The great rival of Albani at Rome was Guido, who ex cited, moreover, very strongly the jealousy of the Car rarci. He painted with a silvery smoothness and delicacy that gained more upon the eye than the judgment. No thing can be lovelier or more winning than his female figures, yet when brought into parallel with the spiritual and deep feeling of Raphael and Corregio's works, they appear vapid and tame. Guido was, notwithstanding, great in his particular line, which was that of the angelic, graceful modesty, devotion, and, above all, the pathetic. The melting eyes, pious and humble resignation, of his Madonnas, is the sentiment in which he is inimitable, and which he expresses with a pearly delicacy of colouring peculiar to himself. The pictures of Guido most gene rally known are the Aurora in the Rospigliosi garden at Rome, and the St. Andrew already mentioned: but there are few collections without some specimen of his delicate pencil. His favourite studies were the works of Paul Veronese, Raphael, Corregio, and Parmegiano, from whom he borrowed many excellencies, and made them his own by the charm of his peculiar character. Whe• ther he changed the attitude, the tone, or the expres sion, beauty attended whatever he did, and a mild grace peculiar to himself. The manner of Guido was much esteemed during his lifetime, and attracted a numerous attendance to his school, which was productive of consid erable influence in softening the taste for the severer man ner of his predecessors, and introducing the love for his mild and gentle beauties. But this was a taste which could not fail, in the progress of imitation, to enervate and corrupt the true principles of the art.
Another celebrated follower of the Carraccis was Lan franco, ,who attained to great excellence in design and composition, but was addicted to a very dark mode of co louring. Likewise Schidonc, whose pictures are rare. Michael Angelo de Caravaggio can scarcely be called the pupil of any master, as he followed nature alone, and his own peculiar style ; his manner is black, but forcible. He was the master of Spagnoletto, who delighted in horrible subjects ; and of Gueronio, who was in every respect, a pleasing artist. Castiglione, Velasques, Grimaldi, Mu rillos, and Luco Geordanoi are likewise entitled to a place among the great masters who flourished in Lombardy, or issued from its schools.
French School.
There does not exist a greater bar to improvement or excellence in any art, than an overweaning notion of self perfection, and an unwillingness to admit the superior acquirements of others. Many individual artists of great merit have, at different periods, existed in France; but we fear that this masterful principle in the natural dispo sition of the people, will for ever exclude them from su perior national eminence in any particular branch of ac quirement. It is the creative fancy principally that fails in France, the powers of intuitive genius ; for they have at all times exhibited an uncommon facility and adaptation of talent to the exercise of the fine arts ; a power of imi tation, the ready acquirement of a skillful and dexterous execution, which might have laid the foundation of very great excellence ; but wherever any excursive effort ap peared in the strength of original genius and invention, we generally find them vapouring in the unreal and vapid elegancies of sentimentality. That sort of refinement which is at war with nature and unaffected simplicity, and is the very canker of every thing that is noble or dignifi ed in the fine arts.
It would be difficult to assign any distinctive character to the French school of painting, where the style was lia ble to fluctuate from master to master, according to the person who happened to be in fashion for the time. There were various periods of its history when then taste of France had the good fortune to be led by men of sound judgment. and high acquirements in the arts, as Le Pous sin and Le Sueur ; and while their influence lasted, there was every appearance of the French school attaining a very respectable rank ; but as stability is a rare virtue in that country, a new fashion soon drew the tide of taste in to a different channel. A disposition so fluctuating is alone sufficient to counteract the hest efforts of individuals ; for nothing proves more prejudicial to the progress of the arts than that ephemeral tyrant fashion, whose only merit is that he did not exist a short while before, and that he shall not exist a 'short while hence. A painter cannot be guilty of a [note foolish determination than to yield his judgment to this delusion, and join the ranks of fashion.
He cannot expect otherwise than that his labours should partake of its uncertain nature, and in due time pass into the neglect, at leasyif not the ridicule, which generally attends an antiquated fashion. It' lie expects to outlive the particular taste of the day, a painter must banish every thing from view, but those sound and fundamental princi ples of art that have stood the test of ages. He must generalize his subject if he expects to sympathise with the taste of other times and countries; he must separate the abstract idea of beauty from the varieties of affected and adventitious refinements with which it is at times liable to become overloaded.
The natural propensity which seems constantly urging the French taste into these forced and preposterous airs and attitudes, of which it is at the present moment more than ever a prey, seems very powerful when we consider the advantages she has had in giving birth to several ar tists of very superior acquirements; and latterly, the sin gular advantage of possessing in her own hands such an assemblage of the linest works of every age and country, as never were before collected into one place. " However the mechanic and ornamental arts may sacrifice to fashion, she must be entirely excluded from painting. The painter must never mistake this capricious changeling for the ge nuine offspring of nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in favour of his age or country ; he must disre gard all local and temporary ornaments, and look only on those general habits that are every where and always the same. Be addresses his works to the people of every country and every age ; and calls upon posterity to be his spectators." " The prejudices in favour of the fashions and customs that we have been used to, and which are justly called a second nature, make it too often difficult to distinguish that which is natural from that which is the re sult of education; they frequently even give a predilection in favour of the artificial mode; and almost every one is apt to be guided by those local prejudices, who has not chastised his mind, and regulated the instability of his af fections, by the eternal invariable idea of nature." The earliest practice of the art that seems to have been exercised in France, was in the .decoration of their church windows with portraits, armorial bearings, and subjects of sacred history, stained in brilliant colours on the glass, or enamelled on copper for the vessels of the altar. These last are much esteemed in France, as curious specimens of their ancient art, and many of them are remarkable, not only for extreme delicacy of workmanship, but as interest ing compositions, descriptive of the state of art in the early ages, and of the manner and history of the times of which they are in general representations. They are of a different description from the enamel works of the an cients, which were either for the purpose of mosaic paint ing, or artificial gems. These were constructed by means of slender rods of coloured glass, applied longitudinally together, and welded into one thick rod, so disposed as to represent the device intended at each end, so that it ad mitted of being sliced down into as many copies of the co loured figure as was desired. The French mode was, on the contrary, actual painting, with coloured glass upon copper, which was much practised, and in great repute, in the thirteenth century, both in France and Germany. The manufactory was carried on principally at Limoge, in Guienne, where the abundance of mines of different me tals, and operations of smelting, probably led to its intro duction. The most ancient arc done in black and white, simply representing scriptural subjects very curiously ex ecuted. The art continued to improve, and, towards the age of Francis the First, had attained great perfection, and actually possessed many of the qualities of good paint ing. The goldsmiths took up the idea, and, by applying it to the ornamental works on the precious metals, were the means of increasing its importance, and engaging the talents of the best artists in the prosecution of this art. It became the usual mode of portrait painting, of which there exist some exceedingly beautiful specimens, possessing the advantage of being everlasting, and little liable to ac cident. Having to undergo the action of fire in the pro cess, they must either be done on metal, or some other substance that can resist its action.