Part 3

But the labour and pains, the study and industry early employed and long continued, in the cultivation of the arts, naturally and necessarily advanced their progress in a striking manner: raising them to such a height of perfection as we weakly think unattainable, because we will not use the adequate means of endeavouring to attain it. Labour is to man, from his constitution and his frame, the real price of every truly valuable acquisition; which, though indolence spurns and idleness rejects, always brings its own reward with it, whether we are ultimately successful or not, in the consciousness of having acted a manly part, and in the vigour of mind and health of body which it, and it alone, invariably confers. Some fortuitous instances may be mentioned of those who have possessed both without its aid; of those who, nursed on the lap of indolence, and folded in the arms of idleness, have enjoyed that first of human blessings, a sound mind in a sound body: but they are instances to astonish, not examples to incite. This is even more strictly and peculiarly true as it regards the arts, than it is in several other cases. For the great merit of painting and sculpture consisting in their exact and captivating copies of nature, and of architecture in its combination of beauty with grandeur, of convenience with magnificence, it is obvious that these qualities are never the casual effects of chance and accident, of lucky hits and fortunate events; but the steady results of pains and care, of study and attention.

Of this truth the professors of the arts in Greece were quickly and fully convinced; and applied that conviction to its only proper purpose, to an unremitting labour on their own appropriate pursuit: a labour which, paramount over each other object, neither pleasure prevented, nor politics precluded, nor the calls of animal life hindered. To excel in their art, to surpass their predecessors, to outstrip their competitors, to be the conspicuous subject of Grecian admiration, were the objects of their daily thoughts and of their nightly dreams: objects which scarce for a moment retired from their view, or, if for a moment retiring, it was only that they might recur again with renovated force. The[l] _multa dies et multa litura_ which the Roman poet ascribes to the Grecian writers, and to which he truly attributes their superior merit, were still more eminently true of their artists; who applied to the completion of their various works a severity of study and a perseverance of labour that to us, habituated to very different manners indeed, seem surprizing; but of which the authenticated accounts cannot be disputed. As exalted character, not the mere making of money, was the aim to which their thoughts were directed, it was pursued with that eagerness which honest ambition ever creates: and though, incidentally, fortune frequently followed their fame, as it came unsought for, none of its degrading motives swayed their conduct.

[Footnote l: Horatius.]

It was not the idea of the[m] hundred talents which he received, great as that sum was (for not one _drachma_ of it would he have received had not his work been approved), that inspirited the genius of Phidias when he was sculpturing the Olympian Jupiter; but the reflection that by his skill the rude block was to be transformed into the representative likeness of the father of gods and men, to be the admiration and adoration of his enraptured countrymen: and hence profound study, exquisite pains, and incessant labour, were employed to produce that statue, which thence became afterwards the wonder of the world. Under the impulse of such impressions must the Apollo Belvedere have come from the hands of its unequalled sculptor: for though we know not the history of that incomparable statue, yet its expression of dignity more than human, its unforced graceful ease which nature can but faintly copy, its perfect symmetry, and union of complete beauty with full bodily strength, tell more than a thousand witnesses the pains, the study, and the labour that must have been unremittingly exerted to produce it.

[Footnote m: 19,375 l.]

It would argue a silly prejudice, not a due sense of the merits of the ancients, to attempt to insinuate that this labour and study, to which we are inclined to attribute so much, was universal. No; for in Greece then, as with ourselves now, there were among the artists (what in the modern phrase we call) _fine gentlemen_: persons of too sublime a genius to condescend to study, and of too delicate a frame to submit to labour. The character of the species has been preserved, though the names of its individuals have long, long since been forgotten. But they never promoted the progress, never advanced the improvement of any art: but, like their _amiable_ successors, followed a trade for support, and did not cultivate a profession with dignity. But the persons of whom we speak, as distinguished by these qualities, were those worthy citizens who addicted themselves to no art without adorning and improving it; whose names ennobled the age in which they lived; who then were never mentioned without reverence, nor yet, at this far distant period, are ever thought on without respect. By their studies and their labours, vigorously and undeviatingly exerted, was the progress of the arts promoted, their improvement accelerated, and their near approximation to perfection effected: they thus experimentally proving the energetic power of these valuable qualities, and leaving examples to fire the emulation of the spirited and the active in each future age.

In addition to the circumstances already mentioned, whose power and efficiency on the progress of the arts we have endeavoured to point out, there must be called to mind the great national encouragement which they received in Greece, and the extraordinary influence which it must have had on the warm imaginations of its gay and high-spirited inhabitants. The desire of distinction and honour is a principle interwoven in the constitution of our nature; and though, like most others we possess, it is liable to perversion, is in itself not only blameless but laudable; inciting the best exertions of talents where they are, and often supplying their place where it finds them not. There are no countries, however adverse the regent of the day may have yoked his horses from them, where its operation is not more or less felt: and in exact proportion to the civilization and mental improvement of each country, its ascendency has ever been found to be high, its dominion to be great. This is strictly true even with regard to the estimation of private individuals: but the applause of a whole people has invariably been deemed the most just meed of the most exceeding merit, ever since nations have assumed a fixed and stable form. Now this applause formed an important part of the great national rewards by which Greece fostered the arts; and it was a part that peculiarly came home both to the business and bosoms of each worthy citizen, and caused every pulse of a Grecian heart to vibrate to its impression. Their characteristic fondness of fame is known and acknowledged; but this applause, though by them in itself extravagantly valued, was not a mere empty, flattering sound: for, from the constitutions prevailing in nearly every state of Greece, it was the sure conductor to domestic dignity, to political power, and to commanding sway in the public deliberations. The first offices of the state, and the prime trusts of the government, were open to that distinguished artist whose admired performances had secured the universal suffrage. They were often without seeking offered by popular gratitude to his acceptance; nay, sometimes with honest violence forced on his unwilling reception. Thus the principles of interest, ambition, popularity, confessedly some of the most powerful that guide the conduct of mankind, were called forth in aid of that natural bent or disposition which had induced the man to cultivate any particular art: and the consequence was such as might be expected from the efficiency of such operative motives, surpassing merit and supreme excellence.

Another species of national encouragement, nearly connected with this, was the certainty which the eminent artist enjoyed that, whenever the occasion offered, his talents would be employed to erect, or to decorate with the labours of his pencil or his chissel, the temples, the theatres, the porticoes, the places of public assembling of the cities of Greece; where his works, contributing amply to his fortune from their munificent reward, would contribute more to his fame when exposed to the scrutinizing view of that intelligent people. He had no cause to fear that his abilities would be overlooked or buried in obscurity by prepossession, partiality, or prejudice: he had no apprehensions to dread from the effects of interested relationship, of commanding influence, of narrow local attachment, or of proud and presuming ignorance. If his merit was acknowledged his employment was sure; and he was even courted by the general voice to exert his talents for the public credit, not depressed in their exertion by mean and base affections. He was not obliged to solicit for employment with humiliating applications, and, when employed, to labour under the multiplied disadvantages of deficient or stinted means, of complying with vitiated judgments, of submitting to the senseless whims of folly and caprice. Full scope was given to the fertility of his imagination, to the extent of his genius, to the vigour of his fancy: whilst all the powers of his mind and all the vigour of his body, all the ingenuity of his head and all the dexterity of his hands, were impelled to their best performances by the consciousness that all deficiencies would be imputable solely to himself, the public being free from the slightest suspicion of having either curbed or confined his abilities. As no elevation of genius made him giddy, hence grace and beauty, strength and vigour, expression and passion, respectively marked his performances; and his fame became connected with the edifices, the statues, the paintings, that ornamented the country, which struck every eye, and which none beheld without recollecting with respect the able artist whose workmanship had produced them.

The effect of this kind of encouragement on the arts was great, is manifest, and need be but slightly mentioned: yet, perhaps, may appear the more striking from contrasting it with some practices of more modern times. In them the first city in the world has disgraced itself with all who have eyesight, by employing to erect its most expensive building[n] an architect _because the man was a citizen_: and, in more countries of Europe than one, statues and paintings are exhibited as commemorative of illustrious public deeds, where contorsion and extravagance, where flutter and glare, form the predominant characters; but they dishonour those countries, on account of the artists engaged to execute them being employed because they were the favourites of despots, the flatterers of titled harlots, or the relations of directors; whilst men of the first talents and merit in their profession were pining in indigence and obscurity, unnoticed and unfriended. The consequences of this latter conduct none will say that we have reason to boast of from the superlative excellence of modern art; but what has been felt from it may readily induce us to believe how essentially its direct opposite must have promoted the progress of the arts in Greece.

[Footnote n: The Mansion House of London.]

The vast sums expended by the Grecian states on their public monuments and their public works (vast, indeed, when the comparative value of money then and now is considered), tended much to assist the progress of the arts, and to aid their high improvement. For, though we have unquestionable reason to believe that the sordid motive of private profit was not the first principle in the minds of those great artists who have immortalized their names by their works, yet without a certain liberality of expence their ideas could not have been realized, their works could not have been executed; and that liberality they found limited commonly by nothing but the public means, and often not even by them. We know from the gravest and clearest authorities with what lavish expenditure scenic representations were exhibited at Athens, with what unbounded magnificence her temples, her tribunals, her porticoes were decorated: we equally well know the splendor of Corinth, a near neighbouring city; the incalculable price of its paintings, the inestimable value of its statues, and that from the coalesced mass of its molten metals there arose, at its destruction, a compound more highly prized by the Romans than gold. The other principal cities were alike studious of embellishment, alike emulous of ornament, and in various proportions enjoyed them according to the circumstances of time and situation: but Delphi and Olympia, the grand seats of the national religion and the national games, concentered in themselves each choicest production of genius, each happiest effort of art, each transcendent display of excellence; amassed with a judgment that delighted, with a profusion that surprized, and with an expence that astonished.

This generous spirit in carrying on and completing public works which, though it may sometimes be pushed to an excess (as, perhaps, was the case in Greece), is so truly honourable to any people, had, and obviously must have had, the most decided influence in advancing and improving the arts, and in giving them that degree of perfection which has never yet been exceeded, nor even equalled. It excited exertion, by the security that its efforts would not be suffered to remain undisplayed, but would be invited to add loveliness to the beautiful, and splendor to the magnificent; it roused the full force of emulation, by the certainty that superior merit would receive superior rewards, and neither be permitted to languish in privacy nor to pine in poverty; and it invigorated the boldest flights of genius, by the firm assurance that there was a prevalent spirit ready to countenance, prepared to adopt, and anxious to encourage them. It would be no small absurdity to affirm that fortune, as well as fame, had not attractions for a Grecian artist; for it must ever be absurd to affirm generally the absence of the operation of general principles: and therefore the great pecuniary recompences which their talents procured had, doubtless, a proportionate influence on all their labours to improve their art; though, it may be, less in that region than in many other countries. And from the combined efficacy of these several kinds of national encouragement, which, like different branches of the same tree, spring all from the same root, the progress of the arts was furthered so essentially, was advanced so highly, as we have heard of with wonder, and have seen with amazement.

So complex having been the causes, so slow and progressively gradual the progress of the Fine Arts, highly grateful must it be to every truly British breast to consider the rapid advances they have made in this favoured Isle within the last fifty years: advances certainly unmatched in their former history, as in that period they have arisen from the utmost imbecility of infantine weakness (indeed almost from _non-entity_) to a vigorous maturity that leaves far behind them the emasculate efforts and puny productions of all other contemporary European nations. The causes of this unequalled improvement have notoriously been the countenance and fostering protection of his present Majesty, an admirer and intelligent judge of their merit, and the ardent spirit of emulation excited among the artists themselves by such exalted and distinguishing notice. These co-operating have produced an exertion of talents, a display of abilities, and emanations of genius that always wore in existence, but which required concurring circumstances to bring them into full action, and to cause them to expand their latent energies. And had the general patronage been correspondent to these fortunate incidents, had not the fashionable jargon of presumptuous, self-created, arbiters of taste, affecting to despise National art, vitiated the public mind, or rather strengthened an ancient prejudice there floating, it is not easy to conceive how much greater still would have been their progress. It is at least certain that our ingenious young artists would have been amply encouraged to exert themselves, and not suffered, after the most promising exhibitions of dawning talents, to pine in indigence and wretchedness, to sink into obscurity and oblivion, or (like the illfated, but most meritorious Proctor[o]) to hasten, in the very opening of life, the termination of mortal existence from the excruciating pressure of continued penury and misery.

[Footnote o: The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly recorded. Born of humble parentage in one of the more distant counties, he had early manifested an admiration of the Arts, and, being admitted a student of the Royal Academy, eminently distinguished himself there by his abilities and his industry. Applying peculiarly to Sculpture, soon after the termination of his studies in the Academy he exhibited, at its annual Exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivalled excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed in competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian art, and which at the time met with their well-earned applause. But, alas! applause was his only reward: no wealthy patron took him by the hand, no affluent lover of the Arts enquired into, or assisted, his circumstances; and his means being very confined, misery was his portion. He had however the soul of an Artist, and for a length of time bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy President of the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid of the Council obtained for him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a year, to enable him to go to Italy, and improve himself there: but the unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some trifling debts, which he was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too delicately alive to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits, and on a frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy dissolution, to the irreparable injury of the Arts. After his death it was discovered that, for the last two years of his life, he had resided in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare market, which he had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for that time had been _only two dry biscuits with a draft of water from the market pump_.]

Thus having attempted to investigate the progress of the arts, and to what was owing that supreme excellence which they formerly attained, we seem to have reasonable grounds to conclude that it flowed from such natural and moral causes as, at all times and in all cases, are known powerfully to affect the feelings and to actuate the conduct of man. No whimsical refinements, no marvellous mysteries, no imaginary and fantastic theories have been had recourse to: but lighted on our way by the irradiating torch of authentic history, and unseduced by the false glare of lying legends, we have not dared so much to affirm what, in certain situations, our fellow-creatures MUST do, as to detail with some care what in fact they DID do. If what we have here advanced has not the attraction of novelty to allure, it is hoped that it is not deficient in the recommendation of truth to convince. It has not been thought necessary formally to refute the sentiments of those profound Philosophers, who have sagaciously discovered the causes of the inferiority of the arts in some countries and of their superiority in others, and consequently the perfection to which they arrived in Greece, in the power of the solar beams in certain latitudes, in the influences of the atmosphere, and in those of terrestrial and celestial vapours: for if the causes here assigned appear fully adequate to the end produced, as we conceive they do, it must be idle to shew the inutility of others, gratuitously brought forth from the inexhaustible storehouse of fancy, and supported by any thing rather than solid reasoning. It must be allowed that they very roundly assert, but as fallaciously argue, whenever they deign to argue on this subject: for mere assertions, positive, pompous, presuming, but assertions still, are the commonest weapons of their warfare. And, possibly, it would neither be reputable to contest the specious subtilty of the sophisms of even such sages, nor honourable to conquer the powerless imbecility of their assertions.

It is but fair to avow that this enquiry into the progress of the arts has not been entered on for the sole purpose of ascertaining, as far as we were able, the causes of the surpassing excellence to which they were carried in Greece, without at the same time intimating, with due deference to superior judgments and to superior authority, the efficacy of the same causes, at all times and in all countries, in improving and exalting them. As human nature is the same at all periods, though diversified in its exterior shew by the various customs, modes, and manners, that variously prevail, it cannot be seriously doubted but that those principles, which have been found by experience in one country to powerfully sway its conduct, and to incite its efforts in the Arts to their noblest productions, would be equally efficient and equally successful elsewhere, were they fairly applied, and as vigorously exerted. We have no satisfactory reason for believing that either the mental or corporeal powers of man have degenerated in the succession of ages: and we well know that, by the benefits of experience and invention, considerable aids have been added to both, to methodize their motions and to facilitate their operations. Our profounder and better-studied knowledge of Metaphysics, our improved skill in Natural Philosophy and Mechanics, and our more accurate acquaintance with the principles of colours, with their combinations and their shades, all confessedly tend to these points. Should then the same liberal public encouragement be displayed, by those possessed of the power of displaying it, as dignified the best days of Greece; should the same labour, the same pains, the same study, the same industry, be used by modern artists as distinguished their truly illustrious predecessors; we might not vainly hope to see the arts carried to still greater perfection than they have ever yet attained; we might expect to behold their deficiencies supplied, their utilities increased, their energies enlarged, and their beauties augmented.