works they begin. The paper de Medici. The two statues of and impression were very beautiful, but the form appeared rather. too long in proportion to the breadth. The collection will form twelve volumes, each of which will cost three sequins (about 17. 108. English,) and the works of each author will be accompanied with his portrait, engraved by Morghen. It is now the fashion to print the name of each subscriber on the title of his copy, and that method will be followed with this work. The Society likewise prints a literary journal, which seldom pronounces any opinion where it cannot praise, and merely inserts a notice or extracts. The greatest part of the works of which it treats are foreign, and principally French; the literature of France being now exclusively cultivated in Italy. The native productions are so few, that a jour nal, devoted only to Italian literature, could scarcely be supported, especially if it were obliged to appear regularly at stated periods. At Florence I could not stop longer than four days; and what are four days in a city which, next to Rome, contains the most numerous and the most precious treasures of the arts, and where four months would scarcely be sufficient to survey, with proper attention, all that is worthy of notice? I immediately relinquished the idea of seeing every thing, and confined myself to the most capital works and the first-rate artists residing in that city. The Palazzo Pitti is now scarcely worth the trouble of going to see it. The French carried off between sixty and seventy pictures, and among them all the good pieces it contained. In the Gallery I missed not a single article, either statue or picture, excepting the Venus the family of Niobe (the second daughter and the son, who lies dead and extended on the ground,) together with other pieces which had been for removed to Palermo, had recently been brought back, and, to my great joy, I found them in their former places. The statuary, Santarelli, a native of Rome, who had resided, for the last ten years, at Florence, is one of the ablest artists in his line. He likewise imbosses portraits in wax, and his success in taking likenesses procured him abundance of employment during the war. He has likewise much talent for mechanicks. At the house of Fabre, a pupil of David's school, who obtained some distinction in the last exhibition of the Academy of Rome, before the death of Basseville, and has, since that period, constantly resided at Florence, I saw an historical picture, the subject of which is taken from Alfieri's Tragedy of Saul, and represents a vision of that king, tormented by his evil conscience. It would be difficult to discover the subject, without some explanation; but the artist, in excuse of himself, says, that he chose this circumstance at the particular desire of Alfieri, who had much more talent for the composition of a tragedy, than of a picture. I never observed in any modern painter such a perfect execution of all the parts, such a masterly disposition of the colours; and in the mechanical part of his profession Fabre is indisputably as accomplished an artist as can possibly exist. The plan and ground of the picture, which comprise a good deal of landscape, are so exquisitely beautiful with regard to the disposition, colours, and proportions, that, excepting Reinhart, I know no landscape-painter who could excel it. The same commendation may be given to all the other subordinate parts of the piece, but does not apply to the principal object: for accuracy in the details, brilliancy in the colouring, and the highest degree of perfection in the execution, are not sufficient to form a good dramatick picture and those are almost the only good qualities of this piece. The composition is patched, the action theatrical, the expression overcharged, and the style has the usual faults of the French school; the figures are invariably muscular, the drapery precisely folded into a thousand small plaits, and the light thrown upon the most brilliant colours, so that the eye has no repose, excepting in the landscape. The car nation resembles ivory, and the naked parts are daubed. The tone of the whole is much too glaring and lively for a grave subject. At the same artist's I saw several fine portraits, in which his great mechanical merit is ably displayed. Among these were the portraits of General Clarke, who commands at Florence, and of the Queen of Etruria, both striking likenesses. Fabre possesses a beautiful ancient portrait, which he attributes to Raphael, and six admirable landscapes, two by Caspar, two by Poussin, and two by Annibal Caracci, which are all in the highest preservation, and are alone a sufficient inducement to visit the art ist. Another French painter, nam ed Desmarez, likewise deserves the traveller's notice. He belongs also to the French school, but a greater contrast cannot exist than between him and Fabre, and it is interesting to see the former immediately after the latter. Fabre has neither invention nor fire; his whole art is mechanical, and he aims only at neatness and perfection, with which he charms the eye of the amateur. Desmarez possesses the talent of invention, fire, and energy; he is partial to grave,pathetick,and tragick scenes, and his colouring is suitable to the gravity of his subjects, but it is rude, inaccurate, inharmonious, and rather repulsive than agreea ble to the eye. He has more talent than art. If both agree in any point, it is in that which they derive from their common school; in the theatrical disposition and overcharged expression of the postures and attitudes,in which consists the real essence of the French school, and, perhaps, generally of the French manner of considering nature. Desmarez, however, incon❤ testably possesses a genius for dramatick painting, and a creative imagination, of which Fabre is destitute; only it is a pity that he has been spoiled by his school. All the compositions I saw at his house, consisting principally of small sketches, painted in oil, were of tragick subjects; for instance, the death of Lucretia, the death of Virginia, the death of Cæsar, &c. a dying Cato, as large as life, tearing his bowels out of his body, is a truly horrible figure, which he executed for Lord Bristol, and had almost completed; but as that eccentrick Macenas of the arts is now dead, he will scarcely find another customer for it. This the artist himself apprehended when I brought him the unexpected account of his Lordship's death from Rome. It was late before Desmarez embraced the profession. The revolution, which has otherwise been so prejudicial to the arts, brought them, in him, a worthy pupil. Before the revolution he was secretary to the French embassy at Stockholm, and practised at his leisure for his own amuse- dle grounds are now of a uniform bright green, and his fore-grounds of a pale bluish green colour, which not rarely destroys the harmony of the back-grounds. The figures commonly introduced into his pictures are the shepherds, shepherdesses, herdsmen, and cattle of those countries where he found his originals; but the ladies and gentlemen, with whom he was frequently obliged to decorate the landscapes which he painted at Naples for the king, are intolerable, Hackert was just employed upon three landscapes, destined for Weimer, all of which were about half finished. It was the latter end of July when I saw him, and yet he assured me that all three would be sent off to Weimer in September. Two of them, a View near Rome from the Villa Madama, over Pont Molle, of the Sabine Mountains, illuminated by the setting Sun; and another of Fiesole and the Vale of Arno, near Florence, are for the Duke of Weimer, and the third for an English gentleman residing in that town. Of the other numerous paintings of this artist, which I saw, I shall say nothing. A per son can scarcely look at all Hackert's paintings in two hours; they fill two spacious rooms, and form a small gallery. The spectator would be induced to believe, that they are the productions ef several persons, though they are the labour of his hands alone. I cannot, however, deny, that Hackert's whole system has something of the air of a manufactory. I should like to say a few words concerning the master-pieces of modern sculpture, the statues of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, in the Capella del Depositi, the architec tecture of which is the work of the same artist. But when a person attempts to speak of the chef d'auvres of the art, he feels that he ventures upon something that baffles description. I have seen these works at several times, and always with new, with increased admiration, and with reverence for that sublime genius by which they were created. All capital works of art possess the property, and it is a test of their excellence, that they give the more pleasure the oftener they are seen, and the more the essence of the art is in the mean time developed to the observer. His admiration continues to increase, the more intimate his acquaintance with them becomes. Such is likewise the case with the works of Michael Angelo. That fulness of character, so distinctly expressed, that colossal magnitude, that boldness and energy, those mighty forms and proportions, irresisibly seize the senses, and the imagination is strained to embrace the infinity of these productions. The spectator thinks he can never sufficiently impress these extraordinary performances on his fancy; he turns from one group to another, and, as if confined in a magick circle, he is unable to leave them. They are not figures copied from reality, or projected on its scanty proportions; they are not the ideal productions of a lively Grecian imagination, which drew down to the earth Olympus with all its immortal inhabitants; they are the pure originals of an original genius, which, soaring above reality, and despising imitation, combined the lofty spirit of the Sacred Writings and of Dante's Poems, with the rude, ungovernable energy of his age, and boldly transfused them into all his works, whose wild, imposing, and majestick grandeur, is only an impression of his own individuality. And it is exactly this which seems to augment the admiration of these works: you admire their magnitude, their original character; but you are astonished at the gigantick mind which could create such a world. No artist has displayed himself in his works with such truth, such strength, and such uniformity, as Michael Angelo. He every where appears the same, but only at different moments and periods of his life. Thus, for example, in the cieling of Sextus's chapel, he appears in the flower of his genius; in the Last Judgment he is a vigorous old man, full of profound experience and matured energy; but the blossom of his genius has faded, and you may perceive that his art grows old with him. Lastly, in his two pictures in the Pauline chapel, we view him, together with his art, in the weakness and decrepitude of hoary age. But while I am speaking of the artist, I run the risk of forgetting his works. I intended to say something concerning the Four Periods of the Day, and his figure of Giuliano de Medici (who, in the morning of life, was plunged into the gloomy empire of death,) which, for the living and speaking expression in the posi tion and attitude, is inimitable. On the sarcophagus at his feet, lie the two exquisite figures, Aurora, and Crepusculo. The former shews that Michael Angelo was sensible to female beauty, and knew perfectly well how to express it; but beauty of a sublime, of a grave character. The charming face of Aurora is animated by an expression of melancholy, which imparts to it a, moving interest. The body and limbs of this figure are exquisitely formed and disposed. In the bosom, however, Michael Angelo's idea of female beauty does not appear founded on the most perfect model; for in this figure, as well as in that of Night, the bosom is faulty; the two hemispheres are placed at too great a distance, and their form is not handsome. But so much the more bold, powerful, and masculine is the broad chest of Crepusculo, who, as well as Day, is throughout of a gigantick, colossal nature, energetick, and wonderful, such as Michael Angelo alone knew how to create. I cannot say much in commendation of Night, though much celebrated by poets. Considered impartially, she is a huge caricature on woman, presenting disagreeable forms snd striking disproportions, whether you examine her unnaturally long, flat body, disfigured with folds and wrinkles; or the leg, which is much too long for the thigh; or the ugly bosom, or the ungraceful position; in which last quality she is rivalled by Day, her companion on the same sarcophagus. Night has been praised because her sleep is so perfectly natural; the expression of the face is certainly a true representation of a person in sound sleep; but who sleeps in such a constrained posture?* Next to the original magnitude of these figures, the manner in which they are executed demands the admiration of the connoisseur, and the study of the artist. The figures are not quite finished in many parts, and still cleave here and That these four figures are intended to rep resent the four times of the day.... Day and Night, Aurora and Twilight,...we are informed only by tradition; and it should be observed, that, with the exception of Night, who is asleep, none of the figures have any characteristick to confirm such a supposition. there to the rude block of marble which serves for their basis; but where they are finished, the chisel has been employed with wonderful ability. Michael Angelo knew not how to paint in marble like Canora, but how to sketch and to model with the chisel. All the parts on which the light falls, and which are exposed to the view, are finished in the highest degree, almost to a polish; on the contrary, in those which recede into the shade, or are otherwise withdrawn from the view, the chisel is perceived without any farther polish. No neglect appears in the form, which is every where equally perfect and complete, but merely in the parts which are concealed; this negligence however, evinces the genius of a master. This liberty taken by Michael Angelo with the mechanical portion of his art, this evident contempt for every thing superfluous (for whatever is not essential, and at most can only please the eye) gives to his execution that solemn grandeur and boldness, that lofty and haughty character, which are peculiar to his productions. But I must part from you, ye sublime creations of the sublimest genius, who sheds a lustre upon the age of modern art; I must leave the sanctuary which incloses you, perhaps for ever. Adieu, ye noble forms ! never may the rude hands of barbarians drag you from your native home! And thou sublime, divine genius! drop a spark of thy fiery spirit into our enervated art, and inspire it anew with more solemn, more grand, and more manly conceptions. To be continued. |