Part 3

18. This author supposes also, that the arts had attained nearly an equal degree of cultivation about the same time in Egypt, sculpture, as best serving idolatrous purposes, being in both countries much in advance of the sister art of painting. But, in neither country, was painting or sculpture brought to a great degree of perfection.

19. In Egypt, independent selection of objects, and variety of exhibition, never appear to have been much regarded. When a specific form of character had been once adopted, so it remained, and was repeated unchanged for ages. Little action, and no expression, was given to figures. The chief employment of the Egyptian artists, seems to have been the painting of the chests of mummies, and the ornaments on barges and earthenware.

20. Painting, in the early days of its existence, was employed chiefly in the exhibition and preservation of historical facts; and, wherever it remained faithful to these objects, it was obliged to sacrifice the beautiful to the significant. Only in those countries where alphabetical writing existed, could painting elevate itself to a fine art.

21. The Pelasgi, who expelled or subdued the earlier inhabitants of Greece, and colonized that country, probably brought with them the rudiments of this art; and it at length grew up with its sister arts. In some of the stages of its progress, this intelligent people, no doubt, received useful hints from other countries, and especially from Egypt; yet they finally surpassed all the nations of antiquity in this branch of art.

22. The Greeks, with singular care, have preserved the names of their artists from the earliest periods of their practice. Ardens, of Corinth, Telephanes and Crato, of Sycion, and some others, are noticed as such, when painting had advanced no farther than the mere circumscription of shadows by single lines.

23. The different kinds of painting, as marked by the successive stages of the art among the Greeks, are as follows; 1. The _skiagram_, or drawing in simple outlines, as in the circumscriptions of shadows. 2. The _monogram_, including both the outlines and others within them. 3. The _monochrom_, or picture in a single color. 4. The _polychrom_, or picture of many colors.

24. Although the names of the Grecian artists were carefully preserved, the time in which they lived was not distinctly marked until the 16th Olympiad, or 719 years before the commencement of our era. At this time, Candaules, king of Lydia, purchased a picture called the Battle of the Magnetes, for which he paid its weight in gold, although painted on boards. The name of the fortunate artist was Bularchus.

25. Notwithstanding the fame of this picture, Aglaophon and Polygnotus, of Thasos, who flourished 300 years after this period, were the first eminent painters. Polygnotus is said to have been the first who gave a pleasing air to the draperies and head-dresses of females, and to have opened the mouth so far as to exhibit the beauty of the teeth.

26. Still, painting is considered to have been in an inferior state, until the appearance of Timanthes, Parrhasius, and Zeuxis, who flourished about 375 years before Christ. These again were surpassed by their successors, Protogenes, Pamphilus, Melanthius, Antiphilus, Theon, Euphranor, Apelles, and Aristides, who carried the art to the greatest perfection to which it attained in ancient times.

27. Of the preceding list of artists, Apelles was the most famous, especially as a portrait painter. He was the intimate friend of Alexander the Great, who would never permit any other person to paint his likeness. His most celebrated painting, was this prince holding the lightning with which the picture is chiefly illuminated. By a happy application of perspective and chiaro-scuro, the hand with the lightning seemed to project from the picture.

28. From the time of these great masters, painting gradually declined, although the art continued to be practised by a succession of eminent men, who contended against the blighting influence of the luxury and the internal broils of their countrymen. But soon after Greece became subject to the Roman power, the practice of the fine arts nearly ceased in that country.

29. Before the foundation of Rome, the arts were cultivated, to some extent, in Etruria and Calabria; but the first Roman painter mentioned in history, was Fabius, a noble patrician, who painted, in the year of the city 450, the temple of the goddess Salus, and thereby obtained for himself and family the surname of _Pictor_. Yet the citizens do not seem to have profited by this example; for no other painter appeared among them until 150 years after that period. At this time, Pacuvius, the poet, amused himself, in the decline of life, with painting the temple of Hercules.

30. They were thus inattentive to the cultivation of this, as well as of the other fine arts, because they considered warfare, and the arts which tended directly to support this interest, as alone worthy of the attention of a citizen of their republic; and painting, even after the time of Pacuvius, was considered effeminate and disgraceful. Rome, therefore, cannot be said, at any time, to have produced a single artist who could approach the excellences of those of its refined neighbors, the Greeks.

31. They, however, having ornamented their metropolis and villas with specimens of the arts plundered from the cities of Greece and Sicily, began, at length, to appreciate their excellences; and finally, under the first emperors, they encouraged, with great munificence, the Greeks who resorted to their city for employment.

32. But, both sculpture and painting, as well as architecture, declined with Roman civilization. Still, they continued to exist, especially in the Byzantine or Eastern empire, although in a very inferior state. The art under consideration was preserved chiefly by its application to the purposes of Christianity. It was revived in Italy, in the beginning of the twelfth century, by means of several Grecian artists, who had been employed to ornament the churches, and other edifices at Pisa, Venice, and Florence.

33. The works of Apollonius, one of these Greeks, excited in Giovanni Cimabue a spirit of emulation; and, having been initiated into the practice of the art, he executed a picture of the Virgin Mary, as large as life, for a church dedicated to her, at Florence. This production excited enthusiastic delight in his fellow-citizens, who carried it in procession, with the sound of trumpets, to its place of destination, and celebrated the day as a public feast.

34. Encouraged by this applause, Cimabue pursued the art with ardor; and, although considered a prodigy in his time, his utmost efforts failed to produce tolerable specimens of the art. He, however, far excelled his immediate predecessors; and, by introducing more correct proportions, by giving more life and expression to his figures, and by some other improvements, he became the founder of the art as it exists in modern times. He was born at Florence, in 1240, and died at the age of sixty.

35. The favorite pupil of Cimabue, was Giotto, whom he raised from a shepherd to be a painter; and by him the art was still more relieved from the Greek imperfections. He abandoned the use of labels as means of distinguishing the different figures of a picture, and aimed at, and attained to, real expression. He marked out to the Italians the course in which the art should be pursued, as Polygnotus had done to the Greeks near 1800 years before; although, like him, he failed in fully exemplifying his principles.

36. His abilities procured him the patronage of Pope Boniface VIII., who employed him at Rome. From this time, the art of painting became attached to the papal dignity, and few succeeding pontiffs have neglected its use. The skill and celebrity of this ingenious artist excited great emulation, and the arts having obtained an earnest of profit and honor, no longer wanted skilful professors or illustrious patrons.

37. In 1350, fourteen years after the death of Giotto, his disciple, Jacopo Cassentino, and nine other artists, founded the Academy of St. Luke, at Florence. This was a grand epoch of the arts; as from this institution arose a large display of talent, increasing in splendor until, within 150 years, it gave to the world, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, and Raphael, besides others of great ability.

38. The art advanced but little after the time of Giotto, until the appearance of Masaccio. Under the hand of this great master, painting is said to have been greatly improved; and it was to him, that the artists who succeeded were indebted for a more sure and full direction of the course in which they ought to proceed. He was born in 1402, and died in 1443.

39. Leonardo da Vinci, who was born about two years after the death of Masaccio, brought the art to still greater perfection; and being endowed with uncommon genius, all the arts and sciences did not seem to afford a field sufficient for the exertion of his talents. He grasped at all, and succeeded far better than his predecessors in everything he undertook; but he wasted much of his time in experiments. Had he confined his great powers to the art of painting, he would probably have never been exceeded.

40. About the year 1410, oil came to be used as a vehicle for paints. It seems to have been first applied to this purpose in Flanders, by John Van Eyck, of Brussels; or it was, at least, first used by him successfully. The first hint of its utility in this application is thought, with reason, to have been obtained from its use as a varnish to pictures painted in water-colors.

41. The art of painting was introduced into Flanders about the time of Giotto, by several Flemings, who had been to Italy for the express purpose of learning it. It was also diffused in practice, about the same time, in Germany; and a particular style of the art grew up in each of these countries. But it was in Italy alone that the art may be said to have flourished in a high state of cultivation; and even there, the principal productions originated from artists of the Florentine school.

42. The art of painting was perfected, perhaps, as far as human ability can carry it, in the first half of the sixteenth century, by Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio; although it cannot be said that all its excellences were united in the productions of any one of these distinguished professors. Such a union has never yet been displayed, nor can it hardly be expected.

43. The art was essentially aided in its progressive stages of advancement by the liberal patronage of the family of the Medici, at Florence, and by the pontiffs, at Rome. Angelo and Raphael were both employed at Rome by Julius II. and Leo X., as well as by others who succeeded them in the papal chair, in ornamenting the palaces and sacred buildings. Their productions have never been exceeded in any country, and they still remain the objects of careful study by artists of this profession.

44. Titian was also liberally patronised at Rome, and in other parts of Italy, as well as in Spain and Germany, chiefly as a portrait and landscape painter. The unrivalled productions of these great masters, however, were fatal to the art in Italy, since their superior excellence extinguished emulation, by destroying the prospect of equal or superior success.

45. The flourishing state of the art in Italy, for so long a period, might be expected to have produced a taste for its cultivation in other parts of Europe; but this was the case only to a limited extent. No other countries have yet been particularly distinguished for artists in this branch of the fine arts, except Flanders and Holland; and these were chiefly indebted for the distinction to Peter Paul Rubens, of Antwerp, who was born at Cologne, in 1577, and to Paul Van Rhyn Rembrandt, who was born in 1606, in his father's mill, near Leyden. Some of the scholars of these masters were eminent painters. Anthony Vandyck, a pupil of the former, in particular, is said to have never yet been equalled as a portrait-painter.

46. Very little is known of the art in Spain, until about the year 1500, although it is supposed to have been cultivated with some success before that time. The examples which were left there by Titian produced a favorable impression, and several native artists of considerable eminence afterwards appeared; but the art became nearly extinct in the following age.

47. The proximity of France to Italy, and the employment of Leonardo da Vinci and other eminent artists of Italy by Francis I., together with the establishment of a school of fine arts, as stated in the preceding article, might have been expected to lay the foundation of exalted taste in this kingdom. Nevertheless, the only French painters whose names have come down to us with any pretensions to excellence for one hundred and fifty years, were Jean Cousin, Jaques Blanchard, Nicholas Poussin, and Charles Le Brun. The last, although inferior to Poussin, is at the head of the French school of painting.

48. The successors of Le Brun were not wanting in ability, yet, with a few exceptions, they failed in reaching an enviable eminence in the art, on account of their servile imitation of the false taste of their popular model. The fantastic style of Le Brun became unpopular in France some time previous to the revolution in that country; and another, of an opposite character, and by artists of other nations thought to be equally distant from true taste, has been since adopted.

49. Very little is known of the state of the fine arts in England until the time of Henry VIII., who encouraged the abilities of Hans Holbein, an eminent painter from Switzerland. But painting and sculpture, and particularly the former, having become intimately interwoven with the religion of the Church of Rome, fell into disrepute in England after the change of opinion on this subject in that country. They, however, began to revive in the eighteenth century, and England and English America have since produced some eminent painters, among whom are Hogarth, Reynolds, Opie, West, Copley, Trumbull, and Peale.

THE ENGRAVER.

Engraving is the art of cutting letters or figures in wood, metals, or stone. It was practised in very ancient times, and in different countries, for the purposes of ornament and monumental inscription; but the idea of taking impressions on paper, or on any other substance, from engraved surfaces, is comparatively modern.

THE WOOD ENGRAVER.

1. The Chinese are said to have been the first who engraved figures or letters on wood, for the purpose of printing. The precise time at which they commenced the practice, is totally unknown; but a book printed by them in the tenth century, is now extant. It is thought by some antiquarians, that the Europeans derived the art from the Chinese, through the Venitians, who traded in that part of the world earlier than any other Europeans.

2. This opinion is somewhat probable, from the circumstance that the tools employed by the early engravers in Europe, are similar to those used in China; and also, like the Chinese, they engraved on the side of the grain. However this may be, it is certain that the art was practised in various parts of Europe in the fourteenth century. The earliest subjects executed, were figures of saints, rudely engraved in outline. The prints taken from them were gaily colored, and sold to the common people as original paintings. The principal persons engaged in this traffic were monks, to whom the art was confined for a considerable time.

3. At length, larger subjects, with inscriptions in imitation of manuscript, were executed. The success of these prints gave rise to a more extensive application of the art. Scriptural subjects, of many figures, with texts of scripture, were engraved, and impressions were taken from them on one side of the paper, two sheets being pasted together to form a leaf. Entire sets were bound up together, and thus were formed the first printed books, which, being produced entirely from wood-cuts, are known by the name of _block-books_. These books made their appearance about the year 1420.

4. One of the earliest of these productions is denominated "The Apocalypse of St. John;" another, "The Poor Man's Bible." But one of the latest and most celebrated, is called "The Mirror of Salvation," published in 1440. Part of the text was printed from solid blocks, and part, from moveable wooden types. From this fact, it is easy to discover the origin of printing. After this, most, if not all, of the books, were printed from moveable types; but, as they were embellished with wood cuts, the demand for such engravings was very much increased, although they were, at first, by no means elegant.

5. Near the close of the fifteenth century, the art began to assume a higher character, principally by the talents of Michael Wolgermuth and William Pluydenwurf. Albert Durer made still greater improvements, and, in 1498, published his celebrated Apocalypse of St. John, printed from folio blocks. Other celebrated engravers succeeded him in the sixteenth century, which may be considered the era when wood engraving was at its highest point of elevation. After this, the art declined, and was considered of little importance, until it was revived in 1775, by the distinguished William Bewick, of Newcastle, England. It is still practised, especially in England and the United States, in a manner which reflects credit on the ingenuity of the age.

6. The earlier artists operated on various kinds of wood, such as the apple, pear, and beech; but these, being too soft, are now used only for calico-printing and other common purposes. Box-wood, on account of its superior texture, is used for every subject that can be termed a work of art. That from Turkey is the best.

7. The engravers, in the infancy of the art, prepared the wood as the common block-cutters now do. The tree was cut the way of the grain, in planks, and of course they engraved on the side of the grain, as upon a board. This mode of preparation enabled them to execute larger subjects. The engravers now prefer the end of the grain, and therefore cut the log transversely.

8. The end on which the engraver is to exert his skill, is planed and scraped, to render the surface smooth, and the block having been cut to the proper size, the drawing is made upon it in India ink, or with a lead-pencil. The block is now ready for the artist who, in executing the work, holds it with one hand, on a cushion made of sand and leather, while, with the other, he cuts away the superfluous wood. The part intended to make the impression in printing, is left standing.

9. Wood engravings, well executed, are scarcely inferior to those of copper and steel, and, for many purposes, they are preferred. They are remarkably convenient, since they can be inserted into a page of types, where illustrations or embellishments may be required, and be printed without separate expense. They will also bear a great number of impressions--generally 100,000. In this respect, they are decidedly superior to metallic plates. They can likewise be multiplied indefinitely by the process of stereotyping.

THE COPPERPLATE ENGRAVER.

1. The engravers on metallic surfaces are termed copperplate engravers, not because copper is the only metal on which they exert their skill, but because it is the one on which they usually operate. The plates are prepared for the artist by the coppersmith, by rubbing them with brickdust and charcoal, after having cut them of a proper size from sheets of copper.

2. The instruments employed by this artist are few and simple, the principal of which are, the _graver_, the _dry-point_, the _scraper_, and the _burnisher_. The _graver_ is a small bar of steel, of a square or lozenge form, and, with the short handle into which it is inserted, about five inches in length. One of the angles of the bar is always on the under side of the instrument, and the point is formed by bevelling the end from the upper side, or angle. The square form is used for broad strokes, and the lozenge for fine ones.

3. The _dry-point_, or needle, is a steel wire with a long cylindrical handle; or it is simply a wire of sufficient length and size to be used without a handle. The _scraper_ has nearly the form of a triangular pyramid; and the cutting part, which has three edges, is two or three inches long. The _burnisher_ has a form nearly conical, and, without the handle, is about three inches long. The last two instruments are frequently made of the same piece of steel, properly forged at each end. In such case, the middle part of the steel is the handle by which they are held.

4. Of engraving on copper, the following are the principal varieties or styles: 1. Line engraving; 2. Stippling; 3. Etching; 4. Mezzotinto; 5. Aquatinta. For the purpose of conveying some idea of these different branches, we will describe them under distinct heads.

5. _Line engraving._ The first thing done, in this species of engraving, is to transfer to the plate an exact copy of the outlines of the design to be executed. In accomplishing this, the plate is moderately heated, and covered with a thin coating of white wax. A piece of transparent paper is then laid over the design to be copied, and traced in outline with a black-lead pencil. The outline thus sketched is turned down upon the coating of white wax, and the whole is subjected to the action of a rolling-press; or it is kept for a while under heavy weights. By the application of this pressure, the lines are transferred from the paper to the wax on the plate in a reversed position, which is necessary to make the impression of the finished plate resemble the original.

6. The pencil-marks on the wax having been lightly traced on the copper with the dry-point, and the wax having been melted off, a perfect outline is found on the plate. Small subordinate parts of the design are transferred to the plate in the same manner, except that the transparent paper is brought in forcible contact with the waxed surface by means of the burnisher.

7. At this stage of the process, the artist commences the use of the graver. While operating with this instrument, he holds the handle in the palm of his hand, and pushes the point forward with a firm and steady motion, until a line is produced by a removal of a portion of the metal. By a succession of such strokes, judiciously applied, the work is completed. The _burrs_, or little elevations of the copper, left by the graver on each side of the lines, are removed by means of the scraper and burnisher. Mistakes or blemishes are erased from the plate, either with the burnisher, or by friction with charcoal.

8. _Stippling._ The second mode of engraving is called stippling. This resembles the last method in its process, except that the effect is produced by means of minute punctures or excavations, instead of lines. These are made either with the dry-point or graver. When produced by the former instrument, they are of a circular form; when by the latter, they are rhomboidal or triangular. This style of work is always more slow, and consequently more expensive, than engraving in lines. It has, however, some advantages in the softness and delicacy of its lights and shades, and the prints struck from it approach more nearly to paintings.