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    THE DEAD SEASON AT THE THEATRES. The Lon...

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    Modern Paintixg At Xarles. Jfotc3 On Mod...

    pr ince he would have been the same . Moreover , the highest artistic perfection was not reached -by the most devotional painters , Pra Angelico , Cimabue , or others of their race . The academies , the senatorial halls , the chambers of civic palaces , received the richest tributes of Italian art ; but , when the religious orders were most dense and wealthy , we do not find that as patrons they were either "magnificent or judicious . In the kingdom of Piedmont art has received its latest impulse since the destruction of those orders . In Naples , the restored clergy exhibit only a polluted taste . We protest against the view propounded by Lord Napier , that Italy must sacrifice her arts if she extirpate those consuming hordes of priests and friars to which she has too long sacrificed herself .

    Lord Napier held a diplomatic appointment at the Court of Naples m 1848 , when politics disturbed the fastidious lassitude of the dilettanti . ' * Even , cultivated men" were envenomed by the asperities of the revolution , and the noble diplomatist was forced " to recover his serenity" by studying the local arts . In Naples there is a rich realm beyond the footpaths of the cicerone , and the directions of Murray ' s Guide— " a whole quarter of remote deserted sanctuaries and palaces , " where the relics of an impoverished priesthood and extinct aristocracy are accumulated in marvellous profusion . In these vast dwellings , where the vine wanders from the broken pergola , and the fresco blisters in the sun , Lord Napier mused , a Marius of the Church , with King Ferdinand ' s policemen at his

    heels—Who conceived that they were tracking a conspirator -when they were only chasiug a virtuoso . Great must " have been the vexations and perplexities of the weary myrmidons of Campo Basso and Morbilli prosecuting the steps of the agenfc of Palmerston to crypts , and sacristies , and cupolas , and up the marble stairs wasted by sordid feet , where misery traffics with the relics of ancestral splendour , forcing the panels for intelligence , of which he had just been admiring the intarsia ; intent upon Tower muskets , ciphers , and foreign subsidy , but sequestering the ivory Addolorata , arresting the mythologic gem , or capturing the morsel of majolica ; breaking into the fancied confabulation of Calabrian bravos , and discovering the saints and martyrs smiling andiSuffering on the wall .

    Xefe this writer pravs for the Bourbon monarchy , degraded by its fears , for the sake of high priests and high arts , as though under a corrupt system priesthood remained pure . In harmony with these tendencies ate his statements concerning the misfortunes of Italy . Exhaustion , poverty , debt , terror—all are inheritances of the revolutionary period . Let the people be reconciled to their devouring clergy and their savage princes , and all will go -well . The French will recal their eagles ; the Austrians - will retire 44 within the bounds of indefeasible treaties and of hereditary right ; " King Ferdinand will cease to arm his praetorian guards . Exile 3 will return , litter

    prisoners be set free . Academies will prosper , carnivals g , priests exult in holy Assyrian pomp . But under this sensual civilisation the roots of conspiracy will * spring , because , says Lord Napier , Italy only flourishes between the intervals of her convulsions . If he were a politician and not an infatuated amateur , he would understand that Italy is periodically convulsed , not through any affinity between her people and the volcanic soil on which they train their vines , but because alien governments , despots , outworn systems , popes , Bourbons , Germans , corporate churches , have usurped her provinces , whieh can only find their ultimate rest in national freedom . It is time to allow Lord Napier to be the exponent of his own

    = — The catastrophes which annihilated the institutions , and almost obliterated the manners of aristocracy , did not spare those portions of the ecclesiastical fabric , which are most exposed to the ravages of political convulsion , though compared with the calamities which befel the religious Orders in France and Spain , those which they endured under the revolutionary dominion at Naples , might be deemed moderate and easy of reparation . There was a regulated confiscation , and no doubt occasional acts of violence and pillage occurred , but there was no general massacre or expulsion , no wholesale malignant demolition of sacred edifices and monuments of art . The property of the convents was seized and converted to secular use under the government of Joseph Bonaparte ; the Houses were alienated and in some cases pulled down , but the church was usually left uninjured , and with the exception of objects in the precious metals , the treasures and ornaments of the sanctuary were respected . Since the restoration of the legitimate dynasty , and with it of a policy more favourable to the

    interests of the clergy and the Holy See , the monks have been recalled to their ancient abodes , and partially to the enjoyment of their previous revenues ; where the estate had irrecoverably passed into private hands , some allowance has been made from the public funds by way of compensation , the laws have been modified in a sense not unfavourable to bequests for sacred purposes , the good Catholic has been gently invited to a pcsthiimous liberality , and the monastic establishments have gradually attained to such a degree of temporal prosperity , that they are enabled to support the externals of religion with some magnificence , and to restore their residences with an appearance of decency , if not to their primitive splendour . The principal churches lately erected , such as that of San Francisco di Paola , which cost nearly one million sterling ; that of San Carlo all ' Arena , and the great funereal temple of the Campo Santo , have indeed been tie work of the government or municipality , and the projected edifices at Gaeta , designed to commemorate the reception of the l ' opo , have originated in the devotion of the King ; yet the ecclesiastical bodies are not entirely passive .

    The ecclesiastical body has not yet cultivated a- feeling for the arts : — The ignorance of the priests in matters of antiquity and tasfo is indeed often incredibly gross , and the barbarisms perpetrated in guise of improvement are worthy of a Presbyterian heritor or English churchwarden a century ago ; yet the thick darkness is already tempered by the dawn , and the morning of a brighter era is unmistakably at hand . The property of the ecclesiastical corporation is fortunately subject to conditions exactly opposite to those which continue to affect the property of the ari « - tocracy . While the latter is liable to be dissipated and parcelled out by every individual death , the former has all the elements of stability , improvement , and oxpan-Bion ; it is transmitted without debt or division , it ia administered with economy , and it possesses in the very essence of the popular faith a principle of development , which can only be arrested by the attacks of revolution , or the imposition of restrictive laws . Lord Napier ' s notes on the foreign patrons of Italian art are interesting- : —

    The whole race of labourers in landscape , genre , animals , and still life , as well in water-colours as in oils , regard tlio traveller n » their main resource , and strive during the summer to supply the requisitions of the wintor visitor . The repartition of the employment thus afforded , Is regulated by the taste and predilections of the various nations who combine to form the fluctuating market . In conformity with the ruling

    passion of the present day / the English manifest a preference for architectural drawing , and the monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity , for all that has a Catholic and mediaeval physiognomy ; the Americans are the peculiar patrons of Palizzi j careless and ignorant of the chivalrous and saintly subjects , thoir partiality is for that class of compositions which reproduce the pastoral repose and primitive rustic manners and costume of a stationary peasant life , a condition of existence offering a poetical contrast to their own . The Russians delight in the chceTful decorative landscapes of Sniarg iassi and Carelli , which may diffuse a perpetual summer within their walls grateful to the eye where external nature is sad and stern . ; they are also the almost exclusive purchasers of the domestic interior , the faithful portrait of the southern dwelling which they forsake with such deep reluctance , and which they delight to inhabit in retrospection . The French cannot be numbered among the vagrant protectors of the Italian arts .

    With-the particular subject of his essay—modern painting at Naples—Lord Napier deals more successfully than with the history'of Italian art . His criticism may be considered formal ; but it is refined and embodied in delicate and agreeable language . We do not meet that display of enthusiasm which would justify tin alarm expressed in the preface lest the painters o € Naples should have been over-praised . Most of them are treated with reserve , and some with severity . Tito Angel' uii , the patriarch of Neapolitan artists , is reproved for '' senile" egotism , an unamiable temper , an illiberal mind , and for " arid" pedantry , unrelieved by ability in composition , by any knowledge of colour or chiaro-scuro , or by any sense of grace or beauty . Justice , however , is done to his skill in drawing , to his moral character , and to the courageous honesty with which he delineated , without a flattering trait , the grotesque ugliness of Ferdinand the First—in figtfre a buftbon ° m face a satyr .

    , Lord Napier examines carefully , and with obvious impartiality , the various ranks of contemporary artists , supplying a profusion of biographical detail whieh may iiud its way into manuals and encyclopaedias , lie presents , also , a summary of the institutions existing at Naples for the encouragement of art . The first is the Institute , the pupils of which complain that they are forced to hear sermons of deadly dulness from the friars of St . Luke , to promote the growth of Angelicos , to cjuell the excitabilities of genius , to explain the mysteries of the faith to which their art gives expression . Next there is the Roman School , but the scholars , since 1848 , have been kept in Naples , lest they should imbibe sedition with the love of the antique . Biennial exhibitions induce the emulous to display their works , which are anal

    rewarded by a multiplicity of crosses and decorations " afflicting to yse . The prudery of the . palace and the church , however , discountenances the study of the nude , so that in effect the Neapolitan artist is expected to excel without that knowledge which made Raphael ' s soft virgins divine , no less than Michael Angelo ' s figures at once holy and heroic . Stories have been circulated in Europe—though Lord Napier chooses to ignore themof this monarch ' s proclamation ' s of modesty , lie is said to have draped every Venus , rendered episcopal homage to every Apollo , and veiled the brightness of every joyous Bacchante" These tales are not incredible , for Lord Napier himself alludes to shrouded pictures in the Neapolitan galleries . This small volume is of considerable interest . It is graceful , studied , intelligent . The moral we aflirm to be corrupt ; the historical view narrow

    and pernicious ; but Lord Napier is , as he avows himself to be , a dilettante , a political sceptic , but in art sectarian . His criticisms on the works of profane painters are not , perhaps , illiberal ; but his sympathy touches only one form of art—the religious—ami for this , whieh lie thinks is promoted by the Roman Catholic orders , he would tolerate in Naples the beggars , Bourbons , and Carafftts , who have reduced it to moral desolation .

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    The Dead Season At The Theatres. The Lon...

    THE DEAD SEASON AT THE THEATRES . The London seeker after amusement ( if such a being can at present be found , the more comfortable part of C ' ockaigno not having yet returned from the seaside ) is at this moment a person to be pitied . Not but what there is much to interest and entertain now as at all times in the great metropolis ; but the man who makes a business of amusement—who wants continual stimulants for his mental palate , mid who thinks all serious matters " bores "—wilt not be contented with Polytechnic lectures and scientific miscellanea , Great Globe geography , dioramas of the war , and often-repeated farces at the theatres that arc . open . He has been to see Mr . Andeksopt conjure at the Lyceum ; nnd , wonderful as the " Professor" is , he can ' t go to see him night after ni / jlit , any more than he could stand by the hour together looking at the electric , light , which burns mysticallv over the portico of the Temple of IMngic , and casts its great , fluctuating , ghostly rays down towards Wnterloo Bridge . Mr . Biickstone advertises that his i « the only theatre open at tlic West-end ; but it would seem that he calculates upon people going there because they cau fco nowhere else , for ho docs not tempt them with < my novelty . However , he has a source of constant attraction in the Spanish Dancers , who now , for upwards of n year , have been accustoming our phlegmatic eyes ( if anatomy will permit such an expression ) to the poetry ami passion , the hot blood and emphasis , the grace and flame-like vivneity , of that beautiful land whose people unite the chivalry of the West with tho romance of the East . The kenora Pjsrka Nkna and her companions ara veritable Spaniards , and brin " back to the minds of nil who can understand the value of association thoughts of Don Quixote , of Gil Was , and of the Cid —of the Allminbrn and the fiscuriul—and of tho wars of Moor and Chrialian . Nay , they will carry us further back ; for these graceful men and women , who glide like snakes about the Btago , or flush from aide to side in paaHionute and rapid movement , are tho genuine descendants of those natives of ancient , Gadea who danced before thoir Roman conquerors ; and tho fiery grace which charmed the stern , military Italians may still bo seen , though tho objectionable freedom has departed . ..... . , » .. Tho confirmed' pleasuro-seeker , however , will m time get tired even ot the Spanish Dancers ; and what ia ho to do P There is no KonaoN to awnkeu

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 6, 1855, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06101855/page/20/