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PARIS—THE LOUVRE.

To those who have had the good fortune to see the pictures and statues which were preserved in the Louvre, all description of these works must appear superfluous; and to those who have not had this good fortune, such an attempt could convey no adequate idea of the objects which are described. There is nothing more uninteresting than the catalogue of pictures which are to be found in the works of many modern travellers; nor any thing in general more ridiculous than the ravings of admiration with which this catalogue is described, and with which the reader in general is little disposed to sympathise. Without attempting, therefore, to enumerate the great works which were there to be met with, we shall confine ourselves to a simpler object, to the delineation of the general character by which the different schools of painting are distinguished, and the great features in which they all differ from the sculpture of ancient times. For the justice of these observations, we must of course appeal to those who have examined this great collection; and in the prosecution of them, we pretend to nothing more than the simple account of the feelings which, we are persuaded, must have occurred to all those who have viewed it without any knowledge of the rules which art has established, or the more despicable principles which connoisseurs have maintained.

For an attempt of this kind, the Louvre presented, singular advantages, from the unparalleled collection of paintings of every school and description which was there to be met with, and the facility with which you could trace the progress of the art from its first beginning to the period of its greatest perfection. And it is in this view that the collection of these works into one museum, however much to be deplored as the work of unprincipled ambition, and however much it may have diminished the impression which particular objects, from the influence of association, produced in their native place, was yet calculated, we conceive, to produce the greatest of all improvements in the progress of the art, by divesting particular schools and particular works of the unbounded influence which the effect of early association, or the prejudices of national feeling, have given them in their original situation, and placing them where their real nature is to be judged of by a more extended circle, and subjected to the examination of more impartial sentiments.

The character of every school of painting has been determined by some peculiar circumstances under which that school first originated, which have contributed to form its greatest excellencies, and been the real source of its principal defects; and it has unfortunately happened, that the unbounded admiration for the great production of these schools has everywhere formed the national taste, and tended to perpetuate their errors, when the progress of society would otherwise have led to their earlier abandonment. It deserves well to be considered, therefore, whether the restoration of these monuments of art to their original situations, while it must unquestionably enhance the veneration with which they will severally be regarded, may not perpetuate the defects which particular circumstances have stamped on their school of composition; and whether the continuance of them in one vast collection, however fatal to the implicit veneration for the works of antiquity, was not calculated, by the comparison of their excellencies and the exhibition of their defects, to form a new school, possessed of a more general character, and adapted for the admiration of a more unbiassed public. It is in the despotic reign of arbitrary governments, if we may be allowed, in a discussion on matters of taste, to borrow an illustration from politics, that the influence of ancient error, and the power of ancient prejudice, is most unbounded; but it is in the unbiassed discussion which distinguishes a free state, that the influence of prejudice is forgotten, and truth emerges from the collision of opposite opinions. However this may be, it will not, it is hoped, be deemed an useless attempt, if we now endeavour to state, in a few words, the impression which was produced by this great collection of the works of art, which has been felt, we doubt not, by all who have viewed it with untutored eyes, but has not hitherto been described by those so much better able to do justice to it than ourselves.

The first hall of the Louvre in the Picture Gallery is filled with paintings of the French school. The principal artists whose works are here exhibited are, Le Brun, Gaspar and Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Vernet, and the modern painters Gerard and David. The general character of the school of French historical painting, is the expression of passion and violent emotion. The colouring is for the most part brilliant; the canvas crowded with figures, and the incident selected, that in which the painter might have the best opportunity of displaying his knowledge of the human frame, or the varied expression of the human countenance. In the pictures of the modern school of French painting, this peculiarity is pushed to an extravagant length, and, fortunately for the art, displays the false principles on which the system of their composition is founded. The moment seized is uniformly that of the strongest and most violent passion; the principal actors in the piece are represented in a state of phrenzied exertion, and the whole anatomical knowledge of the artist is displayed in the endless contortions into which the human frame is thrown. In David's celebrated picture of the three Horatii, this peculiarity appears in the most striking light. The works of this artist may excite admiration, but it is the limited and artificial admiration of the schools; of those who have forgot the end of the art in the acquisition of the technical knowledge with which it is accompanied, or the display of the technical powers which its execution involves.

The paintings of Vernet, in this collection, are perhaps the finest specimens of that beautiful master, and they entitle him to a higher place in the estimation of mankind than he seems yet to have obtained from the generality of observers. There is a delicacy of colouring, an unity of design, and a harmony of expression in his works, which accord well with the simplicity of the subjects which his taste has selected, and the general effect which it was his object to produce. In the representation of the sun dispelling the mists of a cloudy morning; of his setting rays gilding the waves of a western sea; or of that undefined beauty which moonlight throws over the objects of nature, the works of this artist are perhaps unrivalled.

The paintings of Claude are by no means equal to what we had expected, from the celebrity which his name has acquired, or the matchless beauty which the engravings from him possess. They are but eleven in number, and cannot be in any degree compared with those which are to be found in Mr. Angerstein's collection. To those, however, who have been accustomed to study the designs of this great master, through the medium of the engraved copies, and above all, in the unrivalled works of Woollet, the sight of the original pictures must, perhaps at all times, create a feeling of disappointment. There is an unity of effect in the engravings which can never be met with amidst the distraction of colouring in the original pictures; and the imagination clothes the beautiful shades of the copy with finer tints than even the pencil of Claude has been able to supply. "I have shewn you," said Corinne to Oswald, "St. Peter's for the first time, when the brilliancy of its decorations might appear in full splendour, in the rays of the sun: I reserve for you a finer, and a more profound enjoyment, to behold it by the light of the moon." Perhaps there is a distinction of the same kind between the gaudy brilliancy of varied colours, and the chaster simplicity of uniform shadows; and it is probably for this reason, that on the first view of a picture which you have long admired in the simplicity of engraved effect, you involuntarily recede from the view, and seek in the obscure light and uncertain tint which distance produces, to recover that uniform tone and general character, which the splendour of colouring is so apt to destroy. It is a feeling similar to that which Lord Byron has so finely described, as arising from the beauty of moonlight scenery:—

———"Mellow'd to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies."

The Dutch and Flemish school, to which you next advance, possesses merit, and is distinguished by a character of a very different description. It was the well-known object of this school, to present an exact and faithful imitation of nature; to exaggerate none of its faults, and enhance none of its excellencies, but exhibit it as it really appears to the eye of an ordinary spectator. Its artists selected, in general, some scene of humour or amusement, in the discovery of which, the most ignorant spectators might discover other sources of pleasure than those which the merit of the art itself afforded. They did not pretend, in general, to aim at the exhibition of passion or powerful emotion: their paintings, therefore, are free from that painful display of theatrical effect, which characterises the French school; their object was not to represent those deep scenes of sorrow or suffering, which accord with the profound feelings which it was the object of the Italian school to awaken; they want, therefore, the dignity and grandeur which the works of the greater Italian painters possess: their merit consists in the faithful delineation of those ordinary scenes and common occurrences, which are familiar to the eye of the most careless observer. The power of the painter, therefore, could be displayed only in the minuteness of the finishing, or the brilliancy of the effect; and he endeavoured, by the powerful contrast of light and shade, to give an higher character to his works, than the nature of their subject could otherwise admit.

The pictures of Teniers, Ostade, and Gerard Dow, possess these merits, and are distinguished by this character in the highest degree; but their qualities are so well known in this country, as to render any observation on them superfluous. There is a very great collection here preserved of the works of Rembrandt, and their design and effect bear, in general, a higher character than belongs to most of the works of this celebrated master.

In one respect, the collection in the Louvre is altogether unrivalled—in the number and beauty of the Wouvermans which are there to be met with; nor is it possible, without having seen it, to appreciate, with any degree of justice, the variety of design, the accuracy of drawing, or delicacy of finishing, which distinguish his works from those of any other painter of a similar description. There are 38 of his pieces there assembled, all in the finest state of preservation, and all displaying the same unrivalled beauty of colouring and execution. In their design, however, they widely differ; and they exhibit, in the most striking manner, the real object to which painting should be applied, and the causes of the errors in which its composition has been involved. His works, for the most part, are crowded with figures; his subjects are in general battle-pieces, or spectacles of military pomp, or the animated scenes which the chace presents; and he seems to have exhausted all the efforts of his genius, in the variety of incident and richness of execution, which these subjects are fitted to afford. From the confused and indeterminate expression, however, which the multitude of their objects exhibit, we turn with delight to those simpler scenes in which his mind seems to have reposed, after the fatigues which it had undergone: to the representation of a single incident, or the delineation of a certain occurrence—to the rest of the traveller after the fatigues of the day—to the repose of the horse in the intermission of labour—to the return of the soldier after the dangers of the campaign;—scenes, in which every thing combines for the uniform character, and where the genius of the artist has been able to give to the rudest occupations of men, and even to the objects of animal life, the expression of general poetical feeling.

The pictures of Vandyke and Rubens belong to a much higher school than that which rose out of the wealth and the limited taste of the Dutch people. There are 60 pieces of the latter of these masters in the Louvre, and, combined with the celebrated Gallery in the Luxembourg Palace, they form the finest assemblage of them which is to be met with in the world. The character of his works differs essentially from that both of the French and the Dutch schools; he was employed, not in painting cabinet pictures for wealthy merchants, but in designing great altar pieces for splendid churches, or commemorating the glory of sovereigns in imperial galleries. The greatness of his genius rendered him fit to attempt the representation of the most complicated and difficult objects; but in the confidence of this genius, he seems to have lost sight of the genuine object of composition in his art. He attempts what it is impossible for painting to accomplish—he aims at telling a whole story by the expression of a single picture; and seems to pour forth the profusion of his fancy, by crowding his canvas with a multiplicity of figures, which serve no other purpose than that of shewing the endless power of creation which the author possessed. In each figure there is great vigour of conception, and admirable power of execution; but the whole possesses no general character, and produces no permanent emotion. There is a mixture of allegory and truth in many of his greatest works, which is always painful; a grossness in his conception of the female form, which destroys the symmetry of female beauty; and a wildness of imagination in his general design, which violates the feelings of ordinary taste. You survey his pictures with astonishment—at the power of thought and brilliancy of colouring which they display; but they produce no lasting impression on the mind; they have struck no chord of feeling or emotion, and you leave them with no other feeling, than that of regret, that the confusion of objects destroys the effect which each in itself might be fitted to produce. And if one has made a deeper impression; if you dwell on it with that delight which it should ever be the object of painting to produce, you find that your pleasure proceeds from a single figure, or the expression of a detached part of the picture; and that, in the contemplation of it, you have, without being conscious of it, detached your mind from the observation of all that might interfere with its characteristic expression, and thus preserved that unity of emotion which is essential to the existence of the emotion of taste, but which the confusion of incident is so apt to destroy.