ral
ideas which he admired, and which was indeed the cause of his
admiration. My opinions being then confused and unsettled, I was in
danger of being borne down by this plausible reasoning, though I
remember I then had a dawning suspicion that it was not sound doctrine;
and at the same time I was unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to
what I was unable to confute." False and low views of art are now so
commonly taken both in and out of the profession, that we have not
hesitated to quote the above passage; the danger Sir Joshua confesses he
was in, is common, and demands the warning. To make it more direct we
should add, "Read his Discourses." Again, without intending to fetter
the student's mind to a particular method of study, he urges the
necessity and wisdom of previously obtaining the appropriated
instruments of art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly
colouring, before any thing more is attempted. He does not think it,
however, of very great importance whether or not the student aim first
at grace and grandeur before he has learned correctness, and adduces the
example of Parmegiano, whose first public work was done when a boy, the
"St Eustachius" in the Church of St Petronius, in Bologna--one of his
last is the "Moses breaking the Tables," in Parma. The former has
grandeur and incorrectness, but "discovers the dawnings of future
greatness." In mature age he had corrected his defects, and the drawing
of his Moses was equally admirable with the grandeur of the
conception--an excellent plate is given of this figure by Mr Burnet. The
fact is, the impulse of the mind is not to be too much restrained--it is
better to give it its due and first play, than check it until it has
acquired correctness--good sense first or last, and a love of the art,
will generally insure correctness in the end; the impulses often
checked, come with weakened power, and ultimately refuse to come at all;
and each time that they depart unsatisfied, unemployed, take away with
them as they retire a portion of the fire of genius. Parmegiano formed
himself upon Michael Angelo: Michael Angelo brought the art to a
"sudden maturity," as Homer and Shakspeare did theirs. "Subordinate
parts of our art, and perhaps of other arts, expand themselves by a slow
and progressive growth; but those which depend on a native vigour of
imagination, generally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty."
Correctness of drawing and imagination, the one of mechan