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144 Annual Register Miscellaneous Essays. Extracts from a Discourse delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the distribution of the prizes, Dec. 10, 1771, by the President. The first principle laid down by the president in this discourse is, that "The value and rank of every art is in proportion and the mental labour employed in it, and the mental pleasure produced by it;" and he very justly observes, that, as this principle is observed or neglected, the profession of painting becomes either liberal art of a mechanical trade; it either vies with the poet in addressing the noblest faculties, or with the upholsterer in furnishing a house. The painter, whose art is ennobled by the exertion of mind, does not address the fense but the foul; and this make the great distinction between the Roman and Venetian school. Of the history- painter, this great artist observes, that no part of his work is produced but by an effort of the mind: there is no object that he can set before home as a perfect model; none which he can venture minutely to imitate, and transfer, as he finds it, into his great design. He proceeds to show, that the leaving out peculiarities, and retaining only general ideas as it produces perfect form, so it also gives what is called the great stile to invention, composition, expression, and even to colouring and drapery. He defines invention in painting to be the power of representing, upon canvas, the mental picture which every man forms, when a story is related, of the action and expression of the persons employed: and he observes, that the subject of this invention, or the story from which the mental picture is formed, which the artist is to express upon canvas, should be generally known, and generally interesting; such as the great event of Greek and Roman fable and history, and the principal facts that are related in scripture, which, besides their general notoriety are rendered venerable by their connection with our religion. He observes, that in the conception of this ideal picture, the mind does not enter into the minute particularities of dress, furniture, or sceneryL and infers, that the painter should, therefore, when he comes to transf3er this picture from his mind to the canvas, contrive there little necessary concomitant circumstances in such a manner, that- *end of page 144* 145 For the YEAR 1772 *continuing from page 144* that they shall strike the spectator no more than they struck him in his first conception. Figures must have a ground whereon to stand; they must be clothed; there must be a background; and there must be light and shadow; nut non of these ought to appear to have taken up any of the artist's attention, nor should they catch that of the spectator. It is indeed true, that a considerable part of the grace and effect of a picture depends upon the skill with which an artist adjusts the back-ground, the drapery, and the masses of light; but this must be so concealed, even from a judicious eye, that no remains of any of these subordinate points must occur to the memory, when the picture is removed. The great end of the art is to strike the imagination: the painter, therefore, is to make no ostentation of the skill by which this is done; the spectator is to feel the result in his bosom, but his eye must not be detained by the means. The grandeur of design, also, sometimes requires a deviation from historical truth, In the cartoons of Raphael, the apostles are drawn with as much dignity as the human figure can recieve; yet we expressly told in scripture, that they had no such respectable appearance; and St. Paul, in particular, says of himself, that his bodily presence was mean. Alexander is said to have been of low stature, and Agesilus to have been lame and of mean appearance; but none of these defects, says our preceptor, ought to appear in a piece, of which either of these persons should be the hero. To justify this rule, it is observed, that the painter has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit, and cannot, like the poet or historian, expatriate, and impress the mind with great veneration for the character of the hero or saint he represents, though at the same time he lets us know, that the saint was deformed, or the hero laame. It may, perhaps, be said, that the spectator comes to the painting, in which Alexander or Agesilaus is represented under personal defects or deformities, with a mind already prepossessed by the port or historian in favour of the character, and with exalted ideas of its excellence; so that the deficiencies of the pencil are already supplied, and it is therefore no more necessary for the painter to conceal personal defects, than the historian or the poet. But it must be considered, that peotry and history excite ideas merely by an application to the mind; and, consequently, that, by then ideas of colour and figure are not more forcibly excited than ideas of sanctity and fortitude; but in painting the cafe is far otherwise; the idea of the hero's person is excited by an immediate application to sense, consequently makes a much more forcible impression in the picture than in the poem, and, for that reason, is less likely; to be surmounted, if disadvantageous, by an idea of abstract qualities, which it does not indicate, and with which it does not apparently coincide. It may also be remarked, that, though the severity of truth has compelled history to record the personal defects of great characters, yet the fictitious heroes of poetry are always represented with every advantage of strength and beauty that- *end of page 145* Vol. XV.
