--And yet I doubt if the example of Poussin has, on the
whole, been favorable to the progress of French art. Horace Walpole, in
his summary of the excellencies and defects of great painters, observed
with much justice, that "Titian wanted to have seen the antique; Poussin
to have seen Titian." The observation referred principally to the
defective coloring, which is admitted to exist in the greater part of
the works of the painter of Andelys. But Poussin, considered as a model
for imitation, and especially as a model for the student, is liable to a
more serious objection.--He was a total stranger to real
nature:--classical taste, indeed, and knowledge, and grace, and beauty,
pervade all his works; but it is a taste, and a knowledge, and a grace,
and a beauty, formed solely upon the contemplation of the antique.
Horace's adage, that "decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile," has been
remarkably verified in the case of Poussin; and I am mistaken, if the
example set by him, which has been rigorously followed in the French
school, even down to the present day, has not contributed more than any
thing else to that statuary style in forms, and that coldness in
coloring, which every one, who is not born in France, regrets to see in
the works of the best of their artists.
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