True to Their Natures: Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts

True to Their Natures: Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy ofArtsAuthor(s): Martin KempSource: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1992), pp. 77-88Published by: The Royal SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/531441 .

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Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 46(1), 77-88 (1992)

TRUE TO THEIR NATURES: SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS AND

DR WIIT IAM HUNTER AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS*

by

MARTIN KEMP, F.B.A.

Department of Art History, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL

The lectures delivered at the Royal Academy of Arts by Joshua Reynolds, its first president, and William Hunter, F.R.S., its first professor of anatomy, belonged to the same basic enterprise.1 Through the educational programme of the Academy, they were aspiring to raise the intellectual standards, levels of aesthetic achievement and institutional status of the visual arts in England. Observers of English achievements in other fields, most notably literature and the sciences, could hardly fail to notice the absence of painters who might be regarded as equal in stature to a Milton or a Newton. The Italian popularizer of Newton, Count Francesco Algarotti, noted in 1764 that 'the English nation claims the superiority ... in the world of science', whereas 'Painting has only recently engaged the attention of the English so far as to inspire them with a design of contending with the Italians'.2 In the dedication of his Discourses to King George III, Reynolds acknowledged that 'by your illustrious predecessors were established marts for manufacturers, and colleges for science; but for the arts of elegance, those arts by which manufactures are embellished, and science is refined, to found an Academy was reserved for your Majesty'.3 Hunter, for his part, expressed the hope that

the works of English Artists, in the course of a very few years, may rival, did I say? why not excel the finest productions of Greece and Italy. When we have already gone so far beyond the ancients, in science, in every thing besides, are we never to excel them in works of imagination? Has Nature granted us with such compelling powers in all other things and denied it in that? No: Shakespeare and Milton and Wren shew that Nature is not a partial step-mother.4

The Academy's end was to be achieved through a grounding in what the President and the Professor of Anatomy considered to be the 'scientific'

* An essay to mark the bicentenary of the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds (F.R.S. 1761)

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principles of art. At the end of his third Discourse Reynolds claimed: 'I have endeavoured to reduce the idea of beauty to general principles ... I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the student.'5 Hunter told his audience in a comparable way that 'to make solid proficiency in the study of any Art, it is observed that it is of infinite service to be grounded in its Elements, its scientific and demonstrable principles'.6 The central subject of such study was nature, and above all the human figure. In his earliest address to the Academy, Reynolds underlined the purpose that was to be served by the anatomical study of the living model:

a principle defect in the method of education pursued in all the Academies I have ever visited ... is, that the students never draw exactly from the living models which they have before them ... They change the form according to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make a drawing of what they think the figure ought to be, than of what appears ... He who endeavours to copy nicely the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of the human figure; and though he seems to superficial observers to make a slower progress, he will be found capable of adding ... that grace and beauty, which is necessary to be given to his more finished works.7

Reynolds considered that the prime exemplar of the correct method was Raphael, the great Renaissance master, who infallibly studied his figures from the life, whereas the chief modern sinner was Boucher in France, who told the English painter that he had long since abandoned the direct study of models.8 A painter who asserts that he 'could do better without nature ... is indeed in a most hopeless state. The art of seeing nature, or in other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object.'9 Hunter, not surprisingly, emphasized no less insistently the need for scrupulous attention to the human figure, not only in conventional academic poses but also in motion, as the configurations of the muscles and tendons were different in action to those seen at rest.

In their devotion to 'scientific' principles and the intense scrutiny of 'nature', Reynolds and Hunter appear to be in close accord. However, when we examine in more detail what they told their audience, we find that their notions of truth in the 'science' of 'nature' were not compatible. Indeed their definitions of the key terms were so different that they were effectively working with separate premises. Their divergent stand-points resulted from the deeply ingrained attitudes that they had acquired when forging the intellectual tools for the practice of their respective disciplines.

Reynolds's self-conscious acquisition of a theory of art from the mainstream of the European academic tradition had the inevitable consequence that the concept of ideal imitation stood at the very centre of his beliefs. As early as 1759 in an article published in the Idler, ten years before his first Discourse, he

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Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Hunter

acknowledged that to 'imitate nature is the invariable rule', but laments that 'everyone takes it in its most obvious sense' as a literal counterfeiting of nature in the raw.'10

If the excellency of a painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, painting must loose its rank, and no longer be considered as a liberal art and sister to poetry, this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always to succeed best, for the painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which under- standing has no part; and what pretence has art to claim kindred with poetry, but by its powers over the imagination?

Hunter, by contrast, had come to espouse an uncompromising empiricism, and took his place on the extreme wing of a characteristically British tradition. He was utterly committed to observational science, founded upon minute scrutiny, systematic description in words and images, and inductive analysis. The astonishingly vivid, life-size engravings in his greatest publication, The

FIGURE 1. William Hunter, Anatomia uteri humani gravidi (The anatomy of the human gravid uterus) (Birmingham, 1774), plate VI.

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anatomy of the human gravid uterus, upon which he was working from 1751 to 1774, contains the clearest manifestation of his ideal (figure 1). His artists and engravers were persuaded to depict the appearance of the dissected forms in each individual specimen with an unremittingly 'meaty' naturalism, openly recording such 'accidental' features as moist hair, wrinkles, scabs, blotches and so on. He explained that there were two main styles of anatomical representation:

One is a simple portrait in which the object is represented exactly as it is seen; the other is representation of the object under such circumstances as were not actually seen, but conceived in the imagination.11

He recognizes that the veridical representation may show something that is 'somewhat indistinct or defective in parts', and that the more synthetic method permits observations from several specimens to be combined informatively. However, the 'simple portrait' is ultimately superior in that it exhibits the 'mark of truth' and reflects the 'elegance and harmony of natural objects'.12 It was this uncompromising naturalism that Hunter brought to bear as a pre-established principle in his lectures at the Academy, just as Reynolds brought with him a predetermined aversion to direct imitation.

Reynolds's first Discourse, delivered on 2 January 1769, contains a heavy emphasis upon 'the rules of art' as the essential foundation for the young painter, and his second almost a year later tells how the notion of beauty must be inculcated through the discriminating study of the great masters. However, at this stage he did not make any special effort to warn about the perils of literal imitation. Indeed his remarks on the need to copy from live models, quoted in part above, stress nature rather than formula. Hunter's first two sets of lectures and dissections concentrated on specifically anatomical matters, particularly demonstrations of the skeleton and muscles, but, in advance of Reynolds's third Discourse on 14 December 1770, Hunter had begun his new series in October with a more general 'discourse' on the role of imitation in the arts; presumably to the kind of audience of Academicians and students depicted in Zoffany's painting (figure 2). The central question that concerned Hunter was 'how far the artist should copy Nature herself precisely; or how far this work should be the copy rather of what his own poetick or creative mind makes out in imitation of nature'?13 The answer he gave could hardly have been at greater odds with Reynolds's convictions.

Hunter is willing to acknowledge that 'much might be said on both sides of this question', but he is in no doubt that direct naturalism is the right answer:

as the superiority of Nature over Art seems to shine forth in almost every thing, in the Fine Arts the more precise the imitation of Nature is ... the more striking I should suppose the effect will be ... The inference ... is, that a painter or sculptor in

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FIGURE 2. Johann Zoffany, Dr. William Hunter lecturing at the RoyalAcademy of Arts, London, Royal College of Physicians.

executing a single figure in the ordinary situation of quiet life cannot copy Nature too exactly, or make deception too strong.14

He was aware that 'it has been concluded that a portrait in order to be excellent, must not appear to be the person but something that is only like him'.15 This was indeed Reynolds's view: 'even in portraits, the grace, and we may add, the likeness, consists more in taking the general air, than in observing the exact similitude of every feature'.16 However, Hunter argues that if we could portray something 'perfectly like' the image would be 'just as perfectly pleasing as the object itself.17

Hunter centred part of his argument around the making of painted plaster (or coloured wax) figures, which were commonly regarded as 'disagreeable or painful objects', even when they were 'very lively and very like'. Such coloured casts had played an important role in Hunter's anatomical teaching, particularly his exposition of the gravid uterus. As his brother John recorded in one of his annotations to Simmons's Life of Hunter, 'he was probably the first that made molds of parts of the human body, and to make them appear as like in nature as possible he had them painted from the subject'.18 William discerned that painted casts were disagreeable not because 'they are too like but because they are not enough'.19 A wholly perfected imitation would overcome the spectator's unease. Reynolds did not agree:

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we are not always pleased with the most absolute possible resemblance of an imitation to its original object. Cases may exist in which such a resemblance may be even disagreeable. I shall only observe that the effect of figures in a wax-work, though certainly a more exact representation than can be given by painting or sculpture, is a sufficient proof that the pleasure we receive from imitation is not encreased merely in proportion as it approaches to minute and detailed reality.20

In contrast to the wax-work or painted cast, he juxtaposes the classic beauty of white marble:

If the business of sculpture were to administer pleasure to ignorance, or a mere entertainment of the senses, the Venus of Medicis might certainly receive much improvement from colour; but the character of sculpture makes it her duty to afford a delight of a different and, perhaps, of a higher kind; and this, which is in truth an intellectual pleasure, is in many respects incompatible with what is merely ad- dressed to the senses.21

Given the extreme contrast between Reynolds's views on the imitation of nature and those expressed by Hunter in his first general 'discourse' in October 1770, we may reasonably wonder about the President's reaction to the anatomist's potentially subversive message. Reynolds's third Discourse, delivered some two months later, is devoted largely to the relation of true artistic excellence to the copying of nature. As this topic represents a reasonably logical progression in his series, it would be exaggerated to claim that the third Discourse was specifically designed to answer Hunter, but the way he phrases his crucial points does address the anatomist's contentions head on. Following the necessary preliminaries, he opens his argument with the crucial warning:

I will now add that nature herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excellencies in art beyond what is commonly called the imitation of nature ... The students ... must now be told, that a mere copier of nature can never produce anything great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.22

He warns that nature exhibits 'blemishes and defects', the very qualities Hunter insisted on displaying as the 'marks of truth'. To acquire the 'art of seeing' the blemishes, Reynolds tells the young artist to cultivate

an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of these forms; and which by a long habit of observing what any set of objects have in common, has acquired the power of discerning what each wants in particular ... By this means he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish the accidental deficiencies, excrescences, deformities of things, from their general figures, he makes out an abstract idea of their forms more perfect than any one original; and what may seem a paradox, he learns to design naturally by drawing his figures unlike to any one object.23

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Hunter requires of the artist no less perseverance and diligence in acquiring an eye for the sustained and detailed scrutiny of the human body at rest and in motion:

it enables him to observe and distinguish clearly all the variations of form, because it explains their causes. It gives him a ready eye, correct judgement and distinct memory, and by dividing the larger portions of the body into their smaller consti- tuent parts it brings out an arrangement and order in what would otherwise appear confusion ... An exact imitation of these requires an eye so perfectly the master of Anatomy as to observe and retain an instantaneous effect of muscular action.24

Whereas Hunter's artist cultivates a trained 'eye' to depict the minute differences between individual forms in very particular circumstances, Reynolds's observant student aspires to develop an 'eye' for the shared general features which constitute the ideal beneath reality.

Their different attitudes are expressions of sharp differences in their philos- ophies. For his idealizing method, Reynolds inevitably looked towards the ancients, quoting Proclus to the effect that 'he who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful'.25 He even dared to question the

great Francis Bacon, the 'father' of the British tradition of empirical science which Hunter held so dear, objecting to Bacon's dismissal of the kinds of 'rules' for art proposed by Apelles and Diirer.26 Reynolds's rejection of raw empiricism was wholly consistent with his ranking of different kinds of art, ranging from the mere imitation practised by the painter of rustic 'genre' scenes to the

great idealizing concepts of the history painter who practised in the grand manner. The artist who aspires to the highest subjects and styles, 'like the

philosopher, will consider nature in the abstract', leaving 'the lower painter, like the florist or collector of shells, to exhibit the minute discriminations, which

distinguish one object of the same species from another'.27 Hunter, of course, was a collector and classifier of just this kind, gathering together a vast array of natural and man-made objects in all their manifold variety.28

On first inspection, it would be easy to dismiss Hunter's advocacy of unmedi- ated naturalism as the naive and inappropriate imposition of a scientist's views on the theory of art. Was he an example of those 'many wise and learned men' whom Reynolds described as having 'accustomed their minds to admit nothing for truth but what can be proved by mathematical demonstration' and who 'have seldom any relish for those arts which address themselves to the fancy, the rectitude and truth of which is known by another kind of proof?29 Hunter was actually a significant connoisseur of the visual arts, building up a small but choice collection, which included works by Chardin, Rembrandt, Koninck; and he was a direct patron of Hogarth, Ramsay and Stubbs.30 Even if he was not

widely read in the theory of art, he was far from ignorant of the standard

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arguments. He was alert to the charge that his direct naturalism appeared to leave no room for imagination and genius. His response was that nature contained such infinite variety that naturalism allowed an infinity of choices for the imaginative artist:

this doctrine [of total imitation] by no means implies that portrait painting should be so far a mechanical art as to leave no room for Genius and Fancy. In Nature there is infinite variety. And as the same person may actually be seen, so he may be painted in a hundred different ways: and all of these, tho perfectly equal in the circumstance of being exact copies of Nature would yet differ exceedingly in merit as works of art.31

This passage is one of what seem to be drafts for a new 'discourse' to introduce one of his later sets of lectures.32 There are clear signs that he was attempting to respond to the implicit criticisms in Reynolds's third Discourse. In particular, he gave greater scope to the invention of ideas while still insisting on the naturalism of the final effects: 'the Artist after having sketched out his Ideal Design must execute and finish all the parts from Nature. He can neither do this from memory or imagination, nor can he take it from some other work of Art, because it is a new subject.'33

He also took care to leave scope for 'Genius', the attribute that Reynolds regarded as the ultimate gift. As well as being 'striking' in its naturalism, the work of art should be 'pleasing too, provided that the subject be properly adapted to our passions'. He explains that

the artist requires much judgement both in the choice of subject and in the management of it. This is the Station where a happy Genius distinguishes itself. By playing with her skilful and cunning hand upon our passions, she charms and fascinates.34

Both men were typical of the Enlightenment in requiring judicious restraint in the arousing of potentially disagreeable emotions, but even here a difference of degree can be discerned, particularly when they turn their attention to theatrical representation. Hunter regarded theatre as the peak of mimesis: 'upon the stage we see a compounded exhibition of art and reality. When this sort of imitation is improved to any degree of perfection, the effect is wonder- full; it is almost as strong as the original reality ... Thence it is that the effect may be too strong.'35 As a friend of Henry Fielding, and an occasional rival with Garrick for an audience, he was enthusiastic and well-informed about the theatre, and was no doubt sympathetic to their view that Garrick's style of acting was designed 'to hold up a mirrour to nature', a view that was roundly condemned by Reynolds:

our late great actor, Garrick, has been ... ignorantly praised by his friend Fielding; who doubtless imagined that he has hit upon an ingenious device, by introducing

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FIGURE 3. Attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi, Study offacial expression (a boy singing), University of Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery.

in one of his novels, (otherwise a work of the highest merit,) an ignorant man, mistaking Garrick's representation of a scene in Hamlet for reality. A very little reflection will convince us that there is not one circumstance in the whole scene that is of the nature of deception.36

For Reynolds, expression in the theatre, as in painting or sculpture, must be founded on idealization and restraint. Hunter appears to have been willing to admit greater extremes:

distortions of face and Limbs it will be said express an inferior character, and when the muscles and tendons are made to start out from their places by strong action, they produce an ugly form and what artists call bad drawing. There is certainly much elegance and beauty and grace and dignity in Nature ... but there is besides animation, Spirit, fire, force and violence, which makes a considerable part of the most interesting scenes.37

Hunter's collection was not rich in works marked by force of expression, but he did own a striking study of a boy with an open mouth and upturned eyes (figure 3), variously attributed to Bernini and (perhaps more convincingly) to Andrea Sacchi.38 It was Bernini who came in for Reynolds's particular censure

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FIGURE 4. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Dr. William Hunter, University of Glasgow.

for giving 'a very mean expression to his statue of David ... and in order to give it an impression of energy, he has made him biting his under-lip. The expression is far from being general and still farther from being dignified.' Bernini erred by mistaking 'accident for generality'.34

However differently Reynolds and Hunter conceived the task of being 'true to nature', there is no evidence of personal hostility between the two luminaries of the early Academy. Reynolds gave Hunter an inscribed copy of his Discours- es, and devoted considerable effort to the painting of a commemorative portrait of the doctor after his death (figure 4). The portrait was commissioned by the University of Glasgow in 1788 and completed during the next year. It was hung in the Faculty Room with a silk curtain 'so as the picture may only occasionally be exposed to view'.40 Perhaps he could take comfort from Pliny's anecdote about the cobbler who justly criticized a sandal in a painting by Apelles but who mistook his role when he aspired to criticize other aspects of the work.41 Hunter was not necessarily more qualified by profession than Pliny's cobbler to be 'a

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critik in the higher style of art'.42 Reynolds's specific citing of 'the professor of anatomy' in his third Discourse on the technical matter of 'the natural position and movement of the feet' might be an attempt to delimit the proper field of competence for Hunter as a teacher in an Academy of art.43 The irony was that the future was to lie at least as much in the hands of artists who aspired to be 'natural painters', like Constable and Wilkie, as with the practitioners of the grand manner espoused by the Academy's first president.

NOTES

1 Sir J. Reynolds, Discourses on art, ed. S. Mitchell (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965). The most substantial recent analysis of Reynolds's theories is by J. Barrell, Thepolitical theory of art from Reynolds to Hazlitt (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). Manuscript notes of Hunter's lectures survive in Glasgow University Library, and the major portions have been edited by M. Kemp, Dr. William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1975); hereafter as Hunter, Academy. Additional notes on the lymphatic and gladular systems are in Glasgow University, MS H 46(1). See also A. Darlington, 'The teaching of anatomy at the Royal Academy of Arts', Journal of Art and Design Education 5, 263-271 (1986); and I.

Bignammi & M. Postle, The artist's model exhibition catalogue (London: Kenwood

House, 1991). 2 Conte Francesco Algarotti, Essay on painting (London, 1764), dedication, quoted by

M. Kemp, The science of art. Optical themes in Western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat, p. 148. (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

3 Reynolds, Discourses, dedication p. 3 (1778). 4 Hunter, Academy, p. 33. 5 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 38. 6 Hunter, Academy, p. 43. 7 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 11. 8 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 189. 9 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 189. 10 Reynolds, Discourses. p. 245 (originally in the Idler, LXXIX, 1759). 11 W. Hunter, Anatomia uteri humani gravidi (The anatomy of the human gravid uterus)

(Birmingham: W. Strange, 1774), preface. See L. Jordanova, 'Gender, generation and science: William Hunter's obstetrical atlas', in William Hunter and the eighteenth-century medical world, ed. W. Bynum & R. Porter, pp. 386-412 (Cambridge University Press, 1985); and M. Kemp, ' "The Mark of Truth": Looking and learning in some anatomical illustrations from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century', in Medicine and the five senses, ed. W. Bynum & R. Porter (forthcoming).

12 Hunter, Gravid uterus, preface. 13 Hunter, Academy, p. 38. 14 Hunter, Academy, p. 38. 15 Hunter, Academy, p. 38.

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16 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 41. 17 Hunter, Academy. p. 39. 18 William Hunter 1718-1783. A memoir by Samuel Foart Simmons and John Hunter, ed.

C.H. Brock, p. 20 (University of Glasgow Press, 1983). 19 HunterAcademy, p. 38. 20 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 161. 21 Reynolds, Discourses, pp. 146-147. 22 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 26. 23 Reynolds, Discourses, pp. 26-30. 24 Hunter, Academy, p. 43. 25 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 27 (from book II of Plato's Timaeus). 26 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 31 (referring to Francis Bacon, 'Of Beauty', Essays, p. 252

(London, 1625)). 27 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 35. 28 C.H. Brock, 'Dr. William Hunter's Museum, Glasgow University', Journal ofthe Society

for the Bibliography of Natural History 9, 403-412 (1980); N.R. Ker, William Hunter as a collector of medieval manuscripts (University of Glasgow Press, 1983); J. Baldwin, William Hunter, 1718-1784. Book collector, exhibition catalogue, Glasgow University Library, 1983; G. Durrant & I. Rolfe, William Hunter (1718-1783) as natural historian

(Glasgow University, Hunterian Museum, 1983). 29 Reynolds, Discourses, pp. 102-3. 30 A. McLaren Young et. al., Glasgow University's pictures, exhibition catalogue, Colnag-

hi's, London, 1973 (University of Glasgow Press, 1793); D. Carritt, 'Mr. Fauquier's Chardins', The Burlington Magazine 116, 502-9 (1974); I. Rolfe, 'A Stubbs drawing recognized', The Burlington Magazine 125, 778-9 (1983); M. Kemp, 'Glasgow Univer- sity: bicentenary celebrations of Dr. William Hunter (1718-1783)', The Burlington Magazine 125 380-3 (1983)

31 Hunter, Academy, p. 45. 32 The later drafts are on a letter dating from 1772; see Hunter, Academy, p. 45. 33 Hunter, Academy, p. 45. 34 Hunter, Academy, p. 45. 35 Hunter, Academy, p. 40 36 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 201. 37 Hunter, Academy, p. 43. 38 Glasgow University's pictures, no. 1. 39 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 43. 40 Information kindly supplied by Martin Hopkinson of the Hunterian Art Gallery. 41 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 196 (referring to Pliny, Historia naturalis, XXXV, 36, 85). 42 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 196. 43 Reynolds, Discourses, p. 33.

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True to Their Natures: Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts

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