Part 2

There are, finally, three further cases in which Tieck takes a hint from the _Anzeigen_ and develops it. "2 Henry VI," III, 3, (1794, page 10): "Kardinal Beauford ... ein scheuslicher Anblick, in mehr als einem Verstande." Tieck (page 25): "Dieses abscheuliche Blatt." But Tieck, in a passage too long to quote, goes on to giv cogent reasons for not liking the picture, not one of which is derived from the _Anzeigen_. The other passages from the "Merry Wives" (I, 1 and II, 1, G. G. A., 1794, page 970; Tieck, 11-12) take the hint that Smirke drew caricatures and not human beings and borrow the adjectiv "widrig." With this slender borrowing Tieck develops a full discussion of Smirke and of these plates with no further assistance from the _Anzeigen_ than a hint on the engraving of textiles.

These passages on "Henry VI" and on the "Merry Wives" are doubly interesting, however, because they show that Tieck's judgment of Smirke and Northcote offers a very close paralel to that of the magazine. Tieck's reasons are fuller, but they show no more ability in Tieck than in the reviewer of the _Anzeigen_ to understand some of the most characteristic features of English humor as exemplified in Smirke, while the pupil and biografer of Sir Joshua fares badly because of his alleged bad composition and poor light effects. It will be shown later that on both of these latter questions Tieck held views quite independent of the _Anzeigen_.

Of Kirk's plate from "Titus Adronicus" the G. G. A., 1794, page 970, says, "Den Ausdruck an der Lavinia abgerechnet ein gut Stück." Tieck (28) begins with a weak, "an dem Blatte ... ist vielleicht viel zu loben und wenig zu tadeln" but "rights himself like a soldier" thus, "Man sieht, dass der Künstler eine sehr richtige Idee von der Composition hat, und dass er seinem Gegenstand mit Geschmack und Delicatesse zu behandeln weiss. Er lässt uns die abgeschnittenen Arme der Lavinia nur vermuthen; der geschickt geworfene Schleier entzieht unserm Auge den unangenehmen Anblick," etc.

The examples and paralels alredy given cover practically all of the points of similarity between Tieck and his model. They show that Tieck used the _Anzeigen_ constantly and minutely but they can not fail to impress the reader with the fact that Tieck invariably rises above the plane of the jottings in the magazine in form and in substance. The content of Tieck's criticisms is very much greater than that of his prototype and the form is far more polisht. These apercus of Heyne did not prevent Tieck's independent thinking; they never fettered him. He followd them in a number of places in his paper and once or twice falls into their error thru youthful carelessness or misapprehension. They did not often confuse his judgment or hamper his vision. He never ruthlessly plagiarizd them. That they were a source can not be denied, but that they form the real basis of Tieck's critique is not for a moment tenable. This came unquestionably from himself, and he must be given credit or blame for the good or bad in it.

Tieck set about the task of criticising the "Boydell Gallery" with no diffidence, but with many misgivings, amounting almost to prejudises, as to the valu of the set of plates. He was aware that this work was intrinsically in a class which is, all in all, artistically inferior. His judgments are objectiv, but they promis no prescience of a higher, a more spiritual attitude toward art. Art in this case servs interpretation and the struggle away from what the plates represent has hardly commenced. Tieck feels that the whole group does not do Shakspere justis, but he nowhere says that the subjectiv interpretation of the poet must remain the lasting one for the individual; indeed he asserts quite the contrary on the very first page of his paper. It is to be expected that Tieck's common sense and fancy should rebel at the platitudinarianism of the pictures; that at times he is no more than on the plane of the sentimental "Enlightenment" is also to be expected. The valu of the study is in such harsh negativ criticism as it exercises where emfasis is false or where bad taste prevails in the performance of the artists' task.

Tieck came to the work with a good first-hand knowledge of Shakspere and this lessens the juvenile and jejune qualities of his work. He is weaker on the comedies than on the trajedies, for the former require a keener sensing of English life than it was possible for Tieck to hav obtaind at the time of writing. But even for the comedies, some of his observations are very just and show that he could interpret Shakspere with sense and precision. The present discussion will attempt to find out by a careful examination of the plates just what Tieck saw in these pictures and how far his interpretation was right. The results should show, in a general way, something of the powers of interpretation possest by the youthful Tieck, and how this power of interpretation conditiond his judgments.

The general theoretical standpoint upon which the essay was written is that of Lessing, and a careful perusal will show that Haym was wrong when he postulated no Lessing influence on the article.[16] Tieck's letters to Wackenroder show that he was reading the Laokoon at this time, but even if a preoccupation with Lessing were not easily postulable, the matter of the paper itself will show a distinct recrudescence of Lessing's ideas. And not only Lessing, but the school of critics out of which Lessing arose, e. g., Winkelmann and DuBos, were also a part of Tieck's reading.[17]

The article has a total lack of coloristic reflexes; it emfasizes form, if not line; its thoro reasonableness takes into consideration all that Lessing has stood for in the domain of art. It has the same standpoint as that of a Goethe returnd from Italy and of a Karl Philipp Moritz from whom, to be sure, Tieck was turning away in disgust.[18]

The article fails to solv the problem in Tieck's mind of reconciling his natural desire away from the regulated and calm with the current and traditional in British art. The conflict is between a desire in theory for moderated effects, for the toning down of emotion, and a desire, in practis, for strong contrast and superlativ effects. Lessing, in art the enemy of all realism, finds in Tieck a condemer of Hogarth, a condemnation that persists in Tieck as late as the essay on the erly English Theater (1828),[19] and persists on grounds similar to the fundamental principle of beauty laid down by Lessing.

It would be a mistake to argu from the foregoing that in this article Tieck was not a realist, or at least strongly inclined toward realism in his practis. His realism was that of the yung enthusiast for whom each variation from the sense of his idol was a blasfemy, and he points out (page 24) that there can be none of that deception of the senses which is a part of the pictorial arts where "ich irgend eine auffallende Unnatürlichkeit entdecke; denn die Nachahmung der Natur ist der Zweck des Künstlers." Such strict imitation of nature is more to be expected, to be sure, in the work of the lesser lights, such as are the men who did the pictures for the "Gallery," than in the work of a real genius, and one is glad to overlook, in the works of the latter, those minor faults which almost entirely disappear in the face of a thousand beauties. So, says Tieck (page 14) "who would pass by the divine masterpieces of a Rafael and yet with weighty mien find fault with the bad coloring of a single garment?" There are clearly two kinds of artist. The one is the genius who may be carried too far by his enthusiasm, the other is the colder painter, who by his choice of subject, composition, correctness of drawing, and grace must make up for his lack of genius, and who can not hope to attain the emotional effects of his rival, but who must be content to arouse a cooler feeling, that is, the satisfaction of the spectator. In this series, where genius is excluded from the outset, Tieck expects a strict adherence to fact, to verisimilitude, and the correct interpretation of Shakspere must be insisted on.

In order that the soul may get an immediate enjoyment of the work of art, Tieck recommends (page 4) that the painter choose well-known subjects. He says: "The soul passes immediately to the enjoyment of the work of art and curiosity does not stand in the way of his enjoyment as in the case of obscure or unknown subjects. I am alredy prepared for the sentiment that the work of art is to arouse in me, and surrender myself all the more willingly to the illusion. If the subject of the picture is in itself beautiful and sublime, or if a great poet has furnisht the painter with the invention, the composition and the emotions, our enthusiasm is arousd, we giv our wonder and our delight to the painter."

The painter, then, is only an interpreter of the poet, whose purpose it is to seize the spirit of the poet, to portray those fine and spiritual ideas which only a related genius can grasp and make concrete by an appeal to the senses thru color-magic[20] the intangible creations of the poet's brain. He makes lasting what the reader gets but a fleeting glimpse of, and what even the actor can giv but little permanence (page 3).[21]

Whether or not Tieck was influenced by the prospectus to the set, indeed, whether he saw it or not, there is no way of knowing, but his statement that these pictures in their entirety will form a national gallery of historical paintings which will drive the scenes from Greek mythology out of England, is much like Boydell's own statement of purpose mentiond above. It is also an erly paralel to the Romantic insistence on a new mythology, a nativ mythology, rather than one drawn from foren sources which was a part of Friedrich Schlegel's canon.

The engravings as such are treated by Tieck under five different heds. These are: the mechanical technique, drawing with perspectiv and line, composition (which Tieck does not clearly differentiate from design), expression and choice of subject. These five heds comprize all the points in which the pictures are treated, but not each picture is treated from all five. The five giv, however, the full range of Tieck's ideas on the engravings. They show the things that attracted his attention, and where the influence of the _Anzeigen_ is felt, they serv to show how different, after all, his own ideas were. Often the magazine does not tuch one or more points of the five.

Tieck's discussion of the technique of the engravings is, as may be expected, rather thin, and the frazes that he uses are stereotyped. Several of the plates praisd by him are quite without merit and such generalities as, "schön gestochen," "vorzüglich," "vortrefflich gut," are not very significant. Negativ praise like "nichts zu tadeln" or "die Ausführung verdient alles Lob" show that on technical points Tieck was judging very superficially and that his attention to the "Gallery" had been attracted by something else than the perfection of the plates.

These engravings are in the now old-fashiond stipple, tho parts of them are in line. At the time of writing, Tieck may not hav known the difference between line and stipple, tho in "Zerbino" a reference to the "pointed manner," used in a punning way, shows that by that time Tieck had become acquainted with it.[22] Nor does Tieck indicate in any way the "Gallery's" sparing use of the increasingly popular mezzotint. He makes no mention of the line manner of Flaxman, if he knew him. He does not see that the line engravings in the set are poorer all thru than the stipple prints, and that in some of the line plates the cutting is so deep and the execution so clumsy that the resulting plates are muddy and crude and are lacking in tone, grace, and even in exactness of execution.

In one or two places where satin is excellently reproduced, Tieck praises the texture of the fabrics. The large plate by Simon from the "Merry Wives" has a wonderful lace apron which a recent writer on engraving has cald one of the best examples of the stipple manner.[23] As Tieck refers to the other fabrics on the plate, which is one of those with duplicated subject and which in the _Anzeigen_ seems only to hav been discust in the S form, it seems clear that Tieck also saw L here, as S is by no means so fine a plate; in fact L has the best fabrics in the series.

Of the twenty-four large plates discust by Tieck, there are only thirteen which receive technical criticisms and of these thirteen, three are lumpt together under one comment so that in all there are only ten separate technical criticisms. Of these, six occur in the first six plates and with the eighteenth plate, Kirk's scene from "Titus Andronicus," the criticism of the mechanical side ends with a weak, "sehr gut gestochen," showing that Tieck did not progress in his technical criticisms. His interest in the engravings as engravings waned as the essay proceeded: it never rose above an attention to textiles and, even there, Tieck did not see all the finer differentiations of velvet, chiffon and lace, tho the fine satins distinctly appeald to him. Perhaps as fair an example as any of his inexactness, is his praise of the plate from "As You Like It" in which Jacques lies watching the wounded deer (II, 1). This is one of the poorest of the plates and yet Tieck says, "Die Ausführung verdient alles Lob." Fittler's plate from "Winter's Tale" (IV, 2), while weak and without character, is not as bad either in actual cutting or in general managment, and yet Tieck condems it unmercifully. So, too, the bad plates by Middiman come in for no special condemnation from Tieck, tho Middiman is by far the worst engraver in the series, and is particularly bad after Hodges, the plates after whom Tieck saw.[24]

Drawing, as such, fares rather better than engraving, tho less than half the pictures are criticized from this standpoint. Colorless expressions like "Keine Fehler" and "Viele Fehler" are not wanting and in many cases where whole bodies are out of drawing or where individual parts are bad Tieck has nothing to say.

It is especially interesting to note that Tieck finds the drawing of Angelika Kaufmann without error. ("Two Gent. Verona," last scene). Here he declares that no clumsy clothing conceals the figures, but the lines are well brought out under the garments. The disguised Julia is at once recognizable in spite of her masculin attire, and the manner of the artist is "graziös." An examination of the figure shows that Julia's figure has something of the immature in it and that the face is rather boyish. One thinks at once of the somewhat malicious words of Friedrich Schlegel to his brother, "Wie Angelika Kaufmann, der die Busen und Hüften, auch immer wie von selbst aus den Fingern quellen." Both Tieck and Schlegel felt the sensuous charm of the painter whose best known self-portrait is in the garb of a Vestal Virgin, tho the Schlegels, like Georg Forster, had no illusions as to the qualities of her art.[25]

Engravings in stipple emfasize less than line engravings mere questions of drawing. It is perhaps with some instinctiv feeling for this that Tieck suggests that one of Hamilton's pictures has been hurt by the bad engraving, just as certain other plates have gaind thru the engraver (page 22). The hint for this point came originally from the _Anzeigen_ but Tieck has developt it. While it is now no longer possible to check up each plate with its corresponding picture, it is true that the engravers were relatively better craftsmen, as a rule, than the painters. In hardly any one case is the painting a sample of the best work of the artist. Often, as in the case of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painting redounds but little to his credit.[26] Where, as in the case of Barry, Sir Joshua's great rival, the picture is reckond with his superior work, the only conclusion is that Barry was a very bad artist and so Tieck considers him. The engravers, on the other hand, had had no better chance in years to exhibit their art than in this imposing series, and most of the best names in stipple appear in it. The best that Tieck does to recognize this fact is in the occasional lament for the waste of good labor on a bad subject or painting (e. g., page 20).

Besides having the good feeling for the human form under the garment, as in the case of the figure of Julia and of those of Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page by Smirke, Tieck also criticizes several cases of misdrawing. So, the clumsy legs of one of Opie's figures are scored and in blaming this failing of Opie, Tieck hits one of the most pronounced weaknesses of that artist both in the "Gallery" and in Bell's British Theater. But Opie, the "Comedy Wonder," is hardly the "ungeübter Künstler" that Tieck makes him out to be. Here Tieck, following the criticism of the _Anzeigen_, from which he may have got the hint on Opie's drawing, develops the criticism too far and goes astray. There is a constant suspicion that Tieck is trying to master a jargon.

Often it is a mere chance whether Tieck will see or not see a peculiarity. Some of the sentimental, foolish, and misdrawn hands escape his notis, whereas in other cases he criticizes them.

Perhaps the best example of Tieck's criticism of drawing is that of Northcote's plate to "Richard III." (III, 1, page 27). He says, "Der alte Cardinal scheint ganz verzeichnet zu sein, man ist ungewiss, ob er steht oder kniet: in beiden Fällen ist die Zeichnung fehlerhaft." Tieck's strictures are correct. The space from the waist down is found upon examination to be abnormally long for a kneeling person, and groteskly short for one standing. Tieck's critique is good, for it points out the error and the reason, and shows that in any case the alternativ is a bad one.

Tho Tieck may hav been over-kind to Angelika Kaufmann, he quite agrees with his contemporaries in the condemnation of another German Swiss living in England, namely Füessli, whom he calls one of the worst of the admirers of Michaelangelo. The michaelangelesk school of the day faild in its expression of great muscular effort, in that it put for strength distortion and violence. Füessli was one of the most important adherents, or rather, was the greatest representativ of the fad perhaps anywhere and seems therby to hav largely incurd the displesure of his German critics. That Tieck really understood Michaelangelo is shown by his later article in the "Phantasien über die Kunst." He defends him from the charge of having drawn to show his knowledge of anatomy and among other things, exclaims on his "greatness, his wild grace, his fearful beauty."[27] But Tieck had no use for those of his imitators who caught only the extravagance of his figures and debased his Titanic creations into bizarre contortions by over-emfasis on mere muscle.

That Tieck was not unconscious of the effect of mere line is shown by his pointing out the unplesantness of the line made by Leontes' figure in Hamilton's picture of the statu scene from "Winter's Tale." Awkwardness and violence, anything that savord of "affectation and bombast," where in Shakspere "power and energy" are found, met Tieck's disapproval. So this figure of Leontes, so Orlando standing with his legs far apart, so the faces drawn by Füessli. Wherever there were violent angles, sharp points and corners, Tieck felt himself ill at ease. When he saw in some of Füessli's plates faces which giv the impression of the plaster blocks of the art schools that are used to draw from the cast, the square chins, the noses, either very pointed or cut off square, imprest him as repulsivly inhuman. "Widrig, unnatürlich, abgeschmackt, manierirt," are the terms applied to Füessli's cursing scene from Lear.

It would hav been interesting had Tieck seen Füessli's later scenes in the "Gallery." The Bottom scenes from the "Midsummer Night's Dream" show that fantastic imagination which was the artist's strong point. All the forms from the fairy world were there, Moth, Peascod and a welth of other spirits. There is a distinct appeal to the imagination which justifies the painter of "Die Nachtmahr," tho the faces of Titania and Oberon are here too hard and sullen. But the imagination shown has a curious similarity with the work of Tieck in his later stories such as "Die Elfen," and which has so warm an afterglow in "Die Vogelscheuche."

Composition means for Tieck especially order. He has not yet lernd the principle of triangulation of arrangement enunciated by Caroline in the "Gemälde" essay in the _Athenaeum_. He expects no more than that the principle character shall be in an important place in the picture and insists that the lighting devices serv to throw such personages into relief. So when the perspectiv is bad it is because of the wrong emfasis on the principal figures rather than that the harmony of the whole is disturbed by a wrong arrangement.

What irritates Tieck especially is an arrangement of figures in the picture in the regular semi-circle borrowd directly from the theater. The evil of unnaturalness which such attitudinizing brings with it, is enhanced by light effects drawn from the same source. So, for example, where the light is that of a lamp, only so much light as a lamp would giv, or the effect of natural lamp-light is allowable. If, on the other hand, the sunlight streams into the room, the source of the sunlight should be evident as outside the room. Tieck might hav mentiond as an example of this some of the fine interiors of Pieter De Hoogh. The light effects should not be harsh but graded down so that no violent light contrasts occur within the same room. The light, too, should be broken up, not kept in a mass as if it were a separate entity to be treated apart from all other objects.

All this is perfectly resonable and not especially technical. It is conveyd in stray hints rather than in any set discussion of light effects in any one place. Often, too, Tieck's dislike for some other aspect of a painter's work leads him astray on this point. This is tru in the case of Northcote, whose really good treatment of the high lights Tieck has in one or two cases entirely overlookt. There seems to hav been a distinct appeal made, too, by the sheen and glitter of certain textiles and the scintillating, flickering light of the later periods of Tieck's work is presaged as erly as this. On the whole, however, it is not the glitter of the world of out-of-doors, but of the world of the shut-in, of the world of little things which appeals so strongly to Tieck and which he treated with such banality in the story "Ulrich der Empfindsame."

Thus, Tieck's landscape criticism is very bad and even tho, as has been pointed out, the basis for his adjectivs lies in the _Anzeigen_ articles, his expansion beyond them brings no real betterment. In the plate from "Love's Labor Lost" (IV, 1, page 9), when Tieck was feeling his way into his subject, his general impression was one of plesure, and so the landscape is "reizend." In the whole essay, "reizend" is the only constructiv epithet applied to landscape and it occurs only twice. Hamilton's landscape is purely conventional and, except for a vista, of which Tieck was all his life fond, offers nothing to commend it. The failure of Tieck to judge rightly must be laid at the door of too great reliance on the _Anzeigen_.