Note 116 — ESSAYS. (continued 2)

I cannot help subjoining, as a note, Lucian’s description of one of the pictures of Zeuxis:—“I will tell you a story of Zeuxis. That famous painter seldom chose to handle trite or common subjects, such as heroes, gods, and battles, but always endeavoured to strike out something new, and exerted all his art and skill upon it. Amongst other things, he painted a female centaur, with two young ones; there is an exact copy of it now at Athens; the original was said to have been sent into Italy, by Sylla, the Roman general, and lost at sea, with the whole cargo, somewhere, I believe, near Malta. The copy, however, 1 have seen, and will describe to you; not that I pretend to be a judge of pictures, but because, when I saw it in a painter’s collection there, it made a strong impression on me, and I perfectly recollect every part of it.

“The centaur is lying down on a smooth turf; that part which represents a mare, is stretched on the ground, with the hind feet extended backwards; the fore feet not reaching out as if she had laid on her side, but one of them as kneeling with the hoof bent under, the other raised up and trampling on the grass, like a horse prepared to leap; she holds one of her young ones in her arms, and suckles it like a child at a woman’s breast; and the other at her dugs like a colt. In the farther part of the picture is seen a male centaur, as watching from a place of observation, supposed to be the father; he is behind, and discovers only the horse part of the figure, and appears smiling, showing a lion’s cub, which he lifts up, as if to frighten the young ones in sport.

“With regard to correctness in drawing, the colouring, light, and shade, symmetry, proportion, and other beauties, of this picture, as I am not a sufficient judge of the art, I leave it to painters whose business it is to explain and illustrate them. What I principally admire in Zeuxis is, his showing so much variety, and all the riches of his art, in the management of one subject, representing a man so fierce and terrible, the hair so nobly dishevelled, rough, and flowing over the shoulders, where it joins the horse, and the countenance, though smiling, amazingly wild and savage. The female centaur is a most beautiful mare, of Thessalian breed, such as had been never ridden or tamed; all the upper part resembling a very handsome woman, except the ears, which are like a satyr’s: that part of the figure where the body of the woman joins to that of the horse, incorporating, as it were, insensibly and by slow degrees, so that you can scarce mark the transition, deceiving the sight most agreeably. The ferocity that appears in the young ones is moreover admirably expressed; as well as the childish innocence in their countenances when they look towards the young lion, clinging at the same time to the breast, and getting as close as possible to their mother.

“When Zeuxis produced this work, he expected undoubtedly to meet with universal approbation from the spectators; every body indeed praised and admired it; and how could they do otherwise? Above all, they commended, as my friends did with regard to me, the novelty of the invention; said it was a most uncommon subject, and unattempted by any of his predecessors. But, when Zeuxis understood that their admiration was confined entirely to the novelty of it, and that they passed over all the art which he had exerted in it, ‘Cover up the picture,’ said he to his pupil, ‘and let it be carried home, for these people are only in love with the dregs, as it were, of the art, and take no notice of the real merit of the picture; the novelty of the performance alone runs away with all the praise and admiration.”

Franklin’s Lucian.

It is ever the same with the vulgar. As soon as any art seems to have arrived at something approaching to perfection, the incessant craving for novelty forces artists to seek new ways of gratifying their patrons;—sometimes by exaggerating form, sometimes by exaggerating colour, or light and shadow. The painter by degrees loses sight of nature, and produces monsters. The sculptor attempts to make marble flow and flutter in the wind; the musician drowns expression in noise; and the poet either sickens his reader with blood and murder, or sends him to sleep over daisies and daffodils.