LOUVAIN. Aux Dames Blanches. RUBENS. The Adoration of the Magi, by Rubens; a slight performance. The Virgin holds the infant but awkwardly, appearing to pinch the thigh. This pic. ture is said to have been painted in eight days, and he was paid for it 800 florins, about 80%. English. A print by Lauvers. The Virgin and Christ, and the principal of the Magi, are much the same as in my sketch, except that he kneels intead of standing. In the church of St. Pierre are some pictures of the old masters; one said to be of Quintin Matsys; another, about the same age, representing some Saint, who appears to refuse a mitre, which is placed before him; a composition of near an hundred figures, many in good attitudes, natural and well invented. It is much more entertaining to look at the works of these old masters, than slight common-place pictures of many modern painters. CHARACTER OF RUBENS. THE works of men of genius alone, where great faults are united with great beauties, afford proper matter for criticism. Genius is always eccentric, bold, and daring; which, at the same time that it commands attention, is sure to provoke criticism. It is the regular, cold, and timid composer, who escapes censure, and deserves no praise. The elevated situation on which Rubens stands in the esteem of the world is alone a sufficient reason for some examination of his pretensions. His fame is extended over a great part of the Continent, without a rival: and it may be justly said that he has enriched his country, not in a figurative sense only, by the great examples of art which he left, but by what some would think a more solid advantage, the wealth arising from the concourse of strangers whom his works continually invite to Antwerp, which would otherwise have little to reward the visit of a connoisseur. To the city of Dusseldorp he has been an equal benefactor. The gallery of that city is considered as containing one of the greatest collections of pictures in the world; but if the works of Rubens were taken from it, I will venture to assert, that this great repository would be reduced to at least half its value. To extend his glory still further, he gives to Paris one of its most striking features, the LUXEMBOURG GALLERY: and if to these we add the many towns, * This was written before France had been disgraced, and plundered, and desolate, by the unparalleled atrocities of those sanguinary and ferocious savages, who for seven years past (1798) have deluged that country with blood; while they have waged war against every principle that binds man to man: against all the arts and all the elegancies of life; against beauty, virtue, law, social order, true liberty, religion, and even humanity itself. The collection of the Luxembourg gallery, representing Henry IV., Mary of Medicis, and their children, with all the splendour of royalty, has without doubt long since fallen a sacrifice to their barbarous rage, and shared the same fate with his fine statue of that monarch, which formerly stood on the Pont Neuf, and which has been battered to pieces. The other great collection of pictures, however, of which Paris formerly boasted, that of the PALAIS ROYAL, has not suffered among the numerous works of art which have been destroyed; having been fortunately saved from their merciless fangs by the necessities and precaution of the owner, the detestable author and fomentor of their iniquities; who, happily for the world, though most cruelly, basely, and un churches, and private cabinets, where a single picture of Rubens confers eminence, we cannot hesitate to place him in the first rank of illustrious painters. Though I still entertain the same general opinion both in regard to his excellencies and his defects, yet having now seen his greatest compositions, where he has more means of displaying those parts of his art in which he particularly excelled, my estimation of his genius is of course raised. It is only in large compositions that his powers seem to have room to expand themselves. They really increase in proportion to the size of the canvass on which they are to be displayed. His superiority is not seen in easel pictures, nor even in detached parts of his greater works; which are seldom eminently beautiful. It does not lie in an attitude, or in any peculiar expression, but in the general effect, in the genius which pervades and illuminates the whole. I remember to have observed in a picture of Diatreci, which I saw in a private cabinet at Brussels, the contrary effect. In that performance there appeared to be a total absence of this pervading genius; though every individual figure was correctly drawn, and to the action of each as careful an attention was paid, as if it were a set Academy figure. Here seemed to be nothing left to chance; all the nymphs (the subject was the Bath of Diana) were what the ladies call in attitudes yet, without being able to censure it for incor justly, so far as regards the perpetrators of the act, was some time since worried and mangled by those hell-hounds which he let loose against mankind. Previously to his being murdered by his fellow-regicides, the Duke of Orleans contrived to dispose of the whole of his great collection, which was sent to England. The Flemish part of it was sold in London in the year 1793, and the pictures of the Italian school are safely preserved in the same metropolis. M. - rectness, or any other defect, I thought it one of the coldest and most insipid pictures I ever beheld. The works of Rubens have that peculiar property always attendant on genius, to attract attention, and enforce admiration in spite of all their faults. It is owing to this fascinating power that the performances of those painters with which he is surrounded, though they have perhaps fewer defects, yet appear spiritless, tame, and insipid; such as the altar-pieces of Crayer, Schut, Segers, Huysum, Tyssens, Van Balen, and the rest. They are done by men whose hands, and indeed all their faculties, appear to have been cramped and confined and it is evident that every thing they did was the effect of great labour and pains. The productions of Rubens, on the contrary, seem to flow with a freedom and prodigality, as if they cost him nothing; and to the general animation of the composition there is always a correspondent spirit in the execution of the work. The striking brilliancy of his colours, and their lively opposition to each other, the flowing liberty and freedom of his outline, the animated pencil, with which every object is touched, all contribute to awaken and keep alive the attention of the spectator; awaken in him, in some measure, correspondent sensations, and make him feel a degree of that enthusiasm with which the painter was carried away. To this we may add the complete uniformity in all the parts of the work, so that the whole seems to be conducted, and grow out of one mind: every thing is of a piece, and fits its place. Even his taste of drawing and of form appears. to correspond better with his colouring and composition, than if he had adopted any other manner, though that manner, simply considered, might be better it is here as in personal attractions; there is frequently found a certain agreement and correspondence in the whole together, which is often more captivating than mere regular beauty. Rubens appears to have had that confidence in himself, which it is necessary for every artist to assume, when he has finished his studies, and may venture in some measure to throw aside the fetters of authority ; to consider the rules as subject to his control, and not himself subject to the rules; to risk and to dare extraordinary attempts without a guide, abandoning himself to his own sensations, and depending upon them. To this confidence must be imputed that originality of manner by which he may be truly said to have extended the limits of the art. After Rubens had made up his manner, he never looked out of himself for assistance: there is consequently very little in his works, that appears to be taken from other masters. If he has borrowed any thing, he has had the address to change and adapt it so well to the rest of his work, that the theft is not discoverable. Beside the excellency of Rubens in these general powers, he possessed the true art of imitating. He saw the objects of nature with a painter's eye; he saw at once the predominant feature by which every object is known and distinguished: and as soon as seen, it was executed with a facility that is astonishing; and, let me add, this facility is to a painter, when he closely examines a picture, a source of great pleasure. How far this excellence may be perceived or felt by those who are not painters, I know not to them certainly it is not enough that objects be truly represented; they must likewise be represented with grace; which means here, that the work is done with facility and without effort. Rubens was, perhaps, the greatest master in the mechanical part of the art, the best workman with his tools, that ever exercised a pencil. |