LETTER XVI.

TO M. DE LAROCHE.

I WILL now return to four painters, to whom I have merely casually alluded in a preceding letter; and I shall begin by asking a question, which is very much canvassed here, namely, whether the English really have a school of historic painting? I consent to answer in the affirmative, since they appeal to West and Fuseli, (the one an American, the other a Swiss, both naturalized in London) to Barry and to Haydon. But has this school produced any models? This question is not so easily answered. West found a munificent patron in George III. The royal galleries, which till then had received no large works, but those of foreign artists, and the churches, whose doors were before closed against paintings, now readily admitted the productions of West. National glory and religion furnished his subjects. During a life of eighty years, he had ample time to meditate on all the secrets of his art, and to perfect and retouch his compositions. West was, however, merely a painter of talent; if there is little to condemn in his pictures, there is at the same time nothing to excite that enthusiasm, or those strong emotions, which are the true end of painting. West possessed the science of the artist, but none of the genuine poetry of his art. The puritans re

proached Raphael and Dominichino with seducing the people to popish superstition. West would have reconciled even the iconoclasts to church pictures. He satisfies the reason, like a cold narrator of historical events. One feels almost tempted to efface his colours, to decompose his groupes and figures, to study the frame-work of his pictures, and the geometrical lines which have guided the painter's hand; while, in a work of inspiration, on the contrary, we never think of analysing until we have been in some measure actors in the scene represented, and until we have shared the passions which animate each individual. There is notwithstanding a rich variety of expression and contrast in his great picture, in which Jesus confounds the wisdom of the Pharisees by his sublime parables, as well as by his miracles. The laws of unity, of action, and of interest have seldom been better observed. Every countenance presents an excellent study, from the expression of the priest, whose lips are quivering with the malediction which one almost seems to hear, to the mild and sweet ingenuousness which breathes through the features of the young girl, who is leaning on the Centurion's arm.

The appearance of the Witch of Endor is but a common-place phantasmagoria; West has succeeded better in his Death on the Pale Horse, in which he has embodied all the allegories contained in the imposing enumeration of the scourges in the sixth chapter of the Revelations. There is certainly something singularly horrible in this ideal repre

sentation of triumphant death, but there is at the same time much vigour in the conception, and some of the details are admirably executed. West, however, possessed too judicious a taste to indulge often in subjects of this class. His picture of St. Paul, in the chapel at Greenwich, bears the genuine stamp of his talent.

Barry, the contemporary of West, with all his high pretension, was more remarkable for the singularity of his ideas, than for his talent as a painter. Measuring his own genius by the size of his pictures, his vanity led him to fancy himself the greatest artist in the world; and while he neglected proportions, and affected to despise colouring, he was particularly deficient in the delineation of nature and grace. His pictures, which decorate the Great Room of the Society of Arts, are filled with colossal figures. They are a succession of allegories, representing the progress of civilization. It is impossible to refrain from smiling when one's attention is directed to the faithful portraits of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain Cooke, Dr. Burney, &c. all represented under the form of Tritons, surrounded by Nereides, in the Triumph of the Thames.

Fuseli, the professor of painting to the Royal Academy, seems to have mistaken the gigantic for the grand, caprice for originality, and exaggeration for boldness. In the professor's chair he inculcates other principles, he becomes enthusiastic, without being extravagant, and frequently evinces genuine taste in his remarks on the great masters

and the great epochs of art. But in his written lectures, his frequent hyperboles, forced metaphors, and metaphysical allusions, betray his Germanic origin, and the pedantic rather than enthusiastic school of Schlegel. How different from the chaste elegance of Reynolds! But it is chiefly in his pictures that Fuseli shows his contempt for the graces of the English Titian. He aspires to be the Michel-Angelo and the Dante of modern painting. Though sometimes grand and sublime, he is more frequently outrageously exaggerated, and transfers to his canvas the horrors of German extravagance. His forms, his colouring, his expression, embody ideal conceptions which belong to his own imagination alone, and are founded on nothing in nature. He is original, because he is like nobody else; and his favourite subjects, borrowed from the Scandinavian mythology, would be suitable decorations for the blood-stained palace of Odin.

The painter whom I have next to mention, is younger than any of the three I have already noticed, and has all of a sudden acquired, by two of his compositions, a greater share of praise than any of his predecessors or contemporaries. Mr. Haydon has obtained the reputation of the first historical painter in England, since the produc tion of his Christ entering Jerusalem. The Judg ment of Solomon, which preceded the latter picture, and which was also a remarkable composition, has since been looked upon only as a promise of future talent. The Entry into Jerusalem, which

was exhibited alternately in all the principal towns of Great Britain, met with some severe critics at Edinburgh, in the Aristarchi of the Edinburgh Review, who could see nothing in it beyond the sketch of a fine picture. However, it cannot be denied that at least one figure of this vast composition is really finished. There is considerable skill in the arrangement of the groupes, some of the contrasts are very effective, and the execution is often vigorous and bold. But the picture wants that beauty of colouring which gives life and sentiment to drawing. The figures seem to be waiting for the last touch of the pencil, which should animate them, as the breath of Jehovah animated the clay which his hands had moulded into forms. In his delineation of our Saviour's head, Haydon has ventured to depart from that species of consecrated tradition, to which all painters before him have conformed. We find in it none of that mingled gentleness and majesty, whose very mildness is characteristic. Mr. Haydon has aimed at personifying supreme intelligence, and infusing into the features of the Son of God and man, that divine radiance with which he is encircled in the pictures of the old masters.

Two of the groupes are particularly striking; one on the right, the other on the left of Jesus. The latter is composed of three portraits of celebrated writers. A sophist, with the features of Voltaire, sneers at Christ with a sardonic grin; a Christian philosopher, who is easily recognised for Sir Isaac Newton, is represented in the atti