Leo X., and Cardinal Bembo, are brought together in the school of Athens, every person must admit, that such offences as these, against truths so obvious, if they do not arise from a defect of understanding, are instances of inexcusable carelessness." Here we think this writer has missed the key of explanation. The very picture is the history of the progress of mind, through science and philosophy, to the acknowledgment of an immortal being. The very subject amalgamates, in one moral idea, times, epochs, localities. It treats of that which passes over time, and embodies only its results. Mr Fuseli notices not these anachronisms, but says aptly of the picture—"What was the surmise of the eye and wish of hearts, is gradually made the result of reason, in the characters of the school of Athens, by the researches of philosophy, which, from bodies to mind, from corporeal harmony to moral fitness, and from the duties of society, ascends to the doctrine of God and hopes of immortality." The very entertaining author whom we have quoted above, we must here, somewhat out of place, observe, has, with Mr Fuseli, mistaken the character of Hogarth's works. He says—"Hogarth has painted comedy!" and what is very strange, he seems to rank him as a comedian with "Pope, Young and Crabbe"—the last, the most tragic in his pathos of any writer. The invention in the Cartoons comes next under Mr Fuseli's observation. "In whatever light we consider their invention, as parts of one whole, relative to each other, or independent each of the rest, and as single subjects, there can be scarcely named a beauty or a mystery, of which the Cartoons furnish not an instance or a clue; they are poised between perspicuity and pregnancy of moment." We believe we understand the latter sentence; it is, however, somewhat affected, and does not rightly balance the perspicuity. We must go back, however, to a passage preceding the remarks on the Cartoons; because we wish, above all things, to vindicate the purest of painters from charges of licentiousness. He sees in Cupid and Psyche a voluptuous history: this may or may not be so—we think it is far from being such; but when he adds, "the voluptuous history of his (Raffaelle's) own favourite passion," he is following a prejudice, an unfounded story—one which we think, too, has in no slight degree influenced his general criticism and estimation of Raffaelle. We would refer the reader to "Passavant's Life of Raffaelle," where he will see this subject investigated, and the tale refuted. It is surprising, but good men affect to speak of amorous passion as if it were a crime; by itself it may disgust, but surely coldness is not the better nature. Insensibilities of all kinds must be avoided, even where "Amor," as Mr Fuseli calls him, and Psyche are the subjects. It is the happiest genius that shall signify without offence the necessary existence of passion, and leave purity in its singleness and innocence. How exquisitely is this done by Shakspeare in his "Romeo and Juliet!" He keeps the lovers free from every grosser particle of love, while he throws it all upon the subordinate characters, particularly the nurse, whose part in the drama, in no small degree, tends to naturalise to our sympathy the youth, the personal beauty, and whole loveliness, of the unhappy Romeo and Juliet.
The differences of manner in which the same subject, "the Murder of the Innocents," has been represented by several painters, according to the genius of each, are well noticed. "History, strictly so called, follows the drama; fiction now ceases, and invention consists only in selecting and fixing with dignity, precision, and sentiment, the moments of reality." He instances, by a given subject, that were the artist to choose the "Death of Germanicus," he is never to forget that he is to represent "a Roman dying amidst Romans," and not to suffer individual grief to un-Romanize his subject. "Germanicus, Agrippina, Caius, Vitellius, the Legates, the Centurions at Antioch, the hero, the husband, the father, the friend, the leader—the struggles of nature and sparks of hope, must be subjected to the physiognomic character and features of Germanicus, the son of Drusus, the Cæsar of Tiberius. Maternal, female, connubial passion, must be tinged by Agrippina, the woman absorbed in the Roman, less lover than companion of her husband's grandeur. Even the bursts of friendship, attachment, allegiance, and revenge, must be stamped by the military ceremonial, and distinctive costume of Rome." For an instance of this propriety of invention in history, reference is made, we presume as much, to Mr West's "Death of Wolfe." Undoubtedly, this is Mr West's best picture. The praise from Mr Fuseli was, in all probability, purely academic; he frequently showed that he did not too highly estimate the genius of the painter. Having given these outlines of general and specific invention in the epic, dramatic, and historic branches of art, he admits that there is not always a nice discrimination of their limits: "and as the mind and fancy of man, upon the whole, consist of mixed qualities, we seldom meet with a human performance exclusively made up of epic, dramatic, or pure historic materials." This confession, as it appears to us, renders the classification useless to a student, and shows a yet incomplete view of arrangement, and specification of the power, subjects, and means of art.
Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes the dramatic, the dramatic the epic, and the historic both. There does seem something wanting in an arrangement which puts the Iliad and Odyssey, two works essentially different, in the same category. We do, therefore, venture the opinion, that such distinctions are, more particularly in painting, not available. With Sir Joshua, he considers borrowing justifiable, and that it does not impair the originality of invention. The instances given of happy adoption are the "Torso of Apollonius," by Michael Angelo; of the figure of "Adam dismissed from Paradise," by Raffaelle, borrowed from Massaccio, as likewise the figure of "Paul at Athens;" and for figures of Michael Angelo's, Raffaelle, Parmegiano, Poussin, are all indebted to the cartoon of Pisa. The lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the "Transfiguration," and a censure upon the coldness of Richardson, and the burlesque of the French critic Falconet, who could not discover the point of contact which united the two parts of this celebrated picture. "Raphael's design was to represent Jesus as the Son of God, and, at the same time, the reliever of human misery, by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration on Tabor, and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of Jesus, united, furnished the fact. The difficulty was, how to combine two successive actions in one moment. He overcame it, by sacrificing the moment of cure to that of the apparition, by implying the lesser miracle in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision, he obtained sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the foreground, he gained room for the full exertion of his dramatic powers. It was not necessary that the demoniac should be represented in the moment of recovery, if its certainty could be expressed by other means. It is implied, it is placed beyond all doubt, by the glorious apparition above; it is made nearly intuitive by the uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the centre, who, without hesitation, undismayed by the obstinacy of the demon, unmoved by the clamour of the crowd, and the pusillanimous scepticism of some of his companions, refers the father of the maniac, in an authoritative manner, for certain and speedy help to his Master on the mountain above, whom, though unseen, his attitude at once connects with all that passes below. Here is the point of contact; here is that union of the two parts of the fact in one moment, which Richardson and Falconet could not discover."
It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation, and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is heightened by its adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed showing at one view, humanity in its highest, its divinely perfected state, the manhood taken into Godhead; and humanity in its lowest, its most forlorn, most degraded state, in the person of a demoniac: and this contrast seems acknowledged—abhorrently felt, by the reluctant spirit within the sufferer, whose attitude, starting from the effulgence and the power which is yet to heal him, being the strong action of the lower part of the picture, and one of suffering, throws the eye and mind of the spectator at once and permanently from earth to the heavenly vision, to ascending prophets, and that bright and central majesty, "whose countenance," Mr. Fuseli observes, "is the only one we know expressive of his superhuman nature." This idea of transformation to a higher nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets, and the apostles below.
The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the subject—Invention; but we have left little space for further remarks. In another number of Maga we shall resume our review of the lectures.
SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC
Gentle Christians, pity us! We are just returned from a musical entertainment, and, with aching
