The history of Painting in England embraces only a very recent period in the annals of the art. But though chronologically, as well as from the peculiar interest of the subject, it is to be treated last, this arrangement is not adopted from the same motive as actuates foreign critics, namely, the alleged inferiority of British painting. It has been shown, we trust satisfactorily, that in the real condition of taste, in the modes of practice and in the principles of theory, our school of Sculpture, though not equal in specimens yet produced, is superior to every other, not only now, but formerly, in Europe. In favor of our painters, we go further—and yet not so far. Pictures, and in more than one branch, painted in this country, and by native living artists, can be produced superior to any contemporary examples in any part of the Continent; but, in its theoretic principles, and in the practice introduced in consequence of these, the English school has sadly departed from the perfect labours and just science of the old masters. This has arisen from following a course in some respects opposite to that which has been adopted in sculpture, as shall hereafter be the endeavor to point out. Again, if we review our early history, it appears, that in the ages immediately subsequent to the revival of art, native artists in this country, in the ingenious processes then known, were not inferior to contemporary names in Italy, France, or Germany. It is sufficient here merely to refer to Walpole's interesting work; in which it is shown, that before the middle of the thirteenth century, two hundred years prior to Van Eyck, evidences are found of oil-painting in England; and that in the fourteenth, painting on glass, heraldic emblazonment, the illumination of manuscripts, with all the similar approaches to elegance then practised, were cultivated among our ancestors, and by natives whose names are preserved, with equal success as elsewhere.

Causes, therefore, originating in the moral and political condition of the people, can alone explain the striking inferiority of English art during the period of greatest splendor in its modern history. The opinions, indeed, promulgated by the French and Italian writers, not excepting Winklemann, and so complacently entertained even now on the Continent, respecting the deleterious influence of climate upon English genius, are, in their philosophy, too contemptible to merit serious investigation. Nor are similar theories of our own and other authors exempted from this censure, which ascribe excellence, as for instance in ancient Greece, to the propitious effects of the same physical cause. The mighty and the immortal energies of the human mind are independent of all other external causes; they will bear up against all other external pressure—save moral and political degradation.

In fact, art in England was crushed almost in its cradle by the civil wars of York and Lancaster. Warfare between different nations, where the struggle is from rivalry of interests or empire, rather favors the developement of national talent; the activity of martial achievement conveys, through all the relations of citizenship, and to every field of honorable exertion, a corresponding vigor and elasticity of mind—an ardent love of glory and of country—raising high the spirit of emulation, yet binding closer the ties of fellowship. In the unhallowed commotion of civil contest, all these effects are reversed; while in England, the desecration of country consequent on such feuds was deeper than perhaps in any other instance of modern times, from religion, which in other states, under like unhappy circumstances, had afforded an asylum to arts and to peace, here taking part with the combatants. These political divisions healed, religious dissensions broke in upon the national quiet, at a time, too, when a taste for the fine arts was gaining ground in the different states of Europe. When at length every animosity and partial feeling had subsided in the generous consciousness of being Englishmen, an eager thirst for nautical enterprise engaged the minds of the subjects of Elizabeth and James. The wealth, security, and information which flowed from these exertions, were beginning to create taste, and to provide means highly favorable to the future progress of painting. The predilections of Charles, likewise, as also his knowledge, were calculated to improve and to direct in the best manner these advantages. The collection of pictures which he formed was the most valuable then in Europe, and composed of pieces especially adapted to a national gallery, and to the design of creating a native school. The most eminent artists of the age, invited to his court, found their labors at once skilfully appreciated and munificently rewarded. This unfortunate monarch had the satisfaction to perceive the refinement beginning to spread among his subjects, even in the remotest and least opulent portion of his dominions. In Scotland, Jamieson, born at Aberdeen, in 1586, and pupil of Rubens, has left, in the universities of his native place and elsewhere, fruits of his genius which by no means show him unworthy of the appellation of the Scottish Vandyke. To this painter Charles sat, and further distinguished him by peculiar marks of royal favor. In England, painting was naturally still more flourishing in prospect; the nobles imitated, and some shared in, the taste of their sovereign, while a love of elegant acquirement was generally diffused. This period, also, was highly favorable to a new and aspiring epoch in English art, from the great and original acquirements previously made in poetry and elegant literature, which both prepared the public mind to relish similar displays of talent in a cognate branch; while they evinced and cherished that creative spirit which may render available the introduction of improved modes, without degenerating into imitation in its own efforts. The progress of successful art in Greece, and in republican Italy, with the absence of nationality in that of ancient Rome and of modern France, exhibits the justice of the remark, and the importance of the acquisition. The reign of Charles, I., thus appears to have been one of the most favorable periods in our history for the foundation of a British school of art; indeed, we perceive that every essential towards this had been accomplished. The fearful concussions which closed in blood the career of that unhappy monarch, while they shook the entire realm from its propriety, proved more pernicious to the cultivation of the arts of elegance, than has usually been the case even in civil commotion. The lowest and most illiterate, now armed with some degree of power, destroyed, because they knew not how to value; while the coarse hypocrisy and more dangerous cunning, or the stern bigotry, of their leaders, viewed with the malignity of ignorance, or the hatred of party, all evidence of superior refinement.

In thus rapidly reviewing the leading causes which have concurred to retard the progress of early art in this country, the Reformation has been merely alluded to as turning aside attention to other pursuits. The commonly received opinion which makes this event a primary and permanent source of our inferiority, seems to rest on a very imperfect knowledge of facts. When the glorious doctrines of the Reformation obtained footing in England, no advance had yet been effected in the formation of a native school; the national refinement was in no degree prepared for the successful cultivation of painting; nor do any circumstances particularly favorable induce the belief, that had the Catholic continued to be the established faith, the arts would have improved. On the contrary, though the number of pictures would doubtless have multiplied, these, as in France at the same period, and under circumstances incomparably more felicitous, must have been the works of foreign artists; consequently, by introducing an artificial manner before any national character of art had been formed, the exoteric taste would, in all probability, have for ever bound up in conventional trammels, the freshness of original conception, and the vigor of national genius. Such we have seen to be the invariable effects of introducing, instead of rearing, art, among every people where the experiment has been attempted. The Reformation, by restoring to the human mind the uncontrolled exercise of its own faculties, by unlocking the barriers by which the will and the powers of free inquiry had been imprisoned, has stamped upon every British institution, as upon every effort of British talent, the worth and the manliness of independent character. Our Fine Arts, though the last to feel, do at length experience this happy influence.

The particular views entertained, or rather taken up without examination, have led, on this subject, to erroneous conceptions, both of the existing condition of art, and of the state of royal patronage. Henry VIII. certainly endeavored by every means to induce the most esteemed painters of the age to visit his court; while the encouragement which he offered was not only continued, but increased with more ample means, after the Reformation had commenced; as far as his influence went, there was a change for the better. But his was neither a cultivated nor a natural taste. The sentiment was merely one of rivalry, stirred up by imitation of his contemporaries, Francis I. and Charles V. His subjects and courtiers, not even animated by such factitious impulse, were, generally speaking, still less qualified to assist in rearing national art. Neither did there exist, in any other form, a previous standard of characteristic originality; a most important consideration, as already shown—for, with the exception of Surrey, no poet of genius capable of giving to taste an abiding tone of nationality had yet appeared. Under these circumstances, had the importation of foreign art—and it is clear none other could have been encouraged—taken place to any extent; even had Raphael and Titian accepted the invitation of the English monarch, beyond bare possession, their works would have been valueless to the nation; or worse—they would have depressed, by an unapproachable model, the aspirings of native talent, fixing for ever our arts in the mediocrity of imitation.

The opposition, also, which the Reformers are accused of having bent against the practice of painting has been altogether misrepresented. Not only were they not opposed to such acquirements in their proper place, but the assurance is, that they viewed such accomplishments with favor. Among the earliest Reformers, the movers of that emancipation which regenerated a portion, and made despotism more tolerable in the rest, of Europe, were to be found the most accomplished minds and the most elegant scholarship of which the age could boast. Indeed, their superior enlightenment was the human means of that liberty, in which through Christ they had become free. For such men to be the enemies of intelligence, of whatever description, if under proper guidance, and in due subserviency to higher knowledge, was to place obstacles to the spread of their own principles. Hence in Germany and in the Low Countries, the fine arts were admired and patronised by the leading Reformers. Holbein came to England most warmly recommended by Luther, who has already been named as the friend of other contemporary artists. In one respect, the Reformers certainly may be said to have been hostile to art. They proscribed the introduction of pictures into their churches. To this prohibition only, extended the penal statutes of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, about which so much outcry has been raised. No proscription, no interdict against religious paintings merely as such, was agitated, till the period already alluded to as the most truly disastrous to national refinement, when, in 1643, a bigoted parliament ordered, 'that all pictures which had the representation of the Saviour or the Virgin Mary in them should be burned.' The brutal fanaticism, and still more disgusting hypocrisy, of the adherents of Oliver Cromwell, have in this and in similar instances been most unjustly mixed up with the pure spirit and unsullied zeal of the genuine followers of Martin Luther. It is not intended, however, indeed it cannot be denied, that to the mere practice of painting, and to the multiplication of its labours, the exclusion of pictures from the churches is injurious. But extension is not improvement.

So far, then, the Reformation has proved permanently hostile to the art. But highly as we honor the talent of artisanship, and intimately connected as is the glory of the land with the reputation of its arts, we cannot for one moment entertain the proposal now so generally, it had almost been said unblushingly, brought forward, of converting our churches 'into spacious repositories' for the productions of the pencil. Here we have explicitly to state an opinion, though opposed by almost every writer on the arts; first, that neither is the house of God a proper receptacle for pictures; nor, secondly, if every Protestant place of worship were open to such ornaments, is it clear that art would be materially advantaged. Let our sacred edifices be as nobly simple, as massively grand, as may be; let them exhibit every beauty of architecture, if needful; the effect will elevate, without distracting, the mind; or let the solemn representations of sculpture invite remembrance to dwell upon the departed, who sleep around the living worshipper. Such thoughts prepare the mind for its duties. But pictures do not seem so immediately associated, either with the place or with our meditations; with us, the only association is that of mere ornament. We might, however, be accused of treating here the subject too seriously, were an attempt made to show the sinfulness of abducing even one thought from heaven, to fix it on a merely ornamental appendage. We shall therefore suppose, that in our country, people do not go to church to see pictures, and that, as elsewhere, pictures are here painted to be seen. Now, the time of divine service with us is short, and that space is passed, without intermission, in sacred duties, in prayer, in praise, and in exhortation. Either these momentous engagements or the pictures must be neglected. In the Romish church the service is long, composed of many ceremonies in which the audience take no share, and during which, the mind may be employed in contemplating a religious painting, with at least equal profit as the dressings and undressings, the crossings, genuflexions, perambulations, and incensings, which are being enacted by the officials. In a Protestant assembly, every one is seated in his place; a picture can be viewed properly from a very few points, perhaps only one; granting, then, all the advantages 'of pictures in unison with the feelings of the mind, exemplifying in the most striking manner the objects of its highest admiration and respect,' how limited is the number that could enjoy these? The Catholic church, again, knows not the impediment of pews, and the individuals of the congregation may move and change positions at pleasure. Protestant churches are open only on Sundays, or a few fast days, while we have no useless train of idle retainers to show the curiosities of the place; the Catholic church is open from sunrise to sunset throughout the year, each with its sacristans, vergers, macemen, &c. in constant attendance. In the Romish ritual, external emblems are certainly permitted as stimulants to inward devotion; of these, pictures are among the most favored. In our faith, the symbols are simple as its practice, and too sacred even to be named here. We have no wish, then, to decry the use or advantage of paintings to the Catholic; but it seems sufficiently obvious, that to the Protestant they can at best be useless in a place of public worship.

In reference to the second consideration, namely, the profit thus accruing to the arts of the country, it has been stated above, that only to the multiplication of paintings has the exclusion in question proved hurtful, and not to the improvement or perfection of the art. In this respect the merits of the Reformation have not only been overlooked, but denied, while the claims of Catholicism, as favorable to elegance, have been too highly exalted. True, a great proportion of the patronage by which the arts have been supported in Italy has been extended by churchmen; this has all been put down to the account of the system. But it is to be remembered, that this protection has been granted more frequently in the character of lay noblemen and princes, than of ecclesiastics. The most splendid works of the pencil are in the private palaces of the popes and cardinals, and other members of the hierarchy; laymen with the same means would have acted similarly. During the infancy of the arts, their feebleness was stayed, and their vigorous manhood nourished, by the free corporations of the republican cities. The Catholic Church only received the arts as orphans, after her temporal, and therefore improper ambition, had destroyed their true and natural parent—Liberty. At this moment, too, very few fine pictures are in churches; they are in public galleries, in private collections, in the cabinets of the curious, and in palaces. Where, then, is the vaunted superiority in the Catholic profession, or where the ancient and permanent disabilities under which Protestantism has been represented as labouring, in regard to the arts of elegance? And why should we incur even the possibility of contaminating the purity and the spirituality of our faith, or of even offending the mind of the humblest believer, by filling our churches with pictures, when there remains to us the amplest field yet unoccupied? We have, in fact, all that is yet in possession of high art; in our royal palaces, in the almost regal seats of our nobility, in our national galleries, in the halls of our universities and institutions, and in our public buildings of every description. Has not the pencil 'ample verge' and 'room' appropriate?

If these advantages have hitherto remained without fruit, let it be remembered, that the defective returns have not been occasioned by imbecility or idleness—the labourers have been otherwise engaged. During only three centuries of poor and struggling Protestantism, tenfold more extensive and valuable accessions to true knowledge have been realized than were accomplished in the space of a thousand years of the prosperous and uncontrolled empire of Catholicism. That this uprousing of the human spirit has become not less refined than it has been vigorous, is evident from the fact which connects these remarks with our subject, namely, that now, in Protestant Britain, is to be found the only original, and the most flourishing school of painting in Europe.

In pursuing the history of English art posterior to the Restoration, little of importance occurs till the late and present reigns. Charles II. had wit, but no great share of taste, and that little, like his morals, was equally flimsy and meretricious. He trifled with Verrio and Gennaro in decorating ceilings and covering walls; while Lely, whose light and graceful, but feeble pencil, had in succession traced the melancholy countenance of the Martyr, and the bluff face of the Protector,[C] was employed as state portrait-painter on the sleepy and luxurious beauties of the court. During the succeeding reigns, to the accession of George I., lived Kneller, a native of Lubec, an artist of considerable talent, but who painted too expeditiously to paint well, and who was too intent upon sharing the wealth of his own age to leave many drafts that would be honored by posterity, though he painted in his life seven English and three foreign sovereigns. His head of Sir Isaac Newton is worth them all. During the same period we find many native artists of obscure fame and merits; as Dobson, who died in 1646, and was brought into notice through the generosity of Vandyke. Riley, (John), born in the same year, possessed, according to Walpole, more talent than any of his countrymen. It was to this artist that Charles II. said, 'Od's fish, man, if your picture of me be a likeness, I am an ugly fellow.' Hoskins and Cooper, uncle and nephew, were celebrated miniature-painters, especially the latter, who was married to a sister of Pope's mother. Henry, who was employed by King William in the reparation of Raphael's cartoons. Highmore painted the only portrait known of the poet Young. Greenhill and Buckshorn were pupils of Lely. Jervas, who, in spite of art, contrived to make a fortune and to set up a carriage; upon which Kneller remarked, in his broken English, 'Ah, mine Cot! if de horses do not draw better dan he, de journey will never have an end.' The praises lavished by Pope on this his master evince the wretched condition of general taste, when we consider these praises as merely the echo of the public voice. Richardson is best known as a writer on art; though a very inferior artist, he stood at the head of the profession on the death of Kneller. His scholar and son-in-law, Hudson, succeeded in the dignity of metropolitan portrait-painter, though opposed for some time by Liotard, a Genevese, and Vanloo, a Frenchman. Hudson was the master of Reynolds, with whom the British school first assumes the dignity of higher art, the elevation commencing with the portraits painted by Sir Joshua on his return from the Continent in 1752-3. Previously, however, had appeared Hogarth, the most original of all painters; but his pictures, from their subjects, were not calculated, in proportion to their merit, to refine the national taste. So early, too, as 1739, the establishment of the old academy in St Martin's Lane had been silently preparing some melioration in a better manner of designing; and the introduction of costume, though poorly executed, was an advance towards truth from the absurd robes of Lely and Kneller. The association just mentioned was afterwards incorporated by his late Majesty; but the members disagreeing, the Royal Academy was founded. Here have presided the three greatest names in the art since the time of Rubens and Vandyke, perhaps since the Caracci—Reynolds, West, and Lawrence.

Walpole has with justice remarked, that 'in the commencement of the reign of George I., in 1714, the arts of England were sunk almost to their lowest ebb.' The preceding sketch verifies the observation; and from the singular anomaly of a nation, during the most flourishing period of its literature, possessing a taste absolutely contemptible in the fine arts, evinces the truth of the principles advocated throughout these pages. From the Restoration to the accession of George III., the arts had never once been regarded as adding to national respectability, nor as connected with national feeling. The people crowded to have their portraits taken, without inquiring or conceiving that there was anything to know beyond the mere mechanical art. The sovereign, instead of regarding the progress of elegant taste as an important object of legislation, looked out for a limner merely as a necessary appurtenance of a court. As our monarchs of this period, not even excepting Anne, through the predilections of her husband, were, as regards painting, better acquainted with Continental art, and some more attached to everything foreign, British genius, of course overlooked, was never once called forth. Some stray Italian, Dutchman, or German, was caught hold of, patronised by royalty, supported by the nobility, and never thought of by the nation beyond face-painting in the metropolis. From the middle of the seventeenth to the first forty years of the eighteenth century, when national talent at length began to break forth in its own strength, such was the state of patronage, and the artists who enjoyed its benefits were but little qualified to create a national interest; for their mannerism and foreign modes served only the more decidedly to exclude a characteristic style, and, as must ever be the case in similar instances, prevented any developement of native originality. Another great cause of our wretched taste in the arts, and which perhaps in part grew out of these more general causes, was, that the real genius of the land was bent upon the pursuits of literature and science; while the nation had not attained that degree of refinement, security, and opulence, which enable a people to enjoy and to reward the exertions of mind, as at the present day, in all its separate and diversified departments of action. Between literary eminence and excellence in art there seems a natural connexion, as depending upon principles of taste and modes of exercise nearly similar. Letters and the Fine Arts, then, have generally been carried to the highest perfection among the same people; they have flourished in conjunction, and they have fallen together. It is to be remarked, however, that the former have always preceded; the noblest effusions of poetry have long been the delight of his country before the painter or the sculptor have reached an equal merit. Nor is this casual precedence. The labours of the poet are a necessary, in fact a creative preparation; by their rapid and wide circulation, they soften the sensibilities, arouse the imagination, give to taste an existence and a feeling of its object, and awake the mind to a consciousness of its intellectual wants. They constitute, also, a common chronicle, whether of fiction or of reality, whose events are clear to, and quickly recognisable by all. Fancy thus obtains a lore of its own, whose legends delight by repetition, and whose imagery animates the canvass or the marble with forms loved of old. Poetry, then, must precede art. All this advantage of preparation and expectancy was denied to the infancy of English painting. Milton's verse, not inferior to any precursor of Phidias or of Raphael, instead of being, as Homer's or Dante's, for centuries the manual of his countrymen, was barely known. Dryden, Addison, Pope, were yet but forming the public mind. In many respects, too, even had there not existed artists capable of constituting an epoch, the writings of these distinguished men are not favorable to vigorous originality of thought in art. Their own immediate productions are impressed with the genuine stamp of nationality, but their abstract system of criticism is often timid, almost always conventional; while in every remark on that subject, they show inexperience of the true object and philosophy of art. Even Addison here writes as a mere antiquarian, and Dryden with all the enthusiasm of poetry indeed, but with little of the sober judgment which must guide the more laborious hand and less undefined shapes of the painter. Again, the intellectual temperament and state of society favorable to the arts is directly opposed to those which promote scientific knowledge. Indeed, between the spirit of analytical inquiry, of minute research, which belongs to the investigations of science, and the creative fancy which tends to the successful exercise of the poet's or painter's art, the dissimilarity appears so great, that among the same people and at the same period, high eminence in both has never yet been attained. The amazing demonstrations of Newton, then, and the profound speculations of Locke, were by no means favorable to painting, while so entirely in infancy. They spread abroad a different taste—they engaged in the pursuit every ardent and aspiring mind. The sublime mysteries unveiled by the genius of Newton gave an especial bias to men's minds, and caused his own age to view with indifference, as light and valueless, pursuits which seemed but to minister to the amenities of life, or to hang only as graceful ornaments upon society.

Having thus faintly traced the rise and progress of painting in connexion with the history of the country, we now proceed briefly to examine the principles and the practice of the British school, under the general heads of Portrait, Historical, and Landscape Painting.