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zans of historical subjects there are persons so blind as not to see that the marvellous productions of this school, and of the Flemish, have filled with admirable success the immense gaps which their vaunted Italian Schools have left in different parts of art?

It would be doing great injustice to the Dutch School, so remarkably fruitful in excellent artists, to suppose that it had preferred other subjects to that of history, because it felt itself deficient in that kind of genius which the latter requires. No, surely! We shall see hereafter that greater and inevitable causes have constrained her to this choice, a choice of which one cannot avoid admiring the wisdom, and which, by its results, has done so much honour to the art of painting.

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Although no country has been at so much expense as France in order to encourage the study of painting, it is not on that account the less true that none of all the general schools has produced fewer eminent artists than the French, notwithstanding the very considerable number of its pupils. It, too, is the only one the productions of which will be looked for in vain in most of the public galleries and private collections of other countries. The cause of this singularity will partly be found in the distinctive characteristics of the school, and in the reasons given for these in a subsequent chapter.

Simon Vouet is generally regarded as the founder of the French School. M. Levesque, his fellowcountryman, says, "that he would have ruined their school, of which he was the creator, if his scholars had followed his manner; that he was mannered in design, false in colouring, and had no idea of expression; finally, that he deceived by a delusion, inculcating large general tints of light and shadow, with an eye to greater expedition." Lairesse, on the contrary, who held such rigorous principles on colouring, says, "that Vouet has rendered himself celebrated in the science of reflections, in which he has surpassed, not only all the French, but all the Italians likewise." Vouet was always esteemed highly in Italy. So long as he was there, he was overpowered with employment, and especially at Rome, where he was chief of the academy of St. Luke; and many good works of his are to be seen in the Barberini Palace. This esteem did not cease with his death. The Italian writers speak of him as a great artist, and his contemporary, Debie, says that one believes one sees nature living in his pictures!

For my part, I avow sincerely, that I think the criticism of M. Levesque extraordinary, especially considering that he was the first among his countrymen who dared to abandon the prevailing feeble manner, and exerted himself to communicate to others a good taste. He has, besides, had the credit of counting amongst his pupils Eustache Le Sueur, the honour of the French School, who, by his rare

talent, has so distinguished his style from that of the other painters of the nation, that he stands by himself.

It is true that the greater part of the pictures of Le Sueur that remain to us, although admirable for the knowledge displayed in their composition, and for the perfection of their design and expression, err remarkably in point of colouring, by the cutting of the contours, by a clear-obscure ill-understood, and by the want of effect and opposition. But a premature death arrested him early in his career, and before he had seen Italy; and in the small number of finished pictures which he has left us, such as the Preaching of St. Paul and the Descent from the Cross, in the Louvre, there are evident proofs that he was in the way of becoming as excellent a colourist as he was a great designer.

I am sorry not to be able to place in the French School Nicolas Poussin and Claude Gélée de Lorrain. Poussin, although born in France, recommenced the study of the principles of his art when he went to Italy, where he formed a school, and where he resided so long as he lived, while his works have evidently the character of the Roman School. As to Claude, the case is stronger still, for he had only learned to scrawl before he left Lorrain, the country of his birth, and it was at Rome that he learned to paint, and there that he passed his days. The Flemish School does not claim Antony Bilevelt, a native of Maestrecht, from the Florentines; nor Denis Calvart, a native of

Antwerp, from the Lombards, whatever honour these two distinguished artists might do to them. Nor does the German School seek to take Rubens from the Flemish, under the pretext of his being born at Cologne. Nobody disputes to the Dutch School her Gaspar Netscher, Adrian and Isaac Ostade, Lingelbach, Mignon, or Backhuysen, who acquired their art with her, because of their being Germans; nor Gerard Lairesse, although he learned his art at Liege, where he was born, and although it was only after that that he established himself in Holland, where he died.

I terminate this article by observing that French authors are themselves agreed, " that the characteristic which distinguishes their school from others, is the having no character appertaining to it in particular, but an aptitude for imitating that of the others. To which they add, that it combines in a moderate degree the different parts of the art, without carrying any of them to eminence." I am of opinion, however, that it may be said, in general, that it is much more feeble in colouring, especially in the clear-obscure and aerial perspective, than in design; that it shows as much spirit, lightness, facility, and gaiety, as fertility and richness in its compositions; and that it is more suited to aid display in rich apartments, than to lend a magical illusion to the collections of amateurs.

SECT. IX. Of the German School.

Although this school holds the first rank in point of antiquity, I have mentioned it last. Not that I pretend to refuse to it the title of a general school, as many artists do; but because, after having shone forth at first with much brilliancy in the Gothic taste, it was from political and moral circumstances, of which I shall give an account hereafter, stifled in its birth, without being allowed time to try itself in a better taste, or being permitted to come to maturity. The German School was founded in the end of the fifteenth century by Albert Durer of Nuremberg; a genius truly astonishing, whom Raphael himself admired, and who might have become the first painter of the world, if he had appeared half a century later; and especially if in that case he had lived in Italy, so as to learn there by seeing the antiques, the only part of the art which nature and his great genius did not suffice to teach him. He had an inexhaustible fecundity of invention, and was as ingenious in his ideas as he was true in his compositions. His design was correct, and founded on a knowledge of anatomy; his expressions were true, without reaching to the ideal; his colouring was agreeable and brilliant; and his touch equalled that of Mieris and Gerard Dou for neatness and precious finish. His faults were not his own, but that of the time in which he lived; and have their source in ignorance

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