REYNOLDS' ESTIMATE AND USE OF OLD PAINTINGS.

He was fond of seeking into the secrets of the old painters; and dissected some of their performances, to ascertain their mode of laying on color and finishing with effect. Titian he conceived to be the great master spirit in portraiture; and no enthusiastic ever sought more incessantly for the secret of the philosopher's stone than did Reynolds to pos sess himself of the whole theory and practice of the Venetian. "To possess," said he, "a real fine picture by that great master-I would sell all my gallery-I would willingly ruin myself." The capital old paintings of the Venetian school destroyed by Sir Joshua's dissections were not few; and his experiments of this kind can only properly be likened to that of the boy who cut open the bellows to get at the wind! He was ignorant of chemistry, so much so that he sometimes employed mineral colors that reacted in a short time; and also vegetable colors; and he mixed with these various vehicles, as megilips and different kinds of varnishes or glazes, so that he had the misfortune of seeing some of his finest works change and lose all their harmony, or become cracked with unsightly seams. system of coloring a profound secret. regret these experiments, and would never permit his pupils to practice them. His method has been largely imitated, not only in England, but in the United States, greatly to the injury of many fine

He kept his

He lived to

works and the reputation of the artist. The only true method for excellence and permanence in coloring, is that employed by the great Italian masters, viz: to use well prepared and seasoned canvass; then to lay on a good heavy body-color; to employ only the best mineral colors, which will not chemically react, giving the colors time to harden after laying on each successive coat; and above all, to use no varnishes in the process, nor after the completion of the work, till it is sufficiently hardened by age.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE INQUISITION UPON SPANISH

PAINTING.

we owe

A strong and enthusiastic feeling of a religious character has often inspired the Fine Arts: to such sentiments the finest and purest productions of modern painting. Progress in art, however, implies the study of nature; the study of nature and the exhibition of its results have continually shocked the rigid asceticism of a severe morality—a morality which makes indecency depend on the simple fact of exposure, not on the feeling in which the work is conceived. Scrupulous persons often appear unconscious that in this, as in other things, it is easy to observe the letter, and to violate the spirit. A picture or statue may be perfectly decent, so far as regards drapery, and yet suggest thoughts and ideas far more objectionable than those resulting from the contemplation of figures wholly unclothed. Still, it must be admitted that such a jealousy of the fine arts

might reasonably exist in Italy at the end of the 15th, and the beginning of the 16th centuries, in the days of Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X.; when all the abominations of heathenism prevailed at Rome in practice, and when Christianity can hardly be said to have existed more than in theory. It would have been strange, amidst such universal depravity, that Art should escape unsullied by the general pollution. Still, it was against the abuses of art that the efforts of the Catholic church under Paul IV. were directed; and while those efforts gave a somewhat different character to the subjects and to their treatment in later schools, they cannot be said to have acted on either Painting or Sculpture with any repressive force.

But in Spain the case was wholly different. There was no transient insurrection of a purer morality against the vicious extravagancies of a particular period, but a constant and uniform pressure exerted without intermission on all the means of developing and cultivating the human mind, or of imparting its sentiments to others. Painting and Sculpture came in for their share of restriction, and the nature of the discipline to which they were subjected may be gathered from the work of Pacheco, (Arte de la Pintura) who was appointed in 1618, by a particular commission from the Inquisition, "to denounce the errors committed in pictures of sacred subjects through the ignorance or wickedness of artists." He was commissioned to "take particular care to

visit and inspect the paintings of sacred subjects which may stand in the public places of Seville, and if anything objectionable appeared in them, to take them before the Inquisition." His rules, therefore, may properly be received as a fair exponent of the strictures placed upon Art by the Inquisition. In his work upon the Art of Painting, Pacheco censures the nudity of the figures in Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, as well as other things. Thus he says: "As to placing the damned in the air, fighting as they are one with another, and pulling against the devils, when it is matter of faith that they must want the free gifts of glory, and cannot, therefore, possess the requisite lightness or agility-the impropriety of this mode of exhibiting them is self-evident. With regard, again, to the angels without wings and the saints without clothes, although the former do not possess the one and the latter will not have the other, yet, as angels without wings are unknown to us, and our eyes do not allow us to see the saints without clothes, as we shall hereafter-there can be no doubt, that this again is improper. It is moreover, highly indecent and improper, having regard to their nature, to paint angels with beards."

On the general question of how an artist is to acquire sufficient skill in the figure, without exposing himself to risks which the Inspector of the Inquisition is bound to deprecate, Pacheco is somewhat embarrassed. "I seem, ," he says, "to hear some one asking me, 'Senor Painter, scrupulous as you

are, whilst you place before us the ancient artists as examples, who contemplated the figures of naked women in order to imitate them perfectly, and whilst you charge us to paint as well, what resource do you afford us?' I would answer, 'Senor Licentiate, this is what I would do; I would paint the faces and hands from nature, with the requisite beauty and variety, after women of good character; in which, in my opinion, there is no danger. With regard to the other parts, I would avail myself of good pictures, engravings, drawings, models, ancient and modern statues, and the excellent designs of Albert Durer, so that I might choose what was most graceful and best composed without running into danger.'" So it appears that they might profit by the works of other sinners, without incurring the same danger.

Notwithstanding this advice, as the Inquisition always persecuted nudity, Spain was deficient in models from the antique; wherefore Velasquez, the head of the Spanish school, never designed an exquisite figure; and the collection of models and casts which he made in Italy, late in life, was allowed to go to destruction after his death!

In discussing the proper mode of painting the Nativity of Christ, Pacheco says he is always much affected at seeing the infant Jesus represented naked in the arms of his mother! The impropriety of this, he urges, is shown by the consideration that