'The simple question, what is the general character of the object to be represented, explains the style of Titian, for he always penetrated it. Many appearances in nature have more than one general characteristic by which they are universally recognised. Thus, while Titian aimed at the quality of depth in the sky, Claude seems to have loved another of its attributes, and, reflecting that the sky was the source of light, he seems to have determined that brightness was its universal character.

:

Claude seems to have copied the forms of trees in a relative point of view their forms assist his composition, and their tone gives brightness to his sky; but Titian always expressed the universal character of a tree, viz., growth. It is always bursting with the efforts of vegetation. The forms are hence often peculiar, and at first one would say that Claude is more general in his choice of trees; but what appears accident in Titian's case is really the character.'

He now went to Naples, then for some six months to Greece; last, to Sicily:

'From Alcamo to Palermo there are thirty miles of the most Arcadian country imaginable. The temple at Segeste and the mountains about it are all that Poussin could wish. This corner of Sicily is well worth a journey from England to visit. I declared, and declare still, that I never saw scenery before.'

The result of these impressions was that for some years he devoted himself to landscape art, and produced a great number of sketches and (for so careful an executant) a fair proportion of finished pictures; the grace, refinement, and local truth of which gave him his earliest reputation. This reputation, however, hardly reached England. We find no record of his exhibiting; and the merit and interest of the peasant and bandit subjects, which soon followed,—then, it should be remembered, unhacknied to English eyes,-stamped his style with the public. A few specimens of the landscapes enumerated in the Life would hence be a very desirable addition to one of the national collections.

In his important picture of 'Isadas,' a subject taken from Plutarch, Eastlake resumed that higher branch of his art to which, with the addition of a few portraits (and these generally treated in a poetical manner), he henceforth remained faithful. 'The style, of all others, I should like, would be a union of history and landscape,' he had early announced; and, taking history in a large sense, this fairly defines his sphere from 1825 onwards. The picture produced a great impression in England; and his admission as Associate of the Academy (1827) was followed by full membership on the display of the work which exhibited his style as fully matured,-the justly popular 'Pil

grims arriving in sight of Rome' (1830). Eastlake's strong sense of loyalty to the Academy and to his profession now determined him to remove, though with reluctance, from his beloved Italy; whilst the southern climate, coupled with the singular closeness of devotion to his art which he showed whilst his strength lasted, rendered the change advisable on the ground of health.

Let us here quote a remarkable criticism on the principles of landscape-art, suggested by the view from Ehrenbreitstein. Admiring the scene of river, bridges, and town stretched out before him, he writes :—

'And yet a vulgar or unskilful artist might fail altogether in meeting the impression made upon the mind. A literal imitation of many things which were visible, and even somewhat prominent, would have destroyed the charm of the scene. This truth, common as it is, is connected with some very important principles of art which are not so generally recognised. In representations which depart altogether from Nature, and belong to the regions of Poetry, those details are suppressed which would betray the convention of the idea. In very abstract representations of Nature, also, all circumstances which would diminish the grandeur of the impression are omitted. There is evidently, then, a necessity for generalising in every branch of art;—there is always much to be omitted, and the omission of useless or pernicious detail only makes the whole, the ruling idea, more impressive and distinct. In the imitation, therefore, of Nature, the great question is what is the general character of the impression received? and next, what are its chief causes? If these are duly ascertained, the opposite circumstances which counteract the impression are easily detected; and suppressed, or only hinted at. It is not uncommon to find persons who have the truest feeling for the poetry of a scene (and even artists are among them), who in imitating the same scene on paper or canvas, make such things prominent as destroy the very feeling they experienced. The translation of a feeling into picturesque analogous representation is thus an art of itself. There can be

no doubt that our memory of Nature is composed entirely of general ideas, and art must be generalised to meet this idea of beauty. The mere copying of Nature in detail is not only objectionable, because it does not correspond with our impression of her, but it immediately suggests the feeling of its inferiority to Nature, and the more so the closer it is. Thus an imitation so close as to produce illusion to the eye, would be precisely that which would be considered defective, because whatever remains unaccomplished,-sound, motion, &c.,would be felt to be wanting.'

Eastlake on this occasion traversed a considerable portion of Germany, and we regret that our space does not allow us to extract some admirable criticisms upon the Laocoon which arose from a conversation held at Berlin, and a judgment, equally

just

just and severe, upon the works of Cornelius at Munich. The general gentleness of nature, and absolute freedom from artistic arrogance and vanity, which endeared him to all who had the privilege of his friendship, rendered Eastlake unwilling to express censure; but these qualities, again, rendered his censure peculiarly effective. One remark, however, we must quote, as (especially when expressed by so studious a man) it strikes us as going to the 'root of the matter' in hand. 'The Germans, at least many of them, acquire their immense knowledge as some men in England acquire money-it is merely for itself, and does not make them better or happier.' This is, indeed, a truism; yet it requires some courage to say it; nor are those wanting in England who might take it to heart with advantage—Пoλvμaðín νόον οὐ διδάσκει.

We add a few notes upon art. Of one of the Dresden Correggios he remarks:

'Some of the expressions are not wonderful. The Madonna is like a hundred others, and the bystanders have nothing remarkable. It is in the angels where Correggio's genius appears: one or two of the heads and actions are exquisite. In composition this painter is not so pure as Raphael; his expression, too, does not (so much) grow out of his subject. It is always the samearch, smiling, gay-but the contrast of this and his fantastic, graceful actions, with solemn, slumbrous, mysterious chiaroscuro, concur to make up an impression of the voluptuous. In sacred subjects, again, where such a feeling is counteracted and balanced, the pleasing vague impression experienced is very peculiar, and belongs to this painter alone.'

At Venice, and afterwards in that interesting and little-traversed region to the north of the city, whence Titian, Giorgione, and many more, drew much of their sentiment, Eastlake made a number of very curious observations, tracing certain local influences, which probably affected the artists infinitely more than those grand, but, alas! theoretical and scantily relevant general causes, of which modern criticism, in many directions, is so prodigal. Here we feel at once the difference between the critic who approaches art through literature or philosophy, and the critic who adds to philosophical and literary culture actual familiarity with art herself.

'I am quite convinced that one main cause of the excellence of the Venetians, in a large imitation of Nature, was the simple circumstance of their being able to make use of their eyes without even the trouble of walking about. This advantage is very great, and to be met with nowhere else. Added to which, the backgrounds and accompaniments to figures just observed are of a nature to exhibit their characteristic

colour

colour in the most forcible manner. In the great canal a glowing gondolier is seen in his white shirt-sleeves against cool neutral architecture, and with the greenish water around him-contrasts, all tending to light up his sunburnt limbs and face to a fiery depth; but this intense glow is not seen in its largest and truest appearance till the figure is at a considerable distance. This effect is undoubtedly the truest idea of a colour, whatever the colour may be, because it is that which the memory most retains. Titian and Giorgione went all lengths in imitating this general effect, not only in sunburnt figures, but in fairer ones. The ruins of the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, although perhaps even the ruins are vestiges of retouched figures, deep and flaming as they are, are not more so than figures sometimes appear with due contrasts as described above.

Titian used the same exaggerated scale in large altar-pieces, which were to be seen at good distances. The Assumption, Peter Martyr, and the Frari picture, are all of this class; and the St. Sebastian at Rome; but Giorgione was the great inventor of this noble violence, or rather first carried it to perfection.'

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From this point Lady Eastlake's narrative is contracted to a comparative brevity which, as we have remarked, we should like to see amended. It is true that a man is pretty well formed by forty, and that what pleases us in biography, as in life itself, is the struggle, not the victory.' Yet, in this case, more might, we think, be told with advantage. For Sir Charles Eastlake, after ten years of fertile production (1830-40), owing to a confluence of many causes, amongst which failing physical power bore a part, gradually devoted himself to many works of great public interest and utility in the cause of art, and bore a leading share, often to his personal discomfort, in much that has left its mark upon the national taste. His history, in fact, is henceforth bound up in several ways with the history of the English School; and we regret only that our own failing space renders it impossible for us to carry on the sketch with which this paper commences, into the present and future of our art, in connection with the efforts wherein the late President of the Academy took a part, equally honourable and disinterested. Within this debateable ground, questions of course arose, on which his judgment will be disputed; but, putting-by these, we are sure that no one who knew the man will dispute for a moment the impartiality, the gracious good sense, the considerate and wholly unselfish sentiments, with which he undertook labours for which no man in the country was better qualified. The feeling of loyal affection which that well-criticised body, the Royal Academy, has inspired in many of its most distinguished members, and which no man entertained more decidedly than Eastlake, was combined in him with the aim of adapting the institution Vol. 128.-No. 256. 2 F

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to the wants of our time, in some ways very different from those of the last century; whilst in the hardly less invidious task which fell to him, as administrator of the National Gallery, the confidence which every one felt in his truthfulness, sense of honour, and conscientious discrimination of art, carried him through all the difficulties of the position, and he left us at last a gallery which, though by the necessities of the case (as formed when the great harvest of collecting was over) less numerous and less endowed with world-famous pieces than the earlier gatherings, is yet not only rich enough for historical illustration, but exceeds every other collection known to us in the combined choiceness and charm of its contents. And this, looking to the general aim of art, we must consider the leading merit and ideal of such a gallery.

One melancholy association, however, connects itself with this sphere of Sir C. Eastlake's activity. Year by year he made a delightful but laborious journey of research through any region whence he thought specimens for the collection could be procured. Always singularly unsparing of himself when the interest either of his profession or of other persons were concerned, he appears to have prolonged these exertions unduly, and the fatigue of the last broke down a constitution never robust. He died at Pisa, in December, 1865; thus closing his eyes in that land to which he had looked through life as the chosen home of art, and from which he had himself drawn many of his happiest inspirations.

What will be Eastlake's place in the English School? This question, often raised during or just after the lifetime of a poet or an artist, is one, however, which it is rather natural to ask, than possible to answer. We shall here, with most wisdom, leave the solution to that great and final arbiter on all things human, Time. It is in the years to come that fame finds her true judges. Especially is this the case when a man has lived in a critical era, in an era of transition. Yet we may, perhaps, already note a few points with safety in regard to Sir C. Eastlake. It cannot be denied that, as a painter, he made his mark on his own age; it will not be disputed, also, we think, that his natural gifts and acquired skill outran what he was able to do in the way of realizing them. A fastidiousness in work, of which he was himself aware, an early failure in full physical strength, due to over-study, his wideness of aim and multiplicity of intellectual interests,-in some degree, perhaps, the absence of the stimulus derived from poverty, and the stimulus derived from the love of wealth,-these may be reckoned among the causes through which the attainments of maturity fell short of the