Travels in France during the years 1814-15. Patrick Fraser Tytler

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СКАЧАТЬ truth emerges from the collision of opposite opinions. However this may be, it will not, it is hoped, be deemed an useless attempt, if we now endeavour to state, in a few words, the impression which was produced by this great collection of the works of art, which has been felt, we doubt not, by all who have viewed it with untutored eyes, but has not hitherto been described by those so much better able to do justice to it than ourselves.

      The first hall of the Louvre in the Picture Gallery is filled with paintings of the French school. The principal artists whose works are here exhibited are, Le Brun, Gaspar and Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Vernet, and the modern painters Gerard and David. The general character of the school of French historical painting, is the expression of passion and violent emotion. The colouring is for the most part brilliant; the canvas crowded with figures, and the incident selected, that in which the painter might have the best opportunity of displaying his knowledge of the human frame, or the varied expression of the human countenance. In the pictures of the modern school of French painting, this peculiarity is pushed to an extravagant length, and, fortunately for the art, displays the false principles on which the system of their composition is founded. The moment seized is uniformly that of the strongest and most violent passion; the principal actors in the piece are represented in a state of phrenzied exertion, and the whole anatomical knowledge of the artist is displayed in the endless contortions into which the human frame is thrown. In David's celebrated picture of the three Horatii, this peculiarity appears in the most striking light. The works of this artist may excite admiration, but it is the limited and artificial admiration of the schools; of those who have forgot the end of the art in the acquisition of the technical knowledge with which it is accompanied, or the display of the technical powers which its execution involves.

      The paintings of Vernet, in this collection, are perhaps the finest specimens of that beautiful master, and they entitle him to a higher place in the estimation of mankind than he seems yet to have obtained from the generality of observers. There is a delicacy of colouring, an unity of design, and a harmony of expression in his works, which accord well with the simplicity of the subjects which his taste has selected, and the general effect which it was his object to produce. In the representation of the sun dispelling the mists of a cloudy morning; of his setting rays gilding the waves of a western sea; or of that undefined beauty which moonlight throws over the objects of nature, the works of this artist are perhaps unrivalled.

      The paintings of Claude are by no means equal to what we had expected, from the celebrity which his name has acquired, or the matchless beauty which the engravings from him possess. They are but eleven in number, and cannot be in any degree compared with those which are to be found in Mr. Angerstein's collection. To those, however, who have been accustomed to study the designs of this great master, through the medium of the engraved copies, and above all, in the unrivalled works of Woollet, the sight of the original pictures must, perhaps at all times, create a feeling of disappointment. There is an unity of effect in the engravings which can never be met with amidst the distraction of colouring in the original pictures; and the imagination clothes the beautiful shades of the copy with finer tints than even the pencil of Claude has been able to supply. "I have shewn you," said Corinne to Oswald, "St. Peter's for the first time, when the brilliancy of its decorations might appear in full splendour, in the rays of the sun: I reserve for you a finer, and a more profound enjoyment, to behold it by the light of the moon." Perhaps there is a distinction of the same kind between the gaudy brilliancy of varied colours, and the chaster simplicity of uniform shadows; and it is probably for this reason, that on the first view of a picture which you have long admired in the simplicity of engraved effect, you involuntarily recede from the view, and seek in the obscure light and uncertain tint which distance produces, to recover that uniform tone and general character, which the splendour of colouring is so apt to destroy. It is a feeling similar to that which Lord Byron has so finely described, as arising from the beauty of moonlight scenery:—

      ———"Mellow'd to that tender light

       Which Heaven to gaudy day denies."

      The Dutch and Flemish school, to which you next advance, possesses merit, and is distinguished by a character of a very different description. It was the well-known object of this school, to present an exact and faithful imitation of nature; to exaggerate none of its faults, and enhance none of its excellencies, but exhibit it as it really appears to the eye of an ordinary spectator. Its artists selected, in general, some scene of humour or amusement, in the discovery of which, the most ignorant spectators might discover other sources of pleasure than those which the merit of the art itself afforded. They did not pretend, in general, to aim at the exhibition of passion or powerful emotion: their paintings, therefore, are free from that painful display of theatrical effect, which characterises the French school; their object was not to represent those deep scenes of sorrow or suffering, which accord with the profound feelings which it was the object of the Italian school to awaken; they want, therefore, the dignity and grandeur which the works of the greater Italian painters possess: their merit consists in the faithful delineation of those ordinary scenes and common occurrences, which are familiar to the eye of the most careless observer. The power of the painter, therefore, could be displayed only in the minuteness of the finishing, or the brilliancy of the effect; and he endeavoured, by the powerful contrast of light and shade, to give an higher character to his works, than the nature of their subject could otherwise admit.

      The pictures of Teniers, Ostade, and Gerard Dow, possess these merits, and are distinguished by this character in the highest degree; but their qualities are so well known in this country, as to render any observation on them superfluous. There is a very great collection here preserved of the works of Rembrandt, and their design and effect bear, in general, a higher character than belongs to most of the works of this celebrated master.

      In one respect, the collection in the Louvre is altogether unrivalled—in the number and beauty of the Wouvermans which are there to be met with; nor is it possible, without having seen it, to appreciate, with any degree of justice, the variety of design, the accuracy of drawing, or delicacy of finishing, which distinguish his works from those of any other painter of a similar description. There are 38 of his pieces there assembled, all in the finest state of preservation, and all displaying the same unrivalled beauty of colouring and execution. In their design, however, they widely differ; and they exhibit, in the most striking manner, the real object to which painting should be applied, and the causes of the errors in which its composition has been involved. His works, for the most part, are crowded with figures; his subjects are in general battle-pieces, or spectacles of military pomp, or the animated scenes which the chace presents; and he seems to have exhausted all the efforts of his genius, in the variety of incident and richness of execution, which these subjects are fitted to afford. From the confused and indeterminate expression, however, which the multitude of their objects exhibit, we turn with delight to those simpler scenes in which his mind seems to have reposed, after the fatigues which it had undergone: to the representation of a single incident, or the delineation of a certain occurrence—to the rest of the traveller after the fatigues of the day—to the repose of the horse in the intermission of labour—to the return of the soldier after the dangers of the campaign;—scenes, in which every thing combines for the uniform character, and where the genius of the artist has been able to give to the rudest occupations of men, and even to the objects of animal life, the expression of general poetical feeling.

      The pictures of Vandyke and Rubens belong to a much higher school than that which rose out of the wealth and the limited taste of the Dutch people. There are 60 pieces of the latter of these masters in the Louvre, and, combined with the celebrated Gallery in the Luxembourg Palace, they form the finest assemblage of them which is to be met with in the world. The character of his works differs essentially from that both of the French and the Dutch schools; he was employed, not in painting cabinet pictures for wealthy merchants, but in designing great altar pieces for splendid churches, or commemorating the glory of sovereigns in imperial galleries. The greatness of his genius rendered him fit to attempt the representation of the most complicated and difficult objects; but in the confidence of this genius, he seems to have lost sight of the genuine СКАЧАТЬ