The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Volume 3 (of 3). Fuseli Henry
the bosom of a lovely mother is an idea of nature, and pleasing in a lowly or domestic subject; but amidst the terrors of martyrdom, it is a shred tacked to a purple robe. In touching the circle that surrounds the Ananias of Raffaelle, you touch the electric chain; an irresistible spark darts from the last as from the first, and penetrates and subdues. At the Martyrdom of St. Agnes,20 you saunter amidst the mob of a lane, where the silly chat of neighbouring gossips announces a topic as silly, till you find, with indignation, that instead of a broken pot, or a petty theft, you are to witness a scene for which Heaven opens, the angels descend, and Jesus rises from his throne.
99. Expression alone can invest beauty with supreme and lasting command over the eye.
Coroll.– On beauty, unsupported by vigour and expression, Homer dwells less than on active deformity; he tells us, in three lines, that Nireus led three ships, his parentage, his form, his effeminacy; but opens in Thersites a source of comedy and entertainment.
Raffaelle not only subjected beauty to expression, but, at the command of invention, degraded it into a handmaid of deformity: thus the flowers of infancy and youth, virility and age, are scattered round the temple-gate, to impress us more by comparison with the distorted beings that crawl before and defy the powers of every other hand but the one delegated by Omnipotence.21
100. Imitation seems to cease, where the ideal part begins.
101. The imitator rises above the copyist by generalizing the individual to a class; the idealist mounts above the imitator by uniting classes.
102. The imitator, by comparison and taste, unites the scattered limbs of kindred excellence; the idealist, by the "mind's eye," fixes, personifies, embodies possibility: modes and degrees of single powers are the province of the former; the latter unites whatever implies no contradiction in an assemblage of varied excellence.
Coroll.– This is best explained by the Ilias. Each individual of Homer forms a class, and is circumscribed by one quality of heroic power; Achilles alone unites their different energies.
The height, the strength, the giant-stride and supercilious air of Ajax; the courage, the impetuosity, the never-failing aim, the never-bloodless stroke of Diomedes; the presence of mind, the powerful agility of Ulysses; the velocity of the lesser Ajax; Agamemnon's sense of prerogative and domineering spirit, – assign to each his separate class of heroism, yet lessen not their shades of imperfection. Ajax appears the warrior rather than the leader; Ulysses is too prudent to be more than brave; the hawk more than the eagle predominates in the son of Oileus; Agamemnon has the prerogative of power, but not of heroism; Diomede alone might appear to have been raised too high, had he been endowed with an assuming spirit. So far the poet found, ennobled, classified; but all these he sums up, and creates an ideal form from their assemblage, in Achilles: – he is the grandson of Jupiter, the son of a goddess, the favourite of Heaven —22"What arms can fit me but the shield of Ajax? The lance maddens not in the grasp of Diomede to chase the flames from the ships. Let him confer with thee, Ulysses, and the rest." Such is his language. Before the pursuer of Hector vanishes the velocity of Ajax; from destroying Agamemnon he is prevented by Minerva; he gives his armour to the son of Menœtius, and disperses all but the gods; his spear none can throw, and none tear from the ground when thrown; a miracle alone can save those that oppose him singly; when else he fights, 'tis not to gain a battle, but to subvert Troy.
What Achilles is to his confederates, the Apollo, the Torso, the statues23 of the Quirinal, are to all other known figures of gods, of demi-gods and heroes.
103. Fancy not to compose an ideal form by mixing up a mass of promiscuous beauties; for, unless you consulted what was homogeneous and what was possible in Nature, you have hatched only a monster: this, we suppose, was understood by Zeuxis when he collected the beauties of Agrigentum to compose a perfect female.24
104. If there be any thing serious in art, it certainly then ought to be exerted when religion is the subject; but idolaters and iconoclasts seem to have conspired, either to banish the author of their faith to the cold sphere of mythology, or to debase him to the dregs of mankind.
Coroll.– Majesty is the feature of the Supreme Being; no eternal Father of the moderns approaches the majesty of Jupiter.
The gods of Michael Angelo are stern. The gods of Raffaelle are affable and weak. The gods of Guido have the air of ancient courtiers.
In the race of Jupiter, majesty is tempered by emanations of beauty and of grace, but never softened into love.
The Christ of Michael Angelo is severe. The Christ of Raffaelle is poised between the heraldry of church tradition and the dignified mildness of his own character. The Christ of Guido is a well suspended corpse.
"The character corresponding with that of Christ," says a critic and a painter,25 "is a mixture of the characters of Jupiter and Apollo, allowing only for the accidental expression of the moment." What magic shall amalgamate the superhuman airs of Rhea's and Latona's sons with sufferings and resignation? The critic, in his exultation, forgot the leading feature of his master – humility.
Whatever be the ideal form of Christ, the Saviour of mankind, extending his arm to relieve the afflicted, the hopeless, the dying, is a subject that comes home to the breast of every one who calls himself after his name: – the artist is in the sphere of adoration with the Christian.
A great and beneficent character, eminently exerting unknown healing powers over the family of disease and pain, claims the participation of every feeling man, though he be no believer: – the artist is in the sphere of sentiment with the Deist or Mahometan.
But a mean man marked with the features of a mean sect, surrounded by a beggarly ill-shaped rabble and stupid masks – is probably a juggler that claims the attention of no one.
The Resurrection of Christ derives its interest from its rapidity, the Ascension from its slowness.
In the Resurrection, the hero, like a ball of fire, shoots up resistless from the bursting tomb, and scatters terror and astonishment, – what apprehension could not dream of, what the eye had never beheld, and tongue had never uttered, blazes before us, – tumultuous agitation rends the whole. Such is the spirit of the Resurrection by Raffaelle.
The Ascension is the last of many similar scenes: no longer with the rapidity of a conqueror, but with the calm serenity of triumphant power, the hero is borne up in splendour, and gradually vanishes from those who, by repeated visions, had been taught to expect whatever was amazing. Silent and composed, with eyes more absorbed in adoration than wonder, they followed the glorious emanation, till addressed by the white-robed messengers of their departed King.
105. We are more impressed by Gothic than by Greek mythology, because the bands are not yet rent which tie us to its magic: he has a powerful hold of us, who holds us by our superstition or by a theory of honour.
106. The east expands, the north concentrates images.
107. Disproportion of parts is the element of hugeness, – proportion, of grandeur; all Oriental, all Gothic styles of Architecture, are huge; the Grecian alone, is grand.
108. The female, able to invigorate her taste without degenerating into a pedant, sloven or virago, may give her hand to the man of elegance, who scorns to sacrifice his sense to the presiding phantoms of an effeminate age.
109. The collector who arrogates not to himself the praise bestowed on his collections, and the reader who fancies himself not the author of the beauties he recites to an admiring circle – are not the last of men.
110. The epoch of rules, of theories, poetics, criticisms in a nation, will add to their stock of authors in the same proportion as it diminishes their stock of genius: their productions will bear the stamp of study, not of nature; they will adopt, not generate; sentiment will supplant images, and narrative invention; words will be no longer the dress but the limbs of composition, and feeble elegance will supply the
Engraved by G. Audran.
In the cartoon of Peter and John.
Iliad, L. xviii. l. 93; L. xvi. l. 74 and 75; L. ix. l. 346.
Commonly called the Castor and Pollux of Monte Cavallo, – the name given from their horses to the Quirinal.
Plin. N.H. l. xxxv. c. ix. Tantus diligentia, ut Agrigentinis facturus tabulam, quam in templo Junonis Lucinæ publice dicarent, inspexerit virgines eorum nudas, et quinque elegerit, ut quod in quaque laudatissimum esset, pictura redderet.
Mengs Lettera à don A. Ponz. Opere di A.R. Mengs, t. ii. p. 83.