DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20658#0209
BALANCE OF PAINTERS. 19.5
and in each of these classes he has assigned to each painter that share to which he thought him
entitled, according as he approached, more or less, to the highest degree of excellence, and
summit of perfection. By this mode we have only to sum up the numbers which, standing op-
posite to each master's name, express his proportion or degree of merit in each class, to have his
total merit or value in the art, and thence to ascertain what rank one painter ought to hold in
regard to another.
It has been objected to this mode of estimating the merit of an artist, that it is not the sum of
these separate qualities but their product, when multiplied successively together, that is the proper
standard. This is a nicety however into which it is not necessary here to enter: nor would it be
of any service to the art. The only tiling deserving of our notice is to observe whether the ori-
ginal numbers, as they stand against any painter's name, express with tolerable precision that
degree of merit in each branch to which, by the best and most impartial judges, he is considered
to be entitled. In this case, however ingenious and useful Depiles' balance may be reckoned
the student must be cautious how he gives implicit confidence to the results as there stated : be-
cause he will thereby be frequently led to form very erroneous judgements of the most celebrated
painters, as well as of those of inferior fame.
Depiles was certainly an eminent and an useful writer upon this art: but he seems, like other
men of learning, to have had strong prejudices for and against particular artists, and their pecu-
liar manner of execution ; and to have been deeply infected with that affectation and abhorrence
of simplicity which are so frequently observed in the generality of painters of the French school.
Of this the following is a remarkable instance : When Depiles recommends to portrait painters
to add grace and dignity to the characters of those whose pictures they draw, so far he is undoubt-
edly right : but, unluckily lie descends to particulars, and gives his own ideas of grace and dig-
nity. " If," says lie, " you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn
in such an attitude, that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and as it were to say
to us, stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible king surrounded by majesty; 1 am that va-
liant commander who struck terror every where ; I am that great minister who knew all the
springs of politics; I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity, &c." We may
contrast the tumour of this presumptuous loftiness with the natural unaffected air of the portraits
of Titian, w here dignity, seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, and
instead of being thus vainly assumed has the appearance of an unalienable adjunct: whereas such
pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect, that it betrays vul-
garity and meanness, and newly acquired consequence.
Many painters have been misled into an adoption of the notions contained in these precepts of
Depiles. The portraits of Rigaud, for example, are perfect instances of an implicit observance
of these rules: so that though he was a painter of great merit, in many respects, yet that merit
is entirely overpowered by a total absence of simplicity, in every sense of the word.
{['these remarks on Depiles arc well founded, and may be useful to guard the young painter
against too ready an assent to the judgements he has given on the principal artists ; on the other
hand, the following observation by Mason, in the preface to his translation of Frcsnoy's Art of
Painting, cannot but appearexcessively severe. " If," says he, " the poem may have, in the course
of a century and a half, by the improvements in this art, lost some of its original merit, the notes of
Depiles, which have hitherto accompanied it, have lost much more. Indeed it may be doubted,
whether they ever had merit in any considerable decree. Certain it is that they contain such a
parade
v
and in each of these classes he has assigned to each painter that share to which he thought him
entitled, according as he approached, more or less, to the highest degree of excellence, and
summit of perfection. By this mode we have only to sum up the numbers which, standing op-
posite to each master's name, express his proportion or degree of merit in each class, to have his
total merit or value in the art, and thence to ascertain what rank one painter ought to hold in
regard to another.
It has been objected to this mode of estimating the merit of an artist, that it is not the sum of
these separate qualities but their product, when multiplied successively together, that is the proper
standard. This is a nicety however into which it is not necessary here to enter: nor would it be
of any service to the art. The only tiling deserving of our notice is to observe whether the ori-
ginal numbers, as they stand against any painter's name, express with tolerable precision that
degree of merit in each branch to which, by the best and most impartial judges, he is considered
to be entitled. In this case, however ingenious and useful Depiles' balance may be reckoned
the student must be cautious how he gives implicit confidence to the results as there stated : be-
cause he will thereby be frequently led to form very erroneous judgements of the most celebrated
painters, as well as of those of inferior fame.
Depiles was certainly an eminent and an useful writer upon this art: but he seems, like other
men of learning, to have had strong prejudices for and against particular artists, and their pecu-
liar manner of execution ; and to have been deeply infected with that affectation and abhorrence
of simplicity which are so frequently observed in the generality of painters of the French school.
Of this the following is a remarkable instance : When Depiles recommends to portrait painters
to add grace and dignity to the characters of those whose pictures they draw, so far he is undoubt-
edly right : but, unluckily lie descends to particulars, and gives his own ideas of grace and dig-
nity. " If," says lie, " you draw persons of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn
in such an attitude, that the portraits must seem to speak to us of themselves, and as it were to say
to us, stop, take notice of me, I am that invincible king surrounded by majesty; 1 am that va-
liant commander who struck terror every where ; I am that great minister who knew all the
springs of politics; I am that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity, &c." We may
contrast the tumour of this presumptuous loftiness with the natural unaffected air of the portraits
of Titian, w here dignity, seeming to be natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, and
instead of being thus vainly assumed has the appearance of an unalienable adjunct: whereas such
pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far from creating respect, that it betrays vul-
garity and meanness, and newly acquired consequence.
Many painters have been misled into an adoption of the notions contained in these precepts of
Depiles. The portraits of Rigaud, for example, are perfect instances of an implicit observance
of these rules: so that though he was a painter of great merit, in many respects, yet that merit
is entirely overpowered by a total absence of simplicity, in every sense of the word.
{['these remarks on Depiles arc well founded, and may be useful to guard the young painter
against too ready an assent to the judgements he has given on the principal artists ; on the other
hand, the following observation by Mason, in the preface to his translation of Frcsnoy's Art of
Painting, cannot but appearexcessively severe. " If," says he, " the poem may have, in the course
of a century and a half, by the improvements in this art, lost some of its original merit, the notes of
Depiles, which have hitherto accompanied it, have lost much more. Indeed it may be doubted,
whether they ever had merit in any considerable decree. Certain it is that they contain such a
parade
v