PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

1810.] Progress of the French Fine Arts, &c. since 1789.

recently established. Exceeding the or-
dinary dimensions of his works, he drew
the only great pictures that are still ex-
tant by him.f At the same time, Le
Sueur painted the cloister of the Car-
thusians; Philip de Champagne executed
his pictures and portraits, so natural and
so full of truth; the Luxembourg was
finished; the equestrian statue of Louis
XIII. was erected. Warin struck the
finest coins used by the moderns; while
the gold and silver-smiths produced ex-
cellent models. Such was the influence
of Richelieu on the arts at the com-
mencement of the seventeenth century.
But when he was no more, they began to
decline: that profound knowledge of de-
sign, the taste, the grace, which charac-
terised the time of Francis I. and
Henry II. disappeared.

If the Fine Arts had so greatly degene-
rated since the time of Louis XIV. it
was not because their administration had
experienced any apparently great alter-
ation. In the state of degradation to
which we have just seen them reduced,
their organisation was very nearly the
saine as under Colbert: they had always
for their administrator the director-ge-
neral of the king's buildings, (board of
works ;) and their masters had the titles
of first painter, and first architect. It
was absolutely necessary to conciliate
these last, in order to obtain prizes in the
schools' employment, or the title of Aca-
denician. In this artists succeeded by
imitating their manner, and adopting
their tastes, their aversions: or by not
daring to attempt any thing beyond
what they knew, and particularly by re-
Such was the
specting their habits."
common law by which all the arts, and
their academies, were governed. It was
that which at all times opposed every
kind of progress; but which was most
absolute with respect to the fine arts
under the reign of Louis XV.

The contrast which then existed between the sciences, philosophy, and literature, on the one hand, and the fine arts on the other, has something very singular in it; the former boldly attacked all their limits for the purpose of extending them, whilst the others continued under the most disgraceful servitude which they had ever submitted to; under the necessity of conforming to the maxims, and almost to the orders, of two or three artists, who could only form disciples of greater mediocrity than themselves. But they were the distributors of employment and honorary titles; they MONTHLY MAG. No. 196.

161

formed the standard of opinion, and of
the favours of the prince: submission
was compulsory. Accordingly we find
in the arts, during the whole age, only
one name worthy of being inscribed with
those of Montesquieu, Buffon, J. J.
Rousseau, and Voltaire: it is that of Vien,
who put an end to that state of things.

Let not the other nations of Europe avail themselves of that humiliation : no one of them could enter into competition, if, instead of considering the general causes of the prosperity or decline of the fine arts, we made a selection of their works, even since the regency. Amongst the painters, the Coypels, Restout, Carle-Vanloo; Boucher himself, whom nature had gifted with imagination, wit, and facility; the statuaries Bouchardon, Pigalle, G. Coustou, Falconet; would yet form a respectable list, which would admit of no rivalship, except in architecture; in which we should have to quote only three or four edifices year 1752.* worthy of esteem, until the

In 1789, painting flourished in the French school, because it possessed both M. Vien, and his principal pupils. The former is always the object of our veneration, and the latter execute great works, which show that their talents are still in their full vigour. We are indebted to them for a new generation of painters, in different branches, and in every one worthy of their masters. obtain the great From their schools annually proceed the young artists who

prizes, and repair to the imperial school at Rome, to complete their instruc

tion.

Painting is therefore not only flourishing in France, but it never was more so.

The same may be said of sculpture, with this difference, that the latter has the art has been brought back to good yet formed only one generation since taste, and the principles of the beautiful. The same statuaries who have thus reBut, as well as in painting, the stored it, continue to afford examples of success. first pupils enjoy a reputation established on beautiful works.

Of all the arts, sculpture is that which has achieved the greatest conquest since 1789. It never appeared with more distinction during the whole cen

The portico at the entrance of the ancient Palais Bourbon, (now the palace of the Legislative Body); the two buildings in the square of Louis XV. (the Place de la Concorde); the great theatre at Versailles; and X the first court of the Palais Roya!.

tury;

tury, in its relations with architecture; and the grand basso relievo of the Pantheon, as well as those lately executed in the court of the Louvre, and the ornaments of the triumphal arch of the Carousel, are incomparably superior to all the sculpture of the kind, since the age of Louis XIV. and even under the reign of that prince. The art of the statuary is therefore also in a state of progression.

Amongst the wishes which we are authorised by your Majesty to subinit to you, is this: that an error, which would shortly become an abuse very prejudicial to sculpture, may not be allowed to extend any farther; that of submitting it to ideas foreign to the subject, and which, not being conceived in the spirit of the art, could only produce discordances, more or less offensive. The more prudent it is to require that sculptors should conform to the general system of a monument, the inore necessary it is that they should be at liberty to dispose their subjects according to the conception of the statuary; for every art has its poetics, its principles, its language, its means, (we might say its conscience,) which must be respected, to avoid introducing disorder by confounding the styles.

Engraving in medals, which remained far behind sculpture, though it should have kept pace with it, had approached it in 1789. One artist only showed more knowledge of design, particularly of the talent of a statuary, which must be found in an engraver of medals. During the revolution, a new engraver, still more distinguished, added to our Popes.t We have lost him, and the former has ceased to produce works before the usual age of inactivity. Both leave a void in the art, which however still possesses some able inen, whom we shall quote hereafter; but it does not appear to have made that progress, which might have been expected from the great number of medals executed within the last ten years. We apprehend that too much precipitation

is the cause.

As to engraving on precious stones, it has been totally forgotten: some individuals have applied for a few portraits;

M. Dupré, who announced himself as early as the year 1776, by the medal of the Independance of America.

Rambert Dumarest, who died a member of the lastitute in 1806, was not noticed till 4795.

but no historical monument had been entrusted to it when the minister of the home department (M. Cretet) charged it to consecrate one of the great events of your Majesty's reign.* Engraving on precious stones, and that of medals, which form two branches of the same art, are, however, the most durable deposi taries of history, and on that account deserve to be improved as much as possible.

It

Architecture has suffered more from the revolution than the other arts. had been attacked even in its principles by a crowd of men, constituting themselves architects without the study indispensably necessary. It appeared with honour on public festivities alone. If these were not all worthy by their object to assemble and to collect a great people, they were for the most part remarkable for the dispositions of the architects. Some have left recollections, which in every point of view are renewed with pleasure: such was the triumphal fête, at which the master-pieces of the arts, recently conquered by you, Sire, appeared in the Champ de Mars, there to receive the homages and acclamations of three hundred thousand Frenchmen.

After the invasion of ignorance, architecture was threatened with being confined only to the agreeable; a taste which, if encouraged, would have produced a deviation from the grand style to which the art should tend. We have exerted ourselves, as well as the professor of the school of architecture, to restrain the young artists by the influence of public competitions; and our zeal has not been unsuccessful. The last great prizes have been adjudged to works of a grander character.

As to great inonuments, it is not to be expected that since the year 1789, a nation without a government, shaken by long and violent convulsions, could have decreed any. France, Sire, will be indebted to your reign for them.

Engraving on copper is ranked amongst the arts of design, of which it translates and multiplies the conceptions. It was not revived with the French school, because it had been left without consideration, and without great models; because there was no necessity that engravers should excel in design. The whims of taste and fashion kept it alive; and if some engravers sought for glory, they obtained it from foreigners.

· The peace of Tilsit.

A Frenchman

1810.]

A Frenchman and an Italian had in troduced into England, about the middie of the eighteenth century, the art of copper-plate engraving, which was flourishing in France during the seventeenth; and those two foreigners caused it to prosper in London, while the country of Audran, Edelinck, Nantueil, Poilly, Masson, Drevet, &c. scarcely counted two or three engravers whom it could acknowledge.*

In 1789, the only engravings of any consequence executed in France, were the galleries of the Palais Royal, and that of Florence. Since that period, and particularly since you, Sire, hold the reins of government, we shall have to quote a great number of magnificent works which occupy the art advantage ously, both for itself and for commerce. The greater part of these undertakings is due to the encouragements given them by your Majesty. One alone has constantly occupied upwards of a hundred artists for the last eight years.f†

The view of the progress or of the decline of music, cannot be traced with the same precision as that of the other arts, because its productions are not placed in the same aspect, and under the influence of a single cause.

It has not followed the same line, on the great theatre of the Comic-Opera. On this last, the natural grace of Mon

Vivarez, born in France; and Bartolozzi, in Florence, very able engravers; the former in landscape, the latter in history. Before them, England possessed but one engraver worthy of notice, John Smith, and his was the black manner. The two foreigners formed some native talents; one of whom, Woollet, a pupil of Vivarez, is justly celebrated.

The description of the Napoleon Museum, due to M. M. Laurent, and RobillardPeronville. The other works will be quoted in the general view, under the article Engraving.

I

signy, the happy, fruitful, and witty
genius of Gretry, seduced without ob-
while irksomeness was seated at the
stacle; and was an honour to France,
Lyric theatre, and almost insuperable
shackles impeded composers who could
have brought about a better taste.

In 1774, Gluck, four years after,
Piccini, and in 1783, Sacchini, fortu-
Their success had nothing national in it,
nately took possession of the scene.
besides a just admiration, and the in-
pressions made by the animated and long
debates, carried on by the warmest par-
tisans of the German and Italian schools.
Hence, however, results the fact, that the
French are not insensible to the beauty
of music, as it has been pretended. It
and Gossee had, before the arrival of
is to be observed, likewise, that Philidor
Gluck, attempted to substitute, in the
room of the trailing melopœa, which
constituted the old French singing, the
animated tones of the passions, and that
they were applauded.* In order to thish
the view of music in 1789, we have to
state that a few years previously,
school for singing had been established
from a persuasion that the theatre could
only means which can insure success
never be subjected to the art, unless the
were employed, namely, sound instruc-
But that school was neither
tion.
and when it was destroyed as a royal
grandly conceived, nor ably organized;
establishment, in 1790, it had already
passed under the influence of the opera,
which it was intended to regenerate.

a

Such was the state of dramatic music in France, when the political revolution commenced.

Philidor, in his Opera of Ernclinde, performed in 1767, and Gussee in Sabinus, atted in 1773.

+ In 1785, the Baron de Breteuil, estab lished the school for singing and declamation.

VARIETIES, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL.
Including Notices of Works in Hand, Domestic and Foreign.

Authentic Communications for this Article will always be thankfully received.

Tis in contemplation to publish a new and handsome edition of "Fuller's Worthies," under the sanction of the association of booksellers, who are presenting to the public improved and uniformeditions of the most valuable of oar English Chronicles. If any oue had the presumption to attempt impro

3

ving Fuller, the consequence would naturally and very properly be a total failure in the speculation. It is not by this assertion intended to say that he is faul:less; but such is his general accuracy, sions, that it will be highly proper to cons and so pleasant are his excursory digressider him so strictly as an English classic,

୫୧

es not to admit a single alteration into the text,but rather to insert, in brief notes, such trifling errors as may be detected. Any notes or corrections, or any hints on the subject, that the admirers of Fuller may have the goodness to send to Messrs. Nichols and Son, Printers, will be thankfully received, and duly noticed.

An important national work will be published about the Easter recess, under the title of County Annual Archives. Hitherto the annals of each county have been entirely lost to the public, and any one desirous of referring to any particular event or proceeding in the county in which he resides, has no means wherever of gaining such information, however interesting it may be to himself or important to the public. As the County Archives is intended to supply this desideratum, the contents of each annual volume will be arranged under the names of the counties to which they respectively belong, and the subjects classed under five general departments: 1. Public Business. 2. Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence. 3. Political Economy. 4. Chronicle. 5. Biography.

Mr. BENJAMIN THOMPSON, of Nottingham, has in the press a Translation of M. Lasteyrie's Account of the Introduction of the Merino Race of Sheep into the several Countries of Europe where they are naturalized. The work is ac companied with notes relative to the mode of managing this valuable breed, which the translator's experience has enabled him to supply.

It has long been matter of surprise to foreign naturalists, that although in this country botany has been cultivated with a zeal and success which leave nothing to desire, scarcely any attention has been hitherto paid to the sister science entomology; so that while the vegetable productions of the British isles are for the most part well known, and accurately described, not a third of our numerous tribes of insects have been noticed or enumerated. This neglect is, doubtless, principally to be attributed to the want of a popular and comprehensive elementary work, adapted to the present im proved state of the science. To supply this desideratum, and facilitate the study, in Britain, of a department of natural history, singularly amusing and instructive; abounding in objects striking in their shape and structure, splendid in decoration, and in the highest degree interesting in habits, manners, and economy; the Rev. W. KIRBY, A. B. F. L.S.

author of Monographia Apum Angliæ, and Mr. W. SPENCE, F. L. S. are enga ged in preparing an Introduction to Entomology, which is in a state of considerable forwardness. The plan of the work is popular; but without overlooking science, to the technical and anatomical will be contributed, its object, after obdepartments of which, much new matter viating objections, and removing prejudices, is to include every thing useful or interesting to the entomological student, except descriptions of genera and species, which are foreign to the nature of such a work.

bury, Hertfordshire, was a few months The new East India college, at Haileysince completed. It is a very neat and handsome structure, composed entirely on the Grecian model, after the designs of Mr. William Wilkins, jun. It conwith a well-proportioned square in the sists of four sides, forming a quadrangle, stone, faces the east, and commands a centre. The principal front, of freedistant view of the high north road, from which it has a very beautiful appearance. and library; the kitchen and offices comIn this front are the chapel, dining-hall, posing one wing, and the Principal's apartments the other. The other three sides contain separate apartments for 120 students, having a recess for a bed, and student has a commodious apartment to a closet for books, in each, so that every himself. The centre and wings of these three sides of the quadrangle, also contain houses for the professors, and seveoffices necessary for the college-servants, ral lecture-rooms, besides the various &c. The grounds belonging to the col lege are now laying out agreeably to a plan of Mr. Repton, and when completed, will, together with the building, be a great improvement to that part of the be a lasting memorial of the zeal of the County; while the institution itself will East India Company in the cau-e of liof benefit and advantage both at home terature and science, as well as the source dents to the college is vested in the diand in India. The nomination of sturectors, and is, in fact, a virtual appointment as writers. The terins of admis sion are 100 guineas per annum. students wear an academical habit, and strictions. Their fourth annual examiare subject to college discipline and renation took place on the 21st December, when the prizes were distributed as follows:

The

To Mr. Robert Anderson, the certificate of
superior