On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    after . The Parisians now have nothing left but the grave of heroism , and even that will not in future be marked out for their respect ;—perhaps , like the profond of the Pantheon , it will be hidden by a wall to prevent a stray republican throwing a wreath upon it ; or be guarded by a soldier , to take such an animal , should he appear , into custody . This , however , is not our present subject;—the Louvre is now opened , arid walking up its immense suite of rooms , if

    appeared to us that the changes which have succeeded one another in the modes both of thinking and expressing , as here illustrated , would be an

    excellent subject for one well versed in history . How valuable such a treatise might be both to the philosopher and the artist . Even the dates on

    the catalogue of the birth and death of the painters under review is of great advantage , and the classification otherwise , so far as it may be called classification . Beginning with the flat figures of Cimabue , Giotto , &c . with the hands unbent and the heads relieved on a

    gilded ground , every following age presents problems to be solved . The Bolognese , the Roman , the Venetian , of earlier and of later date , like the gradual filling and waning of

    the moon , may be seen to have changed with the times in such a way as almost to present $ key to the causes of those changes . The Flemish again

    Untitled Article

    show a progression not in ideas so much as in literal art . The turning point of both of these may be clearly defined ? at which they ( having previously accomplished to the furthest the intention of their class ) began to descend to the meretricious .

    Beginning at the true , the advancement has been in elevating the real , until that having apparently attained its maximum of beauty , the ideal , or something- to which that

    name has been adhibited , has succeeded . True it is , that the youngest student at the present day knows what the greatest artists of old times knew not ; but the intuitions of genius are often most vivid

    when least assisted by indirect adjuncts . It is a curious matter to investigate how much of any work of genius ( and of all such more especially in the plastic arts where so much is belonging to practice ) belongs to the time . The mind of the

    artist indeed , in many instances , seems to have been only the machine , the organ ( as his hand was to his mind ) through which the spirit of the age expressed itself on the

    canvass . When a child begins to imitate objects by drawing , which most children do , there are certain characteristics invariably given : tl } e principle of which is a vast preponderance of certain parts over others . The head J £

    drawn larger than all the body and limbs , and although the arms may be disposed of by a

    Untitled Article

    Hints towards a rigM Appreciation of Pictures . 267

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 1, 1837, page 267, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1836/page/42/