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    physical beauty , of winch they are such perfect models , nor undertaking either to vindicate or to contest the opinion of philosophers , that even physical beauty is ultimately resolvable into expression ; we may safely affirm , that in no other of man ' s works did so much of soul ever shine through mere inanimate matter . The narrative style answers to what is called historical painting , which it is the fashion among connoisseurs to treat as the climax of the pictorial art . That it is the most difficult branch of the art , we do not doubt , because , in its perfection , it includes , in a manner , the perfection of all the other branches . As an epic poem , though , in so far as it is epic ( i . e . narrative ) , it is not poetry at all , is yet esteemed the greatest effort of poetic genius , because there is no kind whatever of poetry which may not appropriately find a place in it . But an historical picture , as such , that is , as the representation of an incident , must necessarily , as it seems to us , be poor and ineffective . The narrative powers of painting

    are extremely limited . Scarcely any picture , scarcely any series even of pictures , which we know of , tells its own story without the aid of an interpreter ; you must know the story beforehand ; then , indeed , you may see great beauty and appropriateness in the painting . But it is the single figures which , to us , are the great charm even of a historical picture . It is in these that the power of the art is really seen : in the attempt to narrate , visible and permanent signs are far behind the fugijtive audible ones which follow so fast one after another , while the faces and

    figures in a narrative picture , even though , they be Titian ' s , stand still . Who would not prefer one Virgin and Child of Raphael , to all the pictures which Rubens , with his fat , frouzy Dutch Venuses , ever painted ? Though Rubens , besides excelling almost every one in his mastery over all the mechanical parts of his art , often shows real genius in grouping his figures , the peculiar problem of

    historical painting . But , then , who , except a mere student of drawing and colouring , ever cared to look twice at any of the figures themselves ? The power of painting lies in poetry , of which Rubens had not the slightest tincture—not in narrative , where he might have excelled . The single figures , however , in an historical picture , are rather the eloquence of painting than the poetry : they mostly ( unless they are quite out out of place in the picture ) express the feelings of

    one person as modified by the presence of others . Accordingly the minds whose bent leads them rather to eloquence than to poetry , rush to historical painting . The French painters , for instance , seldom attempt , because they could make nothing of , single heads , like those glorious ones of the Italian masters , with which they might glut themselves day after day in their own Louvre . They must all he historical ; and they are , almost to a man , attitudinizers . If we wished to give to any young artist the most impressive warning our imaginations could devise , against that kind

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    Q 8 What i * Poetry ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 68, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/68/