CHAP. III. Of Novelty. the applause of their contemporaries by surpassing what was simply excellent; in which, if they did not succeed, they at least succeeded in producing something new; which equally answered their purpose. In the following age, novelties still more fascinating and various were displayed by the masterly hands and luxuriant imaginations of Lanfranc and Pietro da Cortona; whence the style of art became entirely changed; and though Raphael was still looked up to, as the most perfect master of design, those, who most implicitly acknowledged the authority of his name, had evidently lost all relish for the merits, by which it was acquired. They admired the vigour of his genius, and applauded the purity of his taste; but lamented that he had not been acquainted with the principle of pyramidal grouping, the flowing line, and all those systematic tricks of false refine-, ment, to the want of which, he in a great degree owed that reputation, which alone recommended his works to their notice or approbation. 5. The words genius and taste are, like the words beauty and virtue, mere terms of general approbation, which men apply to whatever they approve, without annexing any specific ideas to them. They are, therefore, as often employed to signify extravagant novelty as genuine merit; and it is only time that arrests the abuse. Purity, simplicity, grace, and elegance, are, as well as beauty, qualities, that are always equally admired, because the words, by which they are expressed, are terms of approbation. But, nevertheless, these terms are entirely under the influence of fashion; and are applied to every novelty of style or manner, to which accident or caprice gives a momentary currency. Pietro da Cortona and Bernini would, without doubt, have maintained their pretensions to them as firmly, and, probably, as sincerely as Raphael, Annibal Caracci, or Nicolas Poussin; and their admirers would have supported their claims with equal obstinacy: for no person ever adopted or admired a style, which he felt or thought to be inelegant, ungraceful, or impure; but the meaning, which the words elegance, grace, and purity bear, differs, not only in different individuals, but in the same individuals, accordingly as they are differently applied. We often hear the same persons talk of the grace and elegance of a Greek statue, and of a French dancer; and, perhaps, with equal sincerity: for, either they feel neither, and are guided, in the one instance, by the authority of criticism; and, in the other, by that of fashion; or, perhaps, they feel both ; but, in the latter instance, misapply the terms, or mistake the causes of their feelings: for, as novelty and difficulty, displayed in extraordinary feats of bodily strength and agility, are really and universally F F CHAP. III. Of Novelty. СНАР. Of Novelty. pleasing, it is no wonder that they should, in the laxity of colloquial language, be called by those terms, which are generally and indiscriminately employed to signify pleasing modifications of form and action. 6. There is no extravagance or absurdity of dress, or personal decoration or disguise, to which the same terms have not been applied with equal sincerity, so long as it has borne the gloss of novelty, or stamp of fashion; and, perhaps, painters, sculptors, and writers may be no further answerable for the corruptions of taste in art and eloquence, than taylors and milliners are for those in dress; since, in all professions Those, who live to please, must please to live. The restless desire of novelty, so general among all mankind, may, perhaps, be the principle of both; to the extravagancies and caprices of which, those, who make it their business to supply the gratifications, must, of course, conform for whether an artist or an author work for money or for fame, he is equally dependent upon public opinion; since mere posthumous fame is but a cold and distant reward; and is, moreover, one of which no person can be certain *. "Semper oratorum eloquentiæ moderatrix fuit auditorum prudentia. Omnes enim, qui probari volunt, volun 7. The corruptions of art and the extravagancies of dress have, as far as I have been able to observe, universally accompanied each other but poetry and elocution have never manifested any symptoms of sympathy with either. From the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, the fashions in dress were carried to the utmost extreme of absurdity; and imitative art sunk to its lowest state of degradation; at the same time that taste in literary composition, both in England and France, attained a degree of purity and perfection only surpassed by that of the finest ages of Greece and Rome. The case is that imitative art, being employed in exhibiting exterior and visible forms only, necessarily catches its style of imitation, in some degree at least, from those, with which it is most familiar; while writing, being employed in expressing mind only, is entirely independent, even in its imitations, of all external appear ances. 8. Perhaps one great cause of the permanency of style, and continued identity of taste, in ancient art, was the permanency and unvaried simplicity of dress. From the age of Pericles to that of Hadrian, during a period of between tatem eorum, qui audiunt, intuentur, ad eamque, et ad eorum arbitrium et nutum totos se fingunt, et accommodant." Cic. Orat. ad Brutum, c. 24. CHAP. III. Of Novelty. CHAP. five and six hundred years, under the suc cessive domination of the Athenians, the Of Novelty: Lacedæmonians, the Macedonians, and the Romans, there was less variation in the style and taste of imitative art, through all the different states, that composed those empires, excepting only Egypt, than there is, not only between those of any two schools, but between those of any two successive ages of the same school, in modern Europe. During all that period also, a simplicity of dress, bordering upon negligence, and even approaching to nudity, universally prevailed; and any deviation. from it was deemed a symptom of barbarism and corruption of manners unbecoming a man of rank and education *. Even the women, during that period, never attempted to exchange their native charms for the adscititious ornaments of dress: for, though the limbs and body were more or less concealed, as general custom or individual modesty occasionally required, they never were so disguised, but that the general forms of a human creature were Thucyd. lib. i. 6. "Sed tibi nec ferro placeat torquere capillos: Nec tua mordaci pumice crura teras. Ista jube faciant quorum Cybeleïa mater OVID. de Arte Amandi, 1. i. v. 505. See also the Portraits upon Coins, &c. |