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1829.]

Notices respecting the celebrated Painter, Titian.

and art work in producing this effect. In nature, light produces shade; in art, on the contrary, shade is made to produce light. He explained that the depth of black is attainable by art, but that the intensity of light cannot be represented; that the range of colors at the painter's command cannot rise higher than white, which is much below light; and that painters are under the necessity of resorting to contrast to supply this deficiency in the means with which they work. In treating of the effects of chiaro-scuro, after pointing out its use in representing projections, he urged the necessity of adopting a style of illumination appropriate to the subject. To illustrate his meaning, he referred to the obvious impressions of awfulness, sublimity, or serenity, made on the mind by different degrees in the length of shadow.

The importance of breadth of light was earnestly insisted on by the artist, and he maintained that light introduced sideways was remarkably adapted to produce this quality of breadth. Michael Angelo was referred to as peculiarly happy in the application of this effect.

In the power of producing expression, chiaro-scuro was represented as next to design. In concluding his observations on the effects of light and shade, Mr. Philips drew a contrast between the dif

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and fully justified to the audience the praises bestowed on the original.

The triumph of chiaro-scuro in modern times, said Mr. Philips, was achieved by Fuseli. Opie also was very successful in its application. Its perfection, however, is to be found in the works of Flemish and Dutch masters.

Mr. Philips then proceeded to the consideration of color, which he commenced by observing on the florid Venetian school and its wonderful power of employing technical skill; but he objected, that a beautiful combination of color was all that they produced, to the neglect of sentiment, expression, and development of subject. From this censure, however, he excepted Titian, whose works display that union of sentiment with fine coloring which renders them the perfection of painting. He recommended the attempt to combine the principles of the two schools of Venice and Florence as a desirable object. In explaining the operations of contrast and harmony in colors, he produced the diagram of Moses Harris to illustrate the effect of arrangement of color on the vision, and strongly recommended the adoption, as a principle of harmony, of the distribution according to nature as traceable in the prismatic rays.

PAINTER, TITIAN.

ferent modes of proceeding adopted by NOTICES RESPECTING THE CELEBRATED Rubens and Rembrandt. In the paintings of the former, a full daylight effect was employed; and, in them, power was attained by the distribution of local color. In the works of the latter, not more than a twentieth part of the picture is light, and the effect of local color is disdained. The concentration of light was first discovered by Leonardo da Vinci; and the Battle of the Standard is his most successful effort in this respect.

Raphael and Poussin were adduced as masters who had been most successful in the application of inartificial chiaro-scuro, or light and shadow arising purely out of the circumstances of the picture; and West, said Mr. Philips, although with greater artifice, improved on both those masters. But, as a perfect example of the natural or inartificial chiaro-scuro, and of its powerful and delightful effects, the lecturer produced a copy of the splendid picture by Titian, known as the Pietro Martyre, which Annibal Carracci had panegyrised as faultless. The copy appeared to be executed in a masterly style,

SOME artists who have acquired fame did not at a very early age evince a talent for design; but Titian, when he was a mere child, showed a propensity of that kind, and delineated the Virgin Mary with the juices of flowers, which were probably the only colors within his reach. About the age of ten years, his father sent him to Venice, where he became the pictorial pupil of Giovanni Bellino. He soon, however, abandoned the formal manner of this artist, and adopted that of Giorgione so successfully, that to several portraits their respective claims could not be ascertained. At the age of eighteen he was an inmate of Giorgione's habitation, and was then employed to paint in fresco the façade of the Exchange of the German merchants, the opposite front toward the canal being allotted to the pencil of Giorgione. Titian chose for his subject female figures and boys, and over the door represented Judith with the head of Holofernes, very admirably colored;

like those of the most eminent painter this country ever produced, were courteous, gentle, and unassuming; and, like him also, his friendship was solicited and his character esteemed by the most accomplished persons of his time. Being in the habit of living in the best society, he acquired the ease and carriage of an accomplished gentleman, never presuming on his superior talents, but disposed to encourage the exertions of other artists; one of whom shewing him a picture he had just finished, Titian observed, that he was so pleased with it, that it appeared as if he had done it with his own hand.' There were other points of similarity to be observed between the prince of the Venetian school and Sir Joshua Reynolds, for the latter produced several grand compositions, as well as fascinating fancy-pieces; and, to both, all the rank, talents, and beauty of the time, were anxious to sit."

Vasari, who knew Titian in his advanced years, says, that he appeared to have enjoyed uninterrupted health during his very long life, together with an abundant share of every earthly felicity. His art gave him character, and his character contributed to dignify his

art.

Although he lived to the age of ninetynine years, he did not die of old age, but of the plague, which sent him to his grave in 1576. The public and pompous funeral intended for him was prevented by the continuance of the pestilential contagion: but such obsequies were not necessary for his fame. His name lives in the memory of every lover of the fine arts.

regions which were before unknown to
her. There is such an extraordinary
propriety or consistency in his super-
natural beings, and every thing which
they say and do is in such strict accord-
ance with the characters with which he
has invested them, that we at once be-
come as it were denizens of the imagi-
nary world, which the potent art of the
poet has conjured around us; the mar-
vellous merges into the probable; and
astonishment and surprise are changed
into intense interest and powerful sym-
pathy. Shakspeare is the only poet who
effects this; at least to the same extent.
The magic of other writers pleases and
surprises us; but in that of Shakspeare
we are thoroughly wrapped up. We are
as much under the influence of the wand
of Prospero, as are Ariel and Caliban;
the presence of the weird sisters on the
blasted heath, arrests our attention as
strongly as it did that of Macbeth and
Banquo; and the predictions of the
prophetic spirits on the eve of the battle
of Bosworth, ring as fearfully and as
solemnly in our ears, as they did in those
of the conscious usurper.
The great
secret of all this is, the wonderful art
with which the characters of these visit-
ants from another world are sustained,
and in which they are not surpassed by
any of our author's representations of
mere humanity. Ariel is as perfect and
harmonious a picture as Miranda or
Ferdinand; and, above all, the witches
in Macbeth are creations on which the
poet has lavished all his skill, and ex-
hausted all his invention.

The supernatural machinery of which he makes the most frequent use, ,is founded upon the popular belief in ghosts. This is a superstition which has existed in all NATURAL CHARACTERS, from the Lite- ages and countries, and amongst all rary Remains of Mr. Neele.

OBSERVATIONS ON SHAKSPEARE'S SUPER

It is one of the most striking peculiarities in the genius of Shakspeare, that, although he is eminently the poet of Nature, and exhibits her with singular felicity in her ordinary and every-day attire, yet, when he gets beyond this "visible diurnal sphere," he surpasses all other writers in the extraordinary power and invention which he displays in the delineation of supernatural beings. It has been justly remarked, that, in his most imaginary characters, he cannot be so properly said to go beyond Nature, as to carry her along with him into

classes and conditions of men. There are many who affect to despise it, but it is scarcely too much to say that there never existed an individual who was not, at some period or other, under the influence of the feelings which such a belief excites. The "saint, the savage, and the sage," the man of letters and the uninformed peasant, the child of science, who can explore the structure of the universe, and even the sceptic, who refuses to give credence to any written revelation of the divine will, have all confessed that

"There are more things in Heaven and earth Than are dream'd of in our philosophy."

Hence the belief has become an engine of most potent influence in the hands of the poet, since by it he could work upon the feelings of all mankind. The great authors of antiquity, and those of Spain and Italy, and, above all, those of the north of Europe, the countries of cloud and mist, of the mountain and the flood, where the phenomena of nature are such powerful auxiliaries to a lively imagination and a credulous understanding, have delighted in breaking down the barrier between the corporeal and the spiritual worlds, and in shaking our dis. positions

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." The most distinguished writers of our own age have not neglected to avail themselves of this popular superstition. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, lord Byron's Manfred and Siege of Corinth, and the masterpiece of the mighty wizard of the north, the Bride of Lammer-muir, are proofs, amongst innumerable others, of the ability which our contemporaries have evinced, when they have ventured to lift up the veil which shrouds the secrets of the spiritual world.

It is therefore not surprising that Shakspeare should have enrolled these shadowy beings among his dramatis persona, or that, in his management of them, he should have displayed consummate genius. The introduction to the entrance of the ghost in Hamlet, shows infinite taste and judgement. Just as our feelings are powerfully excited by the narrative of its appearance on the foregoing evening, the speaker is interrupted by the "majesty of buried Denmark" once more standing before him :

"The bell then beating one.

But soft, break off! look where it comes again!" then the solemn adjurations to it to speak, the awful silence which it maintains, the impotent attempts to strike it, and the exclamation of Horatio when it glides

away,

"We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence;" present to us that shadowy and indistinct, but at the same time appalling and fearfully-interesting picture, which constitutes one of the highest efforts of the sublime. The interview with Hamlet is a masterpiece. The language of this awful visitant is admirably characteristic. It is

not of this world: it savors of the last long resting-place of mortality; it evinces little of human feeling and frailty. Vengeance is the only passion which has survived the wreck of the body; and it is this passion which has burst the cerements of the grave, and sent its occupant to revisit the "glimpses of the moon." Its discourse is of murder, incest, suffering, and revenge, and gives us awful glimpses of that prison-house, the details of which are not permitted to "ears of flesh and blood." Whether present or absent, we are continually reminded of this perturbed spirit. When on the stage, it harrows us with fear and wonder; and, when absent, we feel it in its influence on the persons of the drama, especially Hamlet. The sensations of horror and revenge which at first possess the mind of this prince; then his tardiness and irresolution, which are chided by the re-appearance of the spectre; and his fears, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary, that it may be an evil spirit, which,

"Out of his weakness and his melancholy,
Abuses him to damn him,"

form one of the most affecting and inter-
esting pictures in the whole range of
Shakspeare's dramas.

The spirits of the murdered victims of introduced; but they do not occupy so the usurper Richard, are also admirably prominent a station in the drama as the ghost in Hamlet. The apparition of Julius Cæsar in the tent of Brutus, is a brief but awful visitation, and the mind of the spectator is finely prepared for it by the unnatural drowsiness which pos

sesses all the attendants.

The ghost of Banquo exists only in the disordered mind of Macbeth; and we think that the effect would be prodigiously increased if the managers would listen to the opinions of the best critics and forbear to present it before our visual organs. But what shall we say of the weird sisters, and of their unutterable occupation?

"How now, ye secret, black, and midnight hags, What is't ye do?"

"A deed without a name."

This is the true sublime; it is composed of the essential elements of sublimity, and the most highly-wrought description of their employment would produce an effect infinitely inferior to the simple