On the Old Road Volume I Part 5

And why despair of this, or even of shaming the Vatican? For with genius and G.o.d's blessing nothing is impossible.

"I would not be a blind partisan, but, with all their faults, the old masters I plead for knew how to touch the heart. It may be difficult at first to believe this; like children, they are shy with us--like strangers, they bear an uncouth mien and aspect--like ghosts from the other world, they have an awkward habit of shocking our conventionalities with home truths. But with the dead as with the living all depends on the frankness with which we greet them, the sincerity with which we credit their kindly qualities; sympathy is the key to truth--we must love, in order to appreciate."--iii., p. 418.

97. These are beautiful sentences; yet this let the young painter of these days remember always, that whomsoever he may love, or from whomsoever learn, he can now no more go back to those hours of infancy and be born again.[12] About the faith, the questioning and the teaching of childhood there is a joy and grace, which we may often envy, but can no more a.s.sume:--the voice and the gesture must not be imitated when the innocence is lost. Incapability and ignorance in the act of being struggled against and cast away are often endowed with a peculiar charm--but both are only contemptible when they are pretended. Whatever we have now to do, we may be sure, first, that its strength and life must be drawn from the real nature with us and about us always, and secondly, that, if worth doing, it will be something altogether different from what has ever been done before. The visions of the cloister must depart with its superst.i.tious peace--the quick, apprehensive symbolism of early Faith must yield to the abstract teaching of disciplined Reason. Whatever else we may deem of the Progress of Nations, one character of that progress is determined and discernible. As in the encroaching of the land upon the sea, the strength of the sandy bastions is raised out of the sifted ruin of ancient inland hills--for every tongue of level land that stretches into the deep, the fall of Alps has been heard among the clouds, and as the fields of industry enlarge, the intercourse with Heaven is shortened.

Let it not be doubted that as this change is inevitable, so it is expedient, though the form of teaching adopted and of duty prescribed be less mythic and contemplative, more active and una.s.sisted: for the light of Transfiguration on the Mountain is subst.i.tuted the Fire of Coals upon the Sh.o.r.e, and on the charge to hear the Shepherd, follows that to feed the Sheep. Doubtful we may be for a time, and apparently deserted; but if, as we wait, we still look forward with steadfast will and humble heart, so that our Hope for the Future may be fed, not dulled or diverted by our Love for the Past, we shall not long be left without a Guide:--the way will be opened, the Precursor appointed--the Hour will come, and the Man.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This essay is a review of two books by Lord Lindsay, viz., "Progression by Antagonism," published in 1846, and the "Sketches of the History of Christian Art," which appeared in the following year. It is, with the paper on Sir C. Eastlake's "History of Oil Painting," one of the very few anonymous writings of its author. "I never felt at ease"

(says Mr. Ruskin, in speaking of anonymous criticism) "in my graduate incognito, and although I consented, some nine years ago, to review Lord Lindsay's 'Christian Art,' and Sir Charles Eastlake's 'Essay on Oil Painting,' in the _Quarterly_, I have ever since steadily refused to write even for that once respectable periodical" ("Academy Notes," No.

II., 1856). For Mr. Ruskin's estimate of Lord Lindsay's work, see the "Eagle's Nest," - 46, and "Val d'Arno," - 264, where he speaks of him as his "first master in Italian art."--[ED.]

[5] With one exception (see p. 25) the quotations from Lord Lindsay are always from the "Christian Art."--ED.

[6] The reader must remember that this arcade was originally quite open, the inner wall having been built after the fire, in 1574.

[7] "An Historical Essay on Architecture" by the late Thomas Hope.

(Murray, 1835) chap, iv., pp. 23-31.

[8] At the feet of his Madonna, in the Gallery of Bologna.

[9] In many pictures of Angelico, the Infant Christ appears self-supported--the Virgin not touching the child.

[10] The upper inscription Lord Lindsay has misquoted--it runs thus:--

"Salve Mater Pietatis Et Totius Trinitatis n.o.bile Triclinium."

[11] We have been much surprised by the author's frequent reference to Lasinio's engravings of various frescoes, unaccompanied by any warning of their inaccuracy. No work of Lasinio's can be trusted for _anything_ except the number and relative position of the figures. All masters are by him translated into one monotony of commonplace:--he dilutes eloquence, educates navete, prompts ignorance, stultifies intelligence, and paralyzes power; takes the chill off horror, the edge off wit, and the bloom off beauty. In all artistical points he is utterly valueless, neither drawing nor expression being ever preserved by him. Giotto, Benozzo, or Ghirlandajo are all alike to him; and we hardly know whether he injures most when he robs or when he redresses.

[12] We do not perhaps enough estimate the a.s.sistance which was once given both to purpose and perception, by the feeling of wonder which with us is destroyed partly by the ceaseless calls upon it, partly by our habit of either discovering or antic.i.p.ating a reason for everything.

Of the simplicity and ready surprise of heart which supported the spirit of the older painters, an interesting example is seen in the diary of Albert Durer, lately published in a work every way valuable, but especially so in the carefulness and richness of its ill.u.s.trations, "Divers Works of Early Masters in Christian Decoration," edited by John Weale, London, 2 vols. folio, 1846.

EASTLAKE'S HISTORY OF OIL-PAINTING.[13]

98. The stranger in Florence who for the first time pa.s.ses through the iron gate which opens from the Green Cloister of Santa Maria Novella into the Spezieria, can hardly fail of being surprised, and that perhaps painfully, by the suddenness of the transition from the silence and gloom of the monastic inclosure, its pavement rough with epitaphs, and its walls retaining, still legible, though crumbling and mildewed, their imaged records of Scripture History, to the activity of a traffic not less frivolous than flouris.h.i.+ng, concerned almost exclusively with the appliances of bodily adornment or luxury. Yet perhaps, on a moment's reflection, the rose-leaves scattered on the floor, and the air filled with odor of myrtle and myrrh, aloes and ca.s.sia, may arouse a.s.sociations of a different and more elevated character; the preparation of these precious perfumes may seem not altogether unfitting the hands of a religious brotherhood--or if this should not be conceded, at all events it must be matter of rejoicing to observe the evidence of intelligence and energy interrupting the apathy and languor of the cloister; nor will the inst.i.tution be regarded with other than respect, as well as grat.i.tude, when it is remembered that, as to the convent library we owe the preservation of ancient literature, to the convent laboratory we owe the duration of mediaeval art.

99. It is at first with surprise not altogether dissimilar, that we find a painter of refined feeling and deep thoughtfulness, after manifesting in his works the most sincere affection for what is highest in the reach of his art, devoting himself for years (there is proof of this in the work before us) to the study of the mechanical preparation of its appliances, and whatever doc.u.mentary evidence exists respecting their ancient use. But it is with a revulsion of feeling more entire, that we perceive the value of the results obtained--the accuracy of the varied knowledge by which their sequence has been established--and above all, their immediate bearing upon the practice and promise of the schools of our own day.

Opposite errors, we know not which the least pardonable, but both certainly productive of great harm, have from time to time possessed the masters of modern art. It has been held by some that the great early painters owed the larger measure of their power to secrets of material and method, and that the discovery of a lost vehicle or forgotten process might at any time accomplish the regeneration of a fallen school. By others it has been a.s.serted that all questions respecting materials or manipulation are idle and impertinent; that the methods of the older masters were either of no peculiar value, or are still in our power; that a great painter is independent of all but the simplest mechanical aids, and demonstrates his greatness by scorn of system and carelessness of means.

100. It is evident that so long as incapability could s.h.i.+eld itself under the first of these creeds, or presumption vindicate itself by the second; so long as the feeble painter could lay his faults on his palette and his panel; and the self-conceited painter, from the a.s.sumed ident.i.ty of materials proceed to infer equality of power--(for we believe that in most instances those who deny the evil of our present methods will deny also the weakness of our present works)--little good could be expected from the teaching of the abstract principles of the art; and less, if possible, from the example of any mechanical qualities, however admirable, whose means might be supposed irrecoverable on the one hand, or indeterminate on the other, or of any excellence conceived to have been either summoned by an incantation, or struck out by an accident. And of late, among our leading masters, the loss has not been merely of the system of the ancients, but of all system whatsoever: the greater number paint as if the virtue of oil pigment were its opacity, or as if its power depended on its polish; of the rest, no two agree in use or choice of materials; not many are consistent even in their own practice; and the most zealous and earnest, therefore the most discontented, reaching impatiently and desperately after better things, purchase the momentary satisfaction of their feelings by the sacrifice of security of surface and durability of hue.

The walls of our galleries are for the most part divided between pictures whose dead coating of consistent paint, laid on with a heavy hand and a cold heart, secures for them the stability of dullness and the safety of mediocrity; and pictures whose reckless and experimental brilliancy, unequal in its result as lawless in its means, is as evanescent as the dust of an insect's wing, and presents in its chief perfections so many subjects of future regret.

101. But if these evils now continue, it can only be through rashness which no example can warn, or through apathy which no hope can stimulate, for Mr. Eastlake has alike withdrawn license from experimentalism and apology from indolence. He has done away with all legends of forgotten secrets; he has shown that the masters of the great Flemish and early Venetian schools possessed no means, followed no methods, but such as we may still obtain and pursue; but he has shown also, among all these masters, the most admirable care in the preparation of materials and the most simple consistency in their use; he has shown that their excellence was reached, and could only have been reached, by stern and exact science, condescending to the observance, care, and conquest of the most minute physical particulars and hindrances; that the greatest of them never despised an aid nor avoided a difficulty. The loss of imaginative liberty sometimes involved in a too scrupulous attention to methods of execution is trivial compared to the evils resulting from a careless or inefficient practice. The modes in which, with every great painter, realization falls short of conception are necessarily so many and so grievous, that he can ill afford to undergo the additional discouragement caused by uncertain methods and bad materials. Not only so, but even the choice of subjects, the amount of completion attempted, nay, even the modes of conception and measure of truth are in no small degree involved in the great question of materials. On the habitual use of a light or dark ground may depend the painter's preference of a broad and faithful, or partial and scenic chiaroscuro; correspondent with the facility or fatality of alterations, may be the exercise of indolent fancy, or disciplined invention; and to the complexities of a system requiring time, patience, and succession of process, may be owing the conversion of the ready draughtsman into the resolute painter. Farther than this, who shall say how unconquerable a barrier to all self-denying effort may exist in the consciousness that the best that is accomplished can last but a few years, and that the painter's travail must perish with his life?

102. It cannot have been without strong sense of this, the true dignity and relation of his subject, that Mr. Eastlake has gone through a toil far more irksome, far less selfish than any he could have undergone in the practice of his art. The value which we attach to the volume depends, however, rather on its preceptive than its antiquarian character. As objects of historical inquiry merely, we cannot conceive any questions less interesting than those relating to mechanical operations generally, nor any honors less worthy of prolonged dispute than those which are grounded merely on the invention or amelioration of processes and pigments. The subject can only become historically interesting when the means ascertained to have been employed at any period are considered in their operation upon or procession from the artistical aim of such period, the character of its chosen subjects, and the effects proposed in their treatment upon the national mind. Mr.

Eastlake has as yet refused himself the indulgence of such speculation; his book is no more than its modest t.i.tle expresses. For ourselves, however, without venturing in the slightest degree to antic.i.p.ate the expression of his ulterior views--though we believe that we can trace their extent and direction in a few suggestive sentences, as pregnant as they are un.o.btrusive--we must yet, in giving a rapid sketch of the facts established, a.s.sume the privilege of directing the reader to one or two of their most obvious consequences, and, like honest 'prentices, not suffer the abstracted retirement of our master in the back parlor to diminish the just recommendation of his wares to the pa.s.sers-by.

103. Eminently deficient in works representative of the earliest and purest tendencies of art, our National Gallery nevertheless affords a characteristic and sufficient series of examples of the practice of the various schools of painting, after oil had been finally subst.i.tuted for the less manageable glutinous vehicles which, under the general name of tempera, were princ.i.p.ally employed in the production of easel pictures up to the middle of the fifteenth century. If the reader were to make the circuit of this collection for the purpose of determining which picture represented with least disputable fidelity the first intention of its painter, and united in its modes of execution the highest reach of achievement with the strongest a.s.surance of durability, we believe that--after hesitating long over hypothetical degrees of blackened shadow and yellowed light, of lost outline and buried detail, of chilled l.u.s.ter, dimmed transparency, altered color, and weakened force--he would finally pause before a small picture on panel, representing two quaintly dressed figures in a dimly lighted room--dependent for its interest little on expression, and less on treatment--but eminently remarkable for reality of substance, vacuity of s.p.a.ce, and vigor of quiet color; nor less for an elaborate finish, united with energetic freshness, which seem to show that time has been much concerned in its production, and has had no power over its fate.

104. We do not say that the total force of the material is exhibited in this picture, or even that it in any degree possesses the lusciousness and fullness which are among the chief charms of oil-painting; but that upon the whole it would be selected as uniting imperishable firmness with exquisite delicacy; as approaching more unaffectedly and more closely than any other work to the simple truths of natural color and s.p.a.ce; and as exhibiting, even in its quaint and minute treatment, conquest over many of the difficulties which the boldest practice of art involves.

This picture, bearing the inscription "Johannes Van Eyck (fuit?) hic, 1434," is probably the portrait, certainly the work, of one of those brothers to whose ingenuity the first invention of the art of oil-painting has been long ascribed. The volume before us is occupied chiefly in determining the real extent of the improvements they introduced, in examining the processes they employed, and in tracing the modifications of those processes adopted by later Flemings, especially Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vandyck. Incidental notices of the Italian system occur, so far as, in its earlier stages, it corresponded with that of the north; but the consideration of its separate character is reserved for a following volume, and though we shall expect with interest this concluding portion of the treatise, we believe that, in the present condition of the English school, the choice of the methods of Van Eyck, Bellini, or Rubens, is as much as we could modestly ask or prudently desire.

105. It would have been strange indeed if a technical perfection like that of the picture above described (equally characteristic of all the works of those brothers), had been at once reached by the first inventors of the art. So far was this from being the case, and so distinct is the evidence of the practice of oil-painting in antecedent periods, that of late years the discoveries of the Van Eycks have not unfrequently been treated as entirely fabulous; and Raspe, in particular, rests their claims to grat.i.tude on the contingent introduction of amber-varnish and poppy-oil:--"Such _perhaps_," he says, "might have been the misrepresented discovery of the Van Eycks." That tradition, however, for which the great painters of Italy, and their sufficiently vain historian, had so much respect as never to put forward any claim in opposition to it, is not to be clouded by incautious suspicion. Mr. Eastlake has approached it with more reverence, stripped it of its exaggeration, and shown the foundations for it in the fact that the Van Eycks, though they did not create the art, yet were the first to enable it for its function; that having found it in servile office and with dormant power--laid like the dead Adonis on his lettuce-bed--they gave it vitality and dominion. And fortunate it is for those who look for another such reanimation, that the method of the Van Eycks was not altogether their own discovery. Had it been so, that method might still have remained a subject of conjecture; but after being put in possession of the principles commonly acknowledged before their time, it is comparatively easy to trace the direction of their inquiry and the nature of their improvements.

106. With respect to remote periods of antiquity, we believe that the use of a hydrofuge oil-varnish for the protection of works in tempera, the only fact insisted upon by Mr. Eastlake, is also the only one which the labor of innumerable ingenious writers has established: nor up to the beginning of the twelfth century is there proof of any practice of painting except in tempera, encaustic (wax applied by the aid of heat), and fresco. Subsequent to that period, notices of works executed in solid color mixed with oil are frequent, but all that can be proved respecting earlier times is a gradually increasing acquaintance with the different kinds of oil and the modes of their adaptation to artistical uses.

Several drying oils are mentioned by the writers of the first three centuries of the Christian era--walnut by Pliny and Galen, walnut, poppy, and castor-oil (afterwards used by the painters of the twelfth century as a varnish) by Dioscorides--yet these notices occur only with reference to medicinal or culinary purposes. But at length a drying oil is mentioned in connection with works of art by Aetius, a medical writer of the fifth century. His words are:--

"Walnut oil is prepared like that of almonds, either by pounding or pressing the nuts, or by throwing them, after they have been bruised, into boiling water. The (medicinal) uses are the same: but it has a use besides these, being employed by gilders or encaustic painters; for it dries, and preserves gildings and encaustic paintings for a long time."

"It is therefore clear," says Mr. Eastlake, "that an oil varnish, composed either of insp.i.s.sated nut oil, or of nut oil combined with a dissolved resin, was employed on gilt surfaces and pictures, with a view to preserve them, at least as early as the fifth century. It may be added that a writer who could then state, as if from his own experience, that such varnishes had the effect of preserving works 'for a long time,' can hardly be understood to speak of a new invention."--P. 22.

Linseed-oil is also mentioned by Aetius, though still for medicinal uses only; but a varnish, composed of linseed-oil mixed with a variety of resins, is described in a ma.n.u.script at Lucca, belonging probably to the eighth century:--

"The age of Charlemagne was an era in the arts; and the addition of linseed-oil to the materials of the varnisher and decorator may on the above evidence be a.s.signed to it. From this time, and during many ages, the linseed-oil varnish, though composed of simpler materials (such as sandarac and mastic resin boiled in the oil), alone appears in the recipes. .h.i.therto brought to light."--_Ib._, p. 24.

107. The modes of bleaching and thickening oil in the sun, as well as the siccative power of metallic oxides, were known to the cla.s.sical writers, and evidence exists of the careful study of Galen, Dioscorides, and others by the painters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the loss (recorded by Vasari) of Antonio Veneziano to the arts, "per che studio in Dioscoride le cose dell'erbe," is a remarkable instance of its less fortunate results. Still, the immixture of solid color with the oil, which had been commonly used as a varnish for tempera paintings and gilt surfaces, was. .h.i.therto unsuggested; and no distinct notice seems to occur of the first occasion of this important step, though in the twelfth century, as above stated, the process is described as frequent both in Italy and England. Mr. Eastlake's instances have been selected, for the most part, from four treatises, two of which, though in an imperfect form, have long been known to the public; the third, translated by Mrs. Merrifield, is in course of publication; the fourth, "Tractatus de Coloribus illuminatorum," is of less importance.

Respecting the dates of the first two, those of Eraclius and Theophilus, some difference of opinion exists between Mr. Eastlake and their respective editors. The former MS. was published by Raspe,[14] who inclines to the opinion of its having been written soon after the time of St. Isidore of Seville, probably therefore in the eighth century, but insists only on its being prior to the thirteenth. That of Theophilus, published first by M. Charles de l'Escalopier, and lately from a more perfect MS. by Mr. Hendrie, is ascribed by its English editor (who places Eraclius in the tenth) to the early half of the eleventh century.

Mr. Hendrie maintains his opinion with much a.n.a.lytical ingenuity, and we are disposed to think that Mr. Eastlake attaches too much importance to the absence of reference to oil-painting in the Mappae Clavicula (a MS.

of the twelfth century), in placing Theophilus a century and a half later on that ground alone. The question is one of some importance in an antiquarian point of view, but the general reader will perhaps be satisfied with the conclusion that in MSS. which cannot possibly be later than the close of the twelfth century, references to oil-painting are clear and frequent.

108. Nothing is known of the personality of either Eraclius or Theophilus, but what may be collected from their works; amounting, in the first case, to the facts of the author's "language being barbarous, his credulity exceptionable, and his knowledge superficial," together with his written description as "vir sapientissimus;" while all that is positively known of Theophilus is that he was a monk, and that Theophilus was not his real name. The character, however, of which the a.s.sumed name is truly expressive, deserves from us no unrespectful attention; we shall best possess our readers of it by laying before them one or two pa.s.sages from the preface. We shall make some use of Mr.

Hendrie's translation; it is evidently the work of a tasteful man, and in most cases renders the feeling of the original faithfully; but the Latin, monkish though it be, deserved a more accurate following, and many of Mr. Hendrie's deviations bear traces of unsound scholars.h.i.+p. An awkward instance occurs in the first paragraph:--

"Theophilus, humilis presbyter, servus servorum Dei, indignus nomine et professione monachi, omnibus mentis desidiam animique vagationem utili manuum occupatione, et delectabili novitatum meditatione declinare et calcare volentibus, retributionem coelestis praemii!"

"I, Theophilus, an humble priest, servant of the servants of G.o.d, unworthy of the name and profession of a monk, to all wis.h.i.+ng to overcome and avoid sloth of the mind or wandering of the soul, by useful manual occupation and the delightful contemplation of novelties, send a recompense of heavenly price."--_Theophilus_, p. 1.