 never will; and when his admira])le letters on art are 
 hereafter published, it will be found his pretensions 
 have not been overrated. 
 
 It was his decided opinion, and no one had greater 
 right to hold one, that breadth and essential detail were 
 the true excellence, and ought to be united; he knew 
 the materials of art and the splendour of nature, and he 
 knew nature could not be approached but by the most 
 judicious artifice ; and when painters painted all light, 
 in hopes of getting brilliancy, or all dark, in hopes of 
 getting depth, they entirely missed their object. 
 
 I have heard many artists complain of the disposition 
 of people of fashion to bring forward young men — after 
 having had the full advantage of such disposition them- 
 selves, — the more young men brought forward the better 
 for the art; if the young men have not talent to keep 
 the stations in which men of rank from the kindest 
 feelings are disposed to place them, surely you are not 
 to blame the patron for his good wishes. 
 
 Remember the admirable axiom of Pliny, which 
 must bo that of a great Greek artist; it could not come 
 from the mere connoisseur: " Light is not splendour;" 
 and light approaching at all the vigour of nature, can 
 only be attained by its contrast, darkness. 
 
 It is quite curious to watch the consequences to men 
 
324 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 of great genius, from beginning in any particular method 
 of imitating life; I allude to the three poisons of art; 
 " Crayon painting, — coach painting, and I must add, 
 though of late years it has been carried to great 
 excellence, water colours." Lawrence began as a 
 crayon painter, and he never got rid to the day of his 
 death of a certain chalky look in his flesh. Water- 
 colour tinting destroys all relish for impasta and surface ; 
 and when the most eminent water - colour painter 
 handles oil, he always retains a certain gaudy colour, 
 which never leaves him, — witness Turner, great genius 
 as he is; while in the painting of Martin there is a 
 certain glossy varnished look that announces the former 
 practice of glass or coach. 
 
 Though we have carried water-colour painting in 
 England to the highest pitch, and the professors are 
 certainly the most original thinkers in the art, yet 
 it is not altogether quite delicate to think Claude 
 a blockhead, Salvator a maniac, or Titian a black 
 master. Really, men who do not know the shape 
 of a toe, and whose views of the beauties of landscape 
 are limited to the splendid scenery on the Paddington 
 Canal or Kensington Gravel Pits, might see something 
 to admire in the sunny splendour of Titian's clouds, his 
 dark dells or umbrageous forests, his azure skies, his 
 splendid armour, his pulpy flesh, his crimson gorgeous- 
 ness, and senatorial faces. If such theory be put forth 
 uncontradicted, there is no knowing, in this budding 
 time of English art, what may be the eff'ect;— to depend 
 on the accumulated experience of ages is no mistake ; to 
 depart from the principles that the greatest intellects 
 have settled is rather hazardous, though it may be 
 innocent ; but let a flaming sword wave before the 
 immortal works of our illustrious predecessors, approach 
 not, without faith or confidence. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 325 
 
 In early life trust not to your own taste, trust only to 
 great names; never look at the works of inferiors: you 
 cannot see too much, study too much, or know too much 
 of Phidias, of Raffaelle, of Titian, of Rubens, Vandyke, 
 Coreggio, Reynolds, or of the prophets of Michael 
 Angelo; in collecting your prints to form your taste, 
 get all they ever produced, and you are safe; you can 
 bring your feelings to revolt at bad taste, as your tongue 
 would revolt at ashes. 
 
 When you are formed and hardened, then seek the 
 good out of the evil, but beware of seeking jewels in 
 straw, unless you are quite sure you know a diamond 
 from a paste imitation. When your taste is formed, 
 when public applause has justified your dependence on 
 your genius, then look round with the elevation of an 
 equal ; then you will perceive the individuality of Titian's 
 defective forms, of Parmegiano's occasional excess of 
 gracefulness, of Raffaelle's hardness and want of im- 
 pasta, of Michael Angelo's fierce vulgarity, of Rubens' 
 grossness. But begin by absolute su])missi()n to the 
 great names in the temple, believe them infallible, and 
 by those means, and by those means only, you will bye 
 and bye be able to avoid their errors. I dwell upon 
 this, because when I was a student in the Academy, all 
 those students who thought Titian might be better and 
 Raflfaelle not so hard have ended in obscurity. 
 
 There never were two men so totally opposite in art 
 as our Reynolds and Lawrence, and great instruction 
 may certainly be attained by a comparison. Lawrence 
 got his expression and likeness by an intense perception 
 of the individual parts, and keen perception of the best 
 look of a sitter, — and I ])elieve no man ever exceeded 
 him in catching the best expression. Reynolds by a 
 masculine comprehension of the masses. Reynolds's 
 men had all the air of rank without being dandies. 
 
326 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Lawrence's were all dandies without being men of rank. 
 Such were the gentleness, the sweetness, the chastity, 
 the beauty, and bewitching modesty of Reynolds's 
 women, that you would have feared even to have 
 approached without apprehension ; while you feel quite 
 sure you might compliment the women of Lawrence 
 to any excess without much fear of offending* 
 
 Lawrence drew better than Reynolds, but Reynolds 
 was never guilty of many ignorances of composition and 
 design that Lawrence was guilty of every day. 
 
 In invention there is no comparison. Reynolds was 
 a genius, and so he was in colour: whereas Lawrence 
 had no eye, and I remember but one head of exquisite 
 colour that might bear comparison with Reynolds — a 
 head of Lord Bathurst; Gonsalvi, and the Emperor 
 of Austria, perhaps^ may be added. In composition, 
 Lawrence was a child, and Reynolds a great master. 
 Reynolds, from his knowledge of perspective, always 
 planted his men on their feet; while all Lawrence's 
 nobility stand upon their tip-toes, and will do so whilst 
 the canvass lasts. Reynolds appeared, as Burke said, 
 to descend to portrait from a higher style, while 
 portrait and portrait only seemed to be the extent of 
 Lawrence's understanding. Reynolds was the philo- 
 sopher of art, Lawrence the gentleman, with a tendency 
 to dandyism. 
 
 Lawrence's great power was seeing, transferring, and 
 identifying the happiest expression of a sitter; and 
 no man can bear testimony to this power more than 
 myself, I had several under my own eye of the nobility 
 he had painted ; for the first half hour I saw no resem- 
 blance; at last, some lucky remark lighted up their 
 
 * I remember but one exception, his portrait of the Duchess 
 of Sutherland. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 327 
 
 features, and in these few moments I witnessed Law- 
 rence's choice. 
 
 Before Lawrence went to Italy, which sobered his 
 meretriciousness, Fuzeli used to say, and truly, that his 
 pictures in effect were sw^eepings of a tinshop; but 
 through all his works there reigns a sense of beauty, 
 which if it had been tempered and corrected by a reve- 
 rence for the great names in the art, instead of being 
 pampered by medals, with other young gentlemen and 
 ladies in early life, would have corrected his taste; 
 though Sir George Beaumont feared his eye was defec- 
 tive, and Reynolds predicted his style would attract the 
 ignorant and ruin the art; he has not ruined it, but he 
 did it serious harm. There is an interesting anecdote 
 of the two men, so completely illustrative of each, that 
 I will relate it. At a nobleman's house, there exists an 
 exquisite picture by an old master. Reynolds, when 
 there, always had it taken down, and with due humility 
 dwelt on it for hours. Lawrence subsequently used to 
 visit the same house. The nobleman, astonished at 
 Lawrence's apathy, offered to have it taken down, which 
 Lawrence declined, and retired to billiards. 
 
 At West's death, there was no historical painter in 
 the Academy to succeed him, — had there been, the 
 art would now be on a very different footing; and 
 I have no doubt a vote of money would have long 
 since passed; but Lawrence came in with his delusive 
 and fascinating appeal to human vanity; and though 
 he turned the tide for several years, he only staggered 
 the art, for it has taken root in the right way amongst 
 the people ; and though apparently sinking and fading, 
 be assured it is but to revive and rekindle on a basis 
 which will ensure its success.* 
 
 * Delivered in 18^)5. 
 
328 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 Who does not gaze capitally, says the Edinburgh 
 Reviewer of Van Raumer, with feelings of vexation and 
 regret when standing at Charing Cross, and looking over 
 the noblest ' Place' in the world, at the poor, long, 
 low, elongated National Gallery? And who does not 
 remember with sorrow that all these consequences were 
 predicted before a stone was laid; but alas! there was 
 no faith in the sincerity of one who, though he has 
 sacrificed himself for the art, was considered interested ; 
 but had Lord Grey listened to him, this disgrace might 
 have been spared, and the finest site in Europe not 
 sacrificed to keep up the preponderance of an eminent 
 body of portrait painters, who are unable to place a man 
 on his feet. 
 
 With all the faults of our English school, the faults 
 are not faults of genius, but of knowledge, the faults of 
 an impatience of study ; and whatever may be our con- 
 viction of these faults, our taste is native and simple; 
 we have none of the horrors of the French system, 
 though the French draw better; but that can be added, 
 and one is always disposed to resent unjust and insolent 
 criticism, especially from foreigners. 
 
 Winckleman and Du Bos denied our genius, and said 
 we were in too high a degree of latitude to be great 
 painters. When Wilkie was born, they must have 
 turned in their coffins ; at any rate, if too high for genius, 
 we are not too high for common sense; no English 
 critic, at any rate, ever said that Judas was one of the 
 eleven in giving the keys, when Judas 's suicide and 
 treachery had reduced the number to eleven ; so much 
 for Du Bos. Van Raumer, says the Reviewer, speaks of 
 British art with a compassionate forbearance. Did you 
 ever hear such insolence'? but he is not to blame, there 
 is no native National Gallery. Van Raumer went, of 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 329 
 
 course, to the Exhibition ; there he saw a whole row of 
 whole-lengths on their toes. Yet ought not the Reviewer 
 to have set him right Was it not cowardly for a Scotch- 
 man to cow under such impertinence, with Wilkie in his 
 mind*? Allow me to ask you, if Reynolds's Dido and 
 Mrs. Siddons, Northcote's Princes in the Tower, Fuzeli's 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, West's La Ilogue, Barry's 
 Adelphi, Hilton's Christ Rejected, Gainsborough's 
 Blue Boy, Wilson's Adrian's Villa, Flaxman's Homer, 
 Bayley's Eve, Chantrey's Children at Lincoln, Camp- 
 bell's Lord Grey, Hopner's Pitt, Collins's Scenery, 
 Wilkie's Blind t'iddler, Etty's Judith, and though last 
 not least in our dear love, Solomon, and Lazarus, 
 deserve to be spoken of with compassionate forbearance; 
 and if they were all collected in one grand National 
 Gallery of native productions, so that foreigners might 
 walk in and look, whether Van Raumcr would not 
 alter his tone ? I tell him, with all the hideous faults 
 of a British exhibition, there is more real genius in one 
 of them, than in any two, on the continent, of the same 
 number of works. 
 
 For thirty years I have urged the point of public 
 encouragement, independent of academic influence, and 
 all our greatest men seemed a])solutely abroad on the 
 subject. Even Canning was not at all aware of 
 the connexion of art and manufacture, or the moral 
 importance of High Art as a commemorative power. 
 They, shewed the best dispositions; they took it up 
 always with enthusiasm, because their common sense 
 was appealed to; they then proceeded to inquire of the 
 oflicial academician. He replied, the nation had no 
 taste, the artists did not require it ; and the minister, 
 astonished at such remarks, received me the next time 
 
330 
 
 haydon's lectures 
 
 like a distempered madman. Lord Brougham, Lord 
 Durham, Lord Farnborough, Lord Colborne, all took 
 up the cause and dropped it in a fright. Wonder no 
 longer at the fate of history, at Hussey's persecution, 
 Barry's struggles, or my prostration of fortune. 
 
 Would you believe that a noble Lord, known to you 
 all, to whom we all owe obligations, actually said to 
 me, when laying before him my plan to adorn the 
 House of Lords, in 1823, "Do you think the people 
 will ever have any tasted" Suppose I had said to 
 him, when he was founding a university, Do you, my 
 Lord, think the people will ever have any knowledge 
 No, he would have replied, unless you give them 
 schools and books, and open their understandings; 
 and so I say of art. How can they have taste if you 
 found not schools of design, or shew them fine works? 
 Of all the ministers with whom I have had the honour 
 of communication, none paid so much attention as 
 the Duke of Wellington; he replied at once, gave 
 his opinion, and received mine with the frankness 
 of his character ; he entered into the question, allowed 
 me to argue it, and to prove him wrong if I could. I 
 got no cold official sophistry from him, his mind is a 
 mind not to be talked over by an academician; he saw 
 the value to the country of public support to art, he 
 lamented its dreadful condition, and I believe in my 
 conscience he would have remedied its defects. I know 
 he has said so since, but not to me. 
 
 To conclude — remember the elements of perfection in 
 painting are grouping without confusion, action without 
 violence, decision without hardness, expression without 
 distortion, grace without affectation, and beauty without 
 insipidity. 
 
ON PAINTING. 
 
 331 
 
 In effect, reality without vulgarity, air without feeble- 
 ness, tone without blackness, splendour without grand- 
 ness, depth without dulness, and light and shadow 
 without obscurity. 
 
 Through life, always do your best, till you cannot help 
 it; there is nothing the world has such an instinct for 
 as genius, and be quite sure when you find it trying hard 
 to prove you are without it, that it is the first evidence 
 you are blessed. Do not believe in the fallacy that 
 genius can be acquired, it cannot ; industry will improve 
 it, but will never supply it; and after all, the evidence 
 of genius is in its development. The greatest men have 
 been the most remarkable for application; and whatever 
 your genius may be, there is not, as Reynolds said, any 
 easy way of becoming a great painter. 
 
 I have thus detailed to you, as far as my experience 
 reaches, the principles of form (comprising the bones 
 and muscles of man and brute), composition, colour, 
 light and shadow, light and dark, impasta, and execu- 
 tion. I have endeavoured to shew you, that reality is 
 an assistance and not a hinderance to thought; that 
 colour, light and shadow, are as necessary to its ex- 
 pression almost as drawing; and that the grand style is 
 Nature elevated, and not distorted ; and no style, how- 
 ever poetical, can justify dislocation of joint, whether 
 your figures are heroes, gods, or human beings. 
 
 THE EM). 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Prlntod l)y Mannini< and Miuon, Ivy Lane, Si. P.iiilV. 
 
I