The advantages proceeding from the institution of a Royal Academy. Hints offered to the consideration of the Professors and visiters. That an implicit obedience to the rules of Art be exacted from the young students. That a premature disposition to a masterly dexterity be repressed. That diligence be constantly recommended, and (that it may be effectual) directed to its proper object. 305 The course and order of study. The different stages of Art. -Much copying discountenanced. - The Artist at all times General ideas the presiding principle which regulates every part of Art; Invention, Expression, Colouring, and Dra- Circumspection required in endeavouring to unite contrary excellencies. The expression of a mixed passion not be attempted. Examples of those who excelled in the great Imitation. Genius begins where rules end. - Invention : acquired by being conversant with the inventions of others. The reality of a standard of taste as well as of corporal beauty. — Beside this immutable truth, there are secondary truths, which are variable; both requiring the attention of the Artist, in proportion to their stability or their influence. 40 The principles of Art, whether Poetry or Painting, have their foundation in the mind; such as novelty, variety, and contrast; these in their excess become defects. Sim- plicity, its excess disagreeable. Rules not to be always ERRATA IN VOL. I. Page 80. line 11., for "as advocate," read "as the advocate." INTRODUCTION. WE cannot properly judge to what extent the arts of this country are indebted to the labours of Sir Joshua Reynolds, without turning our attention to the state in which he found them at the period when he came to their rescue; and, if we estimate, at the same time, the results of the labours of others, who had previously endeavoured to advance or to maintain the art of painting in England, we may be led to consider the nature of the means which they employed in their professional pursuits, and the difference between these and the means employed by Reynolds to forward his own views of art. It will then be more apparent why those who preceded him have not ef fected more than they have done; and why Sir Joshua himself has been so eminently successful in accomplishing the object which he always contemplated, that of dignifying and extending the art of his country -and in establishing his brilliant reputation on a basis which cannot be shaken. The native artists who flourished before the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with any pretensions to eminence, are but very few in number; and, till he any appeared, Great Britain had been chiefly indebted to foreigners for what it had witnessed of genuine art. We can scarcely account for this humiliating circumstance on the grounds of any national incapacity for painting peculiar to the artists of the soil; and this is not the age in which advantages or disadvantages of climate can be offered as reasons for failure or success in any intellectual pursuit. Besides, if natural causes may be supposed to have operated in preventing the early growth of art in this country, it is reasonable to infer, that the same causes would continue to operate in retarding its progress when it began to display itself: but we do not see that insurmountable objections interfere to impede the farther progress of British art in its present advanced state, and cannot understand, if such had ever existed, why they did not contribute to stifle in their birth the efforts which it has so successfully made. It is true that, with regard to Historical Painting, and the higher departments of Landscape, we have difficulties to contend with which do not exist in the climates and local peculiarities of Italy and other southern portions of Europe; but these can only be considered as partial impediments, and do not, certainly, amount to objections of vital importance: in Portrait-Painting we have little beyond the disadvantages of a tasteless costume to encounter; and we have already been taught, by the genius of Reynolds, that even these may be rendered subservient to the fancy and contrivance of the artist. We find, also, that, at times which may be |