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Shaftesbury's Last Commission Author(s): J. E. Sweetman Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1956),

pp. 110-116Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750244Accessed: 17-04-2015 16:45 UTC

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SHAFTESBURY'S LAST COMMISSION

By J. E. Sweetman

Among the numerous papers in the Public Record Office gathered together

under the name of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, there is a large manu- script volume which is inscribed with the title "Virtuoso Copy-book."1 This contains three letters2 which deserve notice, as they add a final brief chapter to our knowledge of Shaftesbury's last months at Naples, and, moreover, form a kind of epilogue to his work both as philosopher and as propagandist of classical art.

The letters are addressed to the Neapolitan painter Paolo de Matteis, who had executed the "tablature of the Judgement of Hercules" which had been the illustration of Shaftesbury's treatise on that theme.3 In them he is asked to paint a portrait of Shaftesbury as a dying philosopher and student of the arts. These letters preserve the record of what was almost certainly Shaftesbury's last commission, and as he died within a month of the date of the last of them, it seems unlikely that the scheme could have progressed much further. They are written in French, and are marked by that wealth of instruction which is a feature of the commissions for the Hercules and the emblem plates for Characteristics. The scheme, however, is far more than a mere academic curiosity: it claims attention both for the poignant interest intrinsic to the portrait, and for the suggestion that its intent was to reinforce the serious purpose of the Hercules itself.

The first letter is headed "Pour Sigre Paolo de Mattheis. A Chiaia le I2me de janvier I713," and runs as follows:

Projet d'une Espece de Portraiture moderne caracterisee et rendue His- torique en fort peu d'espace comme, par example, d'un quarr6 d'environ trois pieds ou peu davantage. L'histoire est celle-cy:

Un homme de qualitd, grand d'un certain Royaume, Virtuoso, Philosophe, et Auteur connu par ses Ouvrages, s'6tant retire dans une certaine Ville salutaire4 pour se soulager de ses Fatigues, poursuit encore ses Etudes, tout malade, 6puis6, et presque mourant, comme il est.

Ce Seigneur-Philosophe, par son Attitude, ses Habits, et ses propres Ornemens,5 aussi bien que par sa Mine et ses Regards fait voir ce v6ritable CARACTERE ou Personage; et par la vue de l'interieur d'un Cabinet ou Bibliotheque (ornee de certains Bustes, Antiquitez, et des Desseins en crayonnage) on reconnoit sur quel sujet il employe sa contemplation pr6sente.

1 Public Record Office, Shaftesbury Papers, Bundle 26.

2 One of these letters was noted by Professor Wind when he was preparing his article on "Shaftesbury as a Patron of Art." See Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, II, 1938, p. 186. The letters are pp. 100-104 of the Copy-book.

3 "A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules."

4The identification of Naples is indicated in a marginal note: "Cette ville est aisement connoissable par ses marques: si l'on fait voir simplement un Horizon sombre, avec les traces du sommet d'une certaine Montagne qui se distingue suffisamment."

5 A marginal note says "Les Armes de la Famille en Tapisserie l6gerexnent touchez et dans L'Ombre."

IIO

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SHAFTESBURY'S LAST COMMISSION III Il tire des Livres des Anciens des Materiaux pour le Service de ce

c61bre Peintre de la m~me Ville qui a fait le beau Tableau du Jugement d'Hercule. Un livre qui a ce Titre se fait voir a c6t6; et le Dessein ou premier crayonnage de la Piece elle-meme se fait voir h l'dcart, avec le nom du Maitre 6crit au dessous.

Ce Maitre qui doit ex6cuter cet Ouvrage est d'un genie admirable pour assembler, en juste Perspective, plusieurs Objets: faisant choix des plus importans qui puissent servir a exciter l'Id6e du CARACTERE et Fait qu'on voudroit reprdsenter. Il trouvera luy-meme, sans doute, qu'il est convenable que son Philosophe valetudinaire soit vu en action de repos s'appuyant la tete sur une main comme Reveur. De cette maniere cette Figure principale aura l'autre main un peu tournde vers une autre Figure qui est enfonc6e dans l'obscurit6, et dont il ne paroitra que la Tete, 1'Epaule et une Main.

Cette derniere Figure qu'on verroit la plume a la main avec un regard extremement sdrieux et attentif, aura les Yeux fixez sur le premier Per- sonage a qui il semble servir d'Amanuensis ou Secrdtaire tel qu'est,

Monsieur, Votre tres humble

Serviteur.

The second letter is headed "A Chiaia le I3me de janvier 1713" Si le Signore Paolo a v6ritablement pour Monsieur le Comte la meme

Amitie qu'autrefois, il souffrira que le nouveau Projet passe par les memes Degrez qu'a fait son Hercules. Car ce Seigneur dans l'6tat deplorable oi' il est h l'6gard de sa santd, ne consentiroit jamais h se faire peindre que selon la v6rit6 du Fait, et avec cette gravit6 du Dessein, et cette Rigueur et S6v6rit6 du Pinceau qu'est convenable a l'occasion, et au sujet.

Ainsi ? commencer par l'Ordinance, il faut, avant autre chose, que le Sigre Paolo fasse voir a Monsieur le Comte ses premieres Iddes sur du papier, et cela meme plus d'une fois, avant que de songer

"

l'Esquisse et au Coloris, qui doit tre pris sur un ton si s6vere, triste et m6lancolique.

Le Sigre. Paolo n'aura pas raison de regretter ses peines: il sait bien qu'il ne sera pas trait6 en Marchand.

The last letter is headed "A Chiaia le I7me de janvier 1713": II faut que je le redise que de n6cessit6 nous sommes bornez a quatre pieds de profondeur. Et ainsi il faut perdre le Terrain ou Pav6 avec tout ce qui est au dessous des genoux et du corps du lit. Et la Piece restera de n6cessit6 oblongue.

Les yeux d6tournez comme ils sont et le Digitus Index dlev6 sur cette partie du front pousseroit trop loin la M6ditation et perdroit la Resem- blance.

Que les Yeux donc regardent le Spectateur (comme dans la simple Portraiture) et la Joue restant sur les quatre Doigts avec la Tate plus en D6clination, il y aura lieu d'exprimer un Regard, qui aura assez de

8

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112 J. E. SWEETMAN langueur quoy qu'avec plus de familiarit6, comme d'une Personne a qui l'on parle subitement et qu'on interrompe dans le moment de sa Medi- tation. Les Gestes et toute l'attitude qui reste declareront suffisamment cette Meditation que ne sera pas tout-a-fait chass6e meme du Visage.

Voyez ce qui en est dit dans le Trait6 duJugement d'Hercule, Chapitre premier, Paragraphe dixieme et onzieme; et particulierement les dernieres dix ou douze lignes de ce dernier.1

Aussi l'action forte du Secretaire attentif et en (Euvre tirera l'Esprit tout-?L-fait du c6t de la Meditation et travail actuel de n6tre Malade qui dicte.

Mais pour mettre le Secretaire encore plus en (Euvre il faut qu'il soit assis fort bas comme attach6 a son papier sur le coin d'une petite Table qui doit paroitre dans l'espace qu'il y a pr6sentement entre le Buste erig6 et ce Coude gauche lequel (par la raison que je m'en vais dire) doit s'approcher plus du Corps et par cons6quence doit laisser plus d'espace. Or comme a present il nous faut toute l'assistance de cette main gauche pour redonner ? l'action de 1' Etude et de M6ditation ce que nous lui avons ot6 par le changement des Yeux et du Doigt Index, il n'y a point de meilleur Remade que de donner a n6tre Etudiant son Livre en main, c'est-a-dire, dans sa Main gauche. Alors cette Main et ce Bras tombant avec Nonchalance au travers le Corps et 6tant appuy6 sur la Cuisse droite exprimera une Lassitude extraordinaire.

It doit tenir le Livre baiss6 et a demi-ouvert, comme tombant de sa Main, ce qui est prevenu seulement par le Pouce qui sera comme enferm6 et serr6 dans le fond de l'ouverture: De sorte que le Livre restera ainsi suspendu comme il feroit dans la Main d'un Mort. C'est pourquoy il faut que le Livre soit assez petit et non pas pesant. The reference to changes in the third letter makes it clear that we do not

possess all the instructions which Shaftesbury gave. The first letter appears to mark the beginning of the idea; then, between the second and third letters, perhaps Shaftesbury outlined his wishes verbally to de Matteis. The text of the third letter, though somewhat ambiguous at times, may be taken to indicate that no actual painting had then been done, though sketches seem to have been made.

An idea of some of the leading features of the design can be gained from the letters. A compact composition is suggested, particularly after the reduc- tion in size mentioned in the third letter; it seems that the design would have been firmly based on the calm horizontal of the line of the bed which would almost certainly have been parallel to the picture plane. The severity of the impression of the main subject in the room itself was to be offset by a view of Naples apparently seen through a window which is not mentioned. The view, however, was to be confined to a simple horizon with the unmis- takable peaks of Vesuvius. Despite a greater richness in the interior the design would therefore have presented a sustained interplay of predominating hori-

1 The reference here is to Shaftesbury's doctrine, forecasting the "fruitful moment" of Lessing, by which the artist realizes in the

instant of time he chooses to represent his subject the maximum expression of a change of mood taking place in extended time.

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SHAFTESBURY'S LAST COMMISSION 113 zontals and verticals not unlike Poussin's Testament of Eudamidas. The philo- sopher would apparently have been shown reclining from left to right in the front plane, his left arm falling across the centre of the picture and his hand holding a book. The head, shoulder and hand of the secretary were, it seems, to have appeared on the right of the picture behind the bed, and in front of, or more probably to the left of, the bust mentioned in the third letter. The relation of the figures in scale would perhaps have had its nearest approxima- tion in the drawing in Stockholm showing the full design of Rembrandt's 'Homer dictating his Verses,'1 where the amanuensis appears low in the right- hand corner in a plane further back than the main figure. The secretary in Shaftesbury's picture, too, was to be brought into close psychological contact with the philosopher by being shown gazing up at him. The main figure in the Stockholm drawing however, in contrast to Shaftesbury here, looks to the right, into space.

Perhaps of more interest, however, are the implications of these moving letters. Here was no simple portrait of a nobleman and his secretary, such as Shaftesbury might have seen from the hand of Maratta or some other dis- tinguished contemporary. The unusual and portentous nature of the work is signalized at the outset of the scheme. It is to be conceived as an historical piece, in which the same principles are to be applied as in the 'Judgement of Hercules.' It is clear that the project was entertained with this primarily in mind. The philosopher is to be shown surrounded by antique works of art or records of them; he meditates among these works: a copy of the Hercules treatise lies at hand. From these, Shaftesbury says, "one recognizes the subject which he is at present contemplating." The very use of the remoter third person, and elsewhere the stress on the idea of the "character" of the philo- sopher, suggest that the commission was intended to be as much the symbol of the virtuoso as a portrait.

The scheme might be regarded in three different ways. First, it might be said that the letters in fact crystallize Shaftesbury's conception of the function of the virtuoso, of whose aristocratic loftiness much has been written. That Shaftesbury's concern for the future of the arts in Britain aimed, however, at the very reverse of exclusiveness is surely apparent from Advice to an Author, where the virtuosi are clearly regarded as "interpreters to the people,"2 and where he stresses the basic need for the arts to enjoy criticism of an informed kind, in the exchange of which the artists themselves rejoice and are stimu- lated to new heights. The passage is unequivocally reinforced in the Letter concerning Design, where he attaches great importance to the part to be played by the public in this development: "In reality the people are no small parties in this cause . . . There can be no public, but where they are included."3 It is clear, in fact, that he saw a benefit to society as a whole in an art founded on philosophical principles, not only sharing the ancient view that where art and philosophy are concerned, the former, by appealing more easily to the masses, is the more direct instructor in morals, but also realizing the value of

1 Illustrated in Oud Holland, XXVII, gog1909, 223, and in Valentiner, Rembrandt; des Meisters Handzeichnungen, II, No. 567. 2 Cf. Pt. 11, sect. ii, in Characteristics, ed.

J. M. Robertson, London, I900, I, I56: the philosopher-critic of the ancients is described.

3 "A Letter concerning Design," in Second Characters, ed. B. Rand, Cambridge, 1914, P. 22.

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t 14 J. E. SWEETMAN art per se and in perfecting the judgment. The final aim is the free judgment of the masses: nothing is so congenial to the liberal arts, it is remarked in Second Characters, "as that reigning liberty and high spirit of a people, which from the habit of judging in the highest matters for themselves, makes them freely judge of other subjects."' The power of judgment, however, can be developed through the influence of the virtuoso-critic, enhancing the aware- ness of the True and Beautiful, which benefits the artist by clarifying his idea and assisting him to analyse forms that present themselves, the result of such reflection-a point treated in Advice to an Author, or Soliloquy-inducing "self- converse" in the spectator. These ideas of refining the spirit and improving the understanding are, of course, fundamental in Characteristics, but are under- lined with special interest for the visual arts in Second Characters and in various unpublished works such as the notes for the Socratic History. In Plastics, which was to have been the main treatise of Second Characters, but which was cut short by the author's death, the philosophic basis of design was to have played a notable part. The lover of the beautiful, "the true oX6xa.xoq," is seen to form his ideas in exactly the same way that the artist forms his images-or rather informs them with the impress of Divine Order which exists in the mind and the realization of which has become habitual.2 The process of artistic perception, like that of artistic creation, involves an awareness of the design of the universe, partaking not merely of the order of its structure, but in particular-and this is the special flavour of Shaftesbury's thought-of the dynamic delimitation of the unlimited by Divine Nature.3 The Beautiful lies in art and design, "never in Body itself, but in the Form or Forming Power." The words, often quoted, are indeed axiomatic.

Secondly, it might be said that the letters reflect Shaftesbury's Socratic convictions. The contemplation of the virtuoso has its counterpart in his active function as an interpreter. Here, as a moralist and one who believes that the evidence of good to be seen in nature is no less to be found in men, Shaftesbury in his art theory takes on the marked Socratic tone which lies behind the writing of the Notion and the import of such paintings as the 'Hercules.' A notebook among the Shaftesbury Papers in the Record Office, which contains notes for an unwritten Socratic History,4 reveals the extent of his admiration for Xenophon's account of Socrates and his methods in the Memorabilia, and elsewhere another Memorandum5 draws attention to the "discourse [of Socrates] with Clito ye Statuary dependent on ye preceding one with Parrhasius ye Painter." This is where Socrates establishes the truth and beauty of painting and sculpture as the representation of things seen, and also of the character and activities of the soul. This is dwelt on in the notes of the Socratic History under the heading "Artizans":

It appears from these places that Socrates did not only aim at being con-

1 Ibid., p. 23. 2 Ibid., p. 142: "checking, redressing, im-

printing . . ." (the forms). 3 Cf., for instance, The Moralists, Pt. III,

sect. i, in Characteristics, ed. cit., II, 107-8: the "principle of union" acts on the "infinite

residue." 4 P.R.O., Shaft. Papers, Bundle 27, No. 14. 5 Ibid., Bundle 27, No. I3, P. 70. A small

note-book containing miscellaneous jottings, including several from classical sources having reference to painting.

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SHAFTESBURY'S LAST COMMISSION 15 versible & familiar with all & at ye same time to teach every one to improve in their way: but yt he found a way still to make some morrall thought arise out of the subject & to put them upon what was vertuouse, that they might be in love with that & make their Arts to serve in some manner ye intent of that.'

It was doubtless as a reflection of the Socratic ideal that Shaftesbury wished to have himself portrayed in his last moments: as a student, meditating yet approachable, and aroused in that living "fruitful moment" which not only links past and future, but brings home to the spectator the meaning of the objects which surround him, the things of that beauty and fitness of which Socrates had spoken.

Finally, however, and by far the most important, beside these factors which relate the commission to the wider issues of Shaftesbury's artistic theory, it is the intensity of Stoic feeling with which the scheme is instinct that remains its most compelling aspect. This is an intimate and profoundly moving scene. In a letter which Locke had sent to Anthony Collins shortly before his death in 1704, he had written of life as "a scene of vanity" and had affirmed the need for the notion of future rewards and punishments. Shaftes- bury had seen in this letter the sentiments of a Christian but not of a dying philosopher; he had written to a friend rejecting the philosophy which "seems at present to be the study of making virtue burdensome and death uneasy."2 In the portrait scheme, on the contrary, the philosopher expresses the attitude which Shaftesbury had then advocated, the need "to part freely" with life and "give it a good testimony." In this respect the valediction of Seneca, dying with the ideal of the virtuous life on his lips, was an obvious example of the rationalis e vita excessus of the Stoics.3

Moreover, the reference to the amitiJ between the painter and the philoso- pher, and the picture of the philosopher at once detached and yet drawn to the spectator in familiar intercourse, are redolent of Shaftesbury's basic beliefs. In The Moralists friendship is held up as an essential factor in the good life.4 This recalls the subject of the famous Poussin painting already referred to. In his dialogue on friendship, the Toxaris,5 Lucian had written of Eudamidas of Corinth, a poor man who in his will left the well-being of his mother and daughter to his two wealthy friends, confident that this testament would be faithfully observed. Lucian had praised his noble qualities, notably this "confidence in his friends." In this Eudamidas was particularly in the Stoic tradition. Zeno had held that a true friend was a "second self."6 Diogenes Laertius also records the Stoic view of friendship as "a certain communion of the things which concern life, since we use our friends as ourselves.'7 It is in the context of such a life-affirming conception of harmonious relationships that Shaftesbury's portrait commission takes its true place.

1 Ibid., Notes for a Socratic History, p. I 13. Cf. the Memorabilia, III, X, i.

2 Dec., I704-5; in B. Rand, Life, Un- published Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, pp. 344 f.

3 Cf. Epistles, lxi.

4 "Is there anything you admire so fair as friendship .. .?" Ed. cit., II, 36.

5 Chs. xxii-iii. 6 Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philo-

sophers, VII, 23. SIbid., VII, I24.

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I 16 J. E. SWEETMAN It is this subjective "communion" of the things which concern life which

adds a piercing beauty to the objective appraisal of "the philosopher" given by Shaftesbury here. Because of this the work would have been much more than the symbol of a virtuoso. Paradoxically it would have had at once that remoteness yet intimacy which Marcus Aurelius had poetically evoked:

"Whatsoever doth happen in the world is, in the course of nature, as usual and ordinary as a rose in the spring, and fruit in summer. Of the same nature is sickness and death . . . For thou must consider the things of the world not as a loose independent number, consisting merely of necessary events; but as a discreet connection of things orderly and har- moniously disposed. There is then to be seen in the things of the world, not a bare succession, but an admirable correspondence and affinity."'

1 Meditations, Bk. IV, xxxvi, tr. M. Casaubon.

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Article Contentsp. 110p. 111p. 112p. 113p. 114p. 115p. 116

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1956), pp. 1-178Volume InformationFront MatterThe Rle of Amulets in Mesopotamian Ritual Texts [pp. 1-39]Mensa Sacra: The Round Table and the Holy Grail [pp. 40-67]The Illustrations of St. Anselm's Prayers and Meditations [pp. 68-83]Cavallini and the Lost Frescoes in S. Paolo [pp. 84-95]'Combat between Carnival and Lent' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder: An Allegorical Picture of the Sixteenth Century [pp. 96-109]Shaftesbury's Last Commission [pp. 110-116]Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Cook's Second Voyage [pp. 117-154]Miscellaneous NotesVirtutum et Viciorum Adumbracio [pp. 155-156]John Evelyn at Tivoli [pp. 157-158]The Country House Poem of the Seventeenth Century [pp. 159-174]Poggio Bracciolini and Johannes Hus: A Hoax Hard to Kill [pp. 174-177]