The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Volume 2 (of 3)

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Fuseli Henry. The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Volume 2 (of 3)

INTRODUCTION

FIRST LECTURE

ANCIENT ART

SECOND LECTURE

ART OF THE MODERNS

THIRD LECTURE

INVENTION. PART I

FOURTH LECTURE

INVENTION. PART II

FIFTH LECTURE

COMPOSITION, EXPRESSION

SIXTH LECTURE

CHIAROSCURO

SEVENTH LECTURE

ON DESIGN

EIGHTH LECTURE

COLOUR. – IN FRESCO PAINTING

NINTH LECTURE

COLOUR. – OIL PAINTING

TENTH LECTURE

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The difficulties of the task prescribed to me, if they do not preponderate are at least equal to the honour of the situation. If, to discourse on any topic with truth, precision, and clearness, before a mixed or fortuitous audience, before men neither initiated in the subject, nor rendered minutely attentive by expectation, be no easy task, how much more arduous must it be to speak systematically on an art, before a select assembly, composed of Professors whose life has been divided between theory and practice, of Critics whose taste has been refined by contemplation and comparison, and of Students, who, bent on the same pursuit, look for the best and always most compendious method of mastering the principles, to arrive at its emoluments and honours. Your lecturer is to instruct them in the principles of 'composition; to form their taste for design and colouring; to strengthen their judgment; to point out to them the beauties and imperfections of celebrated works of art; and the particular excellencies and defects of great masters; and finally, to lead them into the readiest and most efficacious paths of study.'3 If, Gentlemen, these directions presuppose in the student a sufficient stock of elementary knowledge, an expertness in the rudiments, not mere wishes but a peremptory will of improvement, and judgment with docility; how much more do they imply in the person selected to address them – knowledge founded on theory, substantiated and matured by practice, a mass of select and well digested materials, perspicuity of method and command of words, imagination to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in, presence of mind, and that resolution, the result of conscious vigour, which, in daring to correct errors, cannot be easily discountenanced. – As conditions like these would discourage abilities far superior to mine, my hopes of approbation, moderate as they are, must in a great measure depend on that indulgence which may grant to my will what it would refuse to my powers.

Before I proceed to the history of Style itself, it seems to be necessary that we should agree about the terms which denote its object and perpetually recur in treating of it; that my vocabulary of technic expression should not clash with the dictionary of my audience; mine is nearly that of your late president. I shall confine myself at present to a few of the most important; the words nature, beauty, grace, taste, copy, imitation, genius, talent. Thus, by nature I understand the general and permanent principles of visible objects, not disfigured by accident, or distempered by disease, not modified by fashion or local habits. Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object. On beauty I do not mean to perplex you or myself with abstract ideas, and the romantic reveries of platonic philosophy, or to inquire whether it be the result of a simple or complex principle. As a local idea, beauty is a despotic princess, and subject to the anarchies of despotism, enthroned to-day, dethroned to-morrow. The beauty we acknowledge is that harmonious whole of the human frame, that unison of parts to one end, which enchants us; the result of the standard set by the great masters of our art, the ancients, and confirmed by the submissive verdict of modern imitation. By grace I mean that artless balance of motion and repose sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls short of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to execution, it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered. When we say taste, we mean not crudely the knowledge of what is right in art: taste estimates the degrees of excellence, and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement. Our language, or rather those who use it, generally confound, when speaking of the art, copy with imitation, though essentially different in operation and meaning. Precision of eye and obedience of hand are the requisites of the former, without the least pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice directed by judgment or taste constitutes the essence of imitation, and alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an artist. The imitation of the ancients was, essential, characteristic, ideal. The first cleared nature of accident, defect, excrescence; the second found the stamen which connects character with the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the highest degree of unison. Of genius I shall speak with reserve, for no word has been more indiscriminately confounded; by genius I mean that power which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers new materials of nature, or combines the known with novelty, whilst talent arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of genius.

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"Mr. Falconet has observed, in a note on this passage in his translation of Pliny, that the circumstance of covering the face of Agamemnon was probably not in consequence of any fine imagination of the painter, – which he considers as a discovery of the critics, – but merely copied from the description of the sacrifice, as it is found in Euripides.

"The words from which the picture is supposed to be taken, are these: Agamemnon saw Iphigenia advance towards the fatal altar; he groaned, he turned aside his head, he shed tears, and covered his face with his robe.

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