added a fingle wheel or pulley to what was conftructed and provided by the antients. All that can be faid is, that one fpring of the machine has acquired a greater degree of force and activity than it had formerly. I mean the firearms, which carry farther than the machines of the antients. The expansion of air, caused by the burning of gun-powder, has certainly greater force to drive a ball from the barrel of a cannon than the elafticity of the flender ftrings, which they made ufe of, had to drive a stone from the balifa. But what effential difference does it make, that one arm is contrived to ftrike at a greater diftance? No mah ever took it into his head to imagine that the principles of war in modern times are changed from those of the ancient, because the fight of the engineer, the admiral, and the general, has been fo much improved, and carried fo much farther by the invention of the telescope. VOL. XXV. L MISCELLA. MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. A Difcourfe delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Diftribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1782, by the Prefident. / Gentlemen, THE highest ambition of every artist is to be thought a man of genius. As long as this flattering quality is joined to his name, he can bear with patience the imputation of careleffnefs, incorrectnefs, or defects of whatever kind. So far indeed is the prefence of genius from implying an abfence of faults, that they are confidered by many as infeparable companions. Some go fuch lengths as to take indications from them, and not only excufe faults on account of genius, but they prefume genius from the existence of certain faults. It is certainly true, that a work may justly claim the character of genius though full of errors; and it is equally true, that it may be faultlefs, and yet not exhibit the leaft fpark of genius. This naturally fuggefts an enquiry, a defire at leaft of enquiring, what qualities of a work and of a workman may juftly intitle a painter to that character ? I have in a former difcourfe* endeavoured to imprefs you with a fixed opinion, that a comprehen five and critical knowledge of the works of nature is the only fource of beauty and grandeur. But when we fpeak to painters, we must always confider this rule, and all rules, with a reference to the mechanical practice of their own particular art. It is not properly in the learning, the taste, and the dignity of the ideas, that genius appears as belonging to a painter. There is a genius particular and appropriated in his own trade (as I may call it) diftinguished from all others; for that power which enables the artist to conceive his fubject with dignity, may be faid to belong to general education; and is as much the genius of a poet, or the profeffor of any other liberal art, or even of a good critic in any of thofe arts, as of a painter. Whatever fublime ideas may fill his mind, he is a painter only as he can put in practice what he knows, and communicate those ideas by vifible representation. If my expreflion can convey my idea, I wish to diftinguifh excellence of this kind by calling it the genius of mechanical performance. This genius confifts, I conceive, Difcourfe III. ia in the power of exprefling that it from the principal point. It which employs your pencil, whatever it may be, as a whole; fo as that the general effect and power of the whole may take poffeffion of the mind, and for a while fufpend the confideration of the fubordinate and particular beauties or defects. The advantage of this method of confidering objects, is what I with now more particularly to enforce. At the fame time I do not forget that a painter must have the power of contracting as well as dilating his fight; becaufe, he that does not at all exprefs particulars, expreffes nothing; yet it is certain, that a nice difcrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have, (and I do not mean to detract from it) never did confer on the artist the character of genius. Befides thofe minute differences in things which are frequently not obferved at all, and when they are make little impreilion, there are in all confider-ble objects great characteristic diflinctions, which prefs ftrongly on the fenfes, and therefore fix the imagination. Thefe are by no means, as fome people think, an aggregate of all the inall difcriminating particulas; nor will fuch an accumulation of particulars ever exprefs them. Thefe anfwer to what I have heard great lawyers call the leading points in a cafe, or the leading cafes relative to thefe points. The detail of particulars, which does not affift the expreffion of the main characteristic, is worse than ufe efs; it is mifchievous, as it diffipates the attention, and draws may be remarked, that the impreffion which is left on our mind, even of things which are familiar to us, is felcom more than their general effect; beyond which we do not look in recognising fuch objects. To exprefs this in painting, is to exprefs what is congenial and natural to the mind of man, and what gives him by reflection his own mode of conceiving. The other prefuppofes nicety and refearch, which are only the bafiness of the curious and attentive, and therefore does not speak to the general fente of the whole ipecies; in which common, and, as I may fo call it, mother tongue, every thing grand and comprehenfive muit be uttered. I do not mean to prefcribe what degree of attention ought to be paid to the minute parts; this it is hard to fettle. We are fure that it is expreffing the general effect of the whole which can give to objects their true and touching character; and wherever this is obierved, whatever is neglected, we acknowledge the hand of a mafter. We may even go farther and obferve, that when the general effect only is prefented to us by a fkilful hand, it appears to exprefs that object in a more lively manner thn the minuteft refemblance would do. Thefe obfervations may lead to very deep questions, which I do not mean here to difcufs. Among others, it may lead to an enquiry, Why we are not always pleafed with the most abfolute poffible refemblance of an imitation to its original object? Cales may exist in which fuch a refemblance may L 2 be be even difagreeable. I fhall only by an artist, unless he has the haobferve that the effect of figures in wax-work, though certainly a more exact reprefentation than can be given by painting or fculpture, is a fufficient proof that the pleafure we receive from imitation is not increased merely in proportion as it approaches to minute and detailed reality; we are pleafed, on the contrary, by feeing ends anfwered by feeming inadequate means. To exprefs protuberance by actual relief, to exprefs the foftnets of flesh by the foftnefs of wax, feems rude and inartificial, and creates no grateful furprize. But to exprefs diftances on a plain furface, foftnefs by hard bodies, and particular colouring by materials which are not tingly of that colour, produces that magic which is the pride and triumph of art. Carry this principle a step farther. Suppofe the effect of imitation to be fully compaffed by means ftilt more inadequate; let the power of a few well-chofen ftrokes, which fuperfede labour by judgment and direction, produce a complete impreffion of all that the mind demands in an object; we are charmed with fuch an unexpected happinefs, and begin to be tired with the fuperfluous diligence, which in vain folicits an appetite already fatiated. The properties of all objects, as far as a painter is concerned with them, are the outline or drawing, the colour, and the light and fhade. The drawing gives the form, the colour its vifible quality, and the light and fhade its folidity. Excellence in any one of thefe parts of art will never be acquired bit of looking upon objects at large, and obferving the effect which they have on the eye when it is dilated, and employed upon the whole, without feeing any one of the parts diftinctly. It is by this that we obtain the ruling characteristic, and that we learn to imitate it by fhort and dexterous methods. I do not mean by dexterity a trick or mechanical habit, formed by guefs and established by custom, but that fcience which, by a profound knowledge of ends and means, difcovers the thorteft and fureft way to its own purpofe. If we examine with a critical view the manner of thofe artists whom we confider as patterns, we fhall find that their great fame does not proceed from their works being more highly finished, or from a more minute attention to details,, but from that enlarged comprehenfion which fees the whole object at once, and that energy of art which gives its characteristic effect by adequate expreffion. Raffaelle and Titian are two names which ftand the highest in our art; one for drawing, the other for painting. The most confiderable and the moft efteemed works of Raffaelle are the cartoons, and his fresco works in the Vatican; thofe, as we all know, are far from being minutely finished; his principal care and attention feems to be fixed upon the adjustment of the whole, whether it was the general compofition, or the compofition of each individual figure; for every figure may be faid to be a leffer whole, though in regard to the general work to which it belongs, it is but a part; the fame may be faid of the head, of the hands, or feet. Though he poffeffed this art of feeing and comprehending the whole, as far as form is concerned, he did not exert the fame faculty in regard to the general effect, which is prefented to the eye by colour, and light and fhade. Of this the deficiency of his oil pictures, where this excellence is more expected than in fresco, is a fufficient proof. It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to colour, and light and fhade in the highest degree. He was both the firit and the greatest mafter of this art. By a few ftrokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted, and produced by this alone a truer reprefentation than his mafter Giam, Bellino, or any of his predeceffors, who finished every hair. His great care was to exprefs the general colour, to preferve the maffes of light and fhade, and to give by oppofition the idea of that folidity which is infeparable from natural objects. When thofe are preferved, though with nothing more, the work will have in a proper place its complete effect; but where any of these are wanting, however minutely boured the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a falfe and even an unfinished appearance at whatever distance, or in whatever light, it can be flewn.. It is in vain to attend to the variation of tints, if, in that attention, the general hue of flefh is loft; or to finish ever fo minutely the parts, if the maffes are not obferved, or the whole not well put together. Vafari feems to have no great difpofition to favour the Venetian painters, yet he everywhere juftly commends il mode di fare, la maniere, la bella practica; that is, the admirable manner and practice of that fchool. On Titian, in particular, he bestows the epithets of giudiciofo bello, e fupendo. This manner was then new to the world, but that unfhaken truth on which it is founded, has fixed it as a model to all fucceeding painters; and thofe who will examine into the artifice, will find it to confift in the power of generatizing, and in the fhortnefs and fimplicity of the means. Many artists, as Vafari likewife obferves, have ignorantly imagined they are imitating the manner of Titian when they leave their colours rough and neglect the detail; but, not poffeffing the principles on which he wrought, they have produced what he calls goffe pitture, abfurd foolish pictures; for fuch will always be the confequence of affecting dexterity without fcience, without felection, and without fixed principles. Raffaelle and Titian feemed to look at nature for different purpofes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole; but one looked only for the general effect as produced by form, the other as by colour. We cannot entirely refufe to Titian the merit of attending to the general form of his object, as well as colour; but his deficiency lay, a deficiency at least when he is compared with Raffaelle, in not poffeffing the power, like him, of correcting the form of his model L3 by |