Chapter XVI: Part 16

And if by this mixture they make a gracious and sweet colour, which is pleasing to the sight, it is a sign that there is an union and a sympathy betwixt them; but if, on the contrary, that colour which is produced by the mixture of the two be harsh to the sight, we are to conclude, that there is a contrariety and antipathy betwixt these two colours. Green, for example, is a pleasing colour, which may come from a blue and a yellow mixed together; and, by consequence, blue and yellow are two colours which sympathise: and, on the contrary, the mixture of blue with vermilion, produces a sharp, harsh, and unpleasant colour; conclude then, that blue and vermilion are of a contrary nature. And the same may be said of other colours, of which you may make the experiment, and clear that matter once for all. (See the conclusion of the 332d remark, where I have taken occasion to speak of the force and quality of every capital colour.) Yet you may neglect this precept, when your piece consists but of one or two figures, and when amongst a great number you would make some one figure more remarkable than the rest; one, I say, which is one of the most considerable of the subject, and which otherwise you cannot distinguish from the rest. Titian, in his Triumph of Bacchus, having placed Ariadne on one of the borders of the picture, and not being able (for that reason) to make her remarkable by the brightness of light, which he was to keep in the middle of his picture, gave her a scarf of a vermilion colour, upon a blue drapery, as well to loosen her from his ground, which was a blue sea, as because she is one of the principal figures of his subject, upon which he desired to attract the eye. Paul Veronese, in his Marriage of Cana, because Christ, who is the principal figure of the subject, is carried somewhat into the depth of the picture, and that he could not make him distinguishable by the strength of the lights and shadows, has clothed him with vermilion and blue, thereby to conduct the sight to that figure.

The hostile colours may be so much the more allied to each other, the more you mix them with other colours which mutually sympathise, and which agree with those colours which you desire to reconcile.

[*†365.]

“It is labour in vain to paint a high-noon,” &c. He said in another place, “endeavour after that which aids your art, and is suitable to it, and shun whatsoever is repugnant:” it is the 59th precept. If the painter would arrive to the end he has proposed, which is to deceive the sight, he must make choice of such a nature as agrees with the weakness of his colours; because his colours cannot accommodate themselves to every sort of nature. This rule is particularly to be observed, and well considered by those who paint landscapes.

[*†378.]

“Let the field or ground of the picture,” &c. The reason of it is, that we are to avoid the meeting of those colours which have an antipathy to each other, because they offend the sight; so that this rule is proved sufficiently by the 41st, which tells us, that two contrary extremities are never to touch each other, whether it be in colour, or in light; but that there ought to be a mean betwixt them, which partakes of both.

[*†382.]

“Let your colours be lively, and yet not look (according to the painters’ proverb) as if they had been rubbed, or sprinkled with meal,” &c. _Donner dans la farine_, is a phrase amongst painters, which perfectly expresses what it means; which is to paint with clear or bright colours, and dull colours together; for being so mingled, they give no more life to the figures, than if they had been rubbed with meal. They who make their flesh-colours very white, and their shadows grey, or inclining to green, fall into this inconvenience. Red colours in the shadows of the most delicate or finest flesh, contribute wonderfully to make them lively, shining, and natural; but they are to be used with the same discretion, that Titian, Paul Veronese, Rubens, and Van Dyck have taught us, by their example.

To preserve the colours fresh, we must paint by putting in more colours, and not by rubbing them in after they are once laid; and (if it could be done) they should be laid just in their proper places, and not be any more touched, when they are once so placed; because the freshness of the colours is tarnished and lost, by vexing them with the continual drudgery of daubing.

All they who have coloured well have had yet another maxim to maintain their colours fresh and flourishing, which was to make use of white grounds, upon which they painted, and oftentimes at the first stroke, without retouching any thing, and without employing new colours. Rubens always used this way; and I have seen pictures from the hand of that great person, painted up at once, which were of a wonderful vivacity.

The reason why they made use of those kinds of grounds is, because white as well preserves a brightness under the transparency of colours, which hinders the air from altering the whiteness of the ground, as that it likewise repairs the injuries which they receive from the air, so that the ground and the colours assist and preserve each other. It is for this reason, that glazed colours have a vivacity which can never be imitated by the most lively and most brilliant colours; because, according to the common way, the different tints are simply laid on, each in its place, one after another. So true it is, that white with other strong colours with which we paint at once that which we intend to glaze, are, as it were, the life, the spirit, and the lustre of it. The ancients most certainly have found, that white grounds were much the best, because, notwithstanding that inconvenience, which their eyes received from that colour, yet they did not forbear the use of it; as Galen testifies, in his Tenth Book of the Use of the Parts. “Painters,” says he, “when they work upon their white grounds, place before them dark colours, and others mixed with blue and green, to recreate their eyes; because white is a glaring colour, which wearies and pains the sight more than any other.” I know not the reason why the use of it is left off at present, if it be not that in our days there are few painters who are curious in their colouring, or that the first strokes which are begun upon white are not seen soon enough, and that a more than French patience is required to wait till it be accomplished; and the ground, which by its whiteness tarnishes the lustre of the other colours, must be entirely covered, to make the whole work appear pleasingly.

[*†383.]

“Let the parts which are nearest to us, and most raised,” &c. The reason of this is, that upon a flat superficies, and as much united as a cloth can be, when it is strained, the least body is very appearing, and gives a heightening to the place which it possesses: do not therefore load those places with colours, which you would make to turn; but let those be well loaded, which you would have come out of the canvas.

[*†385.]

“Let there be so much harmony, or consent in the masses of the picture, that all the shadowings may appear as if they were but one,” &c. He has said in another place, that after great lights, great shadows are necessary, which he calls reposes. What he means by the present rule is this, that whatsoever is found in those great shadows, should partake of the colours of one another; so that the different colours which are well distinguished in the lights, seem to be but one in the shadows, by their great union.

[*†386.]

“Let the whole picture be of one piece,” &c. That is to say, of one and the same continuity of work, and as if the picture had been painted up all at once: the Latin says, all of one pallet.

[*†387.]

“The looking-glass will instruct you,” &c. The painter must have a principal respect to the masses, and to the effect of the whole together. The looking-glass distances the objects, and, by consequence, gives us only to see the masses, in which all the little parts are confounded. The evening, when the night approaches, will make you better understand this observation, but not so commodiously; for the proper time to make it lasts but a quarter of an hour, and the looking-glass may be useful all the day.

Since the mirror is the rule and master of all painters, as showing them their faults by distancing the objects, we may conclude, that the picture which makes not a good effect at a distance, cannot be well done; and a painter must never finish his picture, before he has examined it at some reasonable distance, or with a looking-glass, whether the masses of the lights and shadows, and the bodies of the colours, be well distributed. Giorgione and Correggio have made use of this method.

[*†393.]

“As for a portrait, or picture by the life,” &c. The end of portraits is not so precisely, as some have imagined, to give a smiling and pleasing air, together with the resemblance; this is indeed somewhat, but not enough. It consists in expressing the true temper of those persons which it represents, and to make known their physiognomy. If the person whom you draw, for example, be naturally sad, you are to beware of giving him any gaiety, which would always be a thing which is foreign to his countenance. If he or she be merry, you are to make that good humour appear, by the expressing of those parts where it acts, and where it shows itself. If the person be grave and majestical, the smiles, or laughing, which is too sensible, will take off from that majesty, and make it look childish and indecent. In short, the painter, who has a good genius, must make a true discernment of all these things; and if he understands physiognomy, it will be more easy to him, and he will succeed better than another. Pliny tells us, “That Apelles made his pictures so very like, that a certain physiognomist and fortune-teller (as it is related by Appion the grammarian) foretold, by looking on them, the very time of their deaths, whom those pictures represented; or at what time their death happened, if such persons were already dead.”

[*†403.]

“You are to take the utmost care, that broad lights may be joined,” &c. This must be done tenderly, yet not so as to make your colours die, by force of tormenting them; but that you should mix them as hastily as you can, and not retouch the same place, if conveniently you can avoid it.

“Broad lights,” &c. It is in vain to take pains if you cannot preserve large lights; because without them your work will never make a good effect at a distance, and also because little lights are confused and effaced proportionably as you are at a distance from the picture. This was the perpetual maxim of Correggio.

[*†417.]

“Ought to have somewhat of greatness in them, and their outlines to be noble,” &c. As the pieces of antiquity will evidently show us.

[*†422.]

“There is nothing more pernicious to a youth,” &c. It is common to place ourselves under the discipline of a master, of whom we have a good opinion, and whose manner we are apt to embrace with ease; which takes root more deeply in us, and augments, the more we see him work, and the more we copy after him. This happens oftentimes to that degree, and makes so great an impression in the mind of the scholar, that he cannot give his approbation to any other manner whatsoever, and believes there is no man under the cope of heaven, who is so knowing as his master.

But what is most remarkable in this point, is, that nature appears to us always like that manner which we love, and in which we have been taught; which is just like a glass through which we behold objects, and which communicates its colour to them, without our perceiving it. After I have said this, you may see of what consequence is the choice of a good master, and of following in our beginning the manner of those who have come nearest to nature. And how much injury do you think have the ill manners which have been in France done to the painters of that nation, and what hindrance have they been to the knowledge of what is well done, or of arriving to what is so, when once we know it? The Italians say to those whom they see infected with an ill manner, which they are not able to forsake, “If you knew just nothing, you would soon learn something.”

[*†433.]

“Search whatsoever is aiding to your art, and convenient; and avoid those things which are repugnant to it,” &c. This is an admirable rule; a painter ought to have it perpetually present in his mind and memory. It resolves those difficulties which the rules beget; it loosens his hands, and assists his understanding; in short, this is the rule which sets the painter at liberty; because it teaches him, that he ought not to subject himself servilely, and be bound, like an apprentice, to the rules of his art; but that the rules of his art ought to be subject to him, and not hinder him from following the dictates of his genius, which is superior to them.

[*†434.]

“Bodies of diverse natures, which are aggrouped, or combined together, are agreeable and pleasant to the sight,” &c. As flowers, fruits, animals, skins, sattins, velvets, beautiful flesh, works of silver, armours, instruments of music, ornaments of ancient sacrifices, and many other pleasing diversities which may present themselves to the painter’s imagination. It is most certain, that the diversity of objects recreates the sight, when they are without confusion, and when they diminish nothing of the subject on which we work. Experience teaches us, that the eye grows weary with poring perpetually on the same thing; not only on pictures, but even on nature itself: for who is he, who would not be tired in the walks of a long forest, or with beholding a large plain which is naked of trees, or in the sight of a ridge of mountains, which, instead of pleasure, give us only the view of heights and bottoms? Thus to content and fill the eye of the understanding, the best authors have had the address to sprinkle their works with pleasing digressions, with which they recreate the minds of readers. Discretion in this, as in all other things, is the surest guide; and as tedious digressions, which wander from their subject, are impertinent; so the painter, who, under pretence of diverting the eyes, would fill his picture with such varieties as alter the truth of the history, would make a ridiculous piece of painting, and a mere gallimaufry of his work.

[*†435.]

“As also those things which seem to be slightly touched, and performed with ease,” &c. This ease attracts our eyes and spirits so much the more, because it is to be presumed, that a noble work, which appears so easy to us, is the product of a skilful hand, which is master of its art. It was in this part, that Apelles found himself superior to Protogenes, when he blamed him for not knowing when to lay down his pencil, and, as I may almost say, to make an end of finishing his piece. And it was on this account he plainly said, “That nothing was more prejudicial to painters, than too much exactness; and that the greatest part of them knew not when they had done enough:” as we have likewise a proverb, which says, “An Englishman never knows when he is well.” It is true, that the word _enough_ is very difficult to understand. What you have to do, is to consider your subject thoroughly, and in what manner you intend to treat it, according to your rules, and the force of your genius; after this, you are to work with all the ease, and all the speed you can, without breaking your head so very much, and being so very industrious in starting scruples to yourself, and creating difficulties in your work. But it is impossible to have this facility without possessing perfectly all the precepts of the art, and to have made it habitual to you: for ease consists in making precisely that work which you ought to make, and to set every thing in its proper place with speed and readiness, which cannot be done without the rules; for they are the assured means of conducting you, to the end that you design, with pleasure. It is then most certain, (though against the opinion of many,) that the rules give facility, quiet of mind, and readiness of hand to the slowest genius; and that the same rules increase and guide that ease in those who have already received it at their birth, from the happy influence of their stars.

From whence it follows, that we may consider facility two several ways; either simply, as diligence, and a readiness of mind, and of the hand; or, as a disposition in the mind to remove readily all those difficulties which can arise in the work. The first proceeds from an active temper full of fire; and the second from a true knowledge and full possession of infallible rules: the first is pleasing, but it is not always without anxiety, because it often leads us astray; and, on the contrary, the last makes us act with a repose of mind and wonderful tranquillity, because it ascertains us of the goodness of our work: it is a great advantage to possess the first; but it is the height of perfection to have both in that manner which Rubens and Van Dyck possessed them, excepting the part of design, or drawing, which both of them too much neglected.

Those who say, that the rules are so far from giving us this facility, that, on the contrary, they puzzle and perplex the mind, and tie the hand, are generally such people who have passed half their lives in an ill practice of painting, the habit of which is grown so inveterate in them, that to change it by the rules, is to take, as it were, their pencils out of their hands, and to put them out of condition of doing any thing; in the same manner as we make a countryman dumb, whom we will not allow to speak, but by the rules of grammar.

Observe, if you please, that the facility and diligence, of which I spoke, consists not in that which we call bold strokes, and a free handling of the pencil, if it makes not a great effect at a distance: that sort of freedom belongs rather to a writing-master than a painter. I say yet farther, that it is almost impossible, that things, which are painted, should appear true and natural, where we observe these sorts of bold strokes. And all those, who have come nearest to nature, have never used that manner of painting. Those tender hairs, and those hatching strokes of the pencil, which make a kind of minced meat in painting, are very fine, I must confess, but they are never able to deceive the sight.

[*†442.]

“Nor till you have present in your mind a perfect idea of your work,” &c. If you will have pleasure in painting, you ought to have so well considered the economy of your work, that it may be entirely made and disposed in your head, before it be begun upon the cloth. You must, I say, foresee the effect of the groupes, the ground, and the lights and shadows of every thing, the harmony of the colours, and the intelligence of all the subject, in such a manner, that whatsoever you shall put upon the cloth, may be only a copy of what is in your mind. If you make use of this conduct, you will not be put to the trouble of so often changing and rechanging.

[*†443.]

“Let the eye be satisfied, in the first place, even against and above all other reasons,” &c. This passage has a respect to some particular licences which a painter ought to take; and, as I despair not to treat this matter more at large, I adjourn the reader to the first opportunity which I can get for his farther satisfaction on this point, to the best of my ability. But in general, he may hold for certain, that those licences are good which contribute to deceive the sight, without corrupting the truth of the subject on which the painter is to work.

[*†445.]

“Profit yourself by the counsels of the knowing,” &c. Parrhasius and Cliton thought themselves much obliged to Socrates for the knowledge which he gave them of the passions. (See their dialogue in Xenophon, towards the end of the third book of Memoirs.) “They, who the most willingly bear reproof,” says Pliny[165] the Younger, “are the very men, in whom we find more to commend than in other people.” Lysippus was extremely pleased, when Apelles told him his opinion; and Apelles as much, when Lysippus told him his. That which Praxiteles said of Nicias, in Pliny,[166] shews the soul of an accomplished and an humble man. “Praxiteles being asked, which of all his works he valued most?” “Those,” says he, “which Nicias has retouched.” So much account he made of his criticisms and his opinions. You know the common practice of Apelles; when he had finished any work, he exposed it to the sight of all passengers, and concealed himself to hear the censure of his faults, with the prospect of making his advantage of the informations which unknowingly they gave him; being sensible, that the people would examine his works more rigorously than himself, and would not forgive the least mistake.

The opinions and counsels of many together are always preferable to the advice of one single person. And Cicero wonders, that any are besotted on their own productions, and say to one another, “Very good, if your works please you, mine are not unpleasing to me.”[167] In effect, there are many who, through presumption, or out of shame to be reprehended, never let their works be seen. But there is nothing can be of worse consequence; “for the disease is nourished and increases,” says Virgil,[168] “while it is concealed.” “There are none but fools,” says Horace, “who, out of shamefacedness, hide their ulcers, which, if shewn, might easily be healed:

“_Stultorum incurata malus pudor ulcera celat._”[169]

There are others, who have not altogether so much of this foolish bashfulness, and who ask every one’s opinion with prayers and earnestness; but if you freely and ingenuously give them notice of their faults, they never fail to make some pitiful excuse for them; or, which is worse, they take in ill part the service which you thought you did them, which they but seemingly desired of you, and out of an established custom amongst the greatest part of painters. If you desire to get yourself any honour, and acquire a reputation by your works, there is no surer way than to shew them to persons of good sense, and chiefly to those who are critics in the art; and to take their counsel with the same mildness, and the same sincerity, as you desired them to give it you. You must also be industrious to discover the opinion of your enemies, which is commonly the truest; for you may be assured, that they will give you no quarter, and allow nothing to complaisance.

[*†449.]

“But if you have no knowing friend,” &c. Quinctilian gives the reason of this, when he says, “that the best means to correct our faults, is doubtless this, to remove our designs out of sight, for some space of time, and not to look upon our pictures: to the end, that after this interval we may look on them as it were with other eyes, and as a new work, which was of another hand, and not our own”. Our own productions do but too much flatter us; they are always too pleasing, and it is impossible not to be fond of them at the moment of their conception. They are children of a tender age, which are not capable of drawing our hatred on them. It is said, that apes, as soon as they have brought their young into the world, keep their eyes continually fastened on them, and are never weary of admiring their beauty; so amorous is nature of whatsoever she produces.

[*†458.]

“To the end that he may cultivate those talents which make his genius,” &c.

_Qui sua metitur pondera, ferre potest._

“That we may undertake nothing beyond our forces, we must endeavour to know them.” On this prudence our reputation depends. Cicero calls it “a good grace,” because it makes a man seen in his greatest lustre. “It is,” says he,[170] “a becoming grace, which we shall easily make appear, if we are careful to cultivate that which nature has given us in propriety, and made our own; provided it be no vice, or imperfection. We ought to undertake nothing which is repugnant to nature in general; and when we have paid her this duty, we are bound so religiously to follow our own nature, that though many things which are more serious and more important, present themselves to us, yet we are always to conform our studies and our exercises to our natural inclinations. It avails nothing to dispute against nature, and think to obtain what she refuses; for then we eternally follow what we can never reach; for, as the proverb says, there is nothing can please, nothing can be graceful, which we enterprise in spite of Minerva; that is to say, in spite of nature. When we have considered all these things attentively, it will then be necessary that every man should regard that in particular which nature has made his portion, and that he should cultivate it with care. It is not his business to give himself the trouble of trying whether it will become him to put on the nature of another man, or, as one would say, to act the person of another; there is nothing which can more become us, than what is properly the gift of nature. Let every one therefore endeavour to understand his own talent, and, without flattering himself, let him make a true judgment of his own virtues, and his own defects and vices, that he may not appear to have less judgment than the comedians, who do not always chuse the best plays, but those which are best for them; that is, those which are most in the compass of their acting. Thus we are to fix on those things for which we have the strongest inclination. And if it sometimes happens, that we are forced, by necessity, to apply ourselves to such other things, to which we are no ways inclined, we must bring it so about, by our care and industry, that if we perform them not very well, at least we may not do them so very ill, as to be shamed by them: we are not so much to strain ourselves, to make those virtues appear in us, which really we have not, as to avoid those imperfections which may dishonour us.” These are the thoughts and the words of Cicero, which I have translated, retrenching only such things as were of no concernment to my subject: I was not of opinion to add any thing, and the reader, I doubt not, will find his satisfaction in them.

[*†464.]

“While you meditate on these truths, and observe them diligently,” &c. There is a great connection betwixt this precept and that other, which tells you, “That you are to pass no day without a line.” It is impossible to become an able artist, without making your art habitual to you; and it is impossible to gain an exact habitude, without an infinite number of acts, and without perpetual practice. In all arts the rules of them are learned in little time; but the perfection is not acquired without a long practice, and a severe diligence. “We never saw, that laziness produced any thing which was excellent,” says Maximus Tyrius;[171] and Quinctilian tells us, “That the arts draw their beginning from nature;” the want we often have of them causes us to search the means of becoming able in them, and exercise makes us entirely masters of them.

[*†466.]

“The morning is the best and most proper part of the day,” &c. Because then the imagination is not clouded with the vapours of meat, nor distracted by visits, which are not usually made in the morning. And the mind, by the sleep of the foregoing night, is refreshed and recreated from the toils of former studies. Malherbe says well to this purpose,

_Le plus beau de nos jours, est dans leur matinee._

The sprightly morn is the best part of day.

[*†468.]

“Let no day pass over you, without a line,” &c. That is to say, without working, without giving some strokes of the pencil or the crayon. This was the precept of Apelles; and it is of so much the more necessity, because painting is an art of much length and time, and is not to be learned without great practice. Michael Angelo, at the age of fourscore years, said, “That he learned something every day.”

[*†473.]

“Be ready to put into your table-book,” &c. As it was the custom of Titian and the Carraches. There are yet remaining in the hands of some who are curious in painting, many thoughts and observations, which those great men have made on paper, and in their table-books, which they carried continually about them.

[*†475.]

“Wine and good cheer are no great friends to painting; they serve only to recreate the mind, when it is opprest and spent with labour,” &c. “During the time,” says Pliny,[172] “that Protogenes was drawing the picture of Jalysus, which was the best of all his works, he took no other nourishment than lupines, mixed with a little water, which served him both for meat and drink, for fear of clogging his imagination, by the luxury of his food;” Michael Angelo, while he was drawing his Day of Judgment, fed only on bread and wine at dinner; and Vasari observes in his life, that he was so sober, that he slept but little, and that he often rose in the night to work, as being not disturbed by the vapours of his thin repasts.

[*†478.]

“But delights in the liberty which belongs to the bachelors estate,” &c. We never see large, beautiful, and well-tasted fruits, proceeding from a tree which is encompassed round, and choked with thorns and briars. Marriage draws a world of business on our hands, subjects us to law-suits, and loads us with multitudes of domestic cares, which are as so many thorns that encompass a painter, and hinder him from producing his works in that perfection of which otherwise he is capable. Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Hannibal Carrache, were never married: and amongst the ancient painters we find none recorded for being married, but only Apelles, to whom Alexander the Great made a present of his own mistress Campaspe; which yet I would have understood, without offence to the institution of marriage; for that calls down many blessings upon families, by the carefulness of a virtuous wife. If marriage be in general a remedy against concupiscence, it is doubly so in respect of painters, who are more frequently under the occasions of sin, than other men, because they are under a frequent necessity of seeing nature bare-faced. Let every one examine his own strength upon this point: but let him prefer the interest of his soul, to that of his art, and of his fortune.

[*†480.]

“Painting naturally withdraws from noise and tumult,” &c. I have said at the end of the first remark, that both poetry and painting were upheld by the strength of imagination. Now there is nothing which warms it more than repose and solitude; because, in that estate, the mind being freed from all sorts of business, and in a kind of sanctuary, undisturbed by vexatious visits, is more capable of forming noble thoughts, and of application to its studies:

_Carmina secessum scribentis, et otia quærunt._

Good verse recess and solitude requires:
And ease from cares, and undisturbed desires.

We may properly say the same of painting, by reason of its conformity with poetry, as I have shewn in the first remark.

[*†484.]

“Let not the covetous design of growing rich,” &c. We read in Pliny, that Nicias refused sixty talents from king Attalus, and rather chose to make a free gift of his picture to his country. “I enquired of a prudent man,” says a grave author,[173] “in what times those noble pictures were made, which now we see; and desired him to explain to me some of their subjects, which I did not well understand. I asked him likewise the reason of that great negligence, which is now visible amongst painters; and from whence it proceeded, that the most beautiful arts were now buried in oblivion; and principally painting, a faint shadow of which is at present remaining to us? To which he thus replied, that the immoderate desire of riches had produced this change: for of old, when naked virtue had her charms, the noble arts then flourished in their vigour; and if there was any contest amongst men, it was only who should be the first discoverer of what might be of advantage to posterity. Lysippus and Myron, those renowned sculptors, who could give a soul to brass, left no heirs, no inheritance, behind them; because they were more careful of acquiring fame than riches. But as for us of this present age, it seems, by the manner of our conduct, that we upbraid antiquity for being as covetous of virtue as we are of vice; wonder not so much, therefore, if painting has lost its strength and vigour, because many are now of opinion, that a heap of gold is much more beautiful than all the pictures and statues of Apelles and Phidias, and all the noble performances of Greece.”

I would not exact so great an act of abstinence from our modern painters; for I am not ignorant, that the hope of gain is a wonderful sharp spur in arts, and that it gives industry to the artist; from whence it was, that Juvenal said, even of the Greeks themselves, who were the inventors of painting, and who first understood all the graces of it, and its whole perfection,

_Græculus esuriens, in Cœlum, jusseris, ibit._

A hungry Greek, if bidden, scales the skies.

But I could heartily wish, that the same hope which flatters them, did not also corrupt them; and did not snatch out of their hands a lame imperfect piece, rudely daubed over with too little reflection, and too much haste.

[*†487.]

“The qualities requisite to form an excellent painter,” &c. It is to be confessed, that very few painters have those qualities which are required by our author, because there are very few who are able painters. There was a time, when only they who were of noble blood were permitted to exercise this art; because it is to be presumed, that all these ingredients of a good painter are not ordinarily found in men of vulgar birth. And, in all appearance, we may hope, that though there be no edict in France, which takes away the liberty of painting, from those to whom nature has refused the honour of being born gentlemen, yet at least that the Royal Academy will admit henceforward only such, who being endued with all the good qualities, and the talents which are required for painting, those endowments may be to them instead of an honourable birth. It is certain, that which debases painting, and makes it descend to the vilest and most despicable kind of trade, is the great multitude of painters, who have neither noble souls, nor any talent for the art, nor even so much as common sense. The origin of this great evil is, that there have always been admitted into the schools of painting, all sorts of children promiscuously, without examination of them, and without observing (for some convenient space of time) if they were conducted to this art by their inward disposition, and all necessary talents, rather than by a foolish inclination of their own, or by the avarice of their relations, who put them to painting, as a trade which they believe to be somewhat more gainful than another. The qualities properly required are these following:—

A good judgment, that they may do nothing against reason and verisimility.

A docile mind, that they may profit by instructions, and receive, without arrogance, the opinion of every one, and principally of knowing men.

A noble heart, that they may propose glory to themselves, and reputation rather than riches.

A sublimity and reach of thought, to conceive readily, to produce beautiful ideas, and to work on their subjects nobly, and after a lofty manner, wherein we may observe somewhat that is delicate, ingenious, and uncommon.

A warm and vigorous fancy, to arrive at least to some degree of perfection, without being tired with the pains and study which are required in painting.

Health, to resist the dissipation of spirits, which are apt to be consumed by pains-taking.

Youth, because painting requires a great experience, and a long practice.

Beauty, or handsomeness, because a painter paints himself in all his pictures; and nature loves to produce her own likeness.

A convenient fortune, that he may give his whole time to study, and may work cheerfully, without being haunted with the dreadful image of poverty, ever present to his mind.

Labour, because the speculation is nothing without the practice.

A love for his art, we suffer nothing in the labour which is pleasing to us; or if it happen that we suffer, we are pleased with the pain.

And to be under the discipline of a knowing master, &c. Because all depends on the beginnings; and because commonly they take the manner of their master, and are formed according to his gusto. See verse 422, and the remark upon it. All these good qualities are insignificant, and unprofitable to the painter, if some outward dispositions are wanting to him. By which I mean favourable times, such as are times of peace, which is the nurse of all noble arts: there must also some fair occasion offer to make their skill manifest, by the performance of some considerable work within their power; and a protector, who must be a person of authority, one who takes upon himself the care of their fortune, at least in some measure, and knows how to speak well of them in time and place convenient. “It is of much importance,” says the younger Pliny, “in what times virtue appears. And there is no wit, howsoever excellent it may be, which can make itself immediately known; time and opportunity are necessary to it, and a person who can assist us with his favour, and be a Mæcenas to us.”

[*†496.]

“And life is so short, that it is not sufficient for so long an art,” &c. Not only painting but all other arts, considered in themselves, require almost an infinite time to possess them perfectly. It is in this sense, that Hippocrates begins his Aphorisms with this saying, “That art is long, and life is short.” But if we consider arts as they are in us, and according to a certain degree of perfection, sufficient enough to make it known, that we possess them above the common sort, and are comparatively better than most others, we shall not find that life is too short on that account, provided our time be well employed. It is true, that painting is an art which is difficult, and a great undertaking; but they who are endued with the qualities that are necessary to it, have no reason to be discouraged by that apprehension. “Labour always appears difficult before it is tried.”[174] The passages by sea, and the knowledge of the stars, have been thought impossible, which notwithstanding have been found and compassed, and that with ease, by those who endeavoured after them. “It is a shameful thing,” says Cicero,[175] “to be weary of enquiry, when what we search is excellent.” That which causes us to lose most of our time, is the repugnance which we naturally have to labour, and the ignorance, the malice, and the negligence of our masters: we waste much of our time in walking, and talking to no manner of purpose, in making and receiving idle visits; in play, and other pleasures which we indulge; without reckoning those hours which we lose in the too great care of our bodies; and in sleep, which we often lengthen out till the day is far advanced; and thus we pass that life which we reckon to be short, because we count by the years which we have lived rather than by those which we have employed in study. It is evident, that they who lived before us, have passed through all those difficulties, to arrive at that perfection which we discover in their works; though they wanted some of the advantages which we possess, and none had laboured for them as they have done for us. For it is certain, that those ancient masters, and those of the last preceding ages, have left such beautiful patterns to us, that a better and more happy age can never be than ours; and chiefly under the reign of our present king, who encourages all the noble arts, and spares nothing, to give them the share of that felicity, of which he is so bountiful to his kingdom; and to conduct them with all manner of advantages to that supreme degree of excellence, which may be worthy of such a master, and of that sovereign love which he has for them. Let us therefore put our hands to the work, without being discouraged by the length of time, which is requisite for our studies; but let us seriously contrive how to proceed with the best order, and to follow a ready, diligent, and well understood method.

[*†500.]

“Take courage, therefore, O ye noble youths! ye legitimate offspring of Minerva, who are born under the influence of a happy planet,” &c. Our author intends not here to sow in a barren, ungrateful ground, where his precepts can bear no fruit: he speaks to young painters, but to such only who are born under the influence of a happy star; that is to say, those who have received from nature the necessary dispositions of becoming great in the art of painting; and not to those who follow that study through caprice, or by a sottish inclination; or for lucre, who are either incapable of receiving the precepts, or will make a bad use of them when received.

[*†503.]

“You will do well,” &c. Our author speaks not here of the first rudiments of design; as, for example, the management of the pencil, the just relation which the copy ought to have to the original, &c. He supposes, that before he begins his studies, one ought to have a facility of hand, to imitate the best designs, and the noblest pictures and statues; that, in few words, he should have made himself a key, wherewith to open the closet of Minerva, and to enter into that sacred place, where those fair treasures are to be found in all abundance, and even offer themselves to us, to make our advantage of them, by our care and genius.

[*†509.]

“To begin with geometry,” &c. Because that is the ground of perspective, without which nothing is to be done in painting. Besides, geometry is of great use in architecture, and in all things which are of its dependence; it is particularly necessary for sculptors.

[*†510.]

“Set yourself on designing after the antient Greeks,” &c. Because they are the rule of beauty, and give us a good gusto; for which reason it is very proper to tie ourselves to them, I mean generally speaking; but the particular fruit which we gather from them, is what follows: To learn by heart four several airs of heads; of a man, a woman, a child, and an old man. I mean those which have the most general approbation; for example, those of the Apollo, of the Venus de Medecis, of the little Nero, (that is, when he was a child,) and of the god Tiber. It would be a good means of learning them, if when you have designed one after the statue itself, you design it immediately after from your own imagination, without seeing it; and afterwards examine, if your own work be conformable to the first design; thus exercising yourself on the same head, and turning it on ten or twelve sides. You must do the same to the feet, to the hands, to the whole figure. But to understand the beauty of these figures, and the justness of their outlines, it will be necessary to learn anatomy. When I speak of four heads, and four figures, I pretend not to hinder any one from designing many others, after this first study; but my meaning is, only to show by this, that a great variety of things undertaken at the same time, dissipates the imagination, and hinders all the profit; in the same manner, as too many sorts of meat are not easily digested, but corrupt in the stomach, instead of nourishing the parts.

[*†511.]

“And cease not day or night from labour, till by your continual practice,” &c. In the first principles, the students have not so much need of precepts as of practice; and the antique statues being the rule of beauty, you may exercise yourselves in imitating them, without apprehending any consequence of ill habits and bad ideas, which can be formed in the soul of a young beginner. It is not as in the school of a master, whose manner and whose gusto are ill, and under whose discipline the scholar spoils himself the more he exercises.

[*†514.]

“And when afterwards your judgment shall grow stronger,” &c. It is necessary to have the soul well formed, and to have a right judgment to make the application of his rules upon good pictures, and to take nothing but the good. For there are some who imagine, that whatsoever they find in the picture of a master who has acquired reputation, must of necessity be excellent: and these kind of people never fail, when they copy, to follow the bad, as well as the good things, and to observe them so much the more, because they seem to be extraordinary, and out of the common road of others, so that at last they come to make a law and precept of them. You ought not also to imitate what is truly good in a crude and gross manner, so that it may be found out in your works, that whatsoever beauties there are in them, come from such or such a master. But, in this, imitate the bees, who pick from every flower that which they find most proper in it to make honey. In the same manner, a young painter should collect from many pictures what he finds to be the most beautiful; and from his several collections form that manner which thereby he makes his own.

[*†520.]

“A certain grace, which was wholly natural and peculiar to him,” &c. Raphael in this may be compared to Apelles, who, in praising the works of other painters, said, “That gracefulness was wanting to them;” and that, without vanity, he might say, it was his own peculiar portion. See the Remark on the 218th verse.

[*†522.]

“Julio Romano, educated from his childhood in the country of the Muses,” &c. He means in the studies of the _belle lettre_, and above all in poesy, which he infinitely loved. It appears, that he formed his ideas, and made his gusto, from reading Homer; and in that imitated Zeuxis and Polygnotus, who, as Maximus Tyrius relates, treated their subjects in their pictures as Homer did in his poetry.

To these remarks I have annexed the opinions of our author, upon the best and chiefest painters of the two foregoing ages. He tells you candidly, and briefly, what were their excellencies, and what their failings.

[*†541.]

“I pass in silence many things which will be more amply treated in the ensuing Commentary.” It is evident by this, how much we lose, and what damage we have sustained by our author’s death, since those commentaries had undoubtedly contained things of high value and of great instruction.

[*†544.]

“To intrust with the Muses,” &c. That is to say, to write in verse; poetry being under their protection, and consecrated to them.

THE JUDGMENT OF CHARLES ALPHONSE DU FRESNOY, ON THE WORKS OF THE PRINCIPAL AND BEST PAINTERS OF THE TWO LAST AGES.

Painting was in its perfection amongst the Greeks. The principal schools were at Sycion, afterwards at Rhodes, at Athens, and at Corinth, and at last in Rome. Wars and luxury having overthrown the Roman empire, it was totally extinguished, together with all the noble arts, the studies of humanity, and the other sciences.

It began to appear again, in the year 1450, amongst some painters of Florence, of which Domenico Chirlandaio was one, who was master to Michael Angelo, and had some kind of reputation, though his manner was Gothic, and very dry.

Michael Angelo, his disciple, flourished in the times of Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, and of seven successive popes. He was a painter, a sculptor, and an architect, both civil and military. The choice which he made of his attitudes was not always beautiful or pleasing; his gusto of design was not the finest, nor his outlines the most elegant; the folds of his draperies, and the ornaments of his habits, were neither noble nor graceful. He was not a little fantastical and extravagant in his compositions; he was bold, even to rashness, in taking liberties against the rules of perspective. His colouring is not over true, or very pleasant. He knew not the artifice of the lights and shadows; but he designed more learnedly, and better understood all the knittings of the bones, with the office and situation of the muscles, than any of the modern painters. There appears a certain air of greatness and severity in his figures; in both which he has oftentimes succeeded. But above the rest of his excellencies, was his wonderful skill in architecture, wherein he has not only surpassed all the moderns, but even the ancients also. The St Peters of Rome, the St Johns of Florence, the Capitol, the Palazzo Farnese, and his own house, are sufficient testimonies of it. His disciples were Marcello Venusti, Il Rosso, Georgio Vasari, Fra. Bastiano, who commonly painted for him, and many other Florentines.

Pietro Perugino designed with sufficient knowledge of nature; but he is dry, and his manner little. His disciple was,

Raphael Santio, who was born on Good Friday, in the year 1483, and died on Good Friday, in the year 1520, so that he lived only thirty-seven years complete. He surpassed all modern painters, because he possessed more of the excellent parts of painting than any other: and it is believed that he equalled the ancients, excepting only that he designed not naked bodies with so much learning as Michael Angelo; but his gusto of design is purer, and much better. He painted not with so good, so full, and so graceful a manner as Correggio; nor has he any thing of the contrast of the lights and shadows, or so strong and free a colouring as Titian; but he had a better disposition in his pieces, without comparison, than either Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, or all the rest of the succeeding painters to our days. His choice of attitudes, of heads, of ornaments; the suitableness of his drapery, his manner of designing, his varieties, his contrasts, his expressions, were beautiful in perfection; but above all, he possessed the graces in so advantageous a manner, that he has never since been equalled by any other. There are portraits, or single figures, of his, which are finished pieces. He was an admirable architect. He was handsome, well made, and tall of stature, civil and well-natured, never refusing to teach another what he knew himself. He had many scholars, amongst others, Julio Romano, Polydore, Gaudenzio, Giovanni d’Udine, and Michael Coxis. His graver was Marc Antonio, whose prints are admirable for the correctness of their outlines.