Grand Style. Ornamental Style. Composite classical or modern history, or from the fables of the ancient mythology. The manner of representing these historical subjects may be divided principally into the Grand and the Ornamental Style. In the Grand Style the aim is to act on the mind and eye by a certain simplicity, completeness, and concentration of effect produced by the rejection of all multiform parts and superfluity of ornament, by the largeness of the masses, by uniformity in the leading lines, and sobriety of colour. As examples of grandeur in the treatment of sacred subjects we have the Cartoons of Raphael at Hampton Court, and the "Raising of Lazarus" in the National Gallery (No. 1). Of grandeur in the treatment of profane subjects, the Cartoons of Carlo Cignani (Hampton Court, 747) may be given as an instance.* The Ornamental Style aims at effect by entirely opposite means by bringing together many separate parts; by contrast in form and colour; by magnificence and variety. Rubens and Paul Veronese afford eminent examples of this style. The "Annunciation " by Paul Veronese (Hampton Court, No. 64) is an instance of its application to a sacred subject. The "Peace and War" of Rubens (National Gallery, No. 46) is an instance of profane history similarly treated.† Sir Joshua Reynolds adds another style, which he calls the Composite Style, in which a certain elegance and grace are blended with grandeur, to the detriment, however, in most cases, of simplicity and purity. The works of Cor *These are without colour; therefore a more complete example would be the frescos of the Carracci in the Farnese Palace. More signal instances would be the "Marriage of Cana," and the "Life of Marie de Medicis," in the Louvre, but they are not so near at hand. reggio and Parmigiano in the National Gallery are in stances. Style. There is another manner of treating historical painting, Picturesque which may be called the Picturesque Style, of which Francesco Mola, Salvator Rosa, and Rembrandt afford striking examples. (See in the National Gallery, Nos. 69, 45.) The Flemish, Dutch, and old German painters treated Familiar or Trivial Style. history in a manner of their own, which may be called the Familiar or Trivial Style, as in the "Christ visiting Martha and Mary" (Hampton Court, No. 691). Domestic The Spanish and Venetian painters afford examples of Pastoral or another style, which may be called the Pastoral or Do- Style. mestic. Murillo's "Holy Family" in the National Gallery is a striking instance. We find historical painters classed as Idealists and Idealists. Naturalists. The former are those who sought beauty and Naturalists. grandeur in the abstract, who generalised their subject, and clothed it in the most select and poetical forms. The most eminent idealists were Michael Angelo, Raphael, Francia, Correggio. The Naturalists adopted the common forms of nature without selection, and rested their chief merit on imitation. The most eminent painters of this class were Rubens, Murillo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt. Titian was sometimes an idealist, oftener a naturalist; and the Carracci formed a school of art by attempting to combine naturalism with idealism. PAINTING. III.—PORTRAIT PAINTING forms a second department PORTRAIT of art: all the great historical painters have excelled in portraiture, but good portrait-painters have rarely attempted history with success. I believe portrait-painting as a separate profession was first practised in the Netherlands, and that the earliest artist who practised it exclusively was Mirevelt. Admirable examples of the Venetian school of portraiture LANDSCAPE. GENRE (the finest in the world) are to be found at Hampton Court. In the Van Dyck Room at Windsor may be studied the excellencies of another school, the Flemish. In the National Gallery we have the "Giulia Gonzaga" (24), “Pope Julius II." (27), the "Portrait of Van der Gheest" (52), "The Jew Merchant" (51), "Lord Heathfield" (111), and "John Philip Kemble" (142); all fine examples of characteristic portrait-painting in different schools of art.* IV.-LANDSCAPE was first introduced merely as an accessory or background,† and the earliest painter who made it a separate department of art, and excelled in it, was Titian. Many of the great historical painters of the second period painted landscape admirably-for instance, Annibal Carracci, Domenichino, Rubens, and Nicolò Poussin. It was not, however, till some years later that we find distinguished landscape-painters by profession practising exclusively this branch of art. Claude Lorraine and Gaspar Poussin in Italy, and Cuyp and Hobbima in the Low Countries, are the most eminent names that can be cited. Landscapes may be ideal compositions or literal transcripts from nature; they may be historically grand and poetical, as in Claude and Poussin; or wildly picturesque, as in Salvator Rosa and Rubens; or purely idyllic and pastoral, as in Cuyp, Berghem, &c. (see p. 25). In our National Gallery may be found examples of all the above-named painters, except Hobbima and Berghem, who will not, I hope, be long an exception. V. All painting which is not history, portrait, or landscape, comes under the comprehensive designation of Genre Painting. For this word genre no equivalent offers itself in * But as yet not one from the Titian school: might not one or two be spared from Hampton Court as examples, at least for a time? It is said by Filippo Lippi, about 1425. I do not remember ever to have seen a landscape by Guido; and but one by Guercino, which is n the possession of Miss Rogers. English, nor, strange to say, in German; so that both nations have perforce adopted it: it comprises all subjects taken from common life, whether real or fictitious. It is the popular every-day side of art, contrasted with sacred and profane history, poetical and devotional subjects. Hogarth's pictures of the "Marriage à la Mode" are tableaux de genre of a very high class (Nat. Gal., 113). "The Girl peeling Carrots (Nat. Gal., 159) is an instance of the lowest class of genre painting, subject considered. STILL LIFE. VI. The imitation of flowers, animals, objects of na- FLOWERS. tural history, and inanimate objects (technically called still-life), forms perhaps another separate branch of art, which was successfully cultivated in the seventeenth century. Rubens, and his friend Franz Snyders, excelled in painting animals; the Boar's Head by the latter (Hampton Court, 381) is a fine example of style in this department. Hampton Court Gallery is rich in fine specimens of some of the best flower-painters,-Father Seghers, Maria van Osterwyck, Baptiste; and of the most celebrated painters of stilllife, Kalf, De Heem, Roestraten, Labradore. Of Van Huysum there are some beautiful examples at Dulwich. VII.-The five classes of painting are then :-1. History; 2. Portrait; 3. Landscape; 4. Genre, or Familiar Life; 5. Natural History and Still-life; but to whatever class a picture may properly belong, it must, as a picture, possess certain component parts or qualities, which may be divided into spiritual and material: or, as one should say, if it did not sound at once too pedantic and too familiar, into the morale and the physique of painting. The spiritual part of art I conceive as not to be acquired by study, but depending on the innate power or genius in the artist, improved by cultivation. It com prises, Invention. Character. VIII. INVENTION; which, in painting, does not mean the invention of the subject, but the manner in which a given subject is conceived and represented. The painters most remarkable for richness and fertility of invention are Raphael, Albert Durer, Rubens, and Rembrandt. But a painter may also invent his subject; and if in this he display originality, fancy, feeling, and a moral aim, he becomes, in a double sense, a creative poet. Hogarth is an instance. IX. Next to invention I will place that subtle quality emanating from the soul, and, like a soul, pervading the whole representation-call it character, sentiment, feeling; for no one word seems to render that of which we perceive at once the presence or the absence, though it escape definition. For not only will it be sublime, grand, graceful, pathetic, or tender, in accordance with the subject represented, but it will be essentially modified by the temperament of him who represents it. Where it is, it atones for many deficiencies; where it is not, no merits supply its place. As exemplifying the existence of this breathing, vital soul of art with the want of that technical skill to which we are now accustomed, we may look to the early artists of the Italian school. The paintings of Giotto, executed about 1300, in the church at Assisi; those of Andrea Orcagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and a variety of works scattered through the ancient ecclesiastical edifices at Sienna, Orvieto, Padua, might be cited as examples, but are too far off to be available as references; and engravings, even the best, fail to transmit that spiritual and evanescent charm which is the great, and often the only, merit of these works. There is a fragment of a fresco painting by Giotto, now in the collection of Mr. Rogers, representing two heads of apostles, in which the profound truth of sentiment and devout feeling would illustrate what is meant: but the nearest instance to which I can refer the reader, as generally |