with his hand raised to his chin, is Dr. William right shoulder appears the head of Nollekens, the sculptor, a strange mixture of opposites; in his works exhibiting a graceful and refined intellect, and in manners appearing an illiterate boor; a miser, who might almost have contested the palm of notoriety with Elwes, yet one of the best of masters, and occasionally generous in an uncommon degree, where generosity was well bestowed. That he was essentially what he appeared in his productions rather than in anything else, we want no other proof than his conduct on a certain occasion. An admirable bust of Horne Tooke came to the exhibition: it was by a young and friendless sculptor, and it was placed-where such works are but too apt to be placed in the struggle for the best positions. Nollekens happened to see it: he took it up-he looked at it first in one way, then in another, and, at last, turning to the parties arranging the exhibition, said, "There's a fine ―a very fine work; let the man who made it be known-remove one of my busts, and put this in its place, for well it deserves it:"-the sculptor was Chantrey. But one figure remains particularly demanding notice-the painter himself, Johann Zoffany, who sits in the left-hand corner, palette in hand. He was born in Frankfort, but came to England whilst yet a young man, and attracting the attention of the Earl of Barrymore, speedily distinguished himself. His admirable pictures of Garrick, and other performers, are well known. A pleasant passage is recorded of him. He went at one period to Florence, at the Grand-Duke's invitation, and whilst there was accosted one day by the Emperor of Germany, then on a visit to the Duke, who, seeing and admiring his performances, inquired his name. " Hunter, brother to John Hunter, who was appointed Professor of Anatomy. On the other side of Reynolds, the star on the breast marks Sir William Chambers, the author of a most valuable Treatise on Architecture,' the architect of Somerset House, and the admirer of Chinese gardening: an admiration for which he was somewhat severely handled by Horace Walpole and the poet Mason, in the well-known Heroic Epistle,' which ridiculed, in rhyme, the prose reasonings and descriptions of the original. Near the extremity of the picture, on the same side, is the standing full-length figure of West; behind him, hat and stick in hand, Cipriani; and by his side, nearer the front and middle of the picture, Hayman, a powerful-looking man sitting at his ease, watching the process of placing the model in the position desired. On the other side of Reynolds and Hunter the first figure is that of Bartolozzi, the eminent engraver, near whom is Wilson, with his hand in his breast, his portly figure raised upon an elevation above any of the neighbouring figures. Wilson,-who is said to have painted his Ceyx and Alcyone' for a pot of beer and the remains of a Stilton cheese,—was represented in Zoffany's original sketch with a pot of beer at his elbow. Wilson, hearing this, immediately obtained a very "proper" looking cudgel, and vowed to give his brother painter a sound threshing. Zoffany prudently took the hint, and caused the offensive feature to vanish. Standing in front of the model, examining the propriety of the position, are Yeo, and Zuccarelli, the Italian artist, who had first distinguished himself in England as a scene-painter at the Opera. A curious circumstance is mentioned in Smith's Nollekens and his Times: the distinguished painter Canaletto, it is there stated, frequently painted the buildings in Zuccarelli's landscapes. The person giving the handle suspended from the ceiling for the support of the arm, to the man who is being placed in the position required, is Moser, one of the most active movers in the foundation of the Royal Academy. The noble figure standing against the chair, with one arm reclining on its back, belongs to a somewhat ignoble personage, Nathaniel Hene, a man who made some noise in his day by an attempted attack on Sir Joshua and the lady whose portrait (that in the square frame) is introduced instead of herself on the wall above Hone, Mrs. Angelica Kauffman, the well-known historical painter. The full-length figure occupying the extreme right of the picture is Richard Cosway, an excellent miniaturepainter, and a gentleman who, if we are to believe his own word, had occasional communings of a remarkable nature. "One day at the Royal Academy dinner he assured a brother Academician, that he had that morning been visited by Mr. Pitt, who had then been dead about four years. Well,' asked the brother member, and pray what did he say to you?'-Cosway. Why, upon entering the room, he expressed himself prodigiously hurt that during his residence on this earth he had not encouraged my talents,' &c."* Over Cosway's Nollekens and his Times,' vol. ii., p. 406. 6 66 Zoffany having told him, was asked what countryman he was. "An Englishman," was the reply. "Why, your name is German!" said the painter, "I was born in Germany-that was accidental; I call that my country where I have been protected." The real talent of the Royal Academy, we see, therefore, was very great; and additional lustre was shed upon it by its connection with such men as Johnson, who was appointed professor of ancient literature, and Goldsmith, professor of ancient history: both appointments were merely honorary. Goldsmith observed concerning his, "I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man who wants a shirt." Thus favourably ushered into the world, the Royal Academy commenced that career of prosperity which has known no check, but steadily increased down to the present day. At first the Academy was lodged in St. Martin's-lane (Cut, No. 4), and held their annual exhibitions in Pall-Mall; but George III. soon gave them apartments in Somerset House, where he exhibited his interest in their welfare by his steady attention to all their concerns. And when the old palace was purchased by the nation, he took care that a portion of the new edifice should be reserved for the Academy. In 1780 the Academicians entered upon their new apartments, which were fitted up with great magnificence, and were soon made to exhibit a higher | the royal patronage of the institution, as did also splendour from their own hands. Sir Joshua, for instance, painted the ceiling of the library. In the same year the exhibition was also removed from Pall-Mall to Somerset House, and the painters were now thoroughly at home. The subsequent history of the Academy, though full of interest, does not exactly belong to our columns; we shall therefore briefly indicate the leading incidents;—which were the attacks of Peter Pindar, (Dr. Walcot) on the Academicians, and especiall yon West-the secession of Gainsborough through his pictures not being hung as he pleased-the election of West after the death of Reynolds-Barry's quarrel with the Academy, &c., &c. The Presidents since West, have been Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Sir Martin Archer Shee, who still presides over the Academy. Sir Godfrey Kneller, one day explaining the cause of his preference for "face-painting," as Barry contemptuously called it, observed, "Painters of history make the dead live, and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead. I paint the living, and they make me live." The painters of the present day seem very much of Kneller's opinion, if we may judge from the last exhibition, as, passing through the great portico of the National Gallery, we ascended the staircase into the chief rooms of the Academy. Of the fourteen hundred and odd works contained in the exhibition of the year 1849, a single glance showed the immense proportion portraits and busts bore to all other subjects. And in walking through the crowded place, one was forcibly struck with the eloquent complaint of Opie, in connexion with the same point :-" So habituated," says he, "are the people of this country to the sight of portraiture only, that they can scarcely as yet consider painting in any other light: they will hardly admire a landscape that is not a view of a particular place, nor a history unless composed of likenesses of the persons represented, and are apt to be staggered, confounded, and wholly unprepared to follow such vigorous flights of imagination as would-as will-be felt and applauded with enthusiasm in a more advanced and liberal stage of criticism. In our exhibitions, which often display extraordinary powers wasted on worthless subjects, one's ear is pained, one's very soul is rent, with hearing crowd after crowd sweeping round, and, instead of discussing the merits of the different works on view, as to conception, composition, and execution, all reiterating the same dull and tasteless questionsWho is that? And is it like ?"* The evil, it is to be hoped, will ultimately work its own cure. When thoroughly weary of the eternal rows of faces of others, we may begin to think a little less of the exhibition of our own. The use of the original apartments of the Academy in Somerset House was granted, as we have seen, by George III. it may be useful to add a few words here on its present position in Trafalgar-square. On the death of George III., his son and successor continued * From Opie's first Lecture to the Academy. William IV. In 1834 a proposal was made to the latter monarch to transfer the Academy from Somerset House to Trafalgar-square, where it was intended to erect a building large enough for a National Gallery and the Academy under the same roof. (Cut, No. 2.) The change was agreed to; and consequently the Academy enjoys its present accommodations by the same right, whatever that might be, which they had in their first locality, Somerset House. Their expectations of increased facilities for the business of the institution are said to have been hardly fulfilled: certain it is that serious disadvantages arise from the want of larger space. The sculpture-room will occur to every one; but that is not the kind of evil we are here referring to, but the shutting up of the principal schools during the whole period of the exhibition. The school for drawing from the antique is held in that sculpture-room, and the school for painting in the West room, the chief of the rooms appropriated for exhibition; so that the school for drawing from the living model is the only one of the Academic schools not interrupted yearly for a considerable time. As the chief feature and the great value of the Royal Academy is the schools, we must notice them somewhat at length. The admission arrangements are on the broadest principle: any person may become a student, whether he intend to pursue the study as his profession, or merely for his occasional enjoyment. On applying for admission he receives a printed form to be filled up, which explains the only qualifications required—that he be of good character, and that he can send a drawing of some talent, with vouchers of its being entirely his own production. If he be a draughtsman, the specimen he sends must be a chalk drawing of an entire naked figure from the antique; if a sculptor, a model of a similar description; and if an architect, he must send a plan, elevation, and section of an original design for some building, and an individual ornament for details. The council, which consists of nine members, including the president, and is the executive of the Society, examine this specimen, and, if they approve of it the applicant is admitted for three months as a probationer. During that time he must produce fresh works before the eyes of the officers; and if these exhibit a decided improvement, he is then enrolled among the list of students, and for ten years enjoys all the privileges the Academy can give him-tuition in the different schools, the use of the library, attendance on the lectures, &c. Numerous prizes are also given: several silver medals annually, and one of gold for each school biennially. It is somewhat curious that of all the living members of the Academy there are not perhaps above four or five who have obtained the gold medal: nor is the number very numerous, we believe, of those who can claim the honours of the silver one. A still more solid reward may follow the attainment of the gold medal. Every three years the council sends a student of this rank to Rome, paying all the ex penses of the journey both ways, and allowing an annuity of £100. The expense hitherto seems to have been more than proportionate to the good produced. The students are young, and when they reach Rome they are left to shape out their own plans; the consequence too often is that false styles of art come to be admired and imitated, and the young man returns, to all valuable purposes, worse, because more sophisticated, than he went. It is true that he must send at the end of the second year a specimen of his progress; but that can only show the evil when existing, not act as a preventive. Two names only of any eminence recur to us in connection with these Italian visits from the Academy, Rossi and Banks. The latter received the gold medal in 1770 and in the following year exhibited his group of Mercury, Argus, and Io, when the council unanimously voted that he should be sent to Rome. He was the first student of the Academy whom Reynolds took any pride in, or, in other words, who came up to the painter's lofty standard. He said Banks's "mind was ever dwelling on subjects worthy of an ancient Greek." The school for drawing from the life model is held in the interior of the dome of the edifice, a curious, unornamented, dingy-looking place, lighted by a single window in the side wall, which throws a tolerably strong light upon a raised platform with a high back, covered with crimson, on which the person who acts as the model is placed. A double row of plain seats form an oval round the platform, on which about forty students find accommodation. A few casts scattered about the walls complete the furniture of the room. The general management of the schools is vested in the keeper, who, however, only personally attends to the antique school; the others being directed by visitors, who are certain of the academicians annually chosen. Among the past keepers of the Academy Fuseli's is a memorable name. Numerous are the jokes and sar casms of the eminent Swiss yet current among the students: the story of the formidable nail he used to cherish expressly for the work of pointing out how bad was that outline, or how easily this might be remedied, and which seldom failed to impress the lesson on the memory in the shape of a drawing cut through in the most remorseless fashion, yet lives to delight the new-comer, even whilst he is shuddering at the thought of the bare possibility of his becoming himself a similar victim. One day, during Fuseli's absence, the students were more than usually riotous, and the noise reached him in a distant part of the building. He asked one of the porters what was the matter. "It is only those fellows, the students, sir," was the answer. "Fellows!" exclaimed Fuseli; "I would have you to know, sir. that those fellows may one day become academicians!" The noise increasing, he suddenly burst in upon them, and told them with an oath they were a set of wild beasts. A student of the name of Munro bowed, and remarked, " And Fuseli is our keeper." There was no resisting this. Fuseli retired smiling, and muttering to himself, "The fellows are growing witty." Fauns Descending from the dome, we passed into the Hall of Casts, unusually full, from the circumstance of those which are usually in the antique school (sculp ture-room) being placed here during the exhibition. Many of these beautiful works are a portion of the gift of George IV., who, having procured from Rome, through the intervention of Canova, a highly valuable collection of casts from the finest known antiques, gave the whole to the Academy. All those beautiful or sublime forms of antiquity, which have ever haunted the dreams of the young painter or sculptor, or made him, awaking, sigh to think of their unapproachable excellence, are here, and in the great entrance-hall of the building, congregated together-the exact prototypes of their respective originals. The different figures composing the wonderful group of the Niobe and her daughters; the graceful Mercury of the Vatican; with their cymbals; Apollos and Venuses, in which the genius of different artists and periods have embodied their ideal of the human form; the Egyptian Jupiter, and the Olympian; Apollo, and all the Muses; the Laocoon; the Fighting and Dying Warrior, or Gladiator, as commonly but incorrectly called, &c., &c., are all here, the concentrated genius of the most wonderful people the world has ever seen. Here, too, is that maimed and mutilated remnant of a statue, Theseus, which caused so much discussion before a committee of the House of Commons in 1816 (on the value of the Elgin Marbles); which Lawrence and other distinguished artists did not hesitate to place in rank even before the Apollo Belvidere. Considering the cha racter of some of the committees of the House that had sat upon such questions, it required a little deter mination to speak thus of a fragment which some of Leaving the hall, we cross the eastern passage or thoroughfare to the library and council-room. In the former the centre of the ceiling is divided into compartments, occupied by paintings from the hand of the lady academician, Angelica Kauffman. Figures typical of the arts form the subjects, which were no doubt painted at the time of the removal of the Academy from St. Martin's Lane to Somerset House, when Sir Joshua and the chief academicians aided in the adornment of their new abode. The books are in wainscot cases, closely covered in with crimson silk, which gives the apartment a warm, rich aspect. The library now comprises all the best works on art, a large number of prints, and a collection, of considerable value, of engravings of the Italian school from the earliest period, purchased from George Cumberland, who formed it. Busts ornament the top of the shelves, and over the fire-place is a cast of a Holy Family, by Michael Angelo. We must not omit to add, before we leave the library, that Wilson was saved perhaps from actual destitution, during some of the later years of his life, by the office of librarian, which was given to him by the Academy. the members probably, of their own unassisted judg- | the Academy has had few greater men-few men more ment, would have thought a mere mis-shapen piece of generally great-than Fuseli. His lectures are adThe committee of 1805, for instance, made an mirable; enforcing in pregnant language the most especial point of noticing that the Townley Marbles pregnant truths. As with Reynolds, Michael Angelo were in excellent condition, with the surface perfect; was the great god of his idolatry and he used often to and, where injured, they were generally well restored, tell his friends how he had been accustomed to lie on and perfectly adapted for the decoration, and almost for his back on the pavement of the Sistine Chapel for the ornamental furniture, of a private house. On hours together, day after day, and week after week, reading this we may observe, with Mr. Williams,* from intently wrapped in the grandeur of that matchless whom we have borrowed the passage, "Let no man ceiling; and it is not difficult to trace in Fuseli's proafter this discredit the royal saying, 'I always buy Mr. ductions something more than a spark of the sublime ―'s paintings, they are so beautifully shiny, and look genius of the Florentine. His paintings for the Shakas smooth as glass.' spere Gallery, formed under the patronage of the enlightened and generous Boydell, and the series for the Milton Gallery, which was entirely his own production, testify a mind of the very highest order, though not perhaps always under the best regulation. Mr. Cunningham says of him, very happily, "Out of the seventy exhibited paintings on which he reposed his hope of fame, not one can be called common-place: they are all poetical in their nature, and as poetically treated. Some twenty of these alarm, startle, and displease; twenty more may come within the limits of common comprehension; the third twenty are such as few men could produce; while the remaining ten are equal in conception to anything that genius has hitherto produced, and second only in their execution. to the true and recognised masterpieces of art."* England may be proud of having fostered, and made, in every essential respect, her own, such a man as Fuseli. Passing over a variety of works, all of greater or less interest and importance, such as 'A Rustic Girl' by Lawrence, 'The Tribute Money' by Copley, A Shepherd Boy' by Westall, Charity' by Stothard, Jael and Sisera' by Northcote, The Falling Giant' by Banks (a work of wonderful power of expression), we pause a moment before the productions of the greatest of British sculptors, the 'Apollo and Marpessa' and a cast of the shield of Achilles, by Flaxman. "If ever Purity visited the earth, she resided with John Flaxman," said one who knew him intimately; and it is impossible to gaze on his works without feeling some such truth, breathed, as it were, from out of the marble. Sir Joshua's judgment was for once found tripping in Flaxman's case. As a student, he contended for the gold medal, which, however, was given to Englehart-a man now only remembered from that circumstance. Flaxman married early; and one day, shortly after, met Sir Joshua. "So, Flaxman, I am told you are married: if so, sir, you are ruined for an artist." Again was the president deceived: never was marriage more happy in all its consequences. We wish we could pause over some of the delightful domestic scenes recorded of this simple-hearted and lofty-minded pair. Again we must hurry quickly by Baily's bust of Flaxman, that of West by Sir Francis Chantrey, the Cupid and Psyche' by Nollekens, 'Christ blessing Children' by West, &c. Many other Let us now step from the library into the councilroom. This is an apartment small in size for such a body as the Academy, but rich in its works of art, chiefly consisting of the diploma pictures and statuary: that is, the works given by the academicians on their admission, each person being expected to present one work from his own hand. The ceiling is very elegantly arranged in compartments, and filled with paintings by West; the centre representing the Graces unveiling Nature, and the surrounding pictures typifying by figures the elements. First in size, in splendour, and in value, along the walls, we behold Sir Joshua's fulllength portrait of George III., seated on the throne, and wearing his kingly robes. The author of the 'Nightmare,' Fuseli, has left here one of his most favourite works- Thor battering the serpent of Midgard in the boat of Hymer the giant,'-a subject borrowed from the Scandinavian mythology, which had many attractions for Fuseli's imaginative, romantic, and most daring genius. His love for the terrific was pleasantly satirised by his brother academicians, who called him "Painter in ordinary to the Devil!" Life of Lawrence. *British Painters,' vol. ii., p. 346. |