ANY one unacquainted with the pe. culiarities of ancient art, and not accustomed to take those particular trains of thought and sentiment into consideration which gave birth to them, placing himself before the picture of the Last Judgment by Michael Angelo, in all probability finds many of his preconceptions rudely shocked, and the impression of its power enforced amidst the confusion of his scattered notions. But he expects a representation of the "Judgment of the Great Day," produced according to modes, and embracing purposes, which were altogether foreign to the general intention and to the individual character of its great author, to the age in which his stupendous work was executed, and hence, to the method pursued in the enunciation and expression of its subject.

Change must be recognised to be the fate of the arts. It has been held by some that their progress may, or rather must, be unlimited-by others, that they can now only experience decay; but their sensuous character, and dependence upon emotion, prevent either of these results from taking place; on the one hand, by limiting their progression; on the other, by preventing all possibility of their extinction.* The passions and sentiments of man, although continually up-furrowed by moral and physical changes, which so alter the appearance of society, that its product presents widely different characteristics at different times, in their grand features they remain as immutable as the senses themselves. A discovery in science, or the recognition of a political principle, may give variety to the exertions of man; but the continual renewal of his race, is the continual renewal of the same desires, hopes, and fears, love, grief, and joy are constantly re-born; and it is only a truism to assert, that in the passions are the foundations of art laid. Based

on these, at once may be recognised the cause of the permanency, and of the fluctuations of art,-permanency, as related to the constitution of man, which produces its constant renovation at different epochs,-fluctuations, that result from the direction which is given to the operations of that constitution, amid those great changes which sweep, in continual revolution, the mind and condition of the human race ;-with such recurring tides, that it would almost appear, that the limits of the atmosphere of our globe, not only bound a circumscribed portion of visible and of tangible being, but also of intellectual, and moral being.

Of those changes which pass like the cloud or the sunshine over the field of human speculation, the history of art exhibits much, and in their peculiar phases, the particular character of its productions must be looked for. It is now recognised, that in India and in Egypt, the ultimate aim of art, was placed in very different objects from those which were influential in Greece and in more modern times; and wonder must have ceased, at what had been considered to be unaccountable in its history in those countries that continued practice for hundreds, or, if their chronologies are admitted, for thousands of years, should not have exhibited a similar result to Grecian art, or to that of the revival in the fourteenth century: each of which present widely different features throughout the various periods of their cultivation,-features which forcibly exemplify the closely interwoven connexion of art with the general state of society; which, in many instances, it may be said to render positive and visible, and to the operations of which it is the principal means of giving perpetuity.

Of this connexion, the great fresco of the Last Judgment is a distinct example, it is eminently a portion of the time in which it was producedthe commencement of the sixteenth

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support; and which, after the establishment of universities throughout Europe, mingled with and overwhelmed the simpler character of the earlier literature, which, in its first dawn, had been more varied and impassioned. In strong contrast, however, to the sophisticated polemics of these periods was their military spirit; and, between the cross and the sword, there was small vantage ground for the growth of what was not more or less connected with either. The mass of the lay population, divided betwixt agricultural labour and war, wholly under the control of their ecclesiastical and feudal superiors, and at the command of both, handling either the spear or the oxgoad, as their schemes or their necessities directed, were in the condition and ignorance of slaves. Nor were their baronial lords much in advance in knowledge and intelligence; to whom Plutarch's character of the Boeotians-that they were of gross wit and coarse, quite the constitution of heroes- would well apply. Might was the law of right. The discriminations of reason were left to questions wherein the immediate and personal feelings and interests of men were not involved; and force was the arbiter of every difficulty that assumed the nature of a dispute, unless overawed by the mysteries of religion, which hung over this perturbed spirit with a commanding power; and its dogmas, wielded amid the subtleties with which they were surrounded by the schoolmen, probably became the more impressive the less that they were really understood.

The contrast of the ecclesiastical and the military spirit of these times presents reason united to forms of the utmost tenuity of thought, opposed to the gross animal nature that found its most refined pursuits in the attack of the pel, or the wolf, or boar hunt. "The humanities" were left to the cultivation of those belonging to the religious orders; and the method of explaining and illustrating the doctrines of the Church-subtle, allegorical, and figurative-became almost entirely the only form in which thought was expressed. Even the most material of the sciences-chemistry, in the hands of the alchymists became transmuted into allegories of the Holy Virgin and her Son. It may be said that a beaten road of expression, be

came formed over the surface of thought. An abstract, typical, and allegoric peculiarity of style was generally diffused; which, addressing itself to the limited understanding and narrow comprehension of the partially civilized and untutored portion of the population, necessarily became not unfrequently allied to a very contradictory want of refinement, or of delicacy, and not seldom to igno

rance.

Its

Of this mixture, which predominated for centuries,-art strongly partook and thus there is much in the productions of these times (independently of those peculiarities of mode and of intention which will afterwards come to be noticed) that now appears, on a partial consideration, to be anomalous. And what, in the instance of painting, caused this in a very marked degree, was its having been made a medium through which the people might be addressed by the Church; of which, in its rebirth, it was strictly the servant. It was immediately brought into connection with the most mystical and abstract subjects; and its embodiments in the greater number of instances, were little else than pictured repetitions of ceremonies, and representations of characters, which bore an ulterior, or typical signification. efforts were devoted to the illustration and enforcement of the doctrines, history, and services of the Church: the latter of which, at an early period, had gradually become expressive of the two former, and had assumed an absorbing importance, in the form of a vast congregation of dramatic ceremonies, of which Rome was the grand theatre, and which, in their consecutive round of observance, may be said still annually to present a mighty drama, of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. A variation of the same form-the dramatic-which had been employed in Greece to vindicate the rule of Jove or Fate (in relation with which purpose, it had held a somewhat similar connexion with ancient art), had become subservient to the exposition of Christian faith and doctrine. This may probably have arisen from observations having been originally grafted, as it has been supposed many were, on the ancient festivals, during the early stages of Christianity. But,

in both instances, the desire itself of actual repetition; and impersonation, being felt to be an obvious and effective means of elucidating sentiment and opinion, readily accounts for the extensive adoption of the dramatic form, which was invariably regulated by a mode of expression afterwards to be noticed, as having all along obtained, both in the art of the ancients and in that of more modern times-in poetry and in religious

ceremony.

But more than a century before the time of Michael Angelo, art and literature, from being bound in the Egyptian-like swaddlings, which had restrained the one under the ferula of the schools, and the other to an almost purely symbolic form, had arisen into vigorous life and freedom. Dante, Petrarcha, and Boccaccio, with others in literature, and, somewhat later, numerous eminent names in painting and sculpture, had appeared: in their works evolving a mixture of power, beauty, and imperfection, mingled with classical forms and Gothic irregularity. Of these works the greatest-the Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri-exhibits a confusion of religious opinion and political rancour with immense poetic genius, displayed in the creation of a heaven and of a hell, partaking of the spirit and materials of ancient mythology, Gothic superstition, and Christian belief; imagined for the reward or the punishment of kings, popes, petty princes, and their partisans, to whom bliss or misery are distributed with the violence of passion rather than the solemn might of justice. But, contrasted with the severity and strength of Dante, were the beauty and tender delicacy of Petrarcha, and the mixed pathos and facetiousness of Boccaccio; while, in the arts of painting and sculpture, a corresponding, though, from the slow growth of facility and correctness in the exercise of their medium, not an equally well expressed variety of sentiment, had been attempted. Andrea Orcagna and Luca Signorelli, had made the final reward and punishment of man the subject of various works that reiterate the sentiments of the Divina

Commedia. Masaccio had improved dramatic expression and style, which Ghiberti and Donatello in sculpture, and in painting_Ghirlandajo and the greater Frate Bartolomeo had immensely advanced. Andrea Mantegna had exhibited an irritable vitality of genius, and had profited by the study of the antique, and attempted subjects of a classical character; while Pietro Perugino, the Bellini, and others, without much seeming connexion, had, each in his own sphere, prepared the way for those who were to consummate the particular departments to which they devoted their labours. The materials of the fabric of art were accumulated and partially upreared; but, like the completion of the mighty dome of St Peters (one of the greatest of his works), yet remained to be raised to the highest elevation, in this period of its history, by the powerful genius of Michael Angelo.

The relative connexion of painting with those causes which operated towards the general state of society and of mental culture, which have been thus rapidly glanced at-the only mode of bringing works in art under consideration, that can lead to their being satisfactorily understood, must, in some measure, have anticipated the character, and peculiar features of the picture of Michael Angelo, which they have been brought forward to illustrate. The Last Judgment is in many respects, in painting, the most eminent exemplification of the operation of various of these causes, and also of various of the most important principles of art. In it, an abstract greatness, conventional modes of expression, a typical style, and the influence of classical example, are brought together and united to the intense passion, elevated sentiment, and power over the materials of art, with rigid harmony in their connexion, which constitute the individual genius of its author; and it is before this combination, some of the component parts of which, if not regarded in connexion with the purposes of the work, the audience to whom it was addressed, and the period in which it was produced, appear so inexplicable, that

those who have not thus considered the work (or works of art in general), feel mistaken and bewildered. And, not being able to perceive wherein the true strength of this mighty produc. tion lies, but fully sensible of the total discrepancy betwixt their notions and the mode of treatment which the picture exhibits; and, at the same time, not allowing themselves to be guided by its impression, but endeavouring to oppose preconceived and partial rules of judgment to its influence, remain unable to unravel the confusion in which they find they are involved. Hence they probably come to the conclusion, that the work is altogether a failure; because it is not in accordance with associations and modes of thought, which are shortly to become more obsolete (inasmuch as they are not in their nature capable of being united with, or are supported by, the like great works) than those, the effects and nature of which they are unable to understand. Or, they probably arrive at a still more unsatisfactory conclusion, that opinion in regard to the productions of art is altogether arbitrary and unfounded; and they are swept into a whirl of scepticism, that doubts the foundation of all critical preference. But they were almost as absurd as the mathematician who expected a poem to be the proof of a theorem. They had not recognised the fact, that the signification or display of sentiment, most particularly in its impassioned expression, renders literal truth in what does not tend towards that purpose subservient. The mixture of that which is essential or generic in its nature, with the very opposite characteristic-conventional modes, had been totally unapprehended. Even the recollection that art had ever been employed as the means of effecting any great moral aim, was to them become faint and indistinct. Art had been partially, not wholly looked upon. The surrounding influences of the present time had been

made the ultimate standard of judgment; which failing to coincide with those which operated towards the production of the picture, and from their being totally unfit to be brought to coalesce with or embrace its extensive and general purposes and signification, the result is misunderstanding and false criticism.

The picture of Michael Angelo is not a representation produced with the intention to exhibit the Last Judg. ment with scenic effect, and embracing those accessaries which such a purpose would have demanded; but consists in the expression of that tremendous subject, by exemplified instances of those sentiments usually associated with it-which display man in suffering and in beatitude-in the anticipation of bliss or the dread of misery-in fruition or in endurance. Its different groups must be regarded to be, to a certain extent, symbolic, not representative, of the innumerable multitudes assembled to "the Judgment of the Great Day." Each part must be considered to have, by means of its particular impression, an extended signification. In the plan of the picture (in accordance with principles which will afterwards be noticed), a severe parallelism is adopted. The whole is divided into equally balanced parts. In the lunettes, at the highest angles, are introduced, by one of those peculiarities of treatment which will also come to be observed, figures bearing aloft the Cross, the pillar of the flagellation, the crown of thorns, and the sponge. Below these, in the centre, is the judge, surrounded by saints and martyrs, and those meeting for judgment; behind whom, are brought together those groups which express the multitudes of the blessed, and which recede to the distance of the upper part of the picture. Underneath this line, of the most important agents in the picture, and which is its foreground, are at the right side, groups of the worthy borne upwards; and at