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    March 22, I85&J THE L E'AD ER .............

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    tfpTntitr^ jLUXtlUUlt*

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    Critics are not the legislators, but the...

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    If the French have "been since *89 somew...

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    THE ART OF THE AKCIENTS. Torso. Kunst , ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    March 22, I85&J The L E'Ad Er .............

    March 22 , I 85 & J THE L E'AD ER ............ , 27 Q

    Tfptntitr^ Jluxtluult*

    Hiferntm ? ,

    Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Hevieio .

    If The French Have "Been Since *89 Somew...

    If the French have "been since * 89 somewhat revolutionary and impatient in the sphere of polities , they have in all periods been remarkably patient and slavish in their endurance of Literary authority . The dread they have in Literature for anything like innovation is singularly illustrated in the case of Robes pieree , who , while devoting himself to the overthrow of the monarchy , remained a rigorous adherent to all the classic rules . It is this slavish acceptance of authority which gives their critical writings so uniform and fatiguing a character . We are not disputing their admirable qualities , when we point to a fact which must have certainly struck the reader , namely that Bossuet , Fenelon , Hacinb , Boileaxt , Moliere , Pascal . —all the great names , in short—are always spoken of in stereotyped phrases . Even in the vehement quarrel of the Classic and Romantic schools , when a broad schism was proclaimed , the same monotonous uniformity was preserved : instead of one

    opinion uttered in stereotyped phrases , there were two Opinions ; that was all the change . For a Frenchman to think independently , and express himself as he thinks , about legrand Bossuet , would be the heightof audacious paradox . To play with , ideas is permissible ; the natural vivacity of the Frenchman must break out ; but it is awed by names ; it holds a reputation more sacred than a system ; and no levity , no liberty seems permissible when les grands ecrivains are in question . Unanimity is uninterrupted by independence . Opinions are as much a matter of course as " yowrs truly . " In England , with all our respeet for names and ideas , there are only two names which receive this stereotyped applause . ShakspeAre , whom it is heresy to mention without hyperbole , and the"judicious Hooker , " whom it is erudition to have read . " With regard to all other writers , every thinking man . has his own view ; there is a general estimate , but each critic adopts it with some modify cation , and expresses himself as he feels .

    There is a . general estimate of Bacon , for example , which is assuredly high ; but scarcely two writers quite agree about his merits , and the degree of his influence . Some are only : fascinated by the style , some by the weighty pregnant thoughts , and some by the far-reaching Method . If we pass from English , writers on Bacon , to French > writers on Des Cartes , the contrast becomes striking . There are men who disagree with Des Cartes , who disbelieve in the possibility of metaphysical systems reaching the truth , or in Des Cartes having reached it ; but to find one man expressing even an individual modification of the general estimate ^ using any but the stereotyped expressions , is as rare as to find a white crow .

    We will not push the parallel further . It has brought us into the presence of two great names , the two Fathers of Modern Philosophy , whom , we find , contrasted in ha Revue des Dews Mondes ( March 1 ) , by M . Saisset in an essay on " Philosophy since Ramus" agreeably written , as his essays usually are , ' though thin in substance . In these days of entente cardiale , M . Saissjbt thinks it right the rivalry between the admirers of the two great men should give place to an impartial estimate of both . It is easy , he thinks , to disengage the question , from all national prejudice , and reduce it to its veritable terms : Bacon , assuredly a " grand esprit , " merits the magnificent eulogy of Walp ol . e of having been the prophet of those truths which Newton taught . But celebrate this powerful imitator as pompously as you will , he will always

    want something which could entitle him to raak beside Des Cartes : " il lui a manqv . 4 Vesprit d'invention , le don supe ' rieur des grandes d & convertes , en un mot le genie crtateur . " " Of what use is his magnificent Method which he describes with precision , which he celebrates with enthusiasm ? He does not employ it ; nor has it had much influence even in his own country . But Des Cartes , on the contrary , has had an incomparable influence because his genius was essentially creative . Not only do his discoveries of the law of refraction and explanation of the rainbow place him beside Ga lileo (!); not only does lie share with Pascal , the honour of having made experiments on the weight of the atmosphere , but he has done that which neither Pascal norGACHKo could have done—he has created sciences . The application

    of algebra to geometry , physical mathematics , and rational mechanics did not exist teforo Des Cartes , who created them at one stroke . Finally he created a system of Philosophy which is one of the glories of the human race . " We cannot in our limits discuss the legitimacy of the assertions M . Saisskt makes , but leave to the meditation of the reader , to separate what is specious from what is true in them . The nonsense ( we can use no milder term ) M . Saissht speaks in this article about Leibnitz and Spinoza , is of the stereotyped order . Let us pass fi-owi it to the interesting paper on David D'Angehs by Gustave Planchis , who is one of the few critics

    capable of expressing an independent opinion , although he does it generally with an insolence of manner which reminds one of a pedagogue , ruler in hand , laying down the law to his uplooking pupils . Another , and a very interesting paper in the same Revue , is that by M . Paul i > b Rkmusa / t sketching the history of Cl . auDia Bernard ' s discovery of the function of the liver , and the disputes which have latterly agitated the Academy , and occupied France respecting the truth of the discovery . Wo have kept our readers informed of all the stages of this dispute , which is really of immense importance , for M . Bmuinahu ' s views , iffltme , not only solve a problem which haa occupied

    and baffled all physiologists from Hippocrates downwards , but they also profoundly modify certain princi ples of chemistry and physiology which have been considered as established . This importance it is which has made us bring the question before our readers , at each new tarn taken by the discussion , and which makes us refer those who have not followed the discussion to ML Remusat ' s article , where the story is ably narrated ( with two or three unimportant inaccuracies ) from first to last . Liejug and his followers consider it an established principle that the animal organism can form no organie substances , it can only transform the materials furnished by the vegetable world . But M . Bernard ' s discovery proves that the animal can form sugar , not furnished by the vegetable . Here then the Liebig generalisation is shown to be incomplete * If one organic substance is pibducibLe without the intervention of vegetables , others may be .

    M . Esauiros continues his interesting articles on Life in Holland ; and the Revue closes with a simple and touchin g story of Russian life , translated from the Russian of M . Tourgenef , which makes us very curious to see the other works of this writer . Altogether the Revue this time is-remarkable for the variety and excellence of its articles , and is well worth our readers looking after it .

    The Art Of The Akcients. Torso. Kunst , ...

    THE ART OF THE AKCIENTS . Torso . Kunst , Kunstler und Kuntioerke dor Alten . ( Torso . The Art , Artists , and Art-remains of the Anoients . ') By Adolf Stain * . In Two Farts . Part Second . London : D . Nutt-A year ago we directed our readers' attention to the first volume of Professor Stahr ' s Term , as , a delightful introduction to the study of Greek Art . The recent appearance of the second volume enables us to enforce owr previous recommendation by the assurance that the author has worthily ended what was so well begun . We were going to say that Torso is as interesting as a novel , but- we remembered that this stock phra . se of eulogistic reviewers has become nearly as vague as the celebrated comparison , " about as big as a potato a the interest of novels varying as much , as the size ' of that invaluable but too

    uncertain root , and indeed the majority of thein being , next to volumes of " poems , " the hardest reading inexorable duty calls on us to perform ., Let us be content to say , then , without any comparison ^ that , Torso is a deeply- interesting book , telling , often with warm eloquence , and always with ease and grace , the wonderful history of Greek sculpture as it may be gathered ? and conjectured from the fragmentary remains and fragmentary records which have escaped the ravages of time and * barbarism ; A history of art necessarily includes a large amount of description and criticism , since-to sucli a history , pictures , statues and buildings , bear the same relation as the actions of men bear to the historj r of nations ; description is there equivalent to narrative , and criticism to the analysis of character . And the discrepancies of the Whig and the Tory , the Protestant and , the Catholic historian , are . trivial compared with the discrepancies of art critics ; so that in such a work as Professor Stahr ' s there are sure to be plenty of questionable judgments , of which other writers on , art will tell you that the contrary is " evident to the

    plainest understanding . " His mistakes are likely to be on the amiable side of over-estimation ; but though enthusiastic , he is- never cloudily rhapsodical like some of his confraternity in Germany . He is as far as possible from that state of criticism whicli sees in a simple , playful subject like the " Boy with the Mask , " " the divinely-inspired longing after the highest summit of earthly existence in contrast with the nothingness and emptiness of all earthly joys . " He has too intense a ~~ feelnrg-for art as art . to wash away its language of form in a flood of vague philosophising ; he loves the outward fact too well to let it be screened from him by the Grand-idee . Nevertheless he is a philosophic critic © in the best sense ; he judges of art in its relation to the other phases of human development ; he traces it to its originating principles , and he notes the causes and the reactive influences of its development and decline . The reader will perhaps find him now and then a little too arrogant in his decisions , a little too vague and allusive in his statements ; but these faults are unfortunately much commoner than the merits by which they are redeemed in the author of Torso .

    Almost all the greatest works of ancient art remaining to us are described in the first volume , Professor Stahr having wisely adopted the plan of arranging them according to the period of their origination as ideals by the greatest masters of Grcece 3 and not according to the date at which the sculptures we actually possess are supposed to have been executed . For , apart from the Parthenon sculptures , which enable us to know , not merely by faith , but by sight , that Phidias was the sublimest artist the world has produced , our acquaintance with Greek art in its grandest periods is almost entirely due to copies executed by Greek artists who wrought under Roman patronage in the days of the early Emperors . Thus the Jupiter Otricoli only represents to us the Jupiter of Phidias ; in the Juno Ludovisi we see only the ideal of Polykleteaj in the Discobolus only a marble copy of Myron's bronze original ; in the Venus de Medici the emulating skill of an artist who , many Renerations after Praxiteles , sought to surpass , while borvolume ot

    ro-wing , the ideal of the Venus of Cnulos . Xlencc the second Torso has less description than the first , and more narrative and disquisition ; it is occupied loss witU the productions of art than with the conditions under which art was either further developed or simply continued to exist from the Macedonian period , when it ceased to be a vital function in a political and religious organism , and became an affair of royal and aristocratic patronage , down to the time of Hadrian , when it sent forth a few gleams of originating power before its sotting . Still there ia enough of the description in which Prof . Stahr excels to render the contents of this volume sufficiently various . Tliero are the works which may with more or less probability be attributed to Lysippua , the Phidias of portrait sculpture , whose genius initiated that -phase of development on which aoulptural art entered in the time of Alexander The portraits of Alexander wo possess , the Hercules Farneso , the Hercules-Torso of the Vatican , and the Horses of the Sun at Venice , axe among the many works of-which the originals are attributed' to Lysippue . In the history

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 22, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22031856/page/15/